Parables of a Violent World - Article Example

? THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN CULTURE The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, marked a turning point in American history. Not only did politics change, but the culture of the United States also began to shift slightly. The attacks were a bookend and provided an opportunity to take stock of America's place in the world. It also provided a lens through which to look at and imagine the future of the country. The America that woke up afterwards was more concerned with terror. And now, ten years later, in an effort to escape from terror has embraced mindless celebrity. Today we need bold writers like Ken Kesey who are willing to take a hard look at our country. Writers such as William Vollmann and others help to accomplish this important goal. McMurphy, the hero of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, is a quintessential individualist. He marches to the beat of his own drum and follows his own direction in life. He refuses to follow orders and seeks out pleasure. He has an irrepressible charm that works on nearly everyone around him. He is also a natural leader in his own way. But McMurphy is not approved of. He is too individualistic and non-conformist. Although he seems American in his self-reliance, in the course of the novel he runs into serious problems from a new, more materialistic, mechanical, conformist America, represented by the institution. The job of the institution, of the anesthetizing culture that currently surrounds us in America, is to repress the irrepressible. Too many outbursts, too many adventures, are bad for business, the institution says. It locks away and neutralizes people like McMurphy who don't fit in properly and have no desire to do so (Kesey). This is important to understand in light of what we saw after September 11. After the terrorist attacks there was a call to arms, and also, subsequently, a call to uniformity and conformity. We were asked to march to the beat of the same drum. The president ordered us into Iraq and we were supposed to obey. Those who disagreed had their patriotism questioned. In the administration itself, we saw how people were fired for disagreeing with the president. Times have changed since then. A cultural lull has descended on the country as politics have begun to calm down. Now we have access to endless entertainment much of which is not unlike having a lobotomy. The rise of an excessive celebrity culture has been representative of the last few years. Everywhere you look celebrities pose in photographs and behave outrageously on television. There is no content to their actions. In a sense they are simply a culture anesthetic, designed to lull us into complacency, just as the drugs in Kesey's mental hospital lull the patients into a stupor. The question we must ask ourselves, faced with all of this, is how best to respond? From time immemorial, it has been writers who take a stand against injustice and cultural complacency. Through their work they skilfully satirize and pick apart the wrongs of the status quo and show us a better way to live. They celebrate the best of what is America and condemn the worst. We can see this in action in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. What we need more than ever, is skillful writers to take on the twin challenges of today: terror and celebrity. One of the writers who is moving in this direction is clearly William Vollmann. This wholly original American writer has been as prolific as the culture in turning out new work. Every year he seems to publish a new book. One of his most stupendous achievements is Rising Up and Rising Down, a multi-volume set of books which studies the role of violence in our world. Here the novelist is leaving behind fiction in order to pursue social and historical research (Vollmann). We need our writers in this day and age to be grounded in reality. As such, this set of books is a magnificent achievement. Vollmann's work is multifarious, but there are a few elements which can be explored in a simple manner. The following precis of his work, by Michael Wood, captures his unique qualities all at once. Vollmann is a writer who is both stylish and garrulous, a combination I thought impossible until I started to read him. He is also both tough and sentimental, but this is a more familiar mix: he’s seen it all but he still hasn’t lost his innocence. Here he is—as the narrator of a story in The Atlas—left holding the jacket of a prostitute who has gone out onto the streets of San Francisco to look for crack. He riffles through the lining, into which all kinds of objects have fallen: lighters, Vaseline, tissues, a hamburger wrapping, a broken cigarette, some matches, “and finally, like some sweet secret, a little Tootsie Roll.” He is touched by the Tootsie Roll, and says he doesn’t know why. But in the next sentence he knows why. “It was like her, the dearness of her hidden inside all the greed and the lies, the goodness of her that the badness drew on and exhibited and used for its own selfish work.” (Wood). What Vollmann shows us is this brief quotation is the ability to take a wide social view of an issue and bring it down to the personal. He shows us how the modern American must hide what is truest about themselves from a massive machine bearing down on them. America is a great country and its best days are ahead of it. In every generation there is a challenge for a new style, a new literature which can revitalize the way we see our country. Certainly, the last decade has been challenging, beginning as it did with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the words of the poet Auden, it has been a low, dishonest decade. But the future of American literature doesn't have to be that way. There is so much to celebrate. There is so much that the writers of today can tell us both about our past and about our future. We must seek out more of these fine writers and listen to their clever voices. Work consulted Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Penguin, 2002. Wood, Michael. “Parables of a Violent World.” New York Times Book Review. December 15, 2005. Vollmann, William. Rising Up and Rising Down. Mcsweeneys, 2003. Read More