Fantasy Camp
28th December 2020
ZMan is not impressed.
A popular aphorism on this side of the great divide is a line from the poet T. S. Eliot who wrote “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” Most of the time it is part of a general critique of the age, with regards to the human condition. Our betters, rather than face the reality of the human condition, concoct comfortable sounding fantasies to explain the inequality of man. The reason Johnny can’t read, for example, is because of some flaw in the schools, not the mating decisions of his ancestors.
Reality avoidance is a modern problem. In recent times it seems to have become something of a plague on society. Movies and television have shifted from fantastical tales of human achievement, like space travel, to comic book tales of god-like creatures saving the child-like humans from reality. Mainstream politics is one fantasy camp screaming at the other fantasy camp over their imaginary differences. The mass media makes fantasy literature look like a technical manual.