Volume, Volume, VOLUME!!

insert 2/15/08: Part Two of Four, sort of – Art by Everyone (1) , No, I Insist (2) and The Ascetic Aesthetic (4)

As appears in http://panzeepress.com/20080123.pdf
Panzee site includes graphics removed here for ease in posting.

Over the past two years – likely longer – this, uh, curve has popped in my head from talking, reading, or sometimes graphically in various media – newspapers, An Inconvenient Truth, and stuff like that. The more it’s appeared the more astounded I’ve grown, and its relentlessness suggests to me an overarching trend, perpetuated in large part by our accordant reaction.

Another year brings us “list season,” so here’s a few examples where this curve shows up:

Number of real estate agents to help you find your tiny little slice of heaven (ironically, we’ve no more land than we’ve ever had, and in fact…see below)
Percentage of the planet’s landmass covered in concrete; amount of flora and fauna eliminated as a result
Number of tons of plastic products amassing in the five “dead zones” in the world’s oceans; amount of nuclear and other categories of waste amassing anywhere but our backyard
Number of available channels via satellite or cable; amount of programming catering to more stylized tastes and preferences (this could have been in the “waste” category, but that presumes too much)
Number of available types of shampoo and all other personal products (capitalism manipulates the mind to create the want; the promise of definition through selection, variety, and style)
Average size of annual salaries and dividend income for the wealthy (as an offshoot, number of people not wealthy)
Amount of available information and data – more people observing and documenting, more analysis, more “things” happening; number of blogs, myspaces, websites
Number of “moments” captured by photographs and video; number of cameras and camera phones; number of times and places that you won’t see captured so you can know what you’re missing.
(As one example) Number of pictures of Britney’s younger sister; number of celebrities, amount of time spent living vicariously through them
Number of songs, paintings, sculptures, performance art pieces; number of abstract expressions by all those folks thinking they’re well-positioned to create art
Average number of words in a typical song lyric (the music gets simpler, the “thing I gotta say” getting longer and longer)
Number of obsolete video and computer games
Number of drastically lonely people hoping to find love through some fantastic representation of themselves posted online

“Now how much would you pay?”
“But WAIT! There’s MORE!”

The above examples stand only in representation. I continue my idealist’s certainty that each of you have a general sense of this growth and could call up your own versions of where it may apply.

The human population has been steadily growing ever since we’ve established our domination of the planet. (Step 1-grow thumbs, Step 2-stand up, Step 3-think to survive, Step 4-harness fire…and we’re off!). So from the onset, there is “the arithmetic of our plight” – the unavoidable plurality of everything and the inevitability of “increase.” The thing is, the rate of growth, for a very, very long time, remained relatively slow and steady – we’d not yet possessed the technology of transportation and communication to achieve any manner of acceleration. Additionally, the importance of self and the rights of the individual were held in comparatively low esteem compared to the importance of the community – however those in power might have defined it.

Then came The Age of Reason, and invention, and technology, all of which began (for the most part) with the Industrial Revolution. That rate of growth for all things, not just population and waste products, steepened its climb and turned. Humankind went from “more, more, more” to “More, MORE, MORE!!!” The “self” became more and more selfish and self-important and self-assertive. Our reaction has not been on the public trust for the planet, but instead on “what I deserve because I’m alive on this planet.”

I’m certain (idealistically) that we all feel this, that we’re all aware and can feel the impending comeuppance from all this growth and disregard and waste and “taking” with no regard for consequences. And I can only agree, and I can only nod with you as the fear grows, the pain grows, and all our vaunted individuality ultimately amounts to nothing as our collective disregard ramps up (at the same rate) and bites us on our collective ass. Might sound nice, yes, but it’s just a tease until it bites our collective ass off.

What can we do?

Well, let’s first consider what we’ve already done. What has our collective reaction been? Why, we only assert our individuality all the more, taking what we want and creating our definition based on the shampoo we buy, the programs we watch, the pictures we take, the songs we write and listen to, the tattoos we draw, the shoes we wear, the celebrities we mock, and the time we devote to making sure we’re living the life we want to live. Take, take, take what we want, want, want. We needn’t worry about the impact for those who’ve yet to begin driving around on all the macadam we’ve laid down – that’s their problem, isn’t it?

Ignore it, deny it, bury your fear and your uncertainty and just take your little life and insist defiantly that what we all know coming down the road is for someone else to deal with because we’re all too damned focused on “what we need” to make the choice to do anything about it – disregarding the fact that we craft our reality so what we want folds into the definition of what we need. (The fact disregarded is first known then chosen to be disregarded – I’ll not give us the benefit of naïveté.)

So I ask again – what can we do? I might suggest a simple step towards a grander solution, encompassed in a single word with infinite application:

Less.
Use less. Insist less. Take less. Buy less. Want less. And trust the rest of us.

Trust the rest of us to acknowledge and celebrate your existence without you having to go to all the fuss and bother of asserting it. You already are, and you’re already beautiful and you’re already loved. So just back it off a touch, ok? For all our sakes. I’m doing my part, and I appreciate your similar efforts.

Individual results may vary.