9 Manifesto on Atrophy

Recently I received a critique, though I have to admit a very friendly and even well-meaning one, that my blog entries are too long, and too long-winded. Smaller morsels would have more success, and reach a larger audience (though I’m not at all sure I even want that). And then a young pastor, whom I met at the Stuttgart Main Station, praised my “Thomas of Aquinas” book. Only such thin and well-illustrated volumes would reach the readers of today.

Please don’t write such sentences, I was informed, in which simultaneously three separate – and sometimes even heterogeneous – trains of thought are buried, kept hidden, the deciphering of which promises difficult labor, and would overwhelm a mere mortal.
What a shame! I can only answer. If thinking atrophies, then so atrophies …
(you already know this phrase, I know, I need not repeat it here).

Indeed, then! Let us speak of the state of human atrophy! Of the crippling of our faculties. In order to function properly, they extend themselves outward into cell phones. You’ve come to know, in the interim, of what I speak. With which intellectual imbeciles we are surrounded on all sides, indeed by which we are ruled in the political arena. … What around us is not wholly atrophied? Joie de vivre just as much, in this dreary Germany of hamster-wheels and careerists, optimism,  research-based contemplation and all the memories of a future time, of a successful tradition that should be preserved.
Even the sexual organs threaten to atrophy, do they not? Nowadays, when they may freely and openly lie about, free and ready for whatever sort of pleasure and lust (already I recoil in horror from this strange image that occurs to me just now [or which my choice of words calls forth]), they are neglected and inactive, because we lack the time, or are already completely exhausted from the quotidian stress in the news or titillating infotainment (do we not live in an Information Age?).

I freely admit that human warmth is sometimes lacking, or an informal familiarity that I might easily find online or download at the click of a mouse, as one so charmingly says. But even for such a thing as this – you will come to understand my way of thinking – I’m not yet ready.

I would also rather not engage with the dissolute tools of the entertainment industry. The standards are low-brow, of that I’m certain. All these jungle camps, water fights, and adventure playgrounds on commercial television, these games for grown-ups, that indeed reside alarmingly close to the edge of pornography.
As if there weren’t already enough ugly and menacing things already positioned around us, there is now already surveillance machinery in our own homes, casting an eye in our direction, without our noticing, over our daily affairs, our digestion, our loves and suffering and so on. Is not our free will in general also atrophied? Without hesitation we sign a contract with third parties, without at all knowing to what we’ve agreed. We vote for politicians without believing a single word they say. But they are attractive, they look convincing. And that’s all that matters nowadays: beauty and enjoyment.

I’m a Neon-Romantic, I admit it. It’s the same, whether I’m a laborer, a salaried employee, or something else even better. Over all of us hangs in equal measure an artificial moon, feverishly and  maliciously illuminating every city. I go into the large department stores, ride up and down the escalators, visit various departments that interest me. I linger aimlessly among the merchandise. The sales-lady looks tired; I smile at her.

We grow up with nightly promenades through luminous streets, drink the same powdered drinks, and  – if we can keep up – eat hamburgers. We know all the beautiful people and films and the artificiality of fashion. Printed advertisements smile at us, we smile back. To meet a famous person or a (film, television, Internet) star is a special kind of happiness.
We are educated and know the forms of the past to which our heart clings. To live in beautiful houses – this is directed to the architects’ inboxes – is lovely. Politics is superfluous, we’ve learned to accept. Important questions are dealt with in the centers of military, economic, or ideological power outside of our sphere of influence. Bureaucracy should be constricted.
We like variety and drive our newest carriages, that need not be too expensive, on the freeways. We’ve given up searching for happiness. Our satisfaction is our daily prayer. We believe in the dreams and the inefficacy of Valium. Some of the lattices are rusting; but the new ones are made out of a material that seems more resistant.

Fundamentally, everything only gets worse, if it gets better. Thus it should get worse. But our irresponsible cynicism capitulates to the abjectness, with which seek to master our problems. We love psycho-mental training and fringe groups. The women’s and men’s movements have our understanding. You want to break your smoking habit.

This morning I consulted our floor computer. My coordinates, as I input them, were: mentally listless. Distinct lack of drive. Work exhausting. Sexually overstimulated. Always the newest hits in the head.

for GM

translated by N.Andrew Walsh