Recently, a solemn funeral of world literature was held, - Andrei Kurpatov writes in a column on Snob. En.
Case turned out without wide publicity. The commission on the organization of the secret burial, which led the Instagram, included comrades Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wiki and other officials. The ascetic, but stylish coffin for the deceased was provided by Apple, a hearse - the concern of Google.
Everything went quietly, smoothly, at home.
At the wake, the deceased was remembered with a kind word. Repeated that it will "live forever" (at least on some remote server). Particular optimism inspired the idea that the "broad masses" would not even notice the loss of the fighter: books will not be physically seized, and people who pretend to be writers will always find themselves.
Her grandmother's legacy was shared in advance - her former audience speaks the language of emoji, husks and copyast, as well as fanatics from short videos and even on Twitter only looks at pictures. So the mourning speeches quickly gave way to cheerful composure. "Peace be to her ashes!" Farewell, the epoch of the great novel!.
But did the old woman die in fact?.
No. Great literature, despite all these "Internet", could not die. After all, a novel is not just a book with a protracted plot, but the way that mankind structures its being (thanks to Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin for the corresponding explanations).
The ways can change, but we still need to somehow structure our existence. Therefore, the deceased, it would seem, great literature in fact was alive all living. Unbeknownst to us all, she experienced reincarnation and resurrected in the form of a television series.
It is in the series that the secret of our shared cultural narrative is now hidden. He, and not a novel, utters from now on the life and destiny of man. Meet!.
HIDDEN MECHANISMS OF INDUSTRY Let's take a closer look at this amazing transformation of the novel into a series and admire their genetic relationship.
First, both are fed to the consumer in batches. And the novels were originally printed in literary journals - parts and chapters (so the writer earned far more than publishing a book in a separate volume). And the series are series and seasons. Even blockbusters strive to become mini-series - "Avengers-I", "Avengers-II", "Avengers-N".
Here, as you know, purely economic calculation - you put the audience on the product and then you cut it as much as you can. If something does not go off - it does not matter, you will close after the pilot or the first season. This has always been the case, and sometimes it seems that Pushkin's "Contemporary" and "New World" Lunacharsky-Steklov simply turned to HBO and Netflix.
This format transition is inevitable: we migrate from text culture to visual culture. With this, there is nothing to be done. Mankind no longer writes or reads. It exchanges pictures, photos and video clips. What is the novel? !!.
Remains of thought are trying to be preserved in the infographics referring to Ancient Egypt (hello to the archaic ancestors), as well as in the "slides" of scientific reports and the "talking heads" of TED commercials. Here it is - the power of natural selection: not cartilil - did not succeed, but show must go on.
Secondly, the "cult". Previously, novels became those, now - serials. And the truth, the series ceased to be a shameful "soap opera" and got rid of the definition of "low genre". Here the main money of Hollywood is concentrated, the stars of the first magnitude work here - actors, directors and, most importantly, the best writers.
The full meter no longer gives the authors the chance of a full-fledged statement. Film studios working for the "big screen", stop all originality on the vine. Because of the abundance of computer graphics, cinema has become too expensive a product, and the price of error is beyond. So only extremely formatted things are approved for production.
Experiment-hungry writers (that is, the best of them) were first forced to go to the television series, but behind the good stories the other "stars". So now there's no pushing.
Yes that we are all about industries and industries? It's time to get down to business.. But first I have to make one fundamentally important reservation.
DESCRIPTION OF PROPHETIC TEXTS There is a rule that you need to know when trying to reconstruct the "cultural codes" hidden in a work of art: in no case should we pay attention to the specific content of the texts - even novels, even serials.
There is a rule that you need to know when you are trying to reconstruct the "cultural codes" hidden in the artwork: in no case should we pay attention to the specific content of the texts - even novels, even serials.
Sounds ridiculous? I see. But think: any literary genius is a genius of imagination and fantasy, and for this very reason he is stunningly blind to reality. His whole world is one continuous, though highly artistic, hallucination.
If a deserved novelist suddenly wants to speak out about something real - at least to Dostoyevsky, even to Prokhanov and Prilepin - he is guaranteed to wrest from himself some stunning imagination (to shake the imagination - this is generally their hobby) stupidity. About "Jews", for example, or about "national self-consciousness".
So never listen to what they say! Their ideas about reality are morbidly phantasmagoric and similar to the geographical maps of some conditional Marco Polo - funny, delightful, but God forbid to use them, going on the road.
But there is also an important useful consequence of this glaring inadequacy of the great novelists in the real state of affairs. Because of this particular blindness (and incredible emotionality of nature), they are surprisingly sensitive to the fact that, following Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov, one could call it a "dark gross feeling" of time.
It is for this reason, and also because of the thirst for writers to fall in love with the audience (which only increases their sensitivity), we look at the great literature of the second half of the XIX century, we find in it a brilliant anthropological futurology. But not theoretical, not formulated, but as if looking through the text.
Simply put, the best novelists of the past and it is in their novels - not in journalism! - perfectly predicted a person from the future and brilliantly guessed the main features of the social world in which this person will be. Afftar, so to speak, zhzhot.
But here the real novelists have risen, and the best storytellers have devoured Hollywood. So now, if we want to take a closer look at our future, we need to look through the "text" of the series.
"THE GAME OF THE TREASURES," OR THE NEW ARCHAICS Let us begin, perhaps, with the main television event of recent times and with the genial observation made many years ago by Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin.
Bakhtin formulated an extremely important diagnostic principle: a novel is not what is happening around the hero, but what happens to the hero himself. And the stronger this is its internal transformation, the more complex social culture is generated by the corresponding novel.
In other words, if a society is organized is difficult, if it has many actual internal tensions, layers and subtexts, then individual subjects in this society are organized. A novel, accordingly, tells us about the inner transformation of the hero.
If the society is primitive, then the subjects in this society are produced one-dimensional and unpretentious. Two pritopa, three prihlopa. The novel, generated by such a culture, can tell us a lot about the world in which the hero lives, but the hero himself will be only a beautiful doll, a pacifier.
Imagine a story that, like the Odyssey, consists of a set of different tales. They can be rearranged from place to place, some and completely discarded, but the essence of the work will not change. Yes, the hero undergoes everything, but he does not change himself - "how you were, so you stayed".
This is a primitive - adventurous, as Bakhtin calls it - a novel engendered by archaism.
And now another type of novel, already classic. "Brothers Karamazov", for example. Here all the heroes are in complex relationships with each other, everything is interconnected, pieces of text in places can not be rearranged in any way. But most importantly - the heroes are transformed: Alyosha from a naive foolish grows up in the Prophet, and Grushenka - from a debauchery to a holy woman. "It's Complicated". Inner drama, so to speak.
Actually this - the Frazer-Campbell model of the "classic novel" still forms the basis of any Hollywood blockbuster, including horror and romkoms. The hero at first is one, and then, due to the worries experienced by him, is another, degenerated. From a bad person, he turns into good, from shy - to the hero, from the cold and cynical - into an open and loving.
It is these laws that create movie masterpieces are still taught in all the world's leading film schools. And the serialists, meanwhile, bet on the experiment and killed the "classic novel" with a shot in the back of the head.
"Game of Thrones" violated the main and seemingly unshakable rule. The first season did not have time to end, and the creators of the series before the eyes of the amazed public killed the "main character" (naively, we considered such an Eddard Stark). Shock. Awesomeness.
We must admit that the authors of the epic tore this fantastic kush with this ritual murder: now the viewer will not tear himself away from this show for anything. After all, at any time, anything can happen! And it happens.
The plot unfolds in one part of the world, then in another. Heroes appear as devils from a snuffbox and disappear into nowhere, without saying goodbye. From the stone suddenly hatch dragons, and the real fantasy begins. The dying Snow is coming back to life for no reason.
Complete leapfrog - heroes, storylines and genres. Seeking to know factor works for thousands of percent.
Yes, in "The Game of Thrones," in this seemingly saga, there is no common plot, no main character. And none of the applicants for this role is internally transformed. All of them are reactive: we are given a certain psychological type - at least Tirion Lannister, even the Mother of Dragons, at least some Bran Stark - and he behaves differently only depending on external circumstances, remaining internally unchanged.
At the same time, the fragments of the narrative are inherently random. There was a "red woman", something screwed up - and hello. Detecting people in masks, they killed "impeccable" - and bye-bye, melted like smoke. Add them to the series or take them out of it - nothing really will change.
That is, with the incredible complexity of this large-scale series, its design as a whole is extremely decentralized, impersonal and "adventurous". That is - we look into Bakhtin - in front of us primitive, despite the complexity, the archaic. And we look, and we are fascinated.
Strange, probably, this diagnosis sounds - "new archaic". But let's think ... Is not Network and social networks working on the same principle? Is it not the same way now organized by our society, which has lost the unity of "goals" and "meanings", atomized and divided into an infinite number of minority interests?.
A new archaic (that is, primitive) world is coming towards us, and we do not notice it at all, because outwardly it seems to us incredibly complex. But this is only an illusion of perception, because all this ostensible complexity is not structural, but quantitative.
These are the realities of our world: each of us needs to know a lot, but we are no longer able to sort out anything deep enough.
Actually, this is the prophetic secret of the "Game of Thrones": the modern society produces "smart stupid" people who know a lot (or know where it can be learned much, for example, in the Wiki), but not able to grow, overcome and transform Yourself.
Rubber dolls, devoid of, by and large, genuine adequacy.
"RAY DONOVAN" OR THE WORLD OF HAPPY IDIOTH The company Showtime once gave us "Dexter" (we will return to it), and now went to the fifth season of "Ray Donovan". Perhaps this is not too popular with us, but a wonderful, in my opinion, series.
Its action, which is very symbolic, takes place in Hollywood itself. Ray Donovan is the person who solves the problems of "rich and famous" not the most, so to speak, legal ways. Yes, he, like Dexter, is a "bad guy". But he is special.
The end-to-end line of the series is the story of the Donovan family. Ray has several brothers of different degrees of non-slavery, children are unlucky, the wife is not a slave. And my father (performed by Angelina Jolie's father) is a catastrophe: a monkey with a grenade and 22 unhappiness in one bottle.
But it's not even about them (with their weirdness we get used to sympathy for Ray - still relatives, bear with it). Business in Ray's clients, and these are actors, producers, businessmen, billionaires, expensive prostitutes, drug lords and even devil knows who. And all as for selection - clinical morons.
Actually, the whole inner coil of the series is a permanent overcoming of Ray's consequences of human idiocy.
The appearance of any hero in the frame means that now there will be some next stupidity. Further on the scene invariably appears Ray, which saves at this moment some other moron. Ray sighs deeply, looks around and finds a way out (as a rule, balancing one human stupidity with another).
The whole of Los Angeles, thus, resembles one big "ship of fools". Fools are dispersed and each in their own manner holes the sides of their common fragile vessel. So the water is constantly pouring into the hold, and Donovan has no choice but to run from one hole to another, stopping them sometimes by those same fools.
Watching this endless quest is incredibly exciting. But what is this series really about?.
He paints us whether the Bosch, or Brantovsky, or Brekhtov gallery of psychological portraits of a new man of the era of total "information pseudo-delinquency". And he reveals the desperation of the only person who has preserved sanity in this world of pathological cretinism. Ray Donovan is such a new Noah with a crazy family on board.
However, this is not a parody. This is a subtext. All the characters of "Ray Donovan", formally speaking, are perfectly normal people, but the way they reason, it seems quite reasonable. The problem is that all of this "intelligence" is a set of typical misconceptions, prejudices, foolish dreams and naive aspirations. The inevitable consequence of the selfishness and platitude of human nature, "lost its core" (© Ж. Deleuze).
These are the "smart stupid" of our time. They are able to imitate thinking, but ignore the facts. They do not see beyond their own nose, they do not doubt anything and are guided by ideas that were not even slightly thought out by them. They do not understand that any of their actions will inevitably result in consequences, and are always ready to blame the world for a secret conspiracy against their personal happiness.
Only Ray sees everything as it is, without embellishments and illusions. Although from this, as it turns out, in a world full of nerds, it's easier to live.
"THE FLOWERS OF DEATH" OR THE FUNDAMENTAL SOCIAL DISASTER "The Walking Dead" seems to be a simple story of a zombie apocalypse. But the series combines the "adventure" of the new archaic, and a clear indication of the total stratification of society between intelligent (people) and stupid (zombies).
There is an opinion, however, that the creators of the series - Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, Charlie Aldard and Frank Darabont - are problematizing another conflict of modern civilization. The pier, here the opposition between a civilization and the countries of the "third world".
But what if you look at this story differently? After all, terrorists of any of the worlds are not very similar to zombies (sometimes there is a feeling that they will even be more alive than some Europeans or Americans).
In general, what if this is not a confrontation of civilization to the world of obscurantist tradition and terrorism, but something else?.
The fact that the world homogenized by the Internet began to separate, is a medical fact: roughly speaking, there are those who own it, and those who are now controlled (that is, we are with you).
The morning of the modern man begins with a prayer to the smartphone: he opens his eyes, takes up the phone and "checks" - messages, missed calls, mail and social networking news.
Praying, he hangs this "cross" on his neck and throughout the day no longer part with him, falling to this sacred relic at the earliest opportunity. Every free moment of the present "free" people is dedicated to this digital prayer.
Earlier we could forget the phone at home. Now this no longer happens. It became the continuation of us. Lose this incense, this icon, this "life-giving cross" - deaths like. However, now, when everything has finally been backed up in the cloudy "Kingdom of Heaven", it has somehow become easier.
Does the modern man understand that he is essentially a stupid mouse into whose brain the electrode connected to the pedal is implanted? Pressing the pedal leads to the category of electric current in the pleasure centers. And yes, our pedal is a smartphone or any other way to go online.
So who are the "zombies" of us now? Are they terrorists? Go out, look around. People go on, talking on the phone, scribbling in messengers, not analyzing the road, and scroll the tape, plugging the ears with wires from the same smartphone. It's "walking"!.
As well as it is necessary to the protagonist of an adventure novel, the former policeman Rick Grimes does not change at all. Yes, his circumstances were shattered, but he remains the same cartoon superhero from the comics. There is no development in the plot and is not foreseen. Seven seasons are the same.
Were there any more people left anywhere else? - this is the question that the creators of the series have existentially asked. Although, perhaps, they do not understand this.
"LEFT", OR THE EXISTENCE OF EMPTINESS "Abandoned" is the existential masterpiece of HBO. Unfortunately, the audience is not very enthusiastic about this work of psychological art, and the future - only the third - the season, it seems, will be for the "Left" last. Existence will be covered completely.
The story is strange and simple at the same time: one day a part of the world's population simply disappeared. There were people - wives, husbands, parents, children - and suddenly evaporated, "ascended to heaven," leaving relatives and friends in complete perplexity and total prostration.
Actually, everything that happens next is a very colorful sluggish madness, to watch which is a pleasure. Although, I confess, and very strange.
Imagine: here you live and everything about this life is clear and clear to you. The world is as it is, right? But suddenly something happens that you can not comprehend in any way. You understand that you do not understand anything..
Where did your loved ones go? They were taken by God? But why? Is it a blessing, a sign or a curse? Or, perhaps, behind all this are aliens? But where did they take your loved ones? They are tortured? Put experiments on them? Why did you take them, not you?.
The world, shown to us by the example of a provincial American town, is going crazy. And everyone does it their own way, so we see the richest palette of intellectual tricks with which people try to cope with the emerging cognitive dissonance (© L. Festinger).
No internal transformation of the main character - the sheriff Kevin - of course, does not happen, archaic. But he, unlike all the others, does not try to be satisfied with the absurd explanations of what happened. He - like a gaping wound - looks at what is happening with his brown eyes from under the long eyelashes, experiencing what Martin Heidegger would call "Horror Nothing".
However, according to the good-natured Heidegger, in this "Horror Nothing" we must have a genuine Genesis and a beautiful Dasein (Heidegger is still a man of another era - the era of the novel). And where we find ourselves now, there is no way in "Horror Nothing".
There is simply nothing, emptiness. And horror.
Everything is unclear and unknown, devoid of meaning.
Such a world is revealed to us. But no, not in the series. He obviously is waiting for us ahead.
"YOUNG DAD" AND "THE WAY", OR HOW WE SPEAK WITH GOD What can be the way out of this vicious circle of "walking" and "abandoned"? With whom to spread a word in a world where all are stupid and brainless? Where to find "Honored Interlocutor" (© А. Ukhtomsky), when around you or burned cynics, or those who, unaware of deception, pointlessly repeat behind cynics some monstrous lies about "eternal truths" and other stupidities about "values"?.
"Way" is a very noteworthy, although not very famous in Russia, series of the company Hulu. However, the performer of the main role of "Path" - Aaron Paul - we know well from the series "In all the heavy", where he played Jesse Pinkman - a young team-mate Walter White.
In an age of total existential vacuum, people seek refuge. Someone, not without the help of the same White, sits down on drugs, someone is lost on the web and becomes "walking". And someone goes to God. Well, not immediately to Him, of course, but to the company of those who this God promises. To cynics.
The main character of "Way" is a simple, good guy Eddie Lane (Aaron Paul). A former drug addict who wants to live a normal life. He loves his wife very much, loves his son. The problem is that the wife is a religious fanatic and an active adherent of the sect of the mayors.
Majerists founded a whole colony-settlement and diligently grow spiritually (some incomprehensible "steps" pass). The sect is quite totalitarian, but the problem is (and this is not a spoiler, but only the first series) that the founder of the mayor is seriously ill and in a coma.
Guide sect, eaten by intrigues, does not know what to do now. But something definitely needs to be done, and they do. It turns out badly. Eddie, meanwhile, starts to guess that all this mayorism is one complete lie and cheating.
Thanks to a strange experience during the mandatory "spiritual session" with Peruvian drugs, he suddenly realizes that if you remove the green glasses, the Emerald City will cease to be emerald. However, this metaphor refers, as we understand, not only to sects, but to our whole life.
Well, nothing seems special and new, right? Somewhere we've all heard it already. But do not rush into conclusions. Because the second season promises to be even more dizzying than "Young Dad".
"Young Dad" - a monstrous cinematic disaster. If it were not for a wonderful acting game, not Jude Law and not the very idea of ??this story, there would be no chance for the series. He did not even get to the pilot stage. The script is really terrible.
But in "Young Pope" is the main thing (the same, probably, will happen in the second season of "The Way") - the hero of the series talks to God. Directly with Him.
That is, we return to the most real archaic, in the times of the Old Testament and the Odyssey, in the pre-institutional era, to the beginning of time.
Being the head of the most powerful religious denomination, the hero Jude Law is not really a Catholic. He is a man who has a direct connection with God. Think about it. This is something really new (and very old). But in a sense it is already inevitable.
In an environment where all the previous institutions, ideologies and value systems ordered a long life, we remained truly alone. We are automatically infantilized and begin to hear voices..
What still seemed to be a real madness, now ceases to embarrass and even fascinates.
"IN EVERY HEAVY", OR CAN BE A "BAD GUY" Not all, however, I think, are ready for this turn of events.
Yes, the world has changed. Yes, we no longer need anyone.. Yes, there are only zombies around us who still consider themselves to be people. Yes, what only recently seemed to be something important, valuable and worthy of respect, is now perceived as a set of convenient (and inconvenient) fictions.
But this does not mean that you have to go crazy and start intimate conversations with those who are not? !!.
I agree. So let's get acquainted with a string of new heroes of our time - Dexter, whom we already recalled, "White Collar", for example, and of course, Walter White from "All Grave".
What is the novelty of these heroes of our new novel?.
Imagine some nineteenth year of the last century and think, can a ruthless maniac, who kills people and pedantically carves their bodies, be a positive hero of a work of art?.
Yes, Raskolnikov, let's say, killed an old woman. But he did repent! I felt sorry for my conscience, how much mental suffering I took upon myself! And here in each series on the ghoul and this killer we love ... Is it normal?.
And now imagine the same enny and the main character: a man produces a heavy drug, and on a production scale, without experiencing the slightest remorse of conscience.
How many people died, died in skirmishes, destroyed their fates because of his "product"? Hard to imagine. And for what? For money. Nothing more. Just earns by killing people. And yes, we are talking about a positive hero, the main character of the five seasons and 62 episodes.
But do not think, I also love Dexter, worried about White, and "White Collar" (professional thief), it seems to me quite quite a sweet subject. It is difficult to imagine the viewer who watches these series and thinks: what are they all unscrupulous bastards, ugh!.
"Bad guy" with the surname White. Negative hero, by the standards of our previous culture, became a good hero in the current. We understand him. And this is the main thing. The rest - just costs and do not give a damn.
Of course, there are no such wonderful maniacs, noble thieves and outstanding drug lords in nature. This is a movie, a fairy tale. But that's not the point, the fact is that the vector of our assessment of what has taken place has shifted.
There is no more "good" and "evil", but there is only a man who opposes the circumstances. One on one, and each for himself.
"CARD HOUSE" AND "MOTHERLAND", OR "END OF THE STATE" It is impossible to talk about the main "scoundrels" of the modern novel and not to recall Frank Underwood. That's really if you're a bastard, you bastard. However, and we do not deny him sympathy. But I remembered it for another reason, much more significant.
"House of cards" - this is not a parody of power, not a satire or political utterance. This is a fantasy that unfolds before our very eyes in extremely real scenery (which is only the president of the Russian Federation Viktor Petrov and real participants of Pussy Riot at a reception in the White House).
However, this is the main secret. Imagine the creators of this series: now they are sitting at the table in the office of the film company, "storming" and preparing an intrigue for future series ... What do you think, what is the main question they are trying to answer?.
I bet this one: how much still it is possible to make more incredible, but so that the viewer continues to believe that he is watching a movie about a real US president, and not a fantastic thriller about life on the planet from the TRAPPIST-1 system?.
In this, the whole chip. What Underwood is doing is, as they say in such cases, beyond the bounds of good and evil. But we continue to believe (with all reservations, of course) that we are talking about the US president, the real leader of the most powerful power in our world.
It's a bit like cognitive dissonance, but it's something more.
The truth is that from now on we are ready to admit that something like this is possible in principle. This is a radical change. Completely lost settings. And not "House of Cards" made it a reality. He only revealed the fact of this incredible expansion of the corridor of opportunities.
The president can now write on Twitter, and even crack his Twitter, and he, in turn, can do everything at all. Nowhere else in the civilized world is power at least some sacred and really respected. Ended those times. Ended States.
After the "House of Cards" "file on Trump," according to which Trump allegedly ordered Russian prostitutes to urinate on the bed where Obama once slept, does not seem to be something out of the ordinary. "Well, it's strange, of course.". - we say in some confusion. "But what can not happen?" "And the truth.
And against this background there is a real "Third World War" with terror. A blond girl with a twisted fate and derailed private life, suffering from attacks of manic-depressive psychosis, selflessly protects against the terrible threat of Islamic fundamentalism, her country, which she herself and the gift is not needed.
This is the TV series "Motherland". And this is another "way". Yes, you can start talking with God, you can become a sociopathic "bad guy", because "everything is allowed," or you can, like a staunch tin soldier, remain in your post, simply because you - personally for yourself and by yourself - consider this Important.
The TV series Rodina demonstrates this, another possible new type of people. And in a strange way, against a general background, it is he - seeming so right and so normal - looks like the real science fiction.
We would like to have such heroes. But we do not believe that there will be a place for them in the "card house" of our new time.
"BLACK MIRROR" AND "WORLD OF WILD WEST", OR WAR WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE The British looked in the "Black Mirror", and the Americans built "World of the Wild West". Amazing, of course, they are people. It seems that they speak the same language, and some, that not a system, get subtle psychological dramas, others - no matter how psychologized, still comes out blockbuster.
But in any case, both are predictive TV series, which is important.
"Black mirror" - a series telling us about our future, broken through the prism of the life of a particular person. The Fourth Industrial Revolution will turn out for us? Will the Prime Minister have to mate with the pig on the air of national television and will not the culture of "Laika" drive us into the new brave world of digital fascism?.
Each series is a probable development of events. And let it somewhere satire, somewhere just a drama, and somewhere frank horror, but the fact remains: we are facing the reality of the future, whose behavior is extremely unpredictable. And it's gently said.
"World of the Wild West" - a typical, it would seem, history of "machine revolt". The world was finally divided into super-rich people, on the one hand, and ordinary employees - on the other. This, however, is not even fiction.
Fantasy is that these simple mortals were added androids. After all, a person is holy, right? Therefore, if you want to kill someone, try or ponasilovat, you have to lower the steam on humanoid machines in Disneyland "for adults". And lower.
During the first series we gradually get used to the idea that there is almost no difference between people and androids - they, just like us, feel, experience, think. It's hard to accept. But even more difficult is the next turn of the plot. When it becomes clear that the difference between people and machines can still show up ... The creators of the "World of the Wild West" seem to tell us: look at yourself, citizens, and understand - androids will be better than you. At least, they can be more honest and social, and this is very human. And in the good sense of the word.
The assumption made by the authors of the "World" seems paradoxical, but let's think: is it not more honest that we will have a machine that takes into account all the facts, and not only those that are convenient for it (we do it that way)? And are not these machines more social, if our - the human - ego, which they do not have, will not interfere with their cooperation?.
That's thinking, trying to understand what is really thinking the creators of futurological films about a man. What they have turned out looks like a real anti-humanist manifesto: a person is weak, lying and pathetic.
I note that the opinion of the writers, even the subconscious, is not an expert one. But not in this sense it is interesting to us. It is important for us for another reason.
It turns out that fashioning a real hero from a person at the speakers of our "collective unconscious", which, of course, is now Hollywood, is no longer obtained. From robots it turns out, from people - no.
"THEORY OF A GREAT EXPLOSION," OR FAMILY OF THE FUTURE Well, for the snack the most unexpected, probably, the series in my collection - the sitcom "The Big Bang Theory".
Indeed, in itself this product can hardly claim the title of "new novel". And its unpretentious content is hardly worth our attention or, especially, thoughtful analysis.
After the first series, I decided that this show was not for me. With this consideration, I shared with my close friend and colleague, a psychiatrist. To which he said completely between the deeds: "Just follow Sheldon like an epileptoid ..." And yes, the show went.
However, the prognostic value of this "product" is not associated with psychopathology. Although what I'm about to tell about him, at first glance, refers to her most directly.
Back in 1970, the wonderful futurist Alvin Toffler described in his famous book "Futuroshok" what the marriage of the future will be like. According to those long-standing forecasts, the previous marriage will disappear or, at least, will change beyond recognition.
Options, what will be the future marriage, Toffler suggested several. At the core, however, the same thing - changing the role and significance of sexuality in human life. It is clear that our culture has for centuries suffered from a painful preoccupation with the theme of sexual relations, and then with the same zeal has also taken care of sexuality as such (© M. Foucault). As a result, "sex" has become a kind of "sick point" of our social consciousness with you.
But it seems that the time has come, as Friedrich Nietzsche would say, "revaluation of all values," as evidenced by the "Big Bang".
If you do not know, already about two million Americans live in marriages that are built on the principle of polyamory.
No, this is not polygamy, and not even fornication, but such a perfectly civilized form of living together of several people. Yes, not pairs, but several. It is a sort of family community consisting of men and women who all love each other at the same time, although, perhaps, in different ways. Therefore, in fact, and polyamory.
Well, bingo! For almost ten years the public has been observing the sitcom not about botanist physicists, but about the gradual and steady formation of the polyamorous family of our fast future.
The former "Friends", although they were engaged in intrigues with each other, were generally moved by centrifugal forces - they tried to fly out of the nest. Today's friends from the "TBV", on the contrary, converge closer and closer, denser and denser. Maybe it's some kind of specific gravity?.
Leonard and Sheldon still can not part, although the former has a wife for a long time, next to them on the staircase. Another triangle is Sheldon, Emma Farah Fowler and Penny. The third - Bernadette, Wolowitz and Kutrappali, and also adjoining to them from time to time trader comics Stuart Bloom. Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Rajesh form a quartet forming the basic crosshairs of this intricate "family".
I understand that all this sounds a little strained. Everyone is interested in the issue of sex, and he is in this sitcom, so to speak, "not disclosed". But the fact is that the future family is not a matter of sex, it's a new logic of relations between close people.
Looking at the details, we quickly find that the grouped family cohabitation of the "Big Bang Theory" consistently reproduces all the "standards" of the poly-familial family.
For example, the famous Sholdonov "Agreements on cohabitation", which he concluded with Leonard, and with Emma (that there with the rest of the participants of the banquet - one can only guess). Perhaps you will be surprised, but this is the standard practice of poly-familial families: they create agreements that regulate everyday life and personal life of family members to the smallest detail.
Or, for example, a polyamorous ban on mutual jealousy. Inside the Big Bang family you will not find it. Leonard can be jealous of Penny to her former as well as casual acquaintances and lampposts, but not to Sheldon or Emma. Emma will not be jealous of Penny or Leonard. And if Bernadette and is jealous of Wolowitz to Kutrappali, then only in connection with the child. Otherwise, Howard and Rajesh can do what they please. Bernadette will stand, watch and smile with his trademark smile.
Yes, this is the main principle of a poly-familial family: beloved people should be happy. And this, I must admit, is reasonable, although I understand what it sounds like, so to speak, against the rules. But these are the new rules, whether we like it or not, and they are formed before our very eyes. And both in the literal and figurative sense of the word.
"Big Bang Theory" - a direct meaning.
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