Letters to Ukraine – 8

Why are we obsessed with lead singers? In soccer, strikers capture more column inches than defenders. We heap fame upon actors and comedians whose writers receive scant recognition. We’re intimate with all the brand names for our gadgets, yet have no idea which scientists made the crucial breakthroughs. There are exceptions… Einstein, Shakespeare; but, in the main, our species overvalues delivery, reserving its fullest attention for the presenters of its cultural products. “After 1980,” claims Arthur Erickson, “you never heard reference to space again. Surface, the most convincing evidence of the descent into materialism, became the focus.” Erickson’s observation on architecture applies far more widely. Our infatuation with surface is also expressed through vacuous celebrity, in leaders who deliver magnificent speeches but run aground with legislation. We wonder why they fail, ourselves failing to appreciate the powerful systems that condition us all. Indeed, our surface obsessions divert us from the underlying forces at work: those systemised assumptions and values underpinning advertising, education and market “laws.” That’s where most of the cultural “space” really is: beneath and behind. These spaces generate the superficial songs most politicians sing. Rather than simply clap or boo the show, we’d do well to squint into what’s going on backstage.