The Death Of The Dreamer

 

One of the key aspects of Oswald Spengler's thesis of the life cycle of civilizations was that as the culture matured, it lost touch with its wild roots that gave life to the culture, and thereby also lost the creative drive that drove its advancements and art. This is not to say that an older culture won't produce art, but that the art becomes stale and imitative, reactionary rather than groundbreaking, declining in overall quality. Science similarly slows with few major breakthroughs--those that mark major shifts in the scientific paradigm. 

    Think of the Romans versus the Greeks in the Classical Period: the Romans were great engineers, but their science and mathematics--such as it was--was almost wholly that developed by the Greeks. Similarly, Roman art and writing was derivative of that of the Greeks at their height. The Roman Aeneid to the Greek Iliad. 

    But while Spengler is able to describe the shift from dynamic to derivative, he does not really describe the mechanism other than resorting to the metaphor of a plant growing in the spring, maturing, and then declining and dying. It is obviously tied up with the other cultural shifts he identifies, however: the shift to a society centered around money and world perfection, of the Ibsen woman and "world cities". 

    I came across an piece by Alan Schmidt that perhaps gives more insight into this process, however. Entitled "Calvin vs. Susie"--in reference to the characters in the old Calvin and Hobbes comic strip--it explores how there is no place in the modern world for the rowdy and imaginative Calvin, but that modern society is instead designed for the orderly, rule-abiding Susie.

    Schmidt begins:

    For those who have no soul, Calvin and Hobbes was a famous daily comic written by Bill Watterson in the 1980’s and 90’s. It follows the adventures of Calvin and his imaginary friend, Hobbes, a stuffed tiger and they make up adventures for themselves and work through everyday life as a kid. It’s universally beloved to this day, probably largely because the artist refused to license his creation to anyone for the sake of artistic integrity, keeping the purity of the comic intact, well, other than the peeing Calvin decal. This isn’t to say everyone shares the same opinion. I recently had a conversation with a woman about the relative virtues of the comic.

    "Everything he does is immoral! Nothing in there teaches proper morals or virtue." She exclaimed.

    Of course, it's true he acts like a rambunctious troublemaker throughout the comic, but the idea there was no redeeming qualities or virtues in his actions flummoxed me. Didn't he show a zest for life? Didn't his wild antics give vitality and spirit to his existence? Wasn't his often justifiable rebellion against authority figures something to be admired? Wasn't his wild imagination in the face of stifling conformity a good lesson in life?

    As much as I tried to argue these points, all she could see was a wild kid who caused trouble to those around him, showed little empathy for others feelings, and immersed himself in violent and whimsical fantasies. She was at a loss how such behavior could mold him into a strong and capable man later in life. It was only a few days later that I realized where the disconnect was.

    She was Susie Derkins.

What type of person is Susie? Schmidt writes:

Susie has more of the qualities modern culture desires. She is an obsessive rule-follower, academic, follows all the social mores, and has aspirations to enter a respectable profession. Her only wish is to fit into the current mold of wider society. In the future, she will be a useful, though unimaginative cog in the wider culture. In itself, there is nothing wrong with this, and people like this often act like the glue that makes a community function. She's a genuinely caring person who simply wants to fit into the society she finds herself in.

What he omits is that Susie is also a world improver, although in the setting of the comic strip, her efforts are set on Calvin, attempting to make him more like her. In that regard, while Schmidt sees her as "a useful, though unimaginative cog in the wider culture," she could easily become meddlesome and uptight fitting into the archetype of the white female liberal who constantly votes for ever bigger and more intrusive government. In fact, I could see her becoming the "girl-boss" that Schmidt describes in a subsequent article.

    Calvin, on the other hand, has no real place in the modern world. Schmidt describes Calvin thusly:

Calvin, in contrast, has no fitting role in the world yet. He has an imaginary friend because his mind is worlds apart from all of his peers. His aspirations are wild and borderline megalomaniacal, and he spends his time in school dreaming of flying fighter jets, getting into life-or-death battles with distant aliens, or simply planning a convoluted scheme to get back at his enemies. His eyes are raw, unfiltered, seeing a land full of possibilities. As grandiose and impractical as his seven-year-old thoughts are, he sees potential in everything he encounters, eschewing any customary wisdom in favor of seeing hours of adventure in a small creek or even a simple cardboard box. It’s only a boy like Calvin who can be innovative enough to stash away a snowball in the freezer until the middle of summer to pelt Susie with, and in the heat of the moment miss her.

In other words, Calvin is a genuine creator or inventor. One could see him as an adult as the person in a gaudy Hawaiian shirt piloting a probe to land on an asteroid, the entrepreneur who dresses like a rock star, or as an author or artist bringing new worlds to life. But, as Schmidt describes, the society in which he interacts, including both the adults and the other children his age, seem bent on crushing him. Schmidt observes that "[o]ne gets the idea the school system has chewed up and spit out the adults running it to the extent they no longer see children, but pests that create work."

In a way, the comic showed the stark realities of being a young boy trying to find his way. He is surrounded by types like Susie Derkins, who can't help but be Susie Derkins. The real failure happens in the men who should have been there for him, channeling his energies toward finding a place in the world, and pushing back against the busybodies and scolds who want him to act more like a pliable, conformist little girl.

 And that sums up the feminized society which Spengler predicted. And partly why we are in the winter of our civilization.