Since now is all there is, how you look now is all that matters. Image is it. What do you want to be? Look like it and you are it. This has led to little girls with makeup looking like they are much older than they are. This had led to older women with mid-drifts and tight jeans trying to look younger than they are. Social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are used as a platform to present a certain image of one’s self. They are like a personal newspaper and you are your reporter and editor. Politicians are elected because they have a certain image without ever proclaiming any concrete policies or revealing any core personal beliefs.
Image with no substance
The preference for image over substance in the now has given rise to some new philosophical/sociological terms. The concept of “transit” comes from a sense of everything being simultaneous in the present (no past or future) where we are suspended in a state of everything being temporary and our movement is from the same to the same. The images change but they stay the same, and they are only images. A “simulacrum” is an image without the substance or quality of the original. It is the nearest alternative to the original thing itself. We see this in the popularity of counterfeit name-brand merchandise. “Hyperreality” is closely related to the simulacrum. Hyperreality is the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced societies. Because of the technological ordering of experience, what is presented as reality is a network of images that have no original. There is no real, only “hyperreal.” We see this in music videos and movies. This preference for image and no substance has become a lifestyle for the postmodern generation that is reflected in all areas of culture.
The area of culture most affected by the preference for image over substance is the economy. The demand for counterfeit merchandise that has the image of the original but not the cost is already staggering and is growing substantially every year. The sales of counterfeit goods, or knock-offs, for the year 2023 are estimated to total between $2 Trillion and $4 Trillion There are only a very few countries in the world that have a larger Gross Domestic Product than that. The image is what is desired. It does not matter if it is fake.
In this image-driven culture, images change as the minutes change – there is no time for substance. That means no time to develop personal character, and as this condition continues, no time for quality workmanship. Everything is a means to present an image and the images are not real. There is no end to this in sight.
Means with no end
In philosophy, the term “means to an end” refers to any action (the means) carried out for the purpose of achieving or obtaining something else (the end). If actions have a goal, other than the action itself, when the goal is reached, the actions end because they are no longer necessary. The means has reached its end.
In 21st Century culture where image with no substance prevails and everything is present with no thought of a future, what are the means? And what is the end? The image in the now is a momentary experience that is not leading to achieving or obtaining something else (the end). The experience, itself, is the means and purpose of the experience. Living from one experience to the next is a life of means with no end. Everything becomes a means because all ends have been deconstructed. You do not work for a career; you do not save for a house or your children’s education; study does not lead one to the truth; increased responsibility is not a means to maturity as none of these things exist as a goal in this postmodern culture. Images and experiences are means with no end.
The culture of this age is replete with things that provide experiences with no ends. Technology is the biggest experience provider. The first experience comes with the purchase. To hold up the latest telephone for others to see that you have it is a great experience. To use it to send an email or text with the signature “sent from my xxx” really adds to one’s image. The trouble is, the latest telephone is the latest telephone for only a few weeks. Then a new latest comes out and the experience of purchase, show and tell, and using it has to be repeated all over again. There is no end to having the latest telephone. This goes for all pieces of technology (computers, televisions, stereos, Xboxes , etc.), all styles of fashion used to produce images, and pop songs that just stop, they don’t end. They are here today and gone tomorrow. A means with no end.
The area of change affecting Western culture that has had the biggest impact is sexual relations. It will also have the longest-lasting impact and will be the hardest to reverse if Western culture is to survive many more generations. Sexual experience has become a means with no end and has been made available and encouraged for all age groups and between all genders.
The heterosexual sexual experience is a means to an end. The end is procreation. Of course, every heterosexual experience is not for the purpose of procreation, but that end must be either planned for or against. To fail to do so will likely produce the end result—a baby. The homosexual sexual experience is a means with no end. The experience is all there is and it doesn’t last and has to be repeated in ever-increasing intensity and ever-changing substitutes.
Like the image with no substance changes constantly, the sexual experience with no end has to change constantly. Laws are being liberalized almost daily to widen the scope of sexual experiences because they are means with no end. This has only increased the confusion young people have over who they are. Are they sexually attracted to their own gender? Are they males in a female body or females in a male body? Even as this is being written the Governor of the State of California, USA has signed a law permitting elementary (as young as 5 years old) and secondary school students to choose their own gender identity for purposes of participating in sex-segregated school programs and activities, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records. Can someone as young as five years old know enough about sex and gender to be put in this position? It only tears down the walls protecting children and opens the realm of sexual experiences to every perversion imaginable. At the time of this writing bestiality/zoophilia is considered a “lifestyle choice” in Denmark, Norway, and Germany attracting customers to animal brothels from all over the world.
Sexual experiences, like all experiences in this “now” culture, are means with no end. For those of us who value truth and reality, the 21st Century culture is like looking at a funhouse mirror at the carnival—the images are contorted, deformed, and warped. Certainly, not real. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is powerfully fueling the stampede away from truth and reality toward “hyperreality.” I am working on a separate post about Artificial Intelligence and the dangers of it that will be ready soon. The problem is that AI is changing too rapidly to get a grip on it.
Thankfully, the next post will be the last in this series.