Hollywood and the Individual Talent

Happiness comes from serving our highest ideals with all our mind and all our strength. For most of us, work is tedious and repetitive, and uses only a tiny fraction of our intellectual capacity. Factory jobs are deliberately designed to be mindless, and therefore encourage mindlessness. Of course some factories produce things human beings actually need. But most of them produce toys, for both children and adults, which can provide only a trivial substitute for the happiness we have lost along with the meaningful work that makes genuine happiness possible.

The motion picture industry employs more than half a million people in the United States. Those I know who work in the industry have described it to me as a factory. Here are half a million bright and creative minds who might have produced half a million brilliant works of art if they were able to put all their mind and all their strength into their work. But instead they work in a factory where they use only a tiny fraction of their talent.

In the old world an artisan could put his whole soul into his work and create something that embodied his talents and virtues. But in the brave new world where all commodities are mass produced, and art too has become a commodity, all but a very few must settle for a trivial role, mass producing an idea not their own, an idea they may not even wholeheartedly believe in.

Our art has become trivialized because it must appeal to the most common virtues, and not the exceptional virtues each one of us possesses. I can't help but wonder what would happen if each one of the thousands of minds who work on a feature film were to devote itself to expressing its own unique talents, to appealing to those who appreciate those unique talents, no matter how few in number. Then, instead of one corporate work of art in which the individuality of the vast majority of its creators has been utterly effaced, we would have thousands of works of art in which the talent of individual artists was expressed.

Secularization or demythologization?

The realm of ethics has been secularized. We make our ethical decisions on the basis of law and self-interest, not on the basis of any higher feeling like compassion or love of our neighbors. For eight hours we try with all our mind and all our strength to get the highest possible profit for our employers. For the remaining sixteen we try to get the most we can for our money. At no moment in modern life are we liberated from the curse of self-interest.

Economics doesn't study human values. It studies trade, which is but a small part of the human condition. When we allow the ideology of "free-market" economists and their "neoliberal" heirs to rule us, we make the market the arbiter of human values. It was never fit for such an exalted role.

Virtue can't be bought and sold. Righteousness can't be bought and sold. Let's ask ourselves honestly—why have these concepts faded from our vocabulary? Is it because we don't agree on their precise definition? Or is it because economists haven't figured out how to measure them?

The modern mind is proud it has overcome the superstition of earlier ages. I sympathize with this pride. But when we acknowledge a myth is a myth, should we completely throw it out? Or should we seek an allegorical interpretation that expresses its message in a language free of mythology?

Consider this lament from the prophet Isaiah, who claims to speak in the voice of God:

   When you stretch out your hands,
      I will hide my eyes from you;
   even though you make many prayers,
      I will not listen;
      your hands are full of blood.

   Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
      remove the evil of your doings
      from before my eyes;
   cease to do evil,
      learn to do good;
   seek justice,
      rescue the oppressed,
   defend the orphan,
      plead for the widow.

The modern mind may not share Isaiah's confidence that he knows the will of God. But perhaps, even if this is only Isaiah's opinion, he has something important to tell us.

We spoil ourselves while we let poor children suffer. We don't rescue the oppressed. We don't defend the orphan. We don't plead for the widow. We defend our own self-interest. We plead for higher profits.

Even the most modern mind has repented for its selfishness at one time or another. If the modern mind has discarded ideas of virtue and repentance, this certainly isn't because it doesn't know what they are.

What can you do to help the poor? Stop pampering yourself. Stop looking for entertainment and distraction. Begin a regimen of ascetic self-discipline, where no activity is permitted to you on the basis of inclination, unless that inclination inclines you to make an effort to educate and improve yourself, to help others educate and improve themselves, to feed the poor and hungry, to house the homeless, to become more kind and loving, to become perfect in the way you and you alone can.

The Church Fathers taught us a simple, modest life is pleasing in the eyes of God. The Greek philosophers taught us a simple, modest life is conducive to happiness. If we were exposed more to the sincere advice of those who really have our happiness and virtue in mind when they address us, and less to the insincere advice of salesmen and entertainers trying to make money from us, we would know how unnecessary all our luxuries and comforts really are, and we would be wiser, happier, kinder human beings as a result. What could be more pleasing in the eyes of God than that?