
Periscope and the liberty to post without any censorship everything that you record. Netflix, the opportunity to inject in a weekend and at a high dosage an entire season of Game of Thrones, not mentioning the “wellness syndrome” that is trying so hard to make us age well, becoming a nightmare to its followers. Of course, we knew that hell is full of good intentions but it shouldn’t start here on earth…
In our society hyped on the performance hormone, the notion of unlimited reveals a highly symbolic character. Weight loss records, Internet connexion, profits, all have become barometers of respectability and credibility to the eyes of a mediatised circus always awaiting a new fairground attraction. No matter the physical consequences, financial or ecological created by these new heroes, as long as they can galvanize the supporters of a football game, the activists of a meeting or the shareholders of a board of directors.
Initiated by the mobile phone operators, the unlimited insidiously tends to spread in all compartments of the existence. Everything must be unlimited with no limit of time or space.
This word announces and demonstrates a new relationship with objects, to men, to events, where quantity wins the battle over quality.
Quantity of purpose, energy, absurdity, entry, quantity that is the only legit scale to evaluate the quality of a brand or a product. The unlimited would be as in the “Armand accumulations”, the figure at which the unit loses its banality to blend into a memorable whole. The goal would be to systematically push the cursors to the maximum in order to cross a threshold below the one where the absurdities of a reality TV hero would only be pathetic while he is buzzed thousands of times in the media and becomes mythical. We now forgive by the ratings, previously we used to sanction by the “reoffending rate”.
With time, the unlimited has become the fundamental articulation of our happiness around which must gravitate slavishly the whole of commercial offers. Brands would solely be evaluated in the light of that injection that no longer considers the value of the product as a tangible landmark but only the quantity. The unlimited would transform the markets into giant buckets where our appetites would be stimulated only by the promises of an excessive offer.
To memorize, to stream, to download, to chat …always more.
Wouldn’t you consider it a tragic quest wanting to triumph from all the limitations that science, religion or moral enacted for thousands of years?
These offers nourish the fantasy of an absolute freedom, having the young believe they have become the new feasible norm of the entire population. No more constraints, commitments or responsibilities. Transformed into an “ego trip”, nothing should disturb this pleasure, neither social conventions, nor ethics, nor moral.
It gives birth to a selfish being, autonomous, only preoccupied by its personal interests even if it means putting at risk the rest of the society. This unlimited freedom grows the human being like an evil seed. He lives through its own enthusiasm, its own aspirations and feels more as a master than a servant, he no longer obeys the rules he once respected. The same rule for all is erased to the profit of the individual’s selfishness.
An infinite freedom that will have negative repercussions on our psychic mechanism. We say no to nothing, there are no limits. The market knowingly produces urges left at a raw stage only created to always ask for more freedom, not really knowing the meaning and purpose, even the beneficiary itself. The market makes the man childish and lacking responsibilities.
What are the acceptable limits to this unstoppable quest to performance, thinness, endurance, profitability or even media hype? “Is it the fuel of a healthy competition or the ground of baffled ethics?” Geert Demuijnck.
Responsible but not guilty, immoral but not illegal, each individual comes up with new language tools in order to rehabilitate ones ‘self from a bad conscious consubstantial to the overcoming of the limits often made of cheating, corruption or doping.
This infinite appears as the oversight of our body, our conscious in order to become a record-breaking machine. Surely, many intellectuals will question the worthiness of these appealing offers, that under the cover of being “consumer friendly”, slowly exhaust our humanity that by essence remains…limited.
Alain ROUSSO, NTTW