June 19, 2000 New Thinking:
Broomsticks and joy sticks
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June 19, 2000
Broomsticks and joy sticks
By Gerry McGovern
How come in the age of the Internet, our children, teenagers and adults are fascinated by witches, vampires and monsters? These vestiges of pre-Industrial Age societies haunt and entertain our technological present.
For all our supposed modernity the things that still thrill us call to ancient fears and longings. Are our technologies – our WAP phones, joy sticks and Palm Pilots – just a thin veneer on a human race still tuned to the call of the wild?
Harry Potter, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Stephen King, heavy metal, Hollywood macho and horror, Doom and the endless supply of beat-‘em-up computer games are testament to another dimension. We live more and more supported by the advances in science and technology. Fewer of us know how to prepare and cook our own food, so dependant on eating out and fast foods have we become. How many of us would know how to grow our own food?
We know that broomsticks can’t help you fly. We know that vampires and monsters are scarce on the ground. Yet we are happy to suspend belief. Why? Why are these ancient stories so incredibly popular? Let’s face it, take away the special effects and the mega budgets, and today’s Hollywood blockbuster follows the same essential plot as was being told 10,000 years ago. It’s good versus evil, it’s finding true love, it’s the thing that jumps up behind you when you least expect.
“I Love You” are still the three most powerful words in any language. The Pilipino hacker may not have got his computer degree, but he did understand what makes us tick. We’re all suckers for a good love story, a thumping horror flick. The Internet elite really fell for it and clicked in the hope of some good old loving.
Out of Silicon Valley has come wave after wave of relentless change. So why hasn’t the change changed us? Why in all this relentless change have we remained essentially the same? From Stone Age Man to Silicon Valley Man seems a long journey. It’s not really. Below the shiny surface you will often find a macho, primitive culture, one where only the strong and ruthless survive.
As we speed forward we keep one foot in the machine and one foot in the fantasy world. We live this fascinating double life where logic and longing dance uneasily together. The more we know about how everything works the more we want to suspend belief.
Irish poet William Butler Yeats once said that he loved the Celts because they refused to accept the tyranny of fact. The facts speak for themselves but very often we’re not listening. We’re off with our emotions reliving age old themes. Our dreams will always refuse to accept the tyranny of fact; and good luck to them. Our need for things spiritual, for the fantastic, the surreal, the unbelievable, the music, the dancer and the dance is as strong as ever.
Long may we love Harry, Sabrina, Buffy and Stephen.
Gerry McGovern
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