Where are we, I mean humanity, society, here in America?
If you do a situation analysis of the present milieu there’s a definite sense of existential crisis on the world stage, driven by factors relating to geopolitical conflicts, some experts call it “identity politics,” and also factors such as climate and other change conditions including advancing antidemocratic movements, growth of xenophobia, and related societal change fostering the challenges of so-called “alternative truth” enabled by social media, what Stephen Colbert way back when started referring to as “truthiness.” It even made Merriam Webster.
This all leans in the direction of a technology-induced alienation as identified by such respected minds as Sherry Turkle (Alone Together) who has been preaching about this for years.
In his article in The Atlantic, “I’m Running Out of Ways to Explain How Bad This Is: What’s Happening in America Today is Something Darker than a Misinformation Crisis,” Charlie Warzel writes “What is clear is that a new framework is needed to describe this [reality] fracturing.”
Whether you identify it as nihilism, pessimism, cynicism, apathy, ennui or otherwise, we’re in a pickle.
As a poet, I tend to translate trauma into words, and just maybe we need to turn to poetry as a helpmate “to describe this fracturing” as per Warzel’s suggestion.
What is clear is that a new framework is needed to describe this [reality] fracturing.
My work was first published later in life, at age 70, to be exact; I had won a poetry prize at the tender age of 19, which should have been encouraging, but I had other fish to fry…Then the muse started gnawing at me, I started writing again. Graves said “There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either” …A recurring theme in my work is that enunciated in the thought of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954): “At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.” My interest in this theme in general is sparked by the work of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926 – 2004). She had this to say on the subject: “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths” (this paragraph extracted from my book Gallery).
The first of November I’ll be 81. I concur with Einstein who said: “I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don’t have to” and anyway as a Scorpio the words I choose are supposed to carry the ring—and sting—of truth. So how about we consider mac n’ cheese? What does comfort food have to do with the troubles of our times? Let’s back up.
Theodor Adorno (1903 – 1969) the German philosopher and social theorist posited that “industrialism turns souls into things.” Industrialism can stand for technology more generally. There’s usually a good side, but almost always a downside. Adorno knew a few things personally about trauma. His mother was a Catholic, his father an assimilated Jew who converted to Protestantism. Among other travails he endured during the Nazi era as a non-Aryan his freedom was restricted more and more over time and he was forced (luckily in retrospect) to leave Germany and he did not return until well after Hitler’s defeat. Needless to say Adorno was a staunch critic of Fascism and published influential studies on authoritarianism, propaganda and the like including the seminal work The Authoritarian Personality (1950) which outlines a set of traits and characteristics based on an “F scale” (for fascist).
industrialism turns souls into things.
In his Philosophy Now essay, “Socrates, Memory & The Internet” Matt Bluemink seeks to alert us as to what we risk from advancing technology, particularly our smartphones and the Internet which we have so willingly delegated to take over for our brain. He emphasizes the importance of being “thoughtful” in the face of the distractions inherent in our device-laden lives. He writes that “without paying attention…one loses the ability to empathise, and thus the ability to ‘take care’ of one another, and of the society in which we live.” Importantly, he perceives of literature, of thoughtful reading, as a critical antidote as the literary arts specifically “stretch” the mind and enhance the thought process and poetry is the sine qua non for this type of exercise.
How does mac n’ cheese enter the picture?. On one of my all too frequent visits to my inboxes (I am not immune from the habit), two items in my news feed caught my eye.
One from Ad Age which I follow, headlined “Mac and Cheese Marketing Battle—How Kraft’s Dominance is Being Challenged” and the other “Armed Militia ‘Hunting FEMA’ Causes Hurricane Responders to Evacuate” from Newsweek. The nexus struck me like a lightning bolt in a tropical storm. I thought, “It’s no coincidence, it’s metaphor plain and simple!”
I offer and conclude then with the prose poem springing from this revelation, leaving you to think about it.
Mac n’ Cheese Wars Amid Crumbling Reality, a Recipe for Disaster
Take and make a thynne foyle of dowh, and kerue it on pieces, and cast hym on boiling water & seeþ it wele. Take chese and grate it, and butter imelte, cast bynethen and abouven as losyns; and serue forth.*
—Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century
It’s hard to understand. Middle English I mean. We don’t speak it now so it seems unreal. Like some folks eat mac n’ cheese any way it comes, however it’s made makes no difference, it’s how it tastes that matters. Taste is a matter of taste of course. And now they have a cheeseless mac n’ cheese which can’t be really mac n’ cheese can it? How can it? This is a serious matter. It goes to the heart of what America stands for. Where is Tom Jefferson when you need him to adjudicate? He loved the stuff. He had his slave chef whip up batches upon batches at Monticello, state dinners included, he often used his noodles as the diplomacy du jour. Now Kraft is battling the interlopers trying to convince the public with smoke and mirrors that something made from plants can be cheesy as you please. It’s a hoax how else can you explain it? Doubtless real cheese can rot, invite maggots, then there’s processed cheese, less vulnerable like Velveeta and powdered versions too you never knew, it looked like cheese, if you’re raised on it, it’s cheese to you though impregnated with artificial colors, preservatives you name it. Do we really care as long as it tastes good? Black people think White people stole mac n’ cheese from them, like rock n’ roll, we’re so divided these days in so many ways mac n’ cheese is something different depending who you talk to and rumors of an armed militia “hunting” FEMA caused hurricane responders to evacuate! Really?
*Modern English version: Take a piece of thin pastry dough and cut it in pieces, place in boiling water and cook. Take grated cheese, melted butter, and arrange in layers like lasagna; serve. [source: Makerouns (godecookery.com)]
For other related work by the author see “Walmart Was the Largest Retailer in America.” For further reading: NASA website, “The Causes of Climate Change” and The Atlantic—”I’m Running Out of Ways to Explain How Bad This Is: What’s Happening in America Today is Something Darker than a Misinformation Crisis.”
