There was a moment, in the early days of the pandemic, when reports surfaced here and there of improvements in air and water quality across the world, as production and traffic abruptly diminished.
Images circulated of herds of mountain goats and wild boar exploring deserted city streets and schools of dolphins exuberant in the Bosporus.
The Hyperboreans of Greek legend, for example, led a perfect existence beyond the north winds in a permanent spring, and the denizens of Thomas More’s “Utopia” “cultivate their gardens with great care so that they have both vines, fruits, herbs, and flowers in them.” Later, William Morris drew nature — made almost palpable on the walls on well-furnished parlors — into his utopian counterimagining of the factories of industrial society.
The cows were led, through the digital animation that played before their eyes, to imagine they were wandering in bright summer fields, not bleak wintry ones.
Will the rejected, unemployed and redundant be deluded into thinking that the world is beautiful, a land of milk and honey, as they interact minimally in stripped-back care homes?
Theodor Adorno, the great German philosopher and cultural critic of the mid-20th century, observes in “Aesthetic Theory” how nature that has evaded human cultivation — Alpine moraines or moonscapes — resembles the unnatural forms of industrial waste mountains and is just as terrifying.
The original article contains 1,064 words, the summary contains 223 words. Saved 79%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I would rather be deluded to have escapism, I have always felt like reality is a prison to me and absolutely nothing has ever ruined my life quite like the abundance of anti-escapism in 2017. That, and I am a disabled person whose ability to socialize is further limited by a lack of nearby outlets for any sort of friendship. Screw reality, all I want is a future where my body doesn't need bread, only circuses, but I'll never have that so fuck all of you for telling me that wanting immortality is selfish even though I would make every effort to use such an advantage towards providing everyone with the same benefits and telling me I have to suffer in reality via Once Upon A Time, Twelve Forever, Gravity Falls, Inception, Undertale (or at least it's fandom), His Dark Materials, Ready Player One, the list goes on.
I am serious, anti-escapism was a godforsaken trend for years and combined with a quack psychiatrist whose medication drove me to insanity via 24/7 depression, it ruined my life (believe me, he was bad; I have a doctor's note from my current pschatrist that the medication the previous doctor prescribed was not recommended for someone with ASD and that his professional opinion was that he considered my previous psychiatrist's behavior to be medical malpractice, because the one I had been stuck with for years was unwilling to accept fault and provide one, and I had to move a long day's drive away just to get adequate mental health coverage from the Canadian medical system in another province).
I don't give a shit anymore. Let me escape. You can't tell me not to without going full 1984. You want the world to be better? I'm not stopping you but the moment you throw my "circus" of fiction that is unashamedly escapist out the window, I hate you all and I will have revenge. Whatever world you build next, dystopian or utopian? I will burn it to the fucking ground, and say "No. You took everything I cared about from me when I was so close to success, and my life is meaningless to me to the point I don't care whether I live or die even though I am psychiatrically stable. All I care about now is that I will take everything everyone else cares about from all of you. You will not get to say you told anyone so about a dystopia, you will not get to build a utopia, you will fucking starve to death. You can't just fix insanity with meds, it does permanent psychological damage, and so I will drive you all to insanity or death the moment you are this close to your ultimate goal. Enjoy knowing you created the Antichrist, all you fucking worthless over privileged, politically polarized, incompetent, shallowly opinionated, self-worshipping arrogant excuses for fuckwads. I will RUIN EVERYTHING FOR EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU.
