If not for Nietzche

There is something mysterious about cinema that features drugs, a clinging hopelessness that refuses to let go even after breakfast at 8 in the morning and some good music thereafter. Self styled aversions to intoxication doesn’t last long, does it? At some point, the absence of a purpose gets to you. Even if Nietzche hadn’t existed, or had existed but not propounded what he did propound, the individuality we so blindly seek to establish encounters a core of nothingness within ourselves, something that the society we belong to seems to have engulfed. Or has it? Who we are, and what we do, is what makes us. We sustain some sort of an individuality, and many of us do it in different ways, it becomes an identity. An identity can’t be so easily damaged. It can be tarnished, but not obliterated. An identity is a memory. But individuality is so dynamic – we develop one while keeping in mind that it is subject to change, and we seek to perfect it unto a Utopic model. When we delve deep into ourselves and sense that there is no purpose, and that everything that happens around us is an effect of just our being, that is self-realisation. We find that a self does not exist, for if it did, then it must show. Something that never shows, that never comes to being, is as good as being dead. 

I knew I shouldn’t have watched ‘Rules Of Attraction’ the first thing in the morning. The pain and the suffering so unwillingly inflicted on each character is impinged in my head, and the last thing I want to do now is sleep. I am scared that they will show up in my dreams, and I don’t want to ruin sleep, my last refuge, thinking of such hopelessness.

If not for Nietzche, someone would have hit upon the idea. It’s inevitable.

Ars Artis Gratia

The definition of art, to me, would be something of an abstraction. I have never been able to define art for what it is. When i call writing an art, it has become an art only after i have put it down, and so, writing as an art form in itself didn’t exist till then. Is everything so? We like to call those things art which we find that we ourselves are proficient in. We cannot simply come to terms with the fact that art forms which we don not know of do not exist. Frankly, i am ashamed by this, and when i say i’m ashamed, i would like to think of myself as speaking of this world of men and women who practice what they think are arts. An art is which is for the sake of art. The paintings we draw and the stories we write are not truly beautiful and deserving of an absolute praise when they are being manufactured in our minds solely for the money. I agree that money is an incentive, but today, money itself seems to be the end. We begin with money in our mind, we permit money to influence our decisions, and we permit money to give our creations away. There is no sense of belonging that can ever come to be established between we, the creators, and them, our creations. That, in my opinion, is the essence of materialism. The reason we think god cannot exist is money. Furthermore, money itself being the creation of a materialistic individual, is it true then that materialism is an absolute truth? Perhaps, for it is very hard to disagree. By the very definition of god, a supreme force that created us and everything around us, divinity and materialism are mutually exclusive. According to me, those are the two absolute factions that dominate every conceived principle on this planet. I’m not talking about science, and how philosophy guards its boundaries, and nor am i talking about godliness itself, and how philosophy prevents its wrath from engulfing science. I am talking about art for the sake of art, and how a simple and seemingly trivial clash between our materialistic tendencies and our creatively driven actions results in a question of cosmic proportions. Can art for the sake of art exist? In my opinion, we will never know. All that we know is the product of money, and since money has come to define what we believe in and what we deny, money itself is our god. The capitalist economy is the temple, and the capitalist is the priest. Take, for example, our history. Everything we know about the past is a product of money. How? The historians we believe are paid for by money, the tools they employ are purchased by money, the books they write are a product of money, the TV shows they appear in are a product of money, the reason they are willing to work day after day after day is money. The sorrow in all of this lies in the fact that the dreams they harbor are the only representatives of their innate humanity. The purposes that get us started in our journeys, the spirit that keeps us from breaking, the resilience that denies us the way back, the aspirations that keep our destination in sight no matter how far they are – these are the only elements that are left of humans, and but everything else is money. To have allowed such meaningful and pure emotions to be dominated by money is itself a sin, for i believe that if there does exist a god who created us, then he created us not for this willful surrender we have brought upon ourselves and our children. At the same time, he created us naught for the intentions, for they are our own, and thus, the refusal to believe in this god (an intention, is it not?) is a self-denial we choose to impose upon ourselves just so we remain, for the days to come, secluded, quarantined, away from the sins of our past. This remnant, this covenant between who we were and who we are, is the one thing that is moving mankind as a whole in the forward direction; it is the one indication that we despise this money and love that dream. It is the one wave that we believe will yet reach the shore, bearing along the message in a bottle, for our children and grandchildren to read and believe and hope.

Growing Up With A Philosophy

(Just play the music and read this post. What I’ve written has nothing to do with the ad!)

People are always thinking about something or the other irrespective of whether what they are thinking about has any use for them. And thinking is never wrong – people will always be worried about somethings that they cannot comprehend, sense or expect. And they will need to figure out for themselves whether the decisions they will be making are right, wrong or justified. However, something that could be wrong is enforcing your ideas on someone else.

For example, when among a group of people, someone, say ‘Mike’, thinks of something right and good for all of them to do together as part of an objective that they’ve all been set. If Mike is able to convince himself that what he thinks is right, he will also begin to believe that those around him can be convinced as well. When everyone conforms to the same idea and expectations, Mike will feel as though he has a security blanket of sorts around him: since everyone’s behaviour can now be predicted as all of them are working towards the same goal, the uncertainties are eliminated in the possibilities that might crop up. And that is the blanket people will always like, the blanket of changelessness, the blanket that resists all entropy. As much as I say these things again and again, I’m not fond of change either. Change disrupts the balance we’ve all worked so hard to set up. Change portends growth, but change also bodes aging. Like the kid says in ‘The Last King Of Scotland‘, being afraid of death doesn’t have to mean cowardice: it could also mean you’re afraid of giving up a life you’ve worked so hard for.

Let’s get back to the point. That’s what control is all about: being able to predict, being able to stand comfortably in the face of a crisis. And that is why people think, and that is why people enforce. Objectively thinking, they cannot be blamed for it because it is an inherent component of humaneness. I’m sure even I would behave like that, but I’m also sure the person at the receiving end of it all won’t feel nice about it. People resisting such enforcement could be because of either of two possibilities: 1. they want their own ideas to be as dominating, or 2. they don’t want to be the people who seem capable of giving others second chances all the time. For, as much as they are giving their best to make their lives seem wholesome, adopting someone else‘s ideas makes them feel as though someone else is getting an unfair chance to live his or her life a second time through the decisions made by them but not influenced by them.

Growing up with a philosophy is something similar. Instead of learning for oneself about the different aspects of one’s life through experiences alone – the best teachers – some, like me, have grown to accept some things for what they are. I take some principles for granted, those principles that others around me would have learnt by experience. My behaviour will be different. And I will stand out not just because of the difference: I will also stand out because that difference became conspicuous in me earlier or later in life than those other people. And that is what makes philosophy an undesirable (rather, unconventional?) part of a person growing into his adult years. Twenty years down the line, I’m sure all us 20 year-olds will be similarly thinking people, but the path to that point is what makes the difference more than anything else. Makes a difference in what? A difference observed in the deductions made from similar phenomena: I will think like you, but I won’t decide the same things as you.

I don’t know if growing up with a philosophy is good or not. I don’t know if philosophical concepts themselves are to be inculcated through experiences. That is something weird about them, I would say. Philosophy is like the mind in that the mind can be perceived to exist if and only if the mind itself exists. It is the only element that understands and recognises itself. Philosophies may dictate or explain the behaviour of everything in the universe, but what dictates the future of a philosophy itself is a mystery. Only if something happens can a philosophy rear its head. It cannot exist in inaction. And if one were to face this fact earlier in life, taking to a philosophy only seems more meaningful. In all the decisions that we come to make, none seem more precarious than the ones about which we have no information. If I can convince myself that, say, existential nihilism is the path of today’s society, then no decision is as precarious any more: I have information, I have predictability, I have an edge. And that is the goal of thought: it is not to explain, but to justify.

Nietzche & The Vedas: The Contradiction Trap

You all know of Friedrich Nietzche, of course, as the founder of the nihilistic basis of thought. The Vedas are ancient texts which were written some 4,000 years ago by Indian sages. Although it was passed down orally from generation to generation, Vyasadeva, the manifested literary incarnation of God (Hinduism), was insipired by their profound wisdom and pit them down in the form of Srimad Bhagavatam. Now, the Bhagavatam consists of many different chapters grouped as cantos, and each chapter deals a specific element of either the Supreme Being, the Universe, Nature, or man. A recurring phrase throughout the books is that of the ‘Absolute Truth’, a reference to pure Krishna consciousness, the ultimate realisation that stems from completely understanding the world.

My father had all the 18 volumes of the text, and when we shifted out residence from Chennai (India) to Uppsala (Sweden), we had to separate the set into those books which we could afford to carry (or wanted to finish reading) and those that could be left behind. I think only two or three books made it that way. One among them, the Twelfth Canto, caught my eye. It dealt with the annihilation of false egos and the glaring mistakes and faults of the Kali yuga which would lead to the downfall of mankind in the Great Flood. Here is a line from the canto (in Sanskrit):

na hi sathyasya naanaathvam|
avidhvaan yadhi manyathe||
naanaathvam chidhrayor yadhvaj|
jyothishor vaathayor iva||

It translates as:

“There is no material duality in the absolute truth. The duality perceived by an ignorant person is like the difference between the sky contained in an empty pot and the sky outside the pot, or the difference between the reflection of the sun in water and the sun itself in the sky, or the difference between the vital air within one living body and that within another body.“

The duality mentioned, if you will observe, is a relative duality. Vyasa says the duality is restricted to materialism, which is also false and illusory. When you perceive an object, the perception assumes meaning when you can observe the effect of the object in its environs. For example, you can know the saturating power of water only when you see and feel a damp cloth or sponge. You can understand the burning power of fire only you feel the heat or when you see ashes. Therefore, the duality in materialism simplifies to the duality of cause and effect. Yet again, the effect of a phenomenon deserves perception only when the cause is perceptible, and there can be no effect if there was no cause. But, as per our earlier argument, the cause itself is realised through but the effect it has come to give birth to. Does this mean the cause and effect of any event are relative to each other? Yes, it does.

Duality?

A: The fire is burning.

B: How do you know?

C: You can feel the heat.

A – cause; C – effect

____________________

A: The fire is burning.

B: How do you know?

C: Why? Don’t you feel the heat?

D: No.

E: Then, it is not fire but something else.

If you were to deductively continue along these lines, you will observe that materialism is proven to be false and illusory. The Vedas decry it, and uphold its defeat in the search for the truth. Everything that has a beginning will have an end, and everything with a beginning and an end will beguile cause and effect, and therefore must be shunned from the self. For example, the cycle of life and death culminates in the attainment of Moksha, or deliverance, and through the deliverance, man attains Heaven. Therefore, the cycle of life and death, in this case, becomes an illusion, and everything contained within dissolves into a tiny atom of the Absolute Truth.

Now, Friedrich Nietzche’s arguments are also along the same lines, although he also furtively discarded the concept of God Himself. Nietzche argues that objective morality does not exist in this world, thereby diffusing the values of objective morals with which to prefer one action over the other. Therefore, even if a God exists, humans have no obligation to worship them. The following is a famous quote by Nietzche.

“To the clean are all things clean’ — thus say the people. I, however, say unto you: To the swine all things become swinish! Therefore preach the visionaries and bowed-heads (whose hearts are also bowed down): ‘The world itself is a filthy monster.’ For these are all unclean spirits; especially those, however, who have no peace or rest, unless they see the world FROM THE BACKSIDE — the backworldsmen! TO THOSE do I say it to the face, although it sound unpleasantly: the world resembleth man, in that it hath a backside, — SO MUCH is true! There is in the world much filth: SO MUCH is true! But the world itself is not therefore a filthy monster!“

The relativism established in perception by Nietzche is unmistakable. “To the clean all things are clean; to the swine, all things become swinish!” – a statement that purports the perceptional reflectivism, a relativism on its own, that becomes clear when the Vedas are taken up as reference. Although the Vedas assume a Supreme Being in order to quantify the cause, they give the Supreme Being no end – fortifying the effectlessness of the cause. Therefore, the Supreme Being is no illusion and exists. However, this is an argument wherein the posteriori argument and the priori justification resemble the head and tail of Kekule’s snake!

Anyway, Nietzche’s nihilism seems to have been borrowed from the Vedas with a few aspects removed. Either which way, the absence of a moral absolute as put forth by both sources is the same: the Vedas argue for no such thing, but by condemning materialism the morals established thus also find themselves set aside. Our search for an absolute being is vain. We are trapped in our own contradictions: we live in a materialistic world, we define our own morals. The absolute we look for can not manifest in such an environment wherein the Creation, a part of the Absolute Truth, dwells, for the reaches of our argument only span something that does not exist. “To the clean all things are clean“. The only truth is the self when everything perceived by the self and everything understood by the self is a reflection of the self again. I am because I am. There is no disputing that. The fire is fire to me if I am me while the fire is: I have to be consciously aware of the self while I touch the fire, and if it is hot, then I describe the fire as ‘hot’ while taking for granted that I am me. Everything else is there because I am. I am the cause. I am the effect because I perceive it and make it seem real.

Except, of course, love failures!

The World Is Dead

The mornings, like any natural phenomena, are promising. They beckon me unto living the new day, to giving myself one more chance to redeem my infinite yesterday, and also to give myself hope as to the dawning of a newer tomorrow. The daylight streams through the cotton curtains, and the warmth of the new sun can be felt on my feet. I wake up. After freshening up, I sit down with some coffee and a newspaper – you know, the usual. That’s when things change. The newspaper doesn’t contain even one piece of good information. Terrorist attacks: Page 1; Political schisms: Page 2;  Viral outbreaks: Page 3; Economic recession: Page 4. The paper can’t be blamed, we must be. No pieces of good news on the news channels on the TV either. Is the world dead? Have we reached a point wherein we have become incapable of sustaining ourselves just by our history, but need the blood of our brothers and sisters to keep breathing? As history caught up with us? Perhaps this is the beginning of the nihilism of Nietzche. Perhaps this is how societies will fall in the face of a chain of crises. As mankind recedes into itself looking for better answers to the questions of one’s identity, the society around them crumbles for loss of a representation that keeps it in place. Philosophers sit in their chairs satisfied with questioning all their lives, for even if they were to be answered, they would question the answers themselves again. Think about it. How long has it been since you saw something good splashed over the first page of your newspaper? Except for sporting events, no socio-political scenario has been the cause to effect such emotions.

I don’t know what brought us here. I don’t know if the solution lies in rectifying the actions of the state or those of the society, if rectifying it is at all. The role of the state has grown in the recent years and its increasing involvement in the activities and functions of the state can’t be disputed. What with globalisation, and the concept of  ‘One World’ and oligarchic governance, more and more people are influenced by the decisions made by one single government anywhere on the atlas. If  a banking giant’s big boss spirals into madness, the stock market wobbles in the USA, almost collapses in Asia, people lose their jobs, spending patterns change in a micro-economic window, and the people of that section of the society see themselves looking at an altered future. These aspects of business are inevitable, I know, but ever since the dawn of 2000, countries have become answerable to a greater number of people, citizen, non-residentials, and people ‘investing in the future of the country’. I don’t know what that means, and I don’t want to. What I am saying is, in trying to develop the conditions in which we live in, we must not come to neglect our moral obligations and the duties that we are endowed with from birth. If I am to stand answerable for my actions and someone else’s as well, I will agree only to stand answerable for my actions. The self must come before anything, but only in a way that does not restrict goodwill. If there is anything that can be done by someone, then that someone must do it; not you or me. It is a perfectly binary world: either yes or no. The influx of probability and chance is what changes things and makes people indecisive as to the conclusion of the happenings around them. It makes life more predictable in those areas in which you should know what is going to happen. And that is always good; there are a lot of other aspects of the living that remain unpredictable, and those are the ones that should be so. 

We have commoditised our lives to such an extent that our priorities are blurred. We give undue importance to some things that will happen anyway, and in getting to hide behind the excuse of partaking in the happening of such events, we slowly ignore the truth that is our future. It is never too late, but I don’t think I need to say that: everyone knows it’s out there. They just need to know that it is true.      

Why I Like The Nights More

This is a song I like very much because of the way it has been sung and also because of A R Rahman’s incomparable music holding it up from being being bland or monotonous. The beats are not too intense, and fall in the right places, making the song feel more even and, if possible, plaited like the hair of angels: it seems to flow is what I’m trying to say here. To those who don’t speak Tamil, the language in which the song has been sung, the song is about the flowers of the Margazhi month of the Tamil lunar calendar. The picturisation, you will agree, is also also very natural and almost implores and convinces you to take a walk in the morning mists of Yercaud or Kodaikanal, if possible. I always listen to this song before going to sleep; it has this soothing feel that gives me sleep faster than if I were to crash on my bed on a hard day’s night. It’s from the movie ‘May Madham’ (The Month of May).

So, why do I like the nights more? And why did I place this song here? Here’s why. This song has this touch of perfection to it, as though its sounds were crafted from the water of a lost spring, the mists of a cold night and the light of a new sun. It is as though nature is unabashedly dancing in its own and deserved glory as we all sleep. Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and looked out of your window? I have, and outside my window is the desert. The silence is overwhelming, as if all life has gone to sleep. There is no light pollution as it were, just the moon to brighten the place up with its pale rays of reflected light.

சுகந்திர வானில் பறந்ததும் இல்லை
சுட சுட மழையில் நனைந்ததும் இல்லை
The night is one piece. There is no daylight to break it down into the artificiality the world around us is, the fragmentations that it bears as a mark of our presence on it. The night is as if all life has coalesced into one form, that of silence, and as if there has been a unanimous decision to, for once, look upon nature as it should have been. Of course, this is close to impossible in cities. But haven’t you ever wanted to gaze upon the world as it could have been if man hadn’t been born? There is an inspiring naturality to it. There is no light, only the pale glow of the moon; there is no sound, only the occasional chirp of a cricket; there is no animal or bird to be seen, only the distant defiance that is the highway. I am a man of science, and also a God-fearing individual, but I get these pangs of Paganism that come as they wish and seldom leave quick.

The night not only allows for me to look upon these sights, but also keeps me awake and guessing as to what would happen next: does nature have a secret? Does Mother Earth come out at night and caress the distressed lives to sleep? What happens? The night is a cloak! A magical cloak, and it shields from sight any secrets that must be kept by those who wield it. Sight is man’s one most powerful sense, and blindness is his one most fundamental fear. When the night comes, man goes home and sleeps. He does not wish to come out and work. He does not trust his family to do so, and he awakens and trusts and walks only when the sun comes out again. The light is a form of blessing I agree, but only because we can see and be ourselves. This could be as life for man should be, but this light also imparts this selfishness. We wreak havoc during the morn, and let things to rot as we sleep soundly in our beds in the night. I may be arguing sans a meaning here, but I do not care! If I see this as this, perhaps there is someone else also who sees the night for what it is: a time to heal, and to be yourself again as you should have been.

Inhibiting Infinity

Mankind. Mortality. Birth. Death. Living. Power. Freedom. Individuality. Identity. These nine elements characterize the aspects of living of every man and woman on this earth. Mankind as such guides us through life, imbuing in us the values and morals in order to make those decisions that require it. Mortality is a confine within we are destined to remain, and our rise or fall happens within its four walls. Birth and death are significant philosophical and religious aspects that govern our way of thinking and in the formation of a philosophy for the living. Power happens to be man’s ultimate desire: going beyond the need for human companionship, the skill to command it at will draws us more. Freedom is the necessity to force such megalomaniac individuals to relinquish control, and only with freedom can one’s individuality be explored and one’s identity realised. Everything that happens around us, whether as a consequence of our actions or as a subsequence that impacts us through the actions of others, can be attributed to many of these elements. Even the concept of God, and godliness, finds its roots in them. By trying to reach for the absolute, in whatsoever form it is in, we have have begun our journey in realising who we are and what our purpose is. But by believing a God to be existent, we have established the limits of our own capabilities. Man cannot be God. If man is God, then man is not man anymore. And when you put this reasoning into action, you give up on something which may have truly deserved, in favour of the temporary contentment you come to have with what is already in your grasp. When someone says “too much of power or too much of success is not good”, I am prompted to think why not. God exists only in our beliefs, and beyond that superset, nothing can be proved right or wrong because of what we perceive. Even though one might argue that God is a conception of what is beyond our sensibility, God then invariably constructs the limited universe for us. Mankind, in trying to define infinity, has committed a folly in trying to quantify it as well. Infinity, if left to itself, does not seek to limit our reaches, but in placing an almighty entity as the being that quantifies the unquantifiable, we have locked ourselves into finite realms. Why shouldn’t too much of success be good for anyone? Is it that, then, he or she denies a God His stance? Or is it that he or she will then try to breach our limitations as we know them? The traits to misuse it are, however, imbued in our blood. When you don’t want to deny a lion its meat even when in a zoo, you must also know that man is an animal and deserves to be a non-vegetarian just because he exists! It is as nature intended it. By denying ourselves the opportunity to indulge in our exploits, we are inhibiting evolution as it should be. To cut a long story short: God inspires nihilism.

The Wraith

Broken unity like a limp goat
Under a cloud of black confetti
Compromise for an empty road
Welcome to the same society

The pigeons of our second thought lost!

Black crows crowd the night sky
Blinded by darkness but high, high, high

Frailty with a fourth leg by day
Night is when you shall always die
There’s nothing to do or to say
Under six feet of earth you’ll lie

No sense of compassion for the first light!

Mere dreams lost in sarcasm and humor
Nights grow longer and sunlight, lesser

Crescendo pushing you to climax
Eclipses rock your changes
You won’t find any time to relax
Commodifying money for wages

Fall at my feet lest I punish you!

Child, despair not in chaotic humanity
I’m the wraith, I’m your same society

Societies, Subcultures & Sadism

Of late, I have lost quite a bit of my mental peace around people my own age and for once, wish that I was in the presence of someone much older than ourselves, someone who could understand what I was trying to say even before I had finished the first line. So, last night, I went to bed early and decided to watch a movie – not any movie, but those belonging to the tragedy/tragicomedy/dark comedy genre. I was going through the LAN hub for quite some time before I settled with ‘American Beauty’. I’ve already seen the movie some three times, but decided to see it again anyway because of the way I was totally in peace with myself in its presence. I don’t know why I feel like that. Perhaps it is the way I don’t stand out when I am with a group of other people who have their own problems to worry about. There is enough going on within me that people find “freakish” to appreciate and leave me alone for. And that is when I find solace in some few people who know how to behave in such circumstances: simply put, leaving me alone. ‘American Beauty’ doesn’t stand alone in its projection of a tragic society; following up are ‘Sweeney Todd’, ‘Moulin Rouge’ (not as much for the tragedy of the contemporary society that refuses to subside as for the tragedy in a fictional story), and ‘Reservoir Dogs’ (for its fast-paced locomotion into an inevitable end – when you can actually sit in your seat and pick out some subtle moments in between blood and gore when you know what’s going on inside each one of their heads). Well, I don’t know if I am making any sense in this post. I have never seen my blog as a way to give vent to my feelings (I have living people for that, luckily [:P]), but this time, there seems to be something wrong with more than someone like myself. When I am dejected or depressed, I blame some actions of mine and then work on them to let myself know that everything will be fine. But when I am not able to blame those events, because of which I’m sad, on my actions, then where else would I look? Does sadism still subconsciously persist in our midst? Dickensian wardens in the Victorian era stood out because of their obvious and out-and-loud actions for which they proudly took responsibility for. But in a society that feebly protests, but equally steadfastly so, that an Utopian era is never out of reach, we as people belonging to that society fail to realise that it is our actions in the many seconds of our life that determine whether or not we are building castles in the air for our children. When I am in sorrow and when I am not able to account for it completely, it only saddens me that people still find it in them, even if accidentally so, to behave in imperfect manners. And now is when I understand the true meaning of nihilism as preached by Nietzche.

Looking at Ricky Fitts talk while the video of the flying plastic bag was running on the screen, I was led to think the normality a society was trying to define minute after minute was only being pulled away from humanity as it should be. The law has, by and large, eradicated the number of criminals outside, but like Gandalf says in ‘Lord of the Rings’, “Some of those who are dead deserve to live, and some of those who live deserve death. Can you give it to them?” (I don’t know the exact lines, but that should be it). In trying to redefine a large section of the society using an unchanging set of statements, the state in the form of the law it has scripted has neglected that small portion of hearts and minds that only act out of innocence and in ways they think is right, and for all probability, is right absolutely. Amidst all this junk that I think I’m writing, I find myself rewinding to point 1:01:55 in the film. The simplicity in trying to elaborate on a single feeling of exasperation and joy, distress and elation at the same time, Wes Bentley’s characterisation manages to covey whatever is to be conveyed by abstaining from any literary jargon people like I myself sink into when we think we are possessed with something. I will never forget that scene, even though I may forget the monologue in it. The flying plastic bag that inspired Alan Ball to make AB as a movie is the same flying plastic bag that will remind me that simplicity is lost, only to have been replaced by a subculture on which blame cannot be laid for the sole reason that perfection has been subconsciously misunderstood to stand for a relative term.