The Civilization of the Spectacle — Mario Vargas Llosa Review

I was in a deep reflection while reading The Civilization of the Spectacle of Mario Vargas Llosa. You see this author is one of those dinosaurs of our time. He is in his final years and still is providing us wisdom in regards to politics, freedom of speech, and beautiful creative novels that reflect our times.

In regards to the book, I must first mention the capacity that the author has to bring attention to the problems we face as a society. On this specific occasion, how culture has become mere entertainment for the masses. It distracts us from what is important of noticing in our times. It blinds us from what is going us in the world. Sometimes it even worsens the problems we already have in the world.

According to Mario Vargas Llosa, the truth is that in the times of our grandparents or even before, cultural channels such as literature were not just entertainment, it was a way to realize the problems in our society. It was a way to reflect upon matters such as slavering, injustices, dictatorships, rising problems of the culture, art criticism, and sex censorship (Which I will talk about in a bit).

1.- Culture as a pure entertainment

Here I want to touch on Literature and Streaming Series, which are the forms of entertainment I usually use.

Literature has become pure entertainment. Novels such as George Orwell, War and Peace, the Inquebrantables, and so many others, were made to make us reflect on those times, over their present. The novels from our time, the most sold ones are made to solve our boredom on the train or our flight layovers. For example, I love Harry Potter and I know that it’s targeted at younger audiences, and there is nothing wrong with these kinds of works. The problem is that if every author, driven by the sales, takes that formula of targeting easy audiences instead of more reflective audiences or combining some self-reflection in their works. Very few new authors come up with some thoughts of their own, they instead are driven by the same formulas that sell. No more War and Piece, or 1984 in our times and maybe there will never be novels of that quality ever again.

Streaming Services content is driven by what people want to see, not what they need to see. I experience this. I tend to binge-watch Netflix series that are entertaining. Although they do not make me reflect on the problems of society in general. I do not learn anything new. I feel like that makes me more selfish with the world. There is no dept, there is no critic, is creativity but made for entertaining not to make us feel uncomfortable with the world. The movies that teach us something, or wake us up with uncomfortable feelings are locked in independent festivals, where very few people that study those fields go. I am not saying that we need to like every independent movie out there, but at least we can demand better content. Netflix was so much better when it began. Nowadays, mandated by the algorithms, it produces what the population wants, which is most of the time, pure entertainment

Not contributing positively to the world in any way. I know we do not HAVE to worry about others’ problems as if this was an OBLIGATION, that is not the point, but rather being a zombie that turns the sight to the other way is the problem.

2.- Sex as porn, instead of eroticism

A clear example is porn. I am not talking about the hardcore pornographic productions that move 1 billion dollars a year, where child pornography is included. I am talking about the pornified society we have. The so-called freedom of speech has turned it into debauchery. That was not necessarily the kind of society our ancestors fought for. A society where the perfect and usually impossible body forms are the norm. Where the money can pay for sex at any time, under any circumstance, in any community regardless of ethnicity.

Instead of becoming a society open to sex education, we have become a society that learns sexuality from porn, from the industry that is directed by racist, classist, corrupted males. Moreover, this has become acceptable. The acceptance of the fertility of young women has gone so far that reached a point where it needs to be rewarded. For instance, tik tok and Instagram are full of young female models that earn ad revenue for showing their bodies. Thereafter strengthening the false belief that everyone should look like them, when in reality that is impossible.

I am not a religious person, nor a conservative old dinosaur. The problem is that eroticism has disappeared from the language of the people. Eroticism, involves mystery, a ritual, and what we call love is the result of all these ingredients of attraction, and seduction. Sex needs its privacy to get lost from the world around them and be present with the people in front of you. Isn’t that the point of sex? being lost in the arms of the other? It would lose all its magic if it’s exposed such as it does in the always available pornographic industry. Again I am talking about what we see in movies, in magazines, and the media in general.

Porn, the real porn, the one managed by perverts, is just a result of what we have come to agree upon, that sex is a mere diversion, a mere entertainment, an exercise of the human body, and that it needs to be a certain way, maybe though, rude, bordering the line of rape. That it needs to be racist, perverted, out of the reality, without seduction, just straight away fornication.

I think sex is much more than that. Is a way to connect with the other person at a spiritual level, to try to cultivate a feeling that very few people feel, love. A word that seems to be fading away from our culture, even from Hollywood.

3.- Music is a reflection of the culture of the consumer, fast and ephemeris

I am not saying that we all need to listen to Mozart or Bagner, composers that reflected in their music the trends of the society they lived in. I am not saying too that we need to ban Trap, Pop, or what is very trendy, Reggaeton in Latin America. I am a musician. I must admit that in the past I would deliberately judge everything trendy, and popular, with the only argument that I did not like it. I was the all-mighty judge of the good music. I was so wrong, with time I realized the beauty in all kinds of genres. Although, it doesn’t mean that I like all genres but I respect the genres I dont like.

The problem resides where all the audience is drawn by it, leaving very little or nonexistent space to the artists that do something different. We are governed by algorithms. You dont need to know about programming or being a genius to realize that. Society is accepting more and more the fact that we are governed by algorithms in social media, video streaming, and of course music. The average time of attention to all these media channels has decreased. Rares are the hits on Spotify that are more than 3 min long. Some decades ago we used to have jams of jazz of 20 min, and rock instrumentalist songs that lasted more than 10 minutes because they were telling a history. Nowadays electronic music is among the genre mostly listened to on Spotify giving us a clue where the music is going. People want to party, and nothing else, period.

Something that attracted my attention is the new genre of music on the internet, the LOFI. A genre that was born on the internet, and has become very popular. What attracts my attention is that this genre evokes melodies of the past. It has a short period and a very simple rhythm. I have read some analysis of this genre and would seem like we as listeners are moving into a relationship where music is a companionship to study or work, not really for appreciating and giving our attention 100%. We just want something to be listened to meanwhile we keep doing our endeavors. That is one of the reasons why concerts are not happening as often as before, or the desire for starting bands is less and less each year.

Regardless, I still have some hope that music is cyclical, and passes through times where is not appreciated enough, and there are times where it comes back with strength, either to make us reflect upon ourselves, or surprise us with its complexity.

4.- Politics as a reality show

Donald Trump is a clear example that we prefer bullies and scandals rather than leaders that would guide us in the right direction. We are more interested in the corruption scandals of the celebrities than their accomplishments, their beliefs, and their values. Maybe we dont have as many dictators nowadays as we used to have in the past but we have now tv stars taking decisions for millions of people. I am not diminishing the roles of people not involved in politics professionally, but the problem is that we elect people that do not have experience in the field.

Twitter is a clear example of what I mean. We tend to even celebrate dumb and short statements than an argument. Twitter has replaced a good speech, period. We live in a society that constantly watches reality shows on the news. Little do we care about third-world countries’ struggles, world war threads, pandemics, and environmental issues. We laugh and applaud that the politicians yell at each other on Twitter. Not just political leaders, but also big tech giants. Elon Musk has become an example of a person with the necessary power to manipulate the crypto market.

There will be a point where we miss the past, where people would gather together under the same goal, the same cause. Democracy was a way to stop dictators, to bring masses into an agreement.

Nowadays seems that everything is polarized, you are either extremely right or left, with nothing in between, and if you are not on the extremes, people will not listen to you. Thereafter solutions that would benefit us all, would stay silenced, hidden in the dark, in the middle of disagreements, and no action

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In conclusion, we live in a Spectacle, a mere spectacle of our destruction. I love Mario Vargas Llosa despite my disagreements with some of these ideas in conferences. I like his works because they are deep, and he plays with his demons, he accepts our flaws and he acknowledges that we will never be perfect. Although his concern and also mine is that we are going from a point of improvement to severe decay in the future.