Symbolism, the Baroque, and Star Trek

When I was in grade 7 at a Catholic school in East Vancouver, my brother and I used to spend our summers at the Pacific National Exhibition. The family business at the time involved having a display at the PNE, and this came with certain perks, one of which was free unlimited passes to the fair. Consequently, we spent our time hanging out in the midway, figuring out how impossible it was to consistently beat the games of chance and get the giant stuffed bear. At the time we also couldn't figure out why anyone would want it. Later on we learned that this "game O' skill" was really all about the ritual of young men being able to impress their lady friends and gifting them the giant stuffed bear. The giant flourescent-pink stuffed bear had no intrinsic value except as a symbolic display for both parties. For him, his physical abilities as a hunter, or the equivalent in the Hyperreality of the PNE, which was wack-o-mole, or throwing rings onto bottles, or pitching balls into baskets. For madame, the semiotic symbolism of carrying a giant stuffed bear around was her announcement to the world that she had liaised with a strong hunter who could provide for her during the enormous period of parental indebtedness involved with human reproduction, thus she was "off limits" to any other hunter of giant flourescent-pink stuffed bears. In short, on a conscious or unconscious level, it was a form of communication.

The reason I mention semiotics, symbolism, ritual and the PNE is because during one rainy day in the 70's there was a show at the PNE which was a talk followed by a question and answer session with Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek. Star Trek, the original series, had been unceremoniously cancelled just a few years before due to lack of viewers. Even then, when all we had at home was a black and white television, I was a huge fan of the show, so I made it a point to get to the event early and get front row seats. I need not have bothered, since on that rainy afternoon, only a few dozen people showed up. Star Trek fever had not yet hit, and only a few devoted fans of the series were there, the first Trekies.

Gene was trying to drum up support and interest in his vision of the future, which despite what all the networks thought, he still believed had great potential. At this time, Leonard Nimoy (Spock) was doing other work in live theatre, and William Shatner was between jobs, living out of a mobile home.

Gene's vision of the future would eventually become our reality, cell phones would look like communicators, the iPhone would have many functions very much like a tricorder, and we would be able to interact with computers verbally, if we so desired. All of these developments were still far in the future, but Gene had his vision. After a brief talk Gene opened up the floor to questions, and I immediately put up my hand. "How do you know what a transporter, or a communicator, or a phaser sounds like?" I asked. "That's a very good question" said Roddenberry, "and I spent almost as much time on the sound effects of Star Trek than I did on the set design". He went on to explain that the sound of the transporter was actually the sound of an old 16mm projector from UCLA Berkley sped up and augmented with various distortion effects in the sound studio. Synthesizers were also something that were only just coming into their own in those days. "For something to feel real, a sound which feels right on an emotional level has to accompany the effect," he said, or something along those lines. Gene was a very wise man. This is what Gene had to say about religion:

"I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will - and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain."

The reason I mention all of this is that something quite extraordinary happened last night. I was walking home from dinner when I encountered this scene:

 

Highly dramatic, isn't it? No one can put on as emotional a show as the Catholics. It should be obvious why the Baroque caught on in such a strong way in Spain, and in some respects it has never left. The word "baroque" in fact, is a Spanish word derived from " barrueco", a large, irregularly-shaped pearl, and it was for a time confined to the craft of the jeweller. Like the term "Impressionism", "Baroque" was initially used with a derogatory meaning, to underline the excesses of its emphasis. In particular, the term was used to describe its eccentric redundancy and noisy abundance of details, which sharply contrasted the clear and sober Classical rationality of the Renaissance. The idea of intense emotion, drama, tension, and enormous emotional exuberance with an almost insane degree of ornamentation was perfectly suited to the Spanish national character: "this is what a procession should sound like, this is what it should look like. It's intense, yes. Do you have a problem with that?" For anyone raised in this environment, this is as perfectly normal as the sound of a transporter beaming up Captain Kirk from the surface of some distant planet, or the "shisshh" sound doors make when they magically slide open. To be able to undo hundreds of years of this "normal" would be difficult, and is something which will take generations. " Why, naturally hooded penitents walk down the street striking their walking staffs on the paving stones. How else would they process?" As is apparent, most of the participants are elderly, and one really wonders about the motivation of the younger people who are there. Largely, most people in Spain, except for the elderly, are only culturally Catholic; the idea of a personal God and his vast pantheon of minor gods, demi-gods, saints and angels is largely seen as a ridiculous man-made fabrication. However, unlike in North America, or other European countries, few people have the courage to state the obvious. The fact that outside of Christmas, Easter, weddings and funerals church attendance is very low and falling rapidly, should give some indication of the severity of the crisis the church is currently facing. Rituals such as this, however, are part of a culture, and will remain likely in perpetuity, no matter that none of the participants in the future will actually believe in the underlying mythology. As Umberto Eco has proposed, every cultural phenomenon can be studied from the perspective of communication. This assumes that the spectater understands the language of the communication. But in this secular age we live in, with most North Americans having essentially a tabula rasa knowledge or appreciation of culture and history, what is this spectacle communicating?

It's lovely, isn't it? It has a certain dark and sinister diabolical quality to it which I love... pure evil... I'm having a grand old time with it, and enjoying it immensely. Some might argue that if it makes people happy, what is the harm? The harm is that believing a lie is never better than believing the truth, no matter how unpleasant, regardless of what Yann Martel says. To quote George Bernard Shaw:"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality." In this ancient ritual, the Virgin Mary is paraded around the city, despite the fact that we are continuously told to worship Jesus, Christ, the Trinity; yet another remnant of ancient Europe's matriarchal pagan past: the Minoans, Etruscans, and the ancient Iberians would all be proud...

To pursue Umberto Eco's suggestion further, why not look at what this communicates in terms of popular culture? With the ominous and low brooding brass ensemble, it has a certain resemblance to "The Imperial March" from Star Wars:

 

The way we put faith in our technolgy is not so different from the faith people had in their Christian myths and the Lives of the Saints during the Middle Ages, or for that matter the irrational faith of many people today. It is comforting to know that Jesus is watching over me from above, or that Apple is taking care of the pictures I wirelessly upload to their heavenly realm in Cupertino, California.

Our Google, who art in cyberspace, hallowed be thy bandwidth. Thy gmail come, thy contacts be merged on your server as on my iPhone. Give us this day our daily appointments, and forgive us our hotmail address, as we forgive those who use Messenger, and lead us not unto the Blue Screen of Death, but deliver us from DOS, Amen

In the meantime, enjoy the spectacle, I certainly am ...