Making Sense of our Irrational Tendencies
June 23, 2012 Blog Daniel Swanson
Living in contemporary British society one might consider the way we go about our business a touch too cautious. The health and safety procedures, red tape and bureaucracy this country breeds can at times stagnate the produce of an otherwise efficient, well-ran nation. But we haven’t always been so ‘controlled’.
Take Bon-fire night for example. Last November 5th I attended Heaton Park, Manchester. On arrival we passed through stewarded gates where bags were searched for the sole reason to check we had no drugs, alcohol or anything that was sold on site. This was followed by an impressive fireworks display and a bon-fire, then a few overly priced rides in the funfair. However, going back decades and centuries these rituals were not distributed with such formalities but held within the family and closed communities. It as cultural criminologist Mike Presdee describes;
“Whereas once as participants we felt close to the force of the fire and destruction, so now we are distanced as mere spectators. Once it was a night of transgression, danger and disorder but now it is commercially sponsored, regulated and ordered.”
In rituals that emit such notions of destruction we identify the humanistic need for excess and disorder as the seasons change, what can be described as a ‘second life’ away from the rationality of everyday life.
So what is to blame for this shift? It is hard to identify exactly where the change began as those in authority have always tried to maintain control over these types of behaviours, but the blame appears to lie with many facets of the very system of capitalism (This is a mere observation not a call to bring down the state). You only have to look as far as Christmas to see it’s dominance over the rituals that define us as a people – we would probably forget the time of year if the adverts didn’t tell us. The demands and pressures to spend and consume over Christmas and New Year is second to none, the excess in no question, but where in post-modern life do we gain satisfaction that the essence of a ‘second life’ demands?
Many use alcohol and drugs in the sociable confides of pubs and dance halls across urban city centres to escape the mundaneness of everyday reality. Far removed from the protocols of normality, the possibility for excitement and violence is heightened in these environments. As Lovatt and O’Connor suggest;
“In many ways the night-time of cities could represent the possibility of the permanent festival–the revels of the night.”
This would imply that the ‘second life’ is now a constant and more controlled than ever through law and policy. But this is not the only place carnival behaviour appears in post-modern society.
Going back to Presdee, he argued it is increasingly cropping up in everyday life and entertainment. Take the Internet; sites like Chatroulette facilitate unparalleled amounts of nudity and transgressed behaviour under anonymous identities. Or take ‘reality’ entertainment; shows like The Jeremy Kyle Show allow us to innocently sit in the privacy of our own homes consuming the humiliation, enjoying the disgust at what we see.
Making sense of post-modern life is the difficult job of sociologists and the complexities are harder to grasp than in any other time period, but the perspective of this article helps place our most irrational tendencies in context. The increasing demand for excitement can be understood as the result of the oppressive structural build up of post-modern life, but I best understand it through the lyrical genius of The Streets’ ‘Original Pirate Material’.
