Enabling symbolism, aesthetics, and otherwise

Time for a Remedial Global Nuclear War? (Part #12)

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Enabling metaphors? Arguably there is a sense through which the military metaphors associated with development processes suggest that development discourse already places global society on a war footing inviting further manipulation (Enhancing Sustainable Development Strategies through Avoidance of Military Metaphors, 1998; Jim Glassman, Drums of War, Drums of Development: the formation of a Pacific ruling class and industrial transformation in East and Southeast Asia, 1945-1980, 2018).

As part of any grooming process, there is clearly the possibility of developing relevant collective metaphors, as an extension of those enabling individual death (Metaphors To Die By: correspondences between a collapsing civilization, culture or group, and a dying person, 2013).

Given the framing offered by Dr Strangelove, as noted above, it is appropriate to note that Stanley Kubrick, as director of the film, subsequently acknowledged its sexual connotations -- from intromission (the planes going in) to the last spasm (the ride down on the bomb and detonation at target). (Alison Castle,  The Stanley Kubrick Archives, 2008, p. 359). A remedial nuclear war invites further development of such insights, perhaps recognizing that MAP (as a pact) is fundamentally a sexual contract -- a "Geneva convention" between opposing parties understood otherwise. Perhaps from fission to fusion as modelled by genetic coiling (Planetary Impalement by Stakeholder Capitalism? 2023; DNA Supercoiling as a Pattern for Understanding Psycho-social Twistedness, 2004).

Of potential relevance to any reframing of the "death of civilization" is the extensive research interest in "near-death experiences" of individuals. This frames the question as to the nature of a "near-death experience" of collectivities and especially of a civilization. Could remedial nuclear war be understood as offering a collective an experience of that nature?

Aesthetic symbolism? Particular attention has been given to the aesthetics of dying (Sushila Blackman, Graceful Exits -- How Great Beings Die: death stories of Tibetan, Hindu and Zen Masters, 1997; Harold Bloom, Till I End My Song: a gathering of last poems, 2010). This is especially evident in the death poems crafted by monks in the Zen tradition (Yoel Hoffmann, Japanese Death Poems: written by Zen monks and Haiku poets on the verge of death, 1986). A renowned poetic reflection is offered by John Keats in his Ode to a Nightingale.

Considerable importance is attached to celebrating past conflicts through memorials -- although those commemorating massacres are less frequent and more selective, as noted separately (Towards Inclusive Multi-Massacre Memorials to Victims of Conflict, 2022).

Ironically, given the above argument, there is a case for developing "anticipatory memorials" to the catastrophic future demise of the current civilization. The iconic role of the Guernica painting by Pablo Picasso is suggestive in this respect, as argued separately (Reimagining Guernica to Engage the Antitheses of a Cancel Culture, 2022). This explored the possibility of rendering coherent the surreal nature of the engendering condition of catastrophe as a hyperobject.

From an architectural perspective, what might be constructed to survive a global nuclear holocaust and embody the remarkable features of the current civilization? The construction of Mayapan toward the end of the remarkable Mayan civilization could be seen as an example. In its ruins archaeologists now reconstruct the forces that destroyed it, as noted by Tatiana Proskouriakoff (The Death of a Civilization, Scientific American, 1 May 1955).

The aesthetic "evocation" of civilizational decline can be presented as follows:

If the creations of great artists reveal the underlying psychological and spiritual atmosphere of the times, then an honest survey of modern art must lead one to consider the possibility that modern civilization is suffering from a spiritual sickness – a deep existential loneliness, an eruption of the demonic, a negation of human nature and a fragmentation of the human form, a celebration of chaos – and thus perhaps, even a "sickness unto death". (Modern Art and the decline of Civilization, Academy of Ideas, 13 March 2023)

Evoking poignancy and nostalgia -- through flowers? Curiously flowers play a considerable role in the process of dying, whether to reframe the environment of hospice and intensive care, as wreaths at any funeral, on gravestones, or in memorial gardens. Also curious is their importance in the decoration of conference rooms in which governance of the world is deliberated -- with the nostalgic evocation of "what might have been".

Their use is characteristic of memorials to deaths in the past -- especially on a large scale. This is exemplified by Remembrance Day, otherwise known as Poppy Day, in poignant commemoration of the fallen of World War I -- and variously adapted to those of World War II.

A remarkably insightful study of the role of flowers in relation to war is provided by Ann Elias (War and the Visual Language of Flowers: an antipodean perspective, War, Literature and the Arts, 20, 2008). This explores the poppy as an emotive symbol, an example of significance and symbolism of floral imagery to the war imagination. It notes the incongruity of flowers -- which popularly signify innocence and beauty -- within military contexts. Elias specifically remarks on the philosophical study of the significance of flowers by Claudette Sartiliot (Herbarium Verbarium: the discourse of flowers, 1993):

... it is in their nature to embody double meanings, since flowers are male and female in one, and when cut they become mobile metaphors that do not denote any fixed identity. In war imagery they oscillate between the beautiful and the ugly, the masculine and the feminine, death and love, and the transcendent as well as the abject. They are simultaneously symbols of grief for the slain, and symbols of hope about life's renewal.

This ambiguity is further exemplified by their metaphorical use in relation to civilization, as discussed separately -- given the prospect of its demise (Flowering of Civilization -- Deflowering of Culture, 2014).

Soma? Elias concludes:

Nationalism depends on the symbolism and aesthetic of red which enfolds not only visceral references to the dead but also historical references to Flanders fields. However, the red poppy that increasingly emerges today as symbol of contemporary war, and its aftermath, is the cultivated narcotic poppy from Afghanistan. The Flanders poppy and the Afghanistan poppy symbolise two different eras of warfare, but in both cases, their image embodies the melancholy of the human condition which is the struggle between war and peace.

It could be considered profoundly ironic that opium is derived from the poppy seed -- given the manner in which the drug facilitates forgetting. More ironic is the extent to which the United States in particular is faced with an opioid crisis associated with deaths by overdose on a large scale. Approximately 80 percent of the global pharmaceutical opioid supply is consumed in the United States.

This may be usefully compared to the soma as the ritual drink of Hindu tradition, variously associated with ensuring forgetfulness, about which it is noted in Wikipedia that:

We have drunk the soma; we have become immortal; we have gone to the light; we have found the gods.
What can hostility do to us now, and what the malice of a mortal, o immortal one?

Evocation of civilizations past? A globally destructive nuclear war could evoke fruitful qualitative reflection thereafter on what has been lost -- as with the poignancy for some of lost civilizations, as with the myth of Atlantis (List of lost lands, Wikipedia). An Irish Celtic myth recalls the story of an elder race (the Tuatha Dé Danaan) that through their wisdom were eventually able to "withdraw into the stones". 

A sense of past "golden eras" may well give focus to future consideration of any "renaissance", and the possibility of engaging with otherness otherwise (Post-Apocalyptic Renaissance of Global Civilization, 2018).

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