Turbulent times make simplistic solutions tempting. We see that across the world. The finger is pointed at others, ‘them’. It’s designed to baffle us in the slipstream of battles which aren’t ours. As we hurtle into a spiral, so we cease to look at the people pointing the finger. At times like this, we need romance more than ever. I’m not referring to a Valentine’s Night supper awash with manufactured sentiment. I am referencing the resurgence in the ‘Romantic’ as an idea, a resistance to rationalism. Why?
I floated this idea a while back when exploring links to demographic determinism. The idea surges to the surface again when we look at it in a slightly different way. Take this lesson from the classical world …
The fable of Oedipus shares a precious truth. Oedipus only sees the logical. His life is an endless avoidance of a superstitious prophecy and a reliance on rational actions. In mocking old Tiresias for his ‘blindness’ to facts Oedipus denies what Tiresias sees only too clearly, that treating the collective wisdom of the past with disdain is doomed.
In society today we’re seeing younger people returning to the ‘make do and mend’ philosophies of their great grandparents’ age. With it, there’s a resurgence in dealing direct with farmers, growers, and creatives. These aren’t just actions born of necessity. These actions are about that most capitalist of behaviours, exercising choice.
In exerting choice people are choosing the ‘romantic’ over cold, hard rationalism. Is it any wonder?
Consider the way that we talk about vastly loss-making enterprises like AI. We’re told that being in the red by £30 billion is an ‘investment’. Yet a cultural organisation – a museum or theatre – that’s £100,000 in the red is a ‘failure’ to be wound up; that community engagement and participation are luxuries. We grant a permanence to extractive systems while dismissing regenerative practices as temporary, even unnecessary. Whose game are we playing?
The first wave of ‘Romanticism’ countered cold profit-driven practices with human values. Economic growth accelerated in response to this more balanced approach. Today, we are in thrall to rational algorithms. Our economies stagnate, the public realm cheapens, a few get rich while all else get poorer. All the while, investment in those things which bring us together, which dwell in the realms of ‘romance’ are cut, cut, and cut again.
Let’s reinvest in the romantic. Let’s rebuild our communities as bastions against the despairing effects of technology. Release romance as a panacea for turbulent times.
Sanjit Chudha 