Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Issue 1 | Page 10

The reality of culture’s fictions might well be that narratives are as much
about anxiety as they are about the familiar. In a globalized world, otherness
is bound to displace familiarity. We can see that multicultural interactions –
facilitated in part by YouTube’s � billion users in �� countries and Facebook’s
�.� billion users –breed cultural anxiety. Audiences ill-equipped to venture
outside the confines of the familiar may find it difficult, if not self-defeating,
to derive comfort from performance without the assistance of tranquilizers,
metaphorically speaking.
In times of great cultural anxiety, one person’s new resolution will be
countered with another’s reactionary proposal. Take war monuments: the
“gabbro” black marble-like Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington,
DC lists names of ��,��� dead service members. It provides a somber and
reflective moment about a drawn-out war fought thousands of miles away in
the name of liberal democracy. Nearby, the World War II Memorial, completed
in ����, eulogizes heroism in war unequivocally with its � triumphal arches
and �� granite pillars mounted with laurel wreaths.
Vietnam Memorial, Washington DC
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_
Veterans_Memorial#/media/File:American_flag_at_
Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial_2010-05-04.jpg
World War II Memorial, Washington
DC
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/World_
War_II_Memorial#/media/File:NWW2M_Pacific_arch.
JPG
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