Of Baudelaire and Holmes
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existential boredom again and again and again—in this case by reality TV
shows, video games, and action movies that sacrifice plot for spectacle and that
simply feed the craving for ever more spectacular spectacle. This is a deep
boredom that affects one physically, mentally, and spiritually and that resembles
“endogenous” depression, a condition associated with ennui that requires no
external stimuli (Kuhn 12). Thus, no longer able to appreciate the almost purely
cerebral appeal of the original Holmes, no longer able to grasp the truths of
Flaubert’s Madame Bovary or Dostoevsky’s The Possessed, no longer able to
experience even a sense of the French symbolists’ “transcendent absolute,” no
longer able even to follow a complex script or plot, this culture finds refuge in
entertainm ent in which our traditional heroes are transformed into action heroes
that are in reality replications of characters from other movies and games that
offer the viewing or reading audience the simplest of plots. As we become
involved in the “virtual reality” of these productions, the boredom generated by
our own fast-paced industrial and technological based culture, the demonic
ennui that becomes a by-product of the over-stimulation provided by both
industrialization and the new technology, finds only temporary relief.
The most interesting treatment of this culturally-induced ennui is provided
by Kenneth Aho, a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University. Aho’s
observations are predicated upon the theories of philosopher and sociologist
Georges Simmel. He concurs with Simmel’s observation that one of the sideeffects of a money-based culture is a “flattening” out (178), which results in the
loss of one’s ability to distinguish quality in a product, or to distinguish a good
piece of art from a bad one, and the general perception that things of the same
approximate monetary value assume the same aesthetic worth. Thus, in
Baudelaire’s own society, a novel that depends upon bloody spectacle and
demonic possession takes on the same value as the writings of Stendhal or
Flaubert. More immediately, the movie Avatar assumes in the public eye an
equivalent or greater aesthetic value than, say, Winter’s Bone. Within the
context of our own money-based society, Robert Downey, Jr.’s version of
Sherlock Holmes is equivalent in value to or greater than, say, Basil Rathbone’s
or any other actor’s version of the same character. In our money-based society,
the price we pay to experience the seemingly unending series of thrills becomes
therefore equivalent in price to and likely of greater “aesthetic” value than, say,
The King’s Speech, which relies for its effect upon character development.
Beyond this, Aho makes the point that industrialization, the rise of the
metropolis, the re-emergence of rationalization, and the money economy—
coupled with the technological revolution—have created an environment in
which the individual is so frequently bombarded with stimulation that he or she
risks lapsing into a kind of permanent exhaustion that ultimately manifests itself
in an indifference that serves as boundary protecting the metropolitan individual
from this over-stimulation (451). In other words, boredom becomes a defense
mechanism. Interestingly, Aho links this phenomenon of being over-stimulated
and bored-to-death to the current pandemic of ADHD cases, suggesting that the