Straw Fire (2/2)

Part One : Straw Fire 1/2

….Once this is established, we can wonder about the function of festive events and about the interest on the political level to maintain and encourage such events.
The party comes to plane, for those who indulge in it, a certain excitement. When the party is over, the counterpart of exhaustion is a form of appeasement.

The bubbling froth from the top of the liquid has been removed by festive stirring,
And the social broth no longer threatens to overflow.

One of the functions of the party is therefore to perpetuate the status quo.
The party is the tool the system uses to maintain itself.

By spreading these images of dances, cries, as well as associated behaviors (addictive/alcohol, etc.), the institutional framework no longer risks seeing its configuration seriously revamped.

It is nothing more than a cathartic manifestation, expressed through a derivative.
Partying contributes to anesthetizing the population.

Skillfully injected into the social veins, it ensures that the patient’s spasms will be of a « manageable » amplitude.

Also, the festive substance promotes an addiction to the feeling it generates (since the cathartic effect is almost immediate, social organizations perceive the festive environment as a terribly effective solution to the diffuse discomfort they may feel.)

Finally, this effectiveness is the guarantee individuals won’t attempt any serious investigation into that process (a paracetamol tablet for the headache will tend in the same way, not to consider a deeper origin for the inconvenience. Simply swallow one each time this happens.)

Then, the festive universe justifies its existence by the enormous mercantile dimension it generates.

Indeed, associated with the manic polarity, it encourages excessive, unbridled, disregarded behavior, it then becomes the perfect sphere of expression for compulsive purchases, precisely because « it’s party time ».

Waving this tautological argument at all costs, the party world represents a field of commercial opportunity that a lustful eye cannot help but consider.

We can draw a parallel here with the tourist spheres: note however that the cultural dimensions, the contact with nature make it a less harmful, more versatile object of comparison.

Contrary to what one can sometimes hear, I do not think that the behaviors we are talking about in these lines have much to do with the ancestral rituals carried out by primitive societies.

The contemporary version of the party phenomenon (perhaps precisely because of its use for commercial purposes by professional actors) cannot be superimposed on the dances and songs of yesteryear.

The spiritual and cultural dimensions in fact went far beyond the superficial communions that are offered today.
Some aspects, however, overlap. Political function is one of them : whoever makes a party possible directs and induces « trance », is invested with a certain power by the audience (people).

Perhaps this is the justification of the aura such ‘idols’ enjoy.
The same elements can be observed at the level of the individual. The upheavals of the social body observed at this level take the form of an anxiety that the party event comes to sand down, in order to allow the individual to continue his daily service for yet another week.

However, with each mowing from the anxiety grass, this one grows back a little thicker, a little denser, and the weekly exhaustion already nourishes the frustration and feverish thrum of more anxiety to come.

When such an individual reaches maturity, I doubt that a few glasses swallowed between the shrieks of an overexcited DJ, will be enough to cover the sadness flaking through painted faces.

Let’s make a final detour through tourist entertainment, for which, in a previous publication, we recommended finding a daily life from which it is no longer necessary to try to escape.
Let us question this anxiety which is reborn, shape-shifting, with each festive new mowing:

Is there a dimension of being, a field of existence that we have not yet invested, in which anxiety has ceased to repel?

©FJ April 2022 –
Groupe De Pratique
Recueils — Participations

Many thanks to all