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Popular Culture Review
particular form of ennui that we witness today and the stimulation that we seek
have affected cognitive abilities (451; Cox 123). To Aho, and to Reinhart Kuhn
of The Demon of Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature, it’s also obvious that
the spiritual and psychological dimensions are affected. Interestingly, the terms
Aho uses to describe the soul of this hyper-stimulated, technology-based culture
take us back to the views of the medieval church and to Baudelaire’s famous
poem. He writes that in our over-stimulated culture “[A] demonic tiredness or
stupor” (448) precedes a “disengaged indifference” (451) that protects us from
numbing hyper-stimulation. Echoing both Baudelaire and Dostoevsky, Aho also
suggests that ennui is responsible for “[a] culture that fosters increasingly
bizarre behavior and nihilist attitudes” (453). In fact, to Aho, it is the existence
of “extreme aesthesia”—a kind of disease—that characterizes a culture afflicted
by a deep and pervasive boredom. He observes “The mood[~the impression of a
culturally induced ennui-] can be recognized when there is a pervasive cultural
craving for immediate amusement, risk, and peak sensations, a momentary
aesthesis that briefly pulls us out of the emptiness and indifference of our
everyday lives” (447).
Focusing upon this cultural “thrill seeking,” Aho adds, “The adventure
represents a momentary aesthesis, an intense feeling or sensation that is ‘tom
off from the mundane stream of life experiences.” He uses the story of
“Johannes the Seducer” by Soren Kierkegarrd as an example: “For Johannes, the
spell of boredom is broken only by means of gratifying certain short-term
pleasures” (456). Thus, even to the very bright student, Doyle’s Sherlock
Holmes may ultimately fail to provide the stimulation sought by a reader in the
grips of this malady. Indeed, one noticeable side-effect of cultural overstimulation and the resultant aesthesia may be that such works now verge on
becoming intellectually inaccessible, particularly to our students whose attention
span and possibly their ability to think critically may have been significantly
affected.
A culture afflicted by a numbing ennui that can find relief only in bursts of
adrenalin-inducing spectacle and in behaviors generally associated with the
demonic is a culture in the midst of a very serious spiritual and psychological
crisis. But is ennui really demonic, as Reinhard Kuhn suggests in his 1976 study,
The Demon of Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature? Isn’t it, as Baudelaire
affirms, more of an effect? If so, then who or what is responsible for a boredom
that finds relief in the thrills experienced in the virtual reality of computers, TV,
and movies? Ultimately, blame rests less with technological devices that occupy
our minds and souls than with those who use these devices to enslave and
stupefy. In support of this, Espen Hammer, Professor of Philosophy from the
University of Essex, asserts that “what Heidegger calls ‘total boredom’ has
become ‘the hidden goal’ toward which the modem, techno-scientific epoch is
aiming”(277). Who then are the devils that afflict us? Who are they indeed if not
those who reap tremendous profits by sponsoring TV shows and movies that
foster grotesque and bizarre behavior that turn great literary figures into action