Time to put an end to this age of cynicism and scorn

by Henry Porter

The West is living through an age of plenty but voices of optimism and joy struggle to be heard.

A piece by English critic John Gross in the New York Review of Books reminded me why John Updike is one of the great voices of our time. His review of a new Updike collection, a terrific piece of writing in itself, quotes Updike's reaction to the Venice Biennale in 1999, when the novelist and critic dropped in while in Italy working on a essay about the future of faith.

Updike is brought low by the pretension and emptiness he finds in one pavilion after another. 'Everywhere, abrasive irony and nihilism,' he wrote, 'the desire to shock the hardcore art connoisseur into some kind of response had become frantic; there was hardly an inch of the void, of disgust, of scorn left to expose in this age of post-faith.'

Perhaps, one was looking for these exact phrases to describe a more general habit of mind in popular culture, which extends beyond the exclusive orders of modern art to journalism, rock, pop, advertising, comedy and TV shows. You find it less in cinema and theatre, but in the stuff we are exposed to every day, smart aleck cynicism prevails.

This weltschmerz and hardened bitterness goes unchallenged. We don't question why the last couple of generations, brought up in the West with such plenty and ease, with advantages and privileges unimaginable 60 years ago, so often default to pessimism and irony.

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