The End of Culture & The Beginning of The New Human
In the middle of January 1962, near the banks of the Ganges River in Northern India, the world-famous Philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti gave a public talk where he once again heralded the need to cease worshipping culture as a virtue, along with its poisoned fruit of self-worship. Consider four paragraphs from the transcript of that talk, and understand that we will apply these principles to the experience of analyzing and interpreting art for universal consumption through the lens of critical analysis and appreciation. This process is called New Criticism in this Treatise, which differs from Old Criticism. Critical sophistry of art serves a vital function in our society: to explore creative expression through dissection, illustration, and extrapolation, and then bring it to the threshold of transcendence, which is always followed by silence. This act is a turning inward, away from culture and self-worship. The New Critic is a modern art medium, a spiritual warrior taking us all on a ride toward the great beyond.
When he was a little boy, Krishnamurti was plucked out of the worst poverty in India, and for decades, he was treated as a God on Earth by hundreds of thousands of people who believed he was sent here as a modern messiah to save the Human species from our ignorance. Krishnamurti had a global order of wealthy and committed people ready to elevate him to political and spiritual power throughout the 20th Century. However, in 1929, he gathered thousands of followers and disbanded the entire order. Krishnamurti walked away from what could have been absolute power and dedicated his life to educating individual human beings on how to be totally free in this life of pain and trauma. Freedom was a simple definition for Krishnamurti: “Freedom from the Known.” The Awakening of Intelligence, he would often say, is a single movement that goes nowhere. It is a denial of everything known, where the line dissolves instantly between the observer and the observed, and all that remains is the act of observation. Consider Krishnamurti’s words to a gathering of hundreds of people across all classes in India, thirty-three years after he walked away from absolute moral authority:
Is it possible to remove this conflict between the censor and the thing that is censored? That is a very important question to ask yourself, because it removes all conflict, all contradiction. A mind in contradiction, in conflict, is a wasting mind, is a deteriorating mind; every problem which is given time deteriorates the mind, unless it is solved immediately, instantly. And the problem that we are talking about is very important, because that is the center from which all problems arise.
Is it possible to think, to feel, to act, to do everything that we do, without the center? The things that we do, and the misery, the chaos, the confusion, the sorrow, the extraordinary despair that we have--will they exist if there is no center? If there is no entity that is committing itself and acting from a thing that has become merely a bundle of memory, and which has assumed such importance? Surely, there is only thinking, and not a center which thinks. But thought has created the center.
This may sound extravagant and absurd. But, if you have gone into the question of thought, into the question of idea, and as you cannot live without action, you ask, ‘Is it possible to live without idea, without word, but only with action?’ It is only when the mechanism of thought is understood that action is not an approximation. Surely, if you think about this yourself, you will see what an extraordinary thing it is.
Thought creates all the divisions that exist in life--godly love, human love, and all the rest of it. Is it the quality of the mind that has complete leisure that has come into being through understanding, through observing, quietness, a sense of silence? For me, this whole process of investigation into oneself is meditation. Meditation is not the repetition of words and formulas, nor the mesmerizing of oneself into all kinds of fanciful states. Meditation is actually a process of investigating oneself. If you go into it deeply yourself, you are bound to come across all this, when it is possible to think without the center, to see without the center, to act so completely without idea and approximation, to love without the center.
Page 163, “Unconditionally Free: The life and insights of J. Krishnamurti,” Michael Mendizza, 2020, Krishnamurti Foundation of America
The first concept to consider from this long quote is that each individual develops a unique personality composed of memories of experiences gathered over time, and these memories constantly accumulate, strengthening what feels like a consistent locus of experience that becomes our consciousness of self. Krishnamurti challenged the worship of this byproduct of thought's mechanical function. He named this self-worship the core component of all human conflict.
The second concept from this quote is that memories are the byproduct of the mechanical thought process applied to the experience of the living moment over time, a process that can be studied through the motion of relationships and behavior, a study that demands enormous energy focused on self-awareness. Thought helps gather knowledge to apply mastery over the physical world through the sciences, ensuring human survival from generation to generation, but there is a point where the worship of this byproduct of thought (the center of self) becomes poisonous to the organism of our species. Krishnamurti educated people of all social classes to become sensitive to that line and not cross it, rejecting the center the moment it threatens the organism. He would often instruct that this was the only action that mattered in this life, and it is an action every human can do if they turn inward without expectation.
The third concept worth exploring here is the nature of time. There is the living moment, which all humans share with nature, and then there is this pile of individual and collective memories we call the past. Memories are timestamped with emotions that either pulse with regret or glow as embers of joyful moments with pleasant associations of those we sentimentally adore (friends and family). Time is both the living moment and the byproduct of thought, piles of collective and individual memories that compose our egos and power our institutions, all projected from the past if there is a sense of self-present. Krishnamurti often lamented that what we call a relationship is dead self-images synthetically knocking into one another, overlapping each other on the film screen of the present moment. Moreover, the future has always been an anxiety-filled lie we tell ourselves for comfort. All religious institutions derive from that misplaced anxiety. However, what if we could learn to commune in the living moment without these projections of the past or fears of the future?
In this public talk, Krishnamurti asked if living without the center that thought creates is possible. Can we each become so sensitive to the presence of this center that the action of awareness without intention becomes a negation of the center? Of course, he ultimately discusses the observer's death in the moment of life. Is that possible? If so, what is it (if anything) that remains? It is the most critical and severe spiritual question a human being has ever been asked to answer. Does something live beyond the removal of the center thought that creates?
No book, priest, guru, or savior can provide this answer. Each individual must seek it out. Krishnamurti taught that this undertaking constitutes spiritual responsibility in modern times. He found all religious and political institutions childish and prone to corruption because they were constructs projected from the past, a dead thing compared to engaging the present moment without a center. It takes tremendous energy and passion to honestly look at oneself this deeply in the waking moment, but once it happens, the human brain becomes trained to respond to the center like a drug dog catching a whiff of quarry.
Consider this question of the absence of a center from the perspective of Film Criticism. If the Director is the essential artist involved in filmmaking, as the Auteur Theory posits, what would criticism of movies look and feel like if the New Critic removed that center of obsession? The New Critic seeks to explore films as if they were created by no one special because the art itself is worthy enough to merit the full attention of the critic.
Furthermore, there is an even more important facet of this exploration of film, without the center of the Director, the end of culture. Culture is a lens through which identity and behavior are rooted in the same dead memories of the past. Culture is no more sacred than any other memory, a residue of experience smeared over the perception of time. However, culture is at the root of nearly every Human modern problem, threatening to strangle our ability to live in balance with nature and each other on this planet. Cultural pride is an infected vestigial organ of our past, and it must be shed for the New Humans to evolve and survive our current path of self-destruction as a species.
What does it mean when culture ends? When an artist is no longer defined by skin color, background, identity, or past behaviors, they are beyond culture. To have no center in the appreciation of art, filled with the artist’s presence, allows for a robust focus on the art itself. As Krishnamurti describes it, criticism on this level is a form of meditation without a center other than the experience itself. The task of the New Critic is to convert transcendent experiences of art into language that inspires others to seek transcendence in turn. Even the best writer cannot encapsulate transcendence in words, but words can point in the right direction, and then set them aside for the thing itself. Religion has a tough time with this last part.
Like religion, criticism will always have roots in the experience of the past. However, removing focus from the artist to focus on the art unlocks the ability to analyze and genuinely appreciate art at the commercial unit of consumption--the movie, the book, the song, the record, the short story, the painting, the sculpture, the dance, or all of it put together in the medium of Cinema. The human race is beautiful when singing, dancing, and painting with light, color, and narrative emotion. Cinema is the great art form of our species that brings all these forms of expression together in the most effective delivery packaging of art we have yet invented. Movies are the best we offer. Shouldn’t we align our most effective resources to derive the most value from art? The New Critic is vital in interpreting art, always mindful of and working to move beyond the center.
Beyond criticism, there is also a benefit to the honest artist who asks themselves, in moments of serious reflection:
“Am I nothing more than an extension of a culture rooted in the past, preventing me from having authentic relationships in the present moment? Am I just another abused minority with a myopic opinion expressed as limited art?”
The end of culture is the beginning of responsibility, when the human being stands naked, without the past, because they understand the stone truth that the center never holds; it is not permanent. What remains is art. The New Critic is a student of loss, but also a celebratory reveler in art made by people who have already died or will one day pass away. They were the center that did not hold, and yet something remains. What does the art mean? This question of meaning is New Criticism's obsession, making Old Criticism's lifestyle journalism look rancid and juvenile by comparison.
The end of individual ego is the beginning of personal freedom. The end of culture is the beginning of social freedom.
Humanity is one race, living as one species on a curiously perfect planet to host our biology. Scientifically, Life is organisms that take energy from the environment to function, produce waste, and reproduce offspring; every animal and microorganism lives under this impulse system. Only humans break the cycle when thought is applied over time, allowing our species to temporarily defeat time by passing down our memories as memes composed of language and art containing moral and technical instructions. All cultures and civilizations exist here, but they are strangling us to death by preventing authentic relationships in the present moment.
Humans are a memetic species. We worship and hold these constructs of thought dearly, handing them down to our children, like stories of Santa Claus, saviors, History, and the constellations of metaphor and ritual in the great many religions that have never — and never will — bring peace to this world in the living moment.
Because we are a memetic species, we must acknowledge Cinema's importance as the grand memetic art form that unites all other forms of expression. Recognizing the importance of Cinema to Humanity, the New Critic serves one of the most essential roles in civilization as a moral filter, ensuring that quality art reaches the widest possible audience for the greatest benefit: producing thinking, feeling, compassionate individuals who fit into their proper places in society. Harmony and cooperation result from good people studying great art together and transcending the limitations of our past so we can fully engage with one another in the present moment. Searching for meaning through art, the New Critic is the shepherd of this modern spiritual experience without a center.
