Christmas On the Titanic. (FREE TICKETS)

The infamous story of the Titanic shipwreck offers us one of the most compelling visual metaphors recent human history has produced.  Literally as the ship sunk, the music band was ordered to keep playing.  Deflecting from the prospect of death is much more important than dealing with it.  And listening to your own song is better than facing the real music.

I can’t help but think of Christmas as the music of collapse.  The deeper this civilisation sinks into war, climate crisis and economic catastrophe, the earlier the Christmas carols begin each year, and the most extravagant the lighting displays become.  So much for the energy transition. The absurd extravagance of decorations has become so over-the-top that it is quite evident how big the need has become to keep calm, pretend the party is still going strong, and overshoot.  The Great Silence will only get louder.

News coverage by mainstream media during the holiday season couldn’t be more dystopian, as cameras casually switch from Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting celebrations to people being burned alive in Gaza, and back. How did our world become so dystopian?  The music was too good to resist. Christmas has become the antidote to reality for a civilisation that would rather listen to jingle bells than face its own music.

Humans have always been desperate for fairy tales.  Well-dressed lies are far more appealing than the truth.  But like all lies, the Civilisational Lie will unavoidably crash into the iceberg of reality. Last Christmas will keep playing on a loop, but there won’t be any humans to hear it.

George is an author, researcher, molecular biologist and food scientist.

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