Modern Nihilism as Exemplified in 'Skins'.

To the unreflective eye, 'Skins' can seem to be a decadent and hedonistic abomination, preaching the apparent woes of teenage life. Yet, behind the facade, we gain a glimpse into the nihilism of immediacy.
I often feel that I am being somewhat self-absorbed when I wallow in modes of existential angst and despair. Thoughts drift through my mind relating to the advantage and wealth, to which I am so privileged to have, in comparison to those severely less fortunate. It is almost as if we are forced to be grateful just for our existence; things could be worse. It's true they could, but we can't go around pretending everything's fine, just because somewhere someone is having a tougher time. We can't just say, 'my life is an unending mediocre bore, lacking love and affection, but it doesn't matter 'cos someone else is worse off than me'. I don't mean to make light of, or demean those who starving and suffering, though this is how it may sound, I just don't want to feel unnecessarily guilty, and suppress our humanity, because we are better off.
So, don't be discouraged from meeting your anxiety. Matters of the self and life are one of the most important facets what it is to be human. We have the ability to become wonderful and magnificent creatures, only if we can find the opportunity and the courage to deal with our angst in the face of guilt. Yes, we are at an advantage that we can ponder life and ourselves without the constant struggle of survival, but that is something that must be embraced; that is something wonderful we have managed as humans. The time and ability to be able to create oneself, take control of oneself and cease to be the cog in the machine. That is at least what one would expect. With ease of living one can truly pursue who they are.
Yet, invariably, society still provides a machine in which someone is forced to be a mindless, insignificant cog. Life becomes a different struggle, a struggle for purpose, a struggle which is easily resolved by becoming a cog, that is merely doing what society expects from you. A purpose is a human's means to survive. without a purpose, one has no direction or cause. Yet, humanity, wrongly, thinks that a purpose must be concrete and external. We believe a purpose must govern us, whether through God or the judging eyes of our fellow citizens. Thus, wealth, power and morality are pursued as ends in themselves, as opposed to a means to an end, because humanity is chronically forgetful of the point of such human creations. These ends are pursued out context, instead they are pursued in virtue of some inherent worth that simply isn't there. What does it matter if you are wealthy, powerful or moral? What matters is the why, not the mere fact. Why are you moral? Is it because the universe, God or the rules say so? Or maybe, just maybe it is a human concern and not something wholly rational! The human is always given due disregard, odd isn't? We are just so in love with the absolutism of rules beyond ourselves. We think we cannot live or act unless the rules govern us on high, but we don't need these types of rules in order to make something meaningful or authoritative.

Yet, this is the norm of life. We do not question our basic assumption of absolutism, we leave our anxiety unchecked and merely bury somewhere where it can't bother us, and sink into a comfortable, structured existence. A structure that seems to be basic fact, a truth that need not be questioned; it's just so normal. Why get anxious about life unless you're some weirdo or rebel. "You want to experience more from life? What you don't want to just do what everyone else wants you to do? Idiot!" But of course no-one ever thinks they are doing what everyone else is doing, since everyone is so in tune with each other, so socialised and deluded that the notion of choice in certain aspects of life are unthinkable. Getting a job, buying a house, settling down, buying all the trinkets aren't seen as life choices, or a means to a satisfying, but things that must be done, whether they make you happy or not. Though, I must add, I do not propose that to live creatively you must forgo these choices, rather you must view them in the correct life. A job is more than just a necessity. The trick is to ask why, meet your anxiety, and not melt into obscurity and become a sheep, instead own your choices in order to live as full a life as you are capable, instead of wasting it on empty necessities.

This condition of life largely describes the adults/parents in the rather Kierkegaardian world of the cog vs the aesthete in 'Skins'. We have the duty bound adults obsessed with what ought to be done, impelling their view on their erratic, hedonist children They serve as a catalyst, or at least part of the problem, of the children's fall into immediacy. The classic case of non-conformity, where, as ever, absolutism is attempted to be beaten away with another absolute position. Humanity just can't help itself.
The important issue we are forced to deal with is, are the adults happy? They've done everything right surely? Nice house, good, kids etc. We are so eager to associate wealth and success as a platform upon which to engender happiness. Yet, we have portrayed here, in 'Skins, the somewhat clichéd but important notion that wealth and happiness do not guarantee happiness. This is only because this is the structure we live by. Structure deludes us into feeling happy, when all we feel is safety and security, the pangs of unfulfillment and stagnation may yet creep in. Though, of course, depending upon the capacity for honesty with yourself, you may yet remain in deluded contentment, never fully realising the source of your anxiety.

But, how are we to meet this anxiety? In unbridled immediacy, that living life in the moment, with sensuous pleasure? Disregard the structure completely? Well, the paradox we encounter in 'Skins' is the inadequacy and destructive nature of pure immediacy. The conflicts that occur spark a noticeable are of destruction. The life that is structured for us leads to slow and steady stagnation. Yet, pure immediacy impels us towards an unreflective life - life is lead in the present alone - everything is an object of aesthetic sensuousness. Sex becomes an object of pleasure, drinking a means to escape reflection, nights out a means to deny reality. One's structure falls apart altogether. The future is dashed against the cliff-side. True happiness, again, cannot be an end resultant from immediacy. Merely, one escapes a formal existence and from anxiety. Anxiety was the catalyst that propelled you from structure, yet your exodus becomes about hiding from life in sensuality. You become unbound because you think bounds are not possible. One's humanity crumbles away, until one becomes dionysus himself, the divine destructive will. It is only until one is faced with love, with the future, with the reality that one can neither survive in immediacy nor in structure. One desires both, yet both cannot co-exist it would seem. In love, you need structure, that is you need to live with someone, but be free at the same time. The mind cannot take and madness sets in. Again one is faced with their anxiety. Either you perish or sublimate.
So, Effy is our archetypal aesthete. Pure destructive willing at its best. Her unreflectiveness culminates in an orgy of sex drugs and raving. Somewhere within there was wisdom, the realisation of the futility of life - but it was a wisdom that did not flourish into the realisation that life can be justified by the creative power of humanity.
Ultimately, as the story in 'Skins' progresses, Effy is presented with raw human love. The positive energy flowed through her sending the Dionysus in her into a state of mad confusion. The anxieties of living were brought to bear. life was revealed, a life that was hidden by unreflective immediacy. Love forced her to face a human as a person, and not as an object of pleasure thus, she could not remain a malevolent force. Ultimately her mind perished, for she could not grasp life in her hands, as it had already become a nothing to her. It had becomes a mere means with no end and end with no means. Despair had swallowed her existence. Despair regained a daughter.

It is unfortunate that a revelation of life will remain unnoticed - the point remain unseen.

'Skins' will be seen largely as a drama and a tragedy satisfying audiences in ways they do not understand or ways they should not.

Muse are Sublime!

For too long in Philosophy, humanity's interaction with the arts has been down played. We are, in some sense, besotted with the 'Form' of art, the sacred entity that can somehow reveal some essence hidden beneath the canvass, an essence that cannot be seen, only 'seen'. Art for philosophers, and, implicitly, for we spectators and listeners of art, has been art in virtue of some rigid criteria, or a participation is not immutable 'form'. Art has been reduced to an extent that all meaning and significance is lost, instead art becomes a matter of fulfilling some prescribed 'art criteria'. Works of art are products of 'art' qua 'form', or 'art' qua 'criteria'. This, we might say, has been taken to the extreme in consumerism, wherein music and art literally become products, products a that are merely pleasing to look at or listen to, but do not spark any existential movements within us. Such art changes nothing, we are unchanged, the world is unchanged.
This is particularly true in music, especially since it is more commonly referred to as an industry; a mere economic component. All that is achieved in consumerist music is the requirements needed for celebrity status. Such 'artists' are worshipped because they have fulfilled societies expectations. They are famous for being seen by millions, what they do is a mere by-product. I, of course, am referring to those singers churned out of 'X-factor', the disgustingly cheesy boy bands and the likes of Mika. You get the picture. There is nothing sublime about the aesthetic experience such people attempt to achieve; if they attempt it at all.
But, when I turn to classical music, or the likes of Muse, Yes or Florence+ the Machine, something stirs within me. This is not some expression of musical snobbery, there is a reason I abhor mass produced music. I am quite happy to say that mass produced music is good, it is catchy and pleasant to the ear, yet void of anything sublime. Take my experience of the Muse concert I attended at the O2 arena. The experience I had was unparalleled by any musical experience I had ever had. The spectacle the band produced through their music, the air of power they wielded over their instruments to produce music of such intense existential movements in the audience and myself, produced a heightened awareness of the triviality of a life lived by society. It was as if they were Greek Gods manipulating the very foundations of existence, moving us to a higher state of 'oneness', 'unity' and insignificance, but at the same time revealing the power and creativity of man within such utter emptiness. The world is revealed as a blank canvas, in which we as artists have the potential to paint something beautiful. More often than not modern man paints a dull picture.
The aesthetic phenomenon we experienced, our worship of Muse, (in the end the almost ritualistic devotion we evoked was reminiscent of some worship of the sublime), aided us in drawing life into perspective. For the time the spectators are engaged in their worship, they are dragged out of what Heidegger calls the 'they', namely the group consciousness with which we are intimately involved in. We are, for a time, just ourselves, stripped of the expectations and labels of society, we are allowed to 'be'. The intense power of music, the complex artistry and power Muse seemed to wield separates us from our integration, revealing the world as a complex of possibilities that are mine to own. We are, as it were, taken along by the power of music, realising that the routine of life we seem to value is illusory in the face of such concrete majesty. The subliminal in music comes from the extent it stirs our existential core, not what it reveals to us about noumena (a world beyond experience), rather music provides a palatable revelation of the chaos of life. Such are the views of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, though the latter would have more metaphysical overtones. Nietzcshe was famous for saying, "truth is ugly. We possess art lest we perish of the truth", in other words, art makes the truth beautiful and empowering. We glimpse into chaos through art, but become empowered by our capacity to form order around the chaos through our own creative capacities. Life is about revealing ourselves to ourselves, what one is brave enough to accept and experience will reveal one's essence. Life is an engagement, not a conformation.