From Washington to Hollywood, American culture is engulfed by rage, hate and the desire for revenge. The New York Times Style Magazine devoted most of its December 7 issue to exploring this disturbing trend. “When They Go Low . . . We Go Lower” is a fascinating look by four different New York Times reporters about how all that bottled up anger and rage is expressing itself in the culture as a whole. Turns out all this anger leads to depression, violence and the worst one of all – war. Here’s the link to the NYT story.
Included in this fascinating look at how us humans get bogged down with hate, rage, and revenge are a few of the countless examples of artists throughout history who have incorporated these themes into their work. The image you see here is the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi’s “Jael and Sisera” (1620). The painting depicts a story from the Bible’s Old Testament about a heroic woman named Jael. One night, she offers milk and shelter to Sisera — the leader of the polytheistic Canaanite army — only to drive a spike through his head as he sleeps. Her brutal act was allegedly fulfilling a prophecy that a woman would be the one to vanquish the enemy. Image courtesy of the collection of Szepmuveszeti Muzeum, Budapest. HIP/Art Resource, N.Y.
From the story: Our appetite for revenge has become bottomless and, when we can’t exact it ourselves, we turn it into a contest and choose a team — with every leak and counterthrust, Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively have come to feel more like video game avatars in a battle that now seems like an allegory for … nothing much, except our vicarious appetite for particularly brutal public takedowns. Sometimes we even school ourselves in the baroque internecine hatreds and rivalries of people we would never otherwise have heard of, like all those campus novelists who seem to be forever bringing out new books about who ruined whose marriage, which is possibly the only interesting thing about them. They’ve made payback their art, which is a difficult fit because really it’s more of a blood sport.
There are 4 sections each written by a different reporter.