The age of Dematerialisation can be understood as a sudden reaction to materialism’s brute facts of reality.
Hyperconnectivity, rather than fostering community, deepens social division and superficiality.
Hypermobility, rather than bringing genuine proximity, displaces us and leaves longing for a deeper belonging.
Hypermobility and hyperconnectivity are mechanisms of escape - ways we flee reality.
Pascal once observed that humanity’s problems come from our inability to sit quietly in a room.
Today, we travel everywhere, always seeking elsewhere, yet never truly arriving and never belonging anywhere.
Why are we driven to escape reality? Perhaps T.S. Eliot had it right:
“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”
Constant connectivity distracts us, perpetual movement uproots us- anything to avoid confronting the stillness where reality awaits.
