In my last post, I discussed the political landscape in Ghana by using wrestling mythology and how they utilise logo-rhythm to enchant the minds of people, distracting them from reality and giving them a distorted view of reality. The analogy isn’t a literal interpretation or comparison; therefore, it must be taken with a grain of poetic inclination.
Within today’s discussion, I’d like us to look at the mythological creature called Leviathan. This beast is featured in Near Eastern mythology as a being of immense size and destructive powers. Leviathan is mentioned in the Bible in the book of Job and in other Near Eastern myths like ancient Babylon and Canaanite mythology under different names.
This beast is described as a primordial sea monster capable of immense destruction. There is a passage in the book of Job where it references God’s battle with this beast in the primordial past.
Just as we used the mythology of wrestling to help us understand the nature of the political realm, the myth of Leviathan can help us gain insights into the world of social media and media in general.
Like Leviathan, the media world is a large monster swimming in its own hubris, if you ask me. The media realm poses itself as an ally of truth and justice. What has become undeniable is the immediate disposition of people when they consume content on the internet. In the past, if someone passed on information, it would be taken with a pinch of scepticism, especially if it was about a person unknown to us or wielding social status.
That is unlikely in the media leviathan of today, where once a person shows a picture or a movie, there is an assumed disposition to believe the information being fed to us.
During the high Renaissance, artists brought different painting styles focusing on classical principles, creating a harmonious balance between naturalism, idealism, and technical mastery. One of the classical works from that time period would be Da Vinci’s painting of the Lord’s Supper and Hieronymus Bosch’s painting of hell, which is titled “The Garden of Earthly Delights." The painting is a work of enigma, capturing surreal depictions of the afterlife and the consequences of sin. The way people judged art in those days was different. When people looked at the arts in those days, they understood that the artist was not merely sending them a message; the artist was acting like the metaphorical angel of the pool of Bethesda, stirring the pool of emotions and providing a chance for the people, or the viewers, to step into that moment. Painting was evaluated by skill and technique, realism and naturalism, emotional expression, and symbols and allegories. People who were into aesthetics would often write treatises or poems about the arts they witnessed. The art of that era was done in celebration of creativity and humanism.
Comparing this to today’s world, we can discern a huge chasm when it comes to the way people portray themselves. When someone takes an Instagram photo, there is a specific narrative inherent in the photo. The app enables people to enunciate the specifics of the photo in support of the narrative. At times, people can take a picture in front of a house with the caption ‘feeling blessed’. As soon as the photo is posted, there are a couple of things that are assumed to be true about the picture and the environment. For example, the one who took the picture inside the house is seen as owning the house. Plus, the caption reinforces the idea. As to whether the house is really for the person or if the person is genuinely feeling blessed, people don’t think in that way. The comment section reveals it—an unfolding of virtuosic comments and vitriolic statements. What that camera has done is obscure the balance between realism and naturalism; what this has done is obscure people from reality into the kingdom of the familiar, i.e., the picture is the actual and real experience of the person who took and posted the photo. Or that you know the person by liking their picture and leaving some comments. The kingdom of the familiar is a trove of people who make assumptions about the meaning and interpretation of the photos and videos they see online. It is not a wonder that many people are disappointed when they realise that the pictures they have seen online of a person contradict that person’s real-life experience.
You can apply this to other artistic expressions such as rap; rap is poetry in essence, but look at how the kingdom of the familiar has turned this beautiful creation of man into something else. During the 1990s and the early 2000s, the rap style in Ghana focused on storytelling, humour, and all thatToday, that style has drastically changed, especially with the advent of breakdown channels. They have simplified rap not to story telling and artistic expressions but to who can deliver the best punchline. So the kingdom of the familiar judges rap so they can shout “bars ma n*gga," and that has begun to dominate the way people judge someone’s Rap. The insights of rap are beyond shouting bars; as initially stipulated, art is used by the artist, who is the metaphorical angel stirring metaphorical waters within, so you can step into your own creativity and have the shared experience of the art. It was a way of connecting one heart to another.
If Instagram photos used by individuals are able to distort reality just with an editing protocol, think of what a leviathan of the media does when they show you a picture or a video. Again, the distortion of reality is to initiate the mind into the kingdom of the familiar. When the news media shows or depicts a war zone, somehow you do not need to be there to know the full discourse, but the narrow and edited footage or picture is fed to millions who, by virtue of the mediating tool of the photo, assume they know exactly what is going on in a particular place. In the Russia-Ukraine war, for example, the media is feeding specific narratives with photos and videos, and people have already projected their hatred towards Putin simply because he is being portrayed as a tyrant and a demagogue. The question we have to ask is, on what basis are we making such judgements? Is it merely from the narrow discourse that Leviathan has fed us from its giangatic jaws that the logorhythm has been intertwined withthe video or photo that has enchanted your mind?
Pornography is a feature of the leviathan of mass media. But pononograpphy must not be limited to the sexual type that pervades the internet. One must look at the subtle types of porn weaved alongside a logorythm. The type of porn in focus today is poverty porn.
Just as pornography is vicariously designed to draw the attention of people into a fantasy about sex, poverty porn is mostly used by cooperators and people of influence to script a narrative about Africa and Asia. Poor people in Africa are featured in the UN and other international non-profit organisations when it comes to soliciting for funds. African children are shown to be in deplorable conditions. Even atheists use poverty porn, usually involving kids from Africa, to argue for the absence of God. Question: Is the western world free from poverty? Are there not people who live in the western world in serious poverty? What about the homeless people in America and France?
These may sound new, but that is because the media does not take delight in showing you anything from their world that doesn’t fit the narrative. In the era of media where branding is important, it is useful to tell stories that add to the mythology of your country. To date, there are people in the western world and the United States who believe Africans are still living in huts without electricity. Ghanaians have to write IELTS even though we were once colonised by the British, and English is the formal language of Ghana. Poverty porn is used by Leviathan to capture and freeze people in narrative, and as long as the western world keeps telling our stories, their portrayal of us will forever be that of poor people who lack basic amenities, while they throw more light on their superiority.
What then can we do against the leviathan of the media? How do we leave the kingdom of the familiar? In some ancient texts, Yahweh is seen wrestling and battling Leviathan. In Job 41:1-3. Yahweh is able to draw Leviathan with a fishhook and press down the tongue of Leviathan. he Leviathan tongue is the symbol of its communication, and as a beast of chaos, its speech would incline towards the enhancement of discord and enigma. I believe that just as Yahweh battled and restrained this beast, so must we in the world be content with what the news tells us by first critically examining what the news tells us, by doing further research, and by conversing with other people to get a wholistic perspective.
Falling prey to the logorythm of the leviathan of the media is selling yourself into the kingdom of the familiar. Remember to emancipate or restrain the tendency to assume familiarity with a person or a situation simply because the media portrays To be so, the news carries within it biases designed to have you come to them again. Do not be a mere commodity in this age of mass media and misinformation.
