Monumentality

Behind the monument is the celebrated ruin of a society that overspent its way into its collapse, and chiseled for itself its own tombstone. It justified to itself the need of a great public works project, or took a legend too seriously, or felt strongly about a war it dragged itself into; money was created, currency was issued, and jobs were promised, and there was a brief time of prosperity.

There is no other known way to express the elation of being at the top while leaving behind a reminder for whichever peoples that may come after. The monument made at leisure, in prosperity, but always with the approval and oversight of the authority. These are not visions of an artist created in a state of inspiration; these are bureaucratic decisions, signed off or stamped on by some power-structure. Think of when you or someone you know ever asked for a monument – who ever does – the request and the decision on that request always comes from the top. If, say, a personal creative endeavor does acquire enough importance for a society, it becomes a shrine and the authority lets it stay as long as it doesn’t pose an ideological threat to it. And later, maybe, it can have a chance at becoming a monument.

The monuments might reflect the manufactured-zeitgeist, or be an imposition by the ruling elite upon its subjects – whichever way, these are points of time in a society when reminders become necessary. Under these reminders is a fear, of the inevitable fall, because that is the only way ahead from the top. There is the fear of decadence; of bankruptcy, both moral and financial.

Religions, Cults And The State

At a glance, only size seems to be the immediate difference between an established mainstream religion and a corresponding cult. This might be the only difference actually, because the other differences between the two only exist when the State exists.

Religion needs the patronage of the State, while the cult doesn’t. The former has some relationship with the State, while the other is relatively free from it. Religion, by its mere existence, influences and controls the State; but ‘modern secular democracies’ pretend that religion is not of importance, and its time of importance is long gone. Yet they continually bend over and soften to one religious view or the other whenever and wherever it is strategically necessary. Religion, even though presented as a weakened force in front of the new faith of consumption and science, remains at the core of most political and social issues.

But, a cult is largely absent from the gaze of the State, atleast until it becomes large enough to demand the same power and acknowledgment which is given to a state-recognized religion. Usually that is the moment a cult makes it to the news. This is also why the State is wary of cults and preaches so passionately against them as something dangerous. Cults interrupt that existing balance of power between the State and the Old Church.

Though religion has always been effective in consolidating and enforcing political power, like all things organic and human, it cannot remain stagnant and it ends up budding new interpretations, reformations and counter-narratives. These are the new cults. All they then have to do is to weather the isolation and the persecution till they grow in numbers large enough to dethrone the old stale host they gained most of their philosophical or spiritual nourishment from. As the State recognizes this new religion, the cycle begins again. Religions are nothing but State-sanctioned cults.