Reading: Cobb [Nature]

Cobb investigates human nature as well as the nature of human expression, not only describing the human as a "pleasure seeking bricoleur" but confronting the tension between our fascination and "sheer delight in the simulacra that now compose the world" which can temporarily satisfy, with our awareness that acquisitions are, in the end, not enough.

Our desire for spiritual transcendence outside the realm of institutional religion becomes, in fact, the motivation behind our various simulations and creative inventions. We need first-hand experience. We want a reality that goes below the surface, beyond simulacra. And yet in order to touch the invisible we attempt to manufacture tangible facsimiles. Skin and clothes seem inseparable.


WHAT'S IN THE BOX!?! I love how Cobb brings up the films of Nolan and Minghella and how they reflect human nature, but a curiously absent was the counter argument and viewpoint of how human nature is inherently sinful after sin was introduced into the world after the Garden. The "pleasure seeking bricoleur" is of an inherently sinful human nature is perfectly emulated in David Fincher's Se7en. As I continued to read, I kept waiting for Cobb to bring up the flick as a negative point of view of human nature. But it never came.