Trivialism is the philosophy of taking the most mundane aspects of one�s life and saying, �hey�this stuff is important because it comes from me. I created this.� Of course, like everything, it�s much more complicated than that, but that�s about the simplest terms I can put it into.
Why trivialism? Because everything else has failed. Some critics have called it a religion that hates importance. The only part of that summery I would object to is the use of the word �religion.� It�s not a religion at all. In fact, trivialism rejects religion because religion is too encompassing. And I�m not sure it hates importance so much as it just sees other things�things typically thought of as unimportant�as more important than the things our society tells us are important. Basically, way too much has been made of the institutions that govern our lives. The reason is simple and obvious: they govern our lives! So it�s a self-perpetuating cycle. They are thought of as important because they control us and they control us because they are thought of as important. The only way to resist the tyranny of these institutions is to remove their importance. The tricky part is, once the importance is removed from these institutions, one is left to believe that nothing is important. And I don�t think that�s true at all. I think there are lots of important things, we�re just looking in the wrong places. I want to get into the idea of the institutions you�ve mentioned. What are these institutions? Initially, my list consisted of abstract concepts and the way those concepts were being portrayed in our society. There was a guy named Ferdinand de Saussure, some Swiss linguist, who came up with three basic components to language: the signifier, the signified, and the sign. The signifier is the actual word that defines whatever you�re talking about. So, for instance, if we�re talking about a clock, the signifier would be the actual letters C, L, O, C, K in that order. And the monosyllabic sound associated with those particular letters in that particular order. The signified, then, would be the actual object. That thing on the wall with the big hand and little hand that tells time. The sign is the sort of marriage between the two. As people who think about abstract concepts in a concrete language, we can never dissociate the concepts with the language. The intangible is married to the tangible. That�s how it always has been and that�s how it always will be. What Saussure failed to realize�and what people like Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan had to posit�was that this sign, this marriage between tangible and intangible is deeply flawed because of our own pre-conceived notions of words, of language, of things. Of course I�m dumbing down Derrida�s ideas. His are far more complex and far headier, but I can stop there for the point I�m trying to make. Now with that background, I saw these institutions as the signs�the marriage between the ideal and the tangible. Our culture�and it�s not just our culture, it�s pretty much humanity across the board�has a way of taking abstract concepts and solidifying them in some strange, often bastardized way. For instance the abstract concept of love has the signifier of marriage. And I would argue that love is much too complex to be summed up with the institution of marriage. Also, the institution of marriage seems to limit love to one single person, presumably�though divorce rates tend to undermine this fact�for the remainder of one�s life.
So do trivialists adhere to polyamory?
Trivialists adhere to whatever they want to. I�m not here to make a judgment call or say any particular method of love is correct, but polyamory seems to be a valid choice for someone to make if he or she wants, so we must do all in our power to keep the freedom of that choice�whether or not we agree with it for ourselves having no bearing on our defense�available. And marriage, with all its presumption and sacredness, undermines that availability. In our culture, people engaged in polyamory are vilified, because the institution of marriage is unilaterally and infallibly accepted as the right way. And that�s simply not true, not for everyone. So here you have the concept of love�I can�t really make a judgment call on the concept of love, but like everything I think its adherence should be optional�being stripped of value and commodified by an institution that�s telling you how to live your life. That�s just not fair to individuality. Same goes with faith. The signifier of faith�and again, I�m simply borrowing language from Saussurean philosophy, and using it to suit my own needs�is religion. Particularly, organized religion. And I won�t even go into how organized religion distorts faith�s freedom. But I think these things are all very destructive to freedom and to individuality.
So you aren�t opposed to faith and love, but rather to their signifiers?
I desperately want to agree with that statement, but the Derridean notion that you can�t really separate the two still plagues me. Again, the signifier in these instances, is simply a manifestation of the signified, but together they create a sign, and once that sign has been created, people�s constructions are way too hard to overcome, so rather than trying to separate love from marriage or faith from religion, I choose to reject the entire sign. And maybe that makes me sound faithless and loveless, but until we wipe out the entire sign�s importance altogether, we can�t begin to replace or rebuild the signifiers.
Some critics have said that you are an anarchist, desperately trying to destroy order and instill chaos.
Calling someone an anarchist is an easy and wonderful way to marginalize them, thereby diluting their message. I�m not some radical who is calling for violent overthrow of the government. I simply want a decrease in the importance of institutions and an increase in the importance of individuality. If �chaos� is defined as the basic freedom to live according to one�s own principles, so long as it is in harmony with all others, and not be shunned or vilified because of their choices, then I suppose I do want to instill chaos. The bottom line is, the only way I see people living in harmony and acceptance is if the importance of institutions that govern our lives is removed. And the only way to remove that importance is to trivialize it.
You talked about trying to elevate the �mundane aspects� of people�s lives. How does that relate to the concept of removing importance from institutions?
Well the whole reason we have to remove the importance from institutions is so it can be placed properly in the lap of the individual, where it belongs. This is where I think most counter-institutional movements fail. There�s this way of seeing the people as a single entity, a mass conglomerate, a giant dragon with many heads. The greatest good for the greatest number. Opiate for the Masses. The People�s Republic. The Union Makes us Strong. I see the validity of these things, but lumping the people into one large mass does exactly what I�m trying to avoid, which is strip people of their own identity. Of course we all have common ground, common struggles, and common goals, but we also have vastly different ideas, opinions, thoughts, and principles. The mundane, trivial aspects of life are a sort of balance between the individual and the group identity. They are what give the individual a connection to his fellow man. If I like to break dance and you like to tango and she likes to salsa and he likes to waltz, we�re all dancing but we are able to influence each other and strengthen ourselves and our group. There are literally infinite possibilities out there and I want as many people as possible to explore as many possibilities as possible. In this way, we�ll have a connection to more of life than we ever thought we could. I read in the paper a while back about a guy who spent something like ten hours a day playing Pac-Man in order to get some perfect score. He had been memorizing all possible patterns for the ghosts to travel and all possible places for the fruit to pop up. He devoted around twelve years of his life to this. When I read this, I felt an immediate connection to this guy. I don�t have the time or energy for that crazy, intricate stuff, but he was doing something so completely against the grain, but which obviously gave him a purpose. And who�s to say that purpose is any worse than some hot-shot lawyer who completely devotes himself to figuring the intricate workings of the U.S. law? As long as you�re constructing meanings and living according to what makes you happy, you�re succeeding in this life. And I�m just trying to support that.
So what about a priest who devotes himself to his work? Aren�t you undermining your desire for freedom by trying to remove certain institutions?
I�m not trying to remove any institutions. I�m simply calling for equality in all walks of life. I don�t want the priest to have any advantages or disadvantages over the pac-man player. In this culture, the priest has a much higher prestige than the pac-man player, but to me, he does not. Nor does he have lower prestige. All is equal. But the foundation of this equality lies in removing importance from certain things and elevating importance of other things. If the line of perceived prestige lay at a point on a scale, lets call it 50; and if we were to draw the scale in its present distribution; the priest would be maybe at 200. And the Pac-man player would be at like 2 or 3. So naturally, we�d have to lower the priest 150 and raise the Pac-Man player about 48. But in the end, they�d both be at 50. So nothing is really undermined at all. Re-evaluating that which we deem important is the only way to reconcile freedom and equality.
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