The story of George and Martha
George and Martha are a happy couple living on Broadway. Since their brief therapy session, they no longer love each other, they no longer hate each other. Each devotes their day to their work. Every day is the same as the day before and the same as the day after, so every day is the best day of their lives.
Before, it was very different. Both from middle-class families and having attended university, they each had a lot of questions, each was restless in a disordered but happy way. They both felt uneasy, though, not only in their married life, but in their social life in general and even in their relationship to the world, to their very existence, to their actions. Educated and curious, their minds shaped by the university culture, but at the same time anchored in the arrogant myth of success and unlimited progress of their time, they lived every second of their lives as a sham. Something was wrong, but what ? They never found an answer and never had the courage to change the myths that grounded their beliefs.
In the end, Martha sank into alcohol and George into depression. Their relationship was punctuated by yelling, insults, laughter and furious couplings mixed with brutality, passionate embraces, moaning and alcohol fumes, and sometimes long periods of silence. Were they on the verge of madness? One night, everything went so wrong, they decided to go see a renowned couple's therapist. In exactly six sessions, as he had promised, the therapist succeeded in reconciling the couple with themselves, with each other, with life, and, he joked, "who knows, maybe even with God”. All three laughed heartily. He ended his therapy with these encouraging words, smiling: "You see, now the big bad wolf no longer exists". And they both nodded with relief.
Since then, George and Martha have been in each other's arms every night of the year, including Easter, Christmas, birthdays, and while watching TV series. One can assess that in their heads, they don't look at each other from the inside anymore, as if the television was a kind of telescope that allowed them to enter the intimacy of the others in order to avoid looking at their own. And one can think that it is that, the magic recipe of the utopia, the brave new world, the universal harmony, a kaleidoscopic panopticon of Bentham: that each one lives, by interposed screen, the intimacy of the other. To watch the other watching the other watching television. But of course, utopia has never existed.
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In 2016, Michel Serres, a French philosopher, said this:
"Today, compared to our ancestors, we have gained three hours and thirty seven minutes of life expectancy per day, which is colossal. This figure, three hours and thirty seven minutes, corresponds exactly to the average time spent by people in front of the television. That is to say that the life expectancy they have gained, they lose by becoming idiots. It is nevertheless extraordinary. Extraordinary!"