Scarface, or the story of Postmodernism

Brian De Palma, in his movie scarface, made, in the early 80s a very relevant prophecy of what would happen in our civilisation in the next decades.

Tony Montana is an arrogant, proud, insecure power hungry narcissist who lives according to his emotions and the day to day addictive behaviour driving him towards more and more money, power, ego and... cocaine!

Sosa is a rational, cold minded straight up, fair... businessman! He wisely navigates in the madness of drug traffickers, politicians and mercenaries, while pragmatically executing a life strategy that would place him eventually at the top of the Bolivian drug cartel.

Postmodernism, like Tony Montana, started its rise modestly within a very flourishing economical context, the momentum of the industrial revolution.

Similarly, it's during the momentum of the glorious thirty, that Tony Montana whose main quality was his lack of consideration for human life and a gigantic ego, was able to create a fortune out of organising the distribution of a dream.

The dream that happiness could be stored in your pocket and would require only a sniff to come back at any time.

Postmodernism, like cocaine, is a dream. The dream that reality is malleable and can adapt to your own emotional state of the moment. The dream that all you have to do is FEEL, and the universe would be redefined according to your feelings. The dream that reality was subjective, and that reason, evidence and facts actually didn't even matter.

Postmodernism, like Tony Montana, reached its peak [probably around 2015] and because of its failure to offer a stable source of trust and reliability to its followers, it started to escalate in arrogance, dogmatism and addictive behaviours, redefining any contradictory views as immoral, wrong, based solely on the premise that it would hurt or offend you or someone else.

"The World is yours." The last few years have been intense for Postmodernists. Sex, drugs and rock and roll. And then what? Depression, nihilism and a nauseous after-taste of chemicals in the throat, waking up in a smelly post-apocalyptic room filled with Coca Cola cans, discarded cigarettes and used condoms.

Postmodernists, like their philosophy that has - by essence - no rational root, deny objective morality, universal principles and perpetually seek instant gratification by either condoning and moralising everyone based on their feeling of the moment, comfortable with their self contradictory statements and double standards, or by simply scrolling life like gold miners searching for some small doses of dopamine available on the spot. Minute after minute, after after hour.

Like Tony Montana, postmodernism ends you up in this ever growing odd mixture of feelings made of anger and hedonism, going back and forth between a shower of dopamine and a spike of rage, a fun meme and an article about insanely unfair situations, handpicked for you by the algorithm of social networking platforms.

Like Tony Montana, postmodernism ends you up in this overwhelming paranoia and state of war, where the others would be rigged against you, and any new information or advice would be seen as an attempt to demean or threaten you, and that the only way to cope with diversity of opinion would be constant agression, verbal and physical violence or defamation campaigns.

Postmodernism is doomed to failure, because irrationality and subjectivism can only escalate towards more and more arrogance, entitlement, addictive behaviours and eventually hurting everything and everyone.

While Tony Montana is busy feeding his ego with an opulent lifestyle, snorting cocaine and smoking cigars in his hot tub and following his abusive relationship with Elvira, Alejandro Sosa is silently growing his business, keeping low profile while piling up mountains of bills from his palace hidden in the Bolivian mountains.

This year is going to be the year Tony Montana is getting paranoid and hysterical, shooting at Sosa's mercenaries with his Kalashnikov from his mezzanine, hurling insults, his face covered with white powder and his body pierced by bullets. The irrationality of Postmodernism is being revealed for what it is: a failed coup over authenticity, reason and virtue.

As humans, we tend to love stability, reliability and peace, and this is why, at the end, Sosa always comes back.

This is why Sosa will always be the one who laughs last.