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A Call To Arms
With his sobering documentary ‘Decadence: Decline of the Western World’ Pria Viswalingam argues that the West is in dire need of a new economic system...
With a Sri-Lankan heritage, born in Malaysia, and educated in England and Singapore, Pria Viswalingam came to Australia as a commercial radio journalist. In 1989 he joined SBS as a journalist and recently made the six part television series, Decadence: The Meaninglessness of Modern Life, which became the foundation for the feature length documentary Decadence: Decline of the Western World.
Where did the idea for Decadence come from?
It addresses topics we all talk about, how our lives are today - that the future is somewhat worrying. I wanted to make something philosophical; it's a film about everything really - our lives in the Western World and the sense of being somewhat adrift. These days we don't really believe in anybody because everyone's trying to sell us something, and we don't aspire to be anyone anymore. I thought, ‘What's happened? What's gone wrong?' Since the rest of the world wants to live like us, it seems that this is as good as it gets - or even, it was as good as it gets.
So what's gone wrong?
Most of us know the phrase, ‘Money can't buy happiness', so why do we keep buying? Because so many of our best minds are in the business of selling to us. How do we get away from that?
Although you cover the political and economical issues of capitalism, what's different about Decadence is that you take this consumptive approach and extend its impact to other areas of our lives...
Yes. I wanted to take, what I call, "short-termism" and look at how it affects our personal lives. We live in this throw away culture and now we're doing the same in our relationships. If it's not working we say, ‘That's it, I'm out, move on to something else.' Short-termism rules the corporate world but now it rules our private lives as well. We're only focused on instant gratification, because we're told, ‘You owe it to yourself to have something better!' That's individualism gone mad. But hang on! I think to myself, ‘I'm supposed to be living with a family, in a neighbourhood, in a community, in a society, so how do I cut myself off from all of that? And why should I?' We do best in a family; we're supported in a network of connections. It's as simple as that - you want to share your life with someone.
The film suggests the only real hope is the decline of the Western World and the rebuilding of a new system.
I'm actually a lot more pessimistic than the film! But that said, I heard recently, a group of economics students walked out of their class at Harvard University. They said, ‘You're only teaching us one system - the capitalist system and look around the world - it's clearly failed. Teach us something else.'
What are your hopes for the film?
To start a dialogue and get people talking about how we can change the system. I think America has proved that wild capitalism doesn't work; we need some kind of regulation. If you look at the softer side of capitalism, European socialism, that's what we aspire to, but we can't - Europe is falling to pieces. And we certainly don't want to adopt the old fashioned patriarchal systems of Asia. The West is still the best version of freedom we've got. That was the point of the film - it's a call to arms.
For more information on Decadence: Decline of the Western World, visit the film's website.
