Thought of the Day (05/12/2014) -- Critical Disillusionment Again, I have to ask myself, why keep on reporting news that is repeatedly bad? Am I simply a self-indulgent masochist or is there is a method behind my madness? What is my purpose in doing this? Do I simply want to drive my readers into a state of increasing desperate and paralyzing cynicism? Or, on the other hand (like Chris Hedges), do I hope that people will finally organize themselves effectively and fight back? Partly, I am with Chris Hedges and others like him who hope that the people will revolt against injustice successfully though non-violently, and in the United States, we still gratefully have the means to do so. Having said that, I dont think that it is realistic or likely that this will happen -- at least not now. My rants against passivity and the brain-washing that results from relentless public relations (read: propaganda), superstition posing as religion, and an impoverished education system that acts as little more than a vocational school for technocrats -- all of that has diminished our collective capacity to reflect more deeply. Even if that were NOT the case, history has shown us that promising political revolutions, such as those that occured in America, France, and Russia, have often resulted in the creation of other forms of oligarchical tyranny. Those who form the bulk of humanity seem to constantly repeat themselves by defaulting to egocentrism, greed, avarice, collaborating with the master-slave dynamic. In fact, it seems that the quest for security and power is hard-wired into our genes. The greatest prophets and sages who have come and gone have attempted to alter that wiring but to little evident affect. The triumphs of the European Enlightenment, rationality, secularism, democracy, and technology have also been largely diverted to the same game. So what does one DO in such repetitive circumstances? More importantly, what does one do in an increasingly globalized world which has entered into what some call the Anthropocene Era -- a period in which we have decisive control over much of nature? There are three interlinked developments that dominate the beginning of this century. Those three (unprecedented) dominants are climate change, the increasing wealth gap the rapid development of telematic technologies, all linked through the internet, and all of these are increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence (a phrase that should be taken in both the literal and ironic meanings of those terms), Finally, and not insignificantly; increasing economic disparities threaten the very foundations of democratic governance. In fact capitalism seems to be working quite well in authoritarian states like China. Democracy, let us not forget, is a rather recent experiment, and there are no guarantees that it will not be replaced. All of these conditions have fostered a psycho-ethical and sociological imbalance, and naturally a general spiritual malaise has resulted. As Ive also repeatedly pointed out, all of this results in a widespread (and increasingly globalized) condition of passive nihilism. Humanity seems to be at an impasse, and most hopes of transformative change, when critically examined, simply seem to be forms of wishful thinking. Those who recognize this state of affairs can either collapse in despair, lapse into cynicism, or (as Kierkegaard, once noted) make a mad dash into sheer possibility. The question is which possibility? When I use the term sheer possibility, I am not referring to the possibility of this or that, but rather the possibility OF possibility as such. To grasp what I mean about possibility as such, one has to grasp the meaning of faith. Rather than an intellectual conviction in propositional truth, faith is an attitude of releasement to the unknown. Of course, living in the face of the unknown takes courage, and most of us lack it. Instead, we have become utterly entranced with greater and greater control, fostered by the growth of an instrumental reason that is tied to the urge to power. In the meantime, logical analysis tell us that there is a PROBABILITY that the human species will extinguish itself in the coming century, or at least civilization as we have known it will end. Recent studies in the exponential increase of artilects indicate that we might be entering a transhuman phase of evolution -- one in which human beings as we have known them will morph into cyborgs: a new form of organism that merges protoplasm with silicon. Alarmingly, all of this may become a necessity as the biosphere becomes totally uninhabitable. The question the goes begging for an answer is what then will be left of the human spirit? I am full in agreement with Morris Berman that the only revolution worth its name is the one that begins with ourselves (in our interiority), extends to our families and friendships and results in the formation of micro-communities that create an alternative to the industry of bones. When there are enough of these, then one might begin to speak of joining others in a confederation of progressive groups who have already tested their theories by living them. Without that, I am afraid, no one will be adequately prepared for a future that is rapidly over-taking us. To be radical is to work from the roots up. It is a truism that transformation begins with ourselves, but it doesnt end there. Needless to say, we need to foster non-violent, pluralistic alternatives to the plutocracy that now rules us, but we must also join to resist the insidious poisoning of our (fledgling) democracies and secure them through dedicated civic action.
Posted on: Tue, 13 May 2014 21:55:19 +0000
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