This could also be called Context is Everything, because that is what this is about. What people are depends on their context – where they are is what they are. Their surroundings give them the resources that define who they are. They do not exist in a vacuum.
When we are born, we exist in the world of ourselves and our mother – with a strong emphasis on ourselves. This is what makes small children so delightful: they are their unique selves. Something they later give up as they grow up.
While this is true, it is also true that people can continue to define their own individual selves – although this is relatively rare, and may be only a small part of them. But this is only likely to happen if their society supports this kind of individuation.
This kind of society existed in classical times, was rediscovered by the Renaissance, and was one of the reasons for the formation of the modern world. It existed in early America, which was strongly influenced by the Enlightenment. This world, where the autonomous individual could flourish, is no longer with us – and this is probably the biggest problem that we have – because progress depends on human creativity – not on the state of technology.
Let me return to where people are. There are two places people can exist: in themselves or in others – in other words: inside of themselves or outside of themselves. These are the two kinds of human spaces: social or individual. We are not things, which do not relate to anything else, so we cannot reside in that kind of space. We only exist in relationships, and our most important relationship should be with ourself. The paucity of this relationship to ourselves is the crisis of our times.
In our original condition, as small groups of hunter-gatherers, we existed both as part of a tribe and as ourselves, and there was no major conflicts between these two. Now that these people have vanished, this human ability: to exist as individuals and also as part of a group, has vanished with them. And this is also one of our biggest problems.
Now, the usual way for people to be, is to be part of their group, and to identify with it completely. And more and more to have this socializing mediated by technology: such as television or by computers and the Internet.
By contrast, our socializing technology was once accomplished by writing and reading and by public speaking. All skills that are now in decline. And it hardly needs to be said, by thinking – a skill now also now in decline.
One thing more needs to be said: we should pay more attention to our relationship to power. And by power I mean both its social form and as chemical energy, these two have merged to form Informational Capitalism and the Military – which here again, are much the same thing.
In fact what we have is now a complex: many different, interacting actors that are each evolving. But this is such a new idea that even experts in the field cannot, in my humble opinion, really understand it. We are not in charge of it – but, as usual, it is an charge of us.
The end result is that the autonomous self, that exists in itself and for itself, has practically disappeared. It has been swamped by the world of mass-produced objects and people that are ruthless and brutal.
Real Americans Love War
I just realized this clearly – and immediately wondered why I never realized it before. No doubt it was because Americans are not aware of it themselves, and don’t want anyone else realizing it. But everyone else in the world already knows it, and Americans should too.
When the peaceniks marched on Washington before the Iraq War, the media disparaged them as weak nothings. Real Americans, they implied, were eager for another war, and not too squeamish about the reasons for one. War had become a national pastime – and one they didn’t want to deprive themselves of.
What baffled me was the support for war from the business world. I could see how the defense industry was in favor of it: it was money directly into their pockets. But how could all this vast flow of money elsewhere benefit the civilian industries, since it would obviously weaken the civilian economy?
Then I realized: war would make popular control of the economy impossible – the thing they dread most. They have to be in control of the economy. A peace economy would make this difficult because the people would come to their senses, and decide the economy should benefit them. That they should have more power.
Business is interested in power, and they don’t want this taken away from them. If the nation collapses, this is not a problem: they will still rule in the ruins that remain.
Economy
Political comment