Posts Tagged ‘ Self-Destructive Society ’

In a World Dominated by Things, People Become Things Too

They become super-people – despising ordinary people and their paltry needs. They become obsessed with grand schemes, such as The Market and its needs instead. They become destructive, and eliminate all human progress – serving Power, and nothing else.

As an objective philosopher, one might wonder why being obsessed with technology makes people murderous. I think this new identity, as something all-powerful – brings back, and re-energizes the Terrible God of the ancient world, which we got from the Hebrews. Which became incorporated into the unconscious foundations of Christianity. Which became incorporated into our religious-secular world. And which is destroying it.

This world consists of The West (The US and the EU), the East (China and Japan), with Islam and Israel right in the middle. There are numerous minor players too, but they can be ignored for now. In all cases, power is the main issue, mainly economic power, but also in the case of Islam: religious power.

These two kinds of power form the conflict between the West and Islam. The East simply concentrates on taking advantage of everyone else, regardless of religious or ideological conflicts – and seems to be winning.

2010
10/27
CATEGORY
Sociology
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Man’s Inhumanity to Man Has Become a Mass Movement

Humans have always been capable of being inhuman. Strangely enough, this is part of our humanness – and is one of our primary obsessions – our fascination with how inhuman we can be.

Take the Iliad, for example – our earliest literature. There inhumanity is rampant, with very little else – as war always is. Of course, the gods interfere constantly, but Homer makes it clear the humans are perfectly capable of being foolish, on a grand scale, all by themselves. But behind the scenes, the gods had their own agenda – and it was not advancing the human race.

In our time, technology plays the part of the gods. And like the gods, it has its own agenda – which is not advancing the human race. Mankind has always been capable of acting inhumanly to other humans not quite like him (he is capable of making the finest distinctions about this) – but now he is capable of acting inhumanly to mankind in general. Fine distinctions are not required – everyone is the target!

This mass movement has one important ally – we cannot believe it exists! Our internal logic (which has self-protection built into it)  insists it is not possible – and therefore refuses to see it.

This is probably the fatal flaw that will destroy us. The details of how this happened may be clear to later people – if they still exist – but the living, who are still being overwhelmed by it – are like people in a shipwreck. Asking why it happened is foolish – we have to swim or sink.

The life preserver that may save some of us is simple – being able to see exactly what I am describing. Once you are aware of the big picture, all the parts of the picture begin to make sense.

What I am saying here is well-known to contemporary poets. I refer you to my postings The Poetry of Vertigo, Understanding the World, and We Have Communication Sickness – all from the same article in Poetry Magazine.

Homer would be hard put to understand today’s situation, but he was familiar enough with mass insanity. We need to adopt his approach (seeing things as they really are) just like him.

2010
09/16
CATEGORY
History
Philosophy
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People Without Personal Power Are Not Really People at All

The reason for this is simple: because they have no power of their own, they cannot do anything on their own. They can only become powerful as part of some higher meaning – as part of a group that embodies that meaning – and gives their own lives meaning. Without this, they don’t even exist.

Immediately, a problem presents itself. How can we detect these non-people? After all, they look like people and most of the time they act more-or-less like people. Often they are the nicest people you can imagine – if you don’t look too carefully. But this exactly what a careful person must do – look carefully and critically. And then ask themselves “Is this person really here?”

The answer is usually not simple. People are complicated beings, difficult to predict – but certainly not impossible. Anyone with good people skills can do it – once it dawns on them that they can do it – and have to do it, to survive.

But most never get to this point. I certainly didn’t, in my early life. Instead of doing what I wanted to do, I simply went after a good job, after a slight detour to get an engineering degree – something I didn’t really have much interest in. I ended up being miserable – with one difference: I knew I was miserable.

There is another complication: personal power can exist, but be limited in ways that can be hard to detect – and which changes from time to time.

However, I think some general trends are always present, and are not hard to detect. People with no power – or no anything, really – are destructive of themselves and others.

Why this is, I am not sure. I am tempted to believe they are so furious about not being able to be themselves – the main reason for being, actually – that they respond by destroying the world that made them this way – weak and defective. Or perhaps a whole culture automatically develops that is anti-social – oriented towards serving power and destructive of people. Or perhaps both.

The end result is easy to detect: rampant militarism – whose goal is always destructive of human freedom, while supporting those in power.

In any case, power moves from the people outwards toward external power structures. The result is people that have no power.

The world cannot be saved because it has already been destroyed.

2010
09/15
CATEGORY
Philosophy
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No Exit

Wikipedia: No Exit

TruthDig: Chris Hedges ( who is talking about the same thing, but doesn’t realize it)

TED: Liz Coleman’s call to reinvent liberal arts education (for a more positive perspective)

What I see happening is very simple – our present world civilization (what I call the power complex) is self-destructing – at an ever-increasing rate. This is not so unusual, the same thing has happened many times before – the classical case being the Fall of the Roman Empire. And, as always, the people involved cannot see this happening – and this is one of the main reasons for its inevitability.

I do not claim any special wisdom for being able to see this. Quite to the contrary, this skill (if you could call it that) is largely the result of my having been a failure in the high-tech life of the States – and being forced to live in isolation in Costa Rica, where I had plenty of time to think and read. Plenty of other people, in similar situations, have come to the same conclusion.

It seems to be a universal rule that people in a No Exit situation are unaware of their situation – and are therefore unable to stop it. One implies the other.

I admire Chris Hedges, but he cannot compare to Sartre. Hedges is a reporter, Sartre is a philosopher – who does more than report – which he also does extremely well.

To Hedges credit, he is becoming clearer about the main point. I quote from his book Empire of Illusion, page 53:

Blind faith in illusion is our culture’s secular version of being born again. These illusions assure us that happiness and success is our birthright. They tell us that catastrophic collapse is not permanent. They promise that pain and suffering can always be overcome by tapping into our hidden, inner strengths. The encourage us to bow down before the cult of the self.

To confront these illusions, to puncture their mendacity by exposing the callousness and cruelty of the corporate state, signals a loss of faith. It is to become an apostate. The culture of illusion, one of happy thoughts, manipulated emotions, and trust in the beneficence of power, means we sing along with the chorus or are instantly disappeared from view like the losers on a reality show.

Not bad!

But here, and in his TruthDig article, he still evades the main point – that the end is upon us. He still thinks some kind of revolution will save us. And this marks him as a second-rate thinker – compared to someone like Jacques Ellul – who offers no solutions.

Finally, Liz Coleman on TED. I was able to find much the same thing an written interview Schooling the Schools:

Liberal arts education is supposed to instill “an enhanced capacity for civic engagement,” she went on, but today, “we, the people, have become inured to our own irrelevance when it comes to doing anything significant about anything that matters concerning governance, beyond waiting another four years … There is no such thing as a viable democracy made up of experts, zealots, politicians and spectators.”

Her page on TED has lots of good links, if you want to follow up on them.

2010
09/14
CATEGORY
History
Philosophy
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From the Ruling Classes to the Power Complex

First, some definitions. Human societies usually became stratified, with some groups in them ending up with more than other groups. These groups controlled the others. They had more prestige and usually more wealth. They dominated the other groups. In a word, these ruling classes had more power.

The people in these classes were often related to each other, and comprised powerful families. Needless to say, there were often conflicts between these groups, and this is what history has been mainly about – struggles for power.

But on a different level there has also been the struggle between different kinds of societies – societies with different values and different ways of being organized.

I am now listening to a course about the Reformation – which was about one of those long, drawn-out conflicts. The one which produced the modern world, and a fundamentally different culture. And centuries later, in our time, a fundamentally different kind of power. One in which people are controlled by it.

The forty-dollar question, of course, is what is this it? Whatever it is, it has showed up and taken over without our being aware of it – almost as though we have been occupied by a force from another planet. Except that this force, whatever it is, must be been one of our own creations. It couldn’t have come from anywhere else.

So far in my struggles this morning I haven’t gotten very far, but I have re-defined the question to this “What have we done to ourselves?” The answer, which is certainly an unpleasant one, seems to be: we have destroyed ourselves.

I am certain this is the correct answer, but I could also have said: we have created a power complex – and given our power to it. This power complex is what I referred to earlier as simply it – for lack of a better term. Whatever it is, it is clearly in control. Now I want to say more about it.

Since the middle of the 19th Century, two things have happened: an increased understanding of ourselves (the social sciences) and high-technology. The first gave those in power, mainly the large corporations, the ability to control us, via the Media, which was created by the second: high-technology – which also (via the computer and the Internet) gave them the ability to create ever larger organizations – which eventually included everything – the Power Complex.

Previously, the ruling classes chose who would represent them in the power structure. Now, the power complex choses those who will serve it best, and gives power to them temporarily. There is only one rule they must follow: it must have all the power.

We have been forgotten, and it has taken over.

2010
08/22
CATEGORY
Philosophy
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Human Rights, Society’s Rights, and Corporate Rights

Human rights are what the modern world was based on – the importance and dignity of individuals, and their individual development. Along with this was the rights of society, making it better able to serve everyone. The conflict between these two rights is the oldest one we have – and in a democratic society is constantly being re-negotiated. But not, obviously, in a totalitarian one.

What we have now, in a world dominated by large organizations is a new kind of totalitarianism. Where only they have rights – simply because they have all the power. Might makes right – although they will never come right out and say so. As Teddy said, they speak softly, but carry a big stick.

People have gotten used to this new regime, and have forgotten about themselves, and their rights. And the rights of society. They concentrate on conforming to the demands made on them by their work environments. A demand that they forget all other demands.

As a result, people have followed orders and become inhuman, they have turned against themselves and their society – and even against the world in general. They are intent on destroying it.

I am fully aware that no one wants to recognize this – which, after all, is the worst thing that could possibly happen to us. The present situation, which amounts to a new kind of religion, considers any criticism of itself as a heresy. It doesn’t burn people at the stake anymore – people are so well-behaved it doesn’t have to.

Sheldon S. Wolin, in his book Democracy Inc. – Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism, says much the same thing.

2010
08/20
CATEGORY
Philosophy
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Drugs and the Power Complex

First of all, what is the Power Complex? It is all of the large organizations in America, combined in a complex – as defined by complexity science – where many entities affect each other in complicated ways. Science originally stayed away from anything like this, because the large number of variables were too hard to handle. But computers have made them more manageable.

Historically, this began with Eisenhower’s Military-Industrial complex – and this still comprises its core. As the corporations expanded, acquired each other and more territory, globalization became a fact of life. They had so much money they could buy anything – including the Government and the Media. It all became the same thing, or complex. Everybody, directly or indirectly worked for it. And this began to include the educational establishment – at all levels. And even the penal system – as my discussion of drugs will show.

Underlaying all this was the strangest thing – Calvinism, which most Americans thought had died long ago. But it lived on in their collective unconscious – along with much else. Calvinism had strict rules about drugs – it was against them – because it considered them immoral. Because it interfered with its work ethic – and with industrial efficiency.

The American attitude towards drugs, while strongly influenced by Calvinism, made no sense. Alcohol (after Prohibition) and tobacco were not consider dangerous drugs – in spite of copious evidence to the contrary. While marijuana, commonly used in Islamic countries, was on the list of prohibited substances.  Irregardless, Americans proceeded to criminalize drug use. And these now form most of the inmates in our penal institutions.

It is tempting to include criminal organizations in the Power Complex – which is logically where they belong – along with the drug police and the penal institutions – as part of the same interacting complex.

Now that I write this, for the first time, I am started by my own conclusions. And by its obvious solution – making these drugs legal. Costa Rica, which is using the American military more and more to combat its drug problem – could do the same thing.

Why on earth don’t they?

2010
08/18
CATEGORY
Philosophy
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What Made Us Reject Our Humanness?

The honest answer is that we don’t really know. Whenever you are dealing with unconscious motivations, you are in a guessing game – and you have to pick the theory, or theories, that seem to best fit the observed behavior. You can see what people’s behavior is – but even that his hotly disputed. Many American’s deny, for example, that America is in a state of permanent war.

At one time, people were more honest about their motivations. Calvin, for example, went to a great deal of trouble to clarify his position – helped enormously by the intense debates going on. People demanded that beliefs be clarified.

Now, just the opposite is true – any discussion of beliefs are carefully avoided – or are superficial. Essentially, people deny the human problem even exists. There is no human crisis, only something strange people have made up for dubious reasons.

Right now, I have two answers to this fundamental problem – and they depend on your appraisal of human nature - optimistic or pessimistic.

The optimistic appraisal I stated in my posting The Self-Destructive Society – people, as moral beings, have become so disgusted with present society they are determined to destroy it.

The pessimistic appraisal is more complicated – but basically is states that people have become so infatuated with the latest technologies (TV in particular) and so overwhelmed by the Power Complex that they have forgotten themselves completely – and reject their former selves, and their former society, as totally inadequate. Therefore, they destroy it.

Probably both are true, and they work together. The end result, in either case, is the end of the human world as we have known it.

2010
08/18
CATEGORY
Philosophy
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Three Ways of Being

People have three major ways, or modes, of being:

  • As humans, with our intense emotional and social lives.
  • As technique – Jacques Ellul’s invaluable contribution, where he distinguishes carefully between technique and technology. Most people are not interested in such subtly, and prefer to think simply of technology.
  • As the Power Complex. This is our latest addition, and was produced by the interaction of advanced technology and our ancient tendency towards stratified societies. Computers and the Internet have made them all-powerful – and have made democracy irrelevant.

The human mode is our most basic, the ground from which everything else springs. But from the beginning we could also exist as extensions, or creations, of ourselves – our tools. We could easily switch back and forth between these two modes, without being aware of this mode-switching at all. We could make or use our things, and go right back to being humans. This innocent state of affairs, however, was not going to last.

With the coming of the modern world, and science, we focused more and more of our attention and energy on our things – and became more like them ourselves. “Things are in the saddle and ride mankind.” as Emerson put it in the middle of the 19th Century. This was the industrial era, where our humanness and our thingness were in uneasy co-existence.

This ended with WWI – followed by the Depression and WWII. Things were obviously badly out of control. But below the surface a new mode of being was being developed – the Power Complex – which completely took over in the last half of the 20th Century.

The key source for understanding change this is Daniel J. Boorstin’s The Image – which shows how we became overwhelmed by our image-creating technologies. When I took it back down from my bookshelf again, I was surprised how fresh it still was, and how much we can still learn from it – about how we deceive ourselves.

The Power Complex has come into being almost as a new religion – a religion of power. And with it came new kind of person who was compatible with it – people who were only human part of the time – who eagerly staffed the Self-Destructive Society.

2010
08/18
CATEGORY
Philosophy
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The Self-Destructive Society

Human society has often been destructive towards other societies – but never towards itself. The very idea was unthinkable, why would we want to destroy our selves, which is all we have? The answer is simple: because, as a society, we have become evil, and as inherently moral beings we have no choice but to destroy ourselves. I hope you can see the irony, but also the morality, of our response.

Unfortunately, the first step of this process, by our technology and power obsessed society,  was the elimination of the antonymous self, which only seemed to get in the way of  new way of life we could not resist. We forgot our selves, the irreplaceable beings that we had started with.

As a result, there was no one left to save us from ourselves – except our primitive moral nature, who promptly set to work destroying everything. Everything, may be putting it a little strongly, unless atomic warfare breaks out – and the long-term prospects for that become more certain all the time.

Writing this posting, I am well aware that I am placing myself outside the limits of what is acceptable discourse. This is not something I relish – but, on the other hand, something that has happened already. In the same way, I am not reporting on something in the process of happening – but something that, in essence, has happened already. The die has been set, and the resulting process is inexorable.

I am reporting from a battlefield after the battle is over. The situation is not impossible for me personally – I still have my Social Security benefits coming in every month, and Amazon is happy to sell me almost anything I want. Still, living in the wreckage of what was once the strongest nation in history, the nation of my youth, I cannot help but suffer from shell-shock.

Consider where we were then. Rationally, we could have said “Wow, lucky us! We can now build a better society, something that mankind has always wanted, one that will be good for us – and indirectly, for the whole world!”

But we could not do this – and launched into the Cold War instead. We simply could not be good to ourselves – why, one can only guess, but evidently we didn’t think we were worth saving. I suspect this was a remanent of our Calvinist heritage, with its belief in total depravity. And an effort to overcome this with a new religion of infinite improvement.

Our succeeding history tends to affirm this – with its compulsive rush into the future. In psychoanalytic terms (Karen Horney) a neurosis of anxiety and hostility. Or, in more contemporary terms, childhood abuse (children too are being destroyed).

I will go into the theory of all this in my next posting Three Ways of Being.

2010
08/17
CATEGORY
Philosophy
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