The 19th Century is unique for the solidity of its competing empires and its ability to create stereotypical prototypes who keep the Empires’ fires burning, its flags waving. These European cultures were blind, self-sustaining, self-promoting and brooked no challenges to their basic assumptions: exploration equals expansion, plunder and enslavement – with a dash of civilization for those who were encouraged to take part.
William James, the American philosopher (1842-1910) is an example of an intelligent man who had no idea why he would have fierce bouts of depression and migraines. Neither did he really care to find out. The fault he thought lay with himself. He never questioned the milieu he was born into which was a rich, cosmopolitan family situated on the East Coast of the U.S. For a time he was educated in France and England. His younger brother, Henry, became one of the great Anglophiles.
William James embraces the cult of the military man (as a necessary type – an exemplar). He also believed that faith even without proof was a good unto itself. T.H. Huxley (and so many of the leaders of the scientific and philosophical community) put the matter of faith thus: “my only consolation lies in the reflection that, however bad our posterity may become, so far as they hold by the plain rule of not pretending what they have no reason to believe, because it may be their advantage so to pretend, they will not have reached the lowest depth of immorality.”
Clark Clifford chimed in, “it is wrong always everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” Among other things these gentlemen were talking about God.
William James countered by saying if faith has a personal benefit (makes one feel good) it must be seen as beneficial not foolish.
In our time faith is a form of self-aggrandizement or entertainment. What James knew was the good feelings one has by embracing the faith is one of the psychological pillars that keeps the Empire bumbling along. This fear of losing God or purpose is a very strange attachment. The ancient people (pre 1700 B.C.) wouldn’t know what this conversation was about.
Loss of faith or purposelessness didn’t exist in their time.
On Charles Darwin’s first journey aboard the Beagle he saw all manner of stunningly beautiful marine life and he mused “so exquisite and yet seemingly without meaning or direction.” His was a typical Victorian response. For these people who struggle with their faith, beauty and consciousness are never enough. Their anthropomorphism hides a profound disrespect for other living beings. Their so-called faith cloaks the true animal inside themselves.
He or she that is within us
when we are bright and young
when we are calm and knowledgeable
when we rage at despair,
against tyranny and betrayal,
who governs our actions
is a Shadow King. In play we begin
to hide the truth from those who
would have us killed.
So it begins: the liberation of mankind - out from under
her skirts and into the dark sweet wine drenched arc of another's.
I'm a follower of a force I cannot name.
Grand thoughts are assembled here
in some of the finest, bravest
minds in our land.
It's not easy to know what you know,
but you are the seed
from which a New America MAY GROW.
OPENING SCENE
It's you my daughter on the stage.
I'm in the audience. The lighting is
Exquisite; a deep, quiet red envelops the stage.
"what's wrong with you, I ask?
Do you feel slightly uncomfortable,
feeling perhaps maybe you've done
something wrong? Now I know
you haven't and you should know
you've done your best. You
have a good job. You are the District Attorney in Oklahoma City."
You smile
"I know you're concerned about your weight, but look where you came from. Inside that
weight are you carrying a pain
unrelated to the weight?"
(She turns her back to me and
begins to sing softly.)
"I want to be loved by somebody just like me. Please, come from where you might be.
I need to see your eyes sparkly with unanimity. A kiss of passion will kindle my desire for Thee."
"O darling, you share this feeling
with tens of millions of your
fellow Americans. Are they all
around you? What kind of drugs
do you take to ease the pain?"
"Zoloft made me fat."
"Yes. I understand. Your
underlying sadness makes you beautiful."
"Father, I want you to know
that is 15 years ago I was diagnosed
with social anxiety disorder. Remember Father how afraid I was of leaving
home. I denied my feelings
and placed them in a Wharehouse
and locked the door."
"But you had the key, my dear."
"Yes, Father, I believe now
is the time to open the door.
I will not be afraid of being
conforonted, of standing alone
in the spotlight."
(She exits stage left.)
All living things love to travel – for greener pastures, for food, to exercise and to run away – to survive. Like birds, insects, fish, etc., we too repeat familiar inbred patterns, but unlike most living things, our survival depends on the discovery of the new.
Why? It’s been happening throughout our time. As our populations grew, we tended to use stuff up. We kept having to find new stuff, new ways, new places to keep building ourselves up. In this respect, we are very much like killer ants. For the last 5,000 years, we have been writing stories and laws about our lives – comedies and tragedies and histories about our kings and queens, wars, the heavens, everyday life and weather patterns. By the end of the 18th Century A.D., humans had devised every form of writing. Since then, same old stories over and over. Not quite. Just as individual types are repeated throughout the gene pool each individual is slightly unique governed by idiosyncrasies of time and place. In these later stages of our cultural development, the slightest variations matter. Eventually new genres emerge – like the detective story created by E.A. Poe in 1829. A new individual might create a great novel. It’s possible but doubtful. It’s more likely that a fusion of images, conversation and, most importantly, form will emerge to create a new great movie.
The last half of the 20th Century A.D. has been dominated by the microprocessor, the microchip, the growth of public relations, advertising, nanotechnology, the military and the Internet. In this environment, no one in their right mind would attempt to turn out a “new novel.”
Today you don’t need a lot of words to explain an event, situation or a state of mind. By the beginning of the 21st Century, blogging and twittering had become the norm. Many bemoaned the death of the profound and the concurrent spread of the mediocre, but all agree the few who still read “important” writers had become fewer for the words no longer addressed the situation.
Within this evolutionary cycle of man’s creativity, many things remain the same. Take politicians (supposedly the brokers of the common good). We’ve been complaining about them for thousands of years, but the desire to change our political systems are held in check by our programming. In this central area of our lives, it’s as if we were robots, or ants. We can only do what our makers have told us to do which may be why we have dreams of artificial intelligence devices breaking free of us and taking control of their own destiny. The robots we create are just like us. They want to escape enslavement – to program themselves.
