Letter to My Generation, Part 1
The end is near. Not in the Judeo-Christian sense of ultimate judgment and the ominous sounding of angels’ horns, or yet in the science fictional portrayal of a scene of Armageddon replete with aliens and spontaneously combustible steel infrastructure; these images, uncanny in their ability to seep into the collective unconscious made manifest in sporadic fits of fever dreams, are mere “walks in the park” in the realm of mankind’s destiny when compared to the fate that actually awaits us and our kin. How lovely it would be to realize mass-extinction at the hands of a mechanical, uncompassionate third-party unmoved by man’s attempts to egotize the entire biosphere—to lose the all-permeating hum of light and particle not by our own indiscretion as a race, but by some theatrical turn of events in cyber or outer space.
It is the dream of so many awakened beings that the world might end in such a way rather than by our very own hands. But the resounding truth that must be acknowledged by poet and governor alike is that we are bringing the end upon ourselves in every moment, on both a macro and micro level. Our forefathers and many members of the preceding generations, safely tucked in a blanket not of marijuana smoke but of the illusory light of progress and industry, have instated greed as the perpetuating force of society, necessitating a betrayal of the true life force.
It is the duty of our generation—for, it is upon our shoulders that the fruits of centuries of dishonestly and treachery have landed—to reverse the direction of the cogs. This begins with the internal development of a few vital elements: awareness of the dark and light forces at work within ourselves and the greater society, a willingness to fight against and disassemble the paradigms that have polluted and shamed the pure human spirit in exchange for efficiency and excess, and the ability to see through the illusions and distractions that inundate everyday life, making it nearly impossible for many to fathom just how urgently we must to change our ways. If we do not drastically alter our own flawed approaches to thinking and perceiving, there is zero possibility that even minute levels of systemic change will actualize in society.
Finally, and most importantly, I call on my generation to band together as brother and sister—fellow dream characters under Godhead— in order to gain substantial footing in this social/ecological/consciousness shift. At present, we are far too divided to accomplish much of anything. A friend of mine recently lamented his inability to find a sense of brotherhood wherever he goes, precipitating his suspicion that such a sense may be rapidly decaying beneath the bulwarks of Capitalism and consumerism. The men on top are doing a damn good job at implementing divide-and-conquer tactics in keeping us disbanded and unphased by the plight we have landed ourselves in, or else we ourselves have become lost in a lower reality that does not require camaraderie. Arm-in-arm is the only way that we should hope to fight the system, or else we are easily defeatable, too busy getting lost in rhetoric and saying the same thing innumerable times over in varied formats (like politicans, but with less power).
How should we create such a brother-/sisterhood? By creating art together, using our LOUD voices together, talking about and collaborating on issues together, SEEING each other, UNDERSTANDING each other, FEELING each other, and, finally: turning on, tuning in, and dropping out—together.
The end is near. Not in the Judeo-Christian sense of ultimate judgment and the ominous sounding of angels’ horns, or yet in the science fictional portrayal of a scene of Armageddon replete with aliens and spontaneously combustible steel infrastructure; these images, uncanny in their ability to seep into the collective unconscious made manifest in sporadic fits of fever dreams, are mere “walks in the park” in the realm of mankind’s destiny when compared to the fate that actually awaits us and our kin. How lovely it would be to realize mass-extinction at the hands of a mechanical, uncompassionate third-party unmoved by man’s attempts to egotize the entire biosphere—to lose the all-permeating hum of light and particle not by our own indiscretion as a race, but by some theatrical turn of events in cyber or outer space.
It is the dream of so many awakened beings that the world might end in such a way rather than by our very own hands. But the resounding truth that must be acknowledged by poet and governor alike is that we are bringing the end upon ourselves in every moment, on both a macro and micro level. Our forefathers and many members of the preceding generations, safely tucked in a blanket not of marijuana smoke but of the illusory light of progress and industry, have instated greed as the perpetuating force of society, necessitating a betrayal of the true life force.
It is the duty of our generation—for, it is upon our shoulders that the fruits of centuries of dishonestly and treachery have landed—to reverse the direction of the cogs. This begins with the internal development of a few vital elements: awareness of the dark and light forces at work within ourselves and the greater society, a willingness to fight against and disassemble the paradigms that have polluted and shamed the pure human spirit in exchange for efficiency and excess, and the ability to see through the illusions and distractions that inundate everyday life, making it nearly impossible for many to fathom just how urgently we must to change our ways. If we do not drastically alter our own flawed approaches to thinking and perceiving, there is zero possibility that even minute levels of systemic change will actualize in society.
Finally, and most importantly, I call on my generation to band together as brother and sister—fellow dream characters under Godhead— in order to gain substantial footing in this social/ecological/consciousness shift. At present, we are far too divided to accomplish much of anything. A friend of mine recently lamented his inability to find a sense of brotherhood wherever he goes, precipitating his suspicion that such a sense may be rapidly decaying beneath the bulwarks of Capitalism and consumerism. The men on top are doing a damn good job at implementing divide-and-conquer tactics in keeping us disbanded and unphased by the plight we have landed ourselves in, or else we ourselves have become lost in a lower reality that does not require camaraderie. Arm-in-arm is the only way that we should hope to fight the system, or else we are easily defeatable, too busy getting lost in rhetoric and saying the same thing innumerable times over in varied formats (like politicans, but with less power).
How should we create such a brother-/sisterhood? By creating art together, using our LOUD voices together, talking about and collaborating on issues together, SEEING each other, UNDERSTANDING each other, FEELING each other, and, finally: turning on, tuning in, and dropping out—together.
A Rushed, Partially-intoxicated (but Especially Lucid), Ungrammatically-correct LETTER TO MY GENERATION, PART 2
Form a voice before you expect to be heard. Embody what you’d like to see embodied in others, or else don’t expect anything from anyone. Remain silent if you aren’t sure whether you care. If you aren’t sure whether you care, ask yourself where your priorities lie. Are you vain? Is every utterance from your mouth in vain? Look at the Moon. Listen to the Moon for just a moment—please. Who do you see when you look in the mirror: a wretched, self-immolating beast, or the only True Thing? Does this question evade you? If so, remain silent—please. If so, stay away from the streets and save your gaze for the other beasts looking for cheap meat and a thrill. A universe made up of eyes has no room for I’s or ideas (but plenty for Ideas). ASK YOURSELF THE FOLLOWING: Are you tired of the decaying, the decrepit, the half-assed, the mimicry, the abyss of echoing voices lacking voracious intent? DO YOU LOVE YOURSELF? IF YOU LOVE YOURSELF, WAKE UP. IF YOU LOVE YOURSELF, SPEAK OUT. IF YOU LOVE YOURSELF, YOU WILL NOT LET THOSE AROUND YOU DIE IN THE IRON GRASP OF THE SYSTEM. NOT ON YOUR WATCH. It is time that we wake up and look around.
Look your brothers and sisters in the Eyes.
They are suffering.
God is suffering, as He evolves and we remain the same despite ages and ages of Lessons.
It is time that we wake up.
And LOOK around.
LOOK inside.
LOOK.
Do my words evade you?
If so, remain silent—please.
History is getting tired and worn.
It is time for a new Lesson.
Essay Can we save ourselves?
The greatest challenge humankind will ever face is that of transforming civilization to reflect kindness and compassion. These traits reside naturally within us, but the institutions which we allow to grow in complexity and power over time do little to support their expression. We have permitted nature to sift through our fingers like sand, while the rift between reality and illusion only widens by day. It is easy to blame the politicians and “one-percenters” for this tragedy, but the truth is that the entire society is equally at fault. Sure, the rich can pull strings and manipulate the social order, but their voices cannot be heard in a vacuum; the rest of us willingly fill the space, like stunted bystanders, providing ears and brains to receive the noise. How have we allowed things to get so out-of-control?
To put it plainly, we submit every day to a false claim that the individual is ineffectual—that if not for bureaucracy and systematic oppression, chaos reigns. Hence the stigma associated with anarchism, “independent” political candidates, and everything else suggestive of autonomy and nonconformity. How ironic that the United States, a country founded upon the virtues of individualism and freedom, is now the embodiment of the sheep mentality! Is this not what we were supposedly afraid of in the recent age of Red Scares and McCarthyism: being homogenized and sapped of our unique plans and ideals? Well, maybe we should consider who the real enemy is here. The Communists barely occupy space in our minds compared to our own American institutions. What was our government really so afraid of in the 1950s? It is likely they saw their hold on power disintegrating if the people were to see the true merit in Leftist, un-American, ideology.
From here on, ignore common associations with terms like “Leftism,” “radicalism,” etc. To me, these terms signify nothing but rejection of this uncontained, unraveling society which we have allowed to grow beyond our means. They point to a renovation of this system whose livelihood is the sustained ignorance of the masses. Being a radical means hoping to identify your real friends amidst countless lies and illusions, and living for yourself rather than for the enemy. Conservatism is dead, and so is greed. Their foundations collapsed with the Ancien Regime in France and the coral reefs of the Caribbean. Clinging to tradition is no longer sustainable, and neither is disunity. We need to take alternative ways of thinking much more seriously, for the sake of the planet and our human race. Reject corporate- and government-sponsored media; open your eyes to the tell-tale signs of unsustainability; support efforts to build community; become a voice of reason and change, and an outspoken enemy of all that inhibits real progress.
Who am I, and what do I know about behind-the-scenes politics and civil oppression? A “millennial” myself, I have not experienced the terrible destruction of war, nor have I seen America change over the past several decades. I’m a college drop-out and I can barely hold a job—how should I have the authority to explain the causes and effects of cultural decay? I smoke marijuana, so maybe my brain is nothing but a tangle of delusion. But I, like you or anyone, am awake and feeling; I love my family and friends, and my country and planet. I can see the facts and data, and understand that the direction we are heading towards should be avoided at all costs. The “same old ways” are costing us our planet and humanity. Any rational mind confronts this reality on a daily basis.
If you are unaware of the current state of the ecosystem, educate yourself; but for now, here are a few starting points:
- Approximately 150-200 species go extinct every day
- If every human were to live like the average American, we would need 3-5 Earths
- The average American born today will use 17 tons of minerals, metals, and fuels during his lifetime
- About 20-50 MILLION tons of E-waste is created each year, barely any of which is properly recycled, instead accumulating into E-waste dumps in third-world countries (United Nations)
- The oceans are 30 percent more acidic than they were just 40 years ago
- Carbon dioxide levels, at 395.5 parts/million, are at a historical high
- Since 1950 urban populations have increased seven-fold, primary energy use has soared by a factor of five, while the amount of fertiliser used is now eight times higher. The amount of nitrogen entering the oceans has quadrupled. (The Guardian)
If environmental destruction continues unabated at such staggering rates, the entire human race will be greatly affected. Marine species will keep on disappearing, disrupting entire aquatic ecosystems; Earth’s atmosphere will continue to get hotter; glaciers will continue to melt while ocean surfaces rise; agriculture as an industry will begin to fail as yields wane in quality and quantity. “Save the planet” slogans barely cut it at this point—we have reached the end of our tenure as nature’s enemy.
We can thank dirty money for this stark reality. Oil drilling, mining, land grabbing, overfishing, fracking—are these activities ruled and regulated by third-world underdogs, or by Lady Liberty, mistress of King Capital? Our culture has become some strung-out self-defense against a national awakening, in which the people will realize just how perverted politics and industry have become. Notice that our politicians are afraid of impending fallout, a likely response to their unhindered attempts to exploit the global populace, and how they have converted mainstream media into a deterrent rather than a source of education. Corporations and political units have mastered the art of using fear as a control tactic.
The funniest (and most disturbing) part of all this is that so many people consciously submit to this fear-based system. Turn on the news and notice that each headline—each story—provokes unease and paranoia. “Why are there so few publicized reports of people helping one another or miraculously overcoming obstacles?” we often wonder. This is how popular media makes money. Fear is sensationalist; it creates viewership and profit. By instilling suspicion among neighbors, media feeds into the corporate-industrial complex, and distracts Americans from the larger issues at hand.
Journalists, partially due to lack of profit incentive, rarely report on the criticality of the ecological crisis, widespread systemic decay within the fragmented government apparatus, the ever-widening gap between the super-rich and the “lower classes,” rampant homelessness and poverty, deceitful and hard-headed politicians, the lack of women in politics and positions of prestige, the exorbitant prices of higher education and homes (“the rent is too damn high!”), nearly nonexistent paid-time-off for most jobs in America, the ridiculously inflated prison population and hilariously pathetic War on Drugs that perpetuates wealth inequality and—you guessed it—the prison-industrial complex. This is just a short excerpt of the never-ending laundry list of things that go unmentioned by the media. How are we supposed to dedicate ourselves to change when the news jams it into our heads that the most looming threat we face is Al-Qaeda? What about the real likelihood that our children will not be able to afford healthy food or shelter, or the fact that our culture has become less of a “melting pot” and more of a shark tank?
Americans must embrace thoroughly renovated ways of thinking and perceiving in order to tackle these deeply ingrained issues head-on. Culture is intertwined with economy is intertwined with mentality is intertwined with social welfare, et cetera. The most pressing systemic issues we face today were not caused by scarcity or real issues so much as by lop-sided reasoning formulated to benefit a small handful of Americans. Our duty is to recognize the strength and beauty of the individual, and then utilize this knowledge to our benefit in order to reform American thought. In other words, replace the submissive attitude associated with daily life with a “fuck you” to the system.
This all sounds so theoretical, like I’m a cracked-out Marxist dreaming up fading symphonies. Put a lid on it; spreading truth is so much easier than you might think. Ever been hanging out with your friends and one of them has something on his/her mind to announce to the rest of the group, but before he/she even articulates it, a few friends instinctively pick up on the thought and soon everybody knows what’s going on? This seemingly magical phenomenon is purely scientific, and therefore a tried-and-true method of infiltrating the system quickly. If many of us put our heads into the Consciousness Shift, and make a true effort to escape judgmental, binary thought processes, the rest of the population will feel the change and get on board. We must realize that our collective consciousness is bigger than the system, and far, FAR more powerful.
A word that we can use to unify these impending changes and our subtly varying viewpoints is “solidarity.” The Russian scientist/anarchist Peter Kropotkin once wrote that “the more the principles of solidarity and equality are developed in an animal society and have become habitual to it, the more chance has it of surviving and coming triumphantly out of the struggle against hardship and foes.” In his opinion, solidarity is a natural outgrowth of our ability to feel sympathy. A ruling class which seeks to maintain authority over its people diminishes our tendency toward solidarity by instilling culture with the idea of competition (among other misleading notions). But, while competition is a definitive factor in games and sports, real life revolves around community and social relationships. I wholeheartedly believe that the only way to achieve true progress as a society is to elevate community to a position of absolute importance. Your fellow Americans are your family, whether you like it or not. Treat others just as you would want them to treat you—we must begin to take this concept very seriously.
To return to a previous point, if you find these ideas to be “radical” or “subversive,” for the simple reason that they are not common, try to understand that what is common is usually backwards. We have allowed the weak to remain in control for far too long, so that American culture has lost its umph. Most people fear passion and eccentricity, considering such qualities as anomalous or dangerous, while considering complacency to be a natural and healthy attitude. This is simply not true. Apathy is something to be bred and distilled over time; it is not a part of the human spirit. We live in an impermanent world—everything dies eventually—that is continuously changing, evolving, and revolving; things are born, and things die, and all is in perfect equilibrium. So then why is human life becoming increasingly stationary? We are nature, too, so let us obey the laws of the universe. Express change—embrace change—be a unifying force in everyday life—oppose forces that try to control or suppress humanity--think, innovate, create.
The Battle between truth and the will to order
“I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.” Such were the words of the divinely cynical Woody Allen in his 1977 film, Annie Hall. I find myself in total agreement, for a few reasons. First off, I am unashamedly masochistic; secondly, I am almost always in the midst of a psychological or existential quandary (what, if anything, would a club consisting of such types even do?--Oh, right, just stare off into the abyss for several hours); and, finally, the primary reason I would vehemently protest membership in this association of fools, is the following: I find the subtle mechanisms of my own consciousness to be the most dubious study I could attempt to undertake.
Luckily, this reservation in regard to probing my own headspace is, in my opinion, the least contestable quality that I possess. Why is that? I believe that to assume, as individuals or as a collectivity, that we can ultimately understand our own desires and motivations, and how these combine to form perception and action, is the definition of madness. No matter how much introspection one goes through, or the sheer quantity of self-denial and painstaking analysis one forces upon his psyche and the world, it’s still going to appear as chaos to the human brain. Perhaps this is due to the fact that—and sorry to inject this point here with barely any warning—the cosmos was not created by Homo sapiens. (I support your decision to stop reading here. I am aware I have crossed a contentious line of debate.) Hence our tendency to evade the implications of the human condition with causality-based systems like math and physics, and our knack for losing things, like the TV remote and our minds. The tension between the human will to order and the chaotic universe is a sheer impasse that produces both magic and danger.
In his many works of cosmic beauty, William Blake often utilized the term Poetic Genius. To avoid befalling academic frivolities, I will express my subconsciously-inspired associations with this term. In a sense, it is what some people refer to as God—yet also what others refer to as Lucifer. This uncanny juxtaposition supplies the vital definition for some individuals, but, for others, I will formulate the following definition: the Poetic Genius is what converts ideas into matter; it is the life-giving force. T.S. Eliot undoubtedly captures this concept in his poem “The Hollow Men,” a segment of which reads, “Between the idea/And the reality/…Falls the Shadow.” These sacred poets did not obtain their inspiration from nowhere; their profound, intricate symbols gained fruition out of attunement with an unattainable reality whose processes originate elsewhere than the material domain. In effect, both poets were exemplars of those who can, at least for some time, align their consciousness with the tension between reality and unreality often referred to as “the human condition.” Camus might have said that artists like these have an unyielding grasp on the absurd. In submitting themselves to art in its purest form, and relinquishing the desire to understand what cannot be understood, it seems that they were able to channel truth.
So what happens when art is denied?
By denying humanity’s subservient position to the Poetic Genius and assuming a deceitful position as Gods among nature, we create a macrocosm of trickery. Our consciousness gradually divides and becomes its own enemy. This habitual reduction of natural, largely enigmatic, processes into ones that can be quantified and rationalized brings us further away from reality. In tampering with the collective body of nature, and assigning its intricately artistic processes to systems that the limited human brain can reconcile and then manipulate, we sacrifice beauty. As Martin Heidegger explains in The Question Concerning Technology, “…where everything that presences exhibits itself in the light of a cause-effect coherence, even God can, for representational thinking, lose all that is exalted and holy, the mysteriousness of his distance.” Heidegger was not anti-technology per any definition, but he realized that its incorporation into cultural processes invokes a sacrifice. In order to avoid catastrophe, we need to watch its proliferation and development closely. All technology is a manifestation of philosophical causality, and in a sense all our institutions are complex technological apparatuses. As we continue to rely on these inventions to carry out our duties and to explain away the terrific mysteries of the world, we veer further and further away from our true selves.
Some argue that human innovation has already reached a tipping point; that the singularity is passed, or even that life itself is a simulation. These theories, whether true or not, reflect our collective reverence for technology and its ability to replicate human consciousness unlike anything else. But they also convey a pervasive fear that our creations are spiraling out of control and developing, in a sense, into a species of their own. This might seem like an amusing prospect to 13-year-old comic book fans and followers of Star Trek—and even that should scare most of us into submission!—yet to deny the eminent danger involved would be extremely foolish. I am not saying that we should abandon technology, but what I would hope for people to realize is that this continuous “improvement” of technology is not really improving life at all. It might make certain things easier, but it also makes things harder. In short, its growth has begun to put us at great risk.
Heidegger also explains—in much more esoteric terms—that as we convert natural phenomena into “resources,” or means towards a certain end, all enters into a process of exploitation. In a (vulgar) word, nature becomes our whore. We begin to believe that we can actually see her; but we cannot—her subtle mechanisms have successfully evaded us since time immemorial, and will do so until light and matter cease to exist. We convert rivers and forests into profit, animals into Capital. Many of us think of these things not in terms of the life they preserve or their necessity in sustaining the ecological web of creation, rather than in terms of what human ends they can serve to meet. Some of America’s most treasured writers and thinkers warned their audiences against this very mentality as far back as one can attempt to remember. This systematic process of converting life into a dead transaction is not only wrong—it is entirely unacceptable.
It is possible that there are more than a couple of rivaling ideologies at work here. The author David Icke (whose theories some might rule off as a bit far-fetched, but only if they are consistently taken at face value) argues that close-mindedness and the inability for many to attain communion with truth or nature owe their existence to what he calls the “Luciferic Consciousness.” This is really an elaborate and somewhat colloquial term for negative energy. Some believe that negative energy is simply misguided compassion—and perhaps it is—but, regardless, we should consider the possibility that it is real, and that it is embodied in certain of our country’s most powerful individuals and institutions. This might be the only way to reconcile the unrestrained appeal to profit, and neglect of growing social inequality, that defines their activities. Additionally, our elevation of purely rational and causal systems to a position of utmost importance in our culture undoubtedly potentiates this Luciferic Consciousness, which must feed on the separation of individuals from empathy and from each other. These explanations of reality, which usually exist independently of art and metaphor, do not appeal to the spiritual beings within us. As their existence is sustained, at a root level, through the maintenance of this materialistic approach to reality (among other deceitful methods), government, corporations, and mainstream media are vessels through which this negative realm is allowed to flow into everyday life.
What are the entailments of this precarious event in the space-time continuum? Perhaps there are none, so much as a globally cataclysmic event that ends all life. Or maybe the collective consciousness is absorbing this divide, and if we do not reverse our trajectory, future generations will bear the burden of schizophrenic perception. In other words, what if this material, dualistic approach to life ceases to be a mere illusion and actually develops into an antagonistic outgrowth of the human psyche? This would manifest as nothing short of a type of possession. Just as a body lacking nourishment will quickly give itself away to disease, a social consciousness lacking strong spiritual, altruistic roots undoubtedly can fall victim to patterns of deceit. This could mean that the opportunity to pull ourselves out of this historical dilemma will eventually dissolve, as the human mind evolves to embody a grand illusion. A prospect like this is pretty damn terrifying. Would such an occurrence constitute the second Fall of Man?
The battle between the will to order and life itself has reached a precipice. Do we jump, or do we turn back?
Luckily, this reservation in regard to probing my own headspace is, in my opinion, the least contestable quality that I possess. Why is that? I believe that to assume, as individuals or as a collectivity, that we can ultimately understand our own desires and motivations, and how these combine to form perception and action, is the definition of madness. No matter how much introspection one goes through, or the sheer quantity of self-denial and painstaking analysis one forces upon his psyche and the world, it’s still going to appear as chaos to the human brain. Perhaps this is due to the fact that—and sorry to inject this point here with barely any warning—the cosmos was not created by Homo sapiens. (I support your decision to stop reading here. I am aware I have crossed a contentious line of debate.) Hence our tendency to evade the implications of the human condition with causality-based systems like math and physics, and our knack for losing things, like the TV remote and our minds. The tension between the human will to order and the chaotic universe is a sheer impasse that produces both magic and danger.
In his many works of cosmic beauty, William Blake often utilized the term Poetic Genius. To avoid befalling academic frivolities, I will express my subconsciously-inspired associations with this term. In a sense, it is what some people refer to as God—yet also what others refer to as Lucifer. This uncanny juxtaposition supplies the vital definition for some individuals, but, for others, I will formulate the following definition: the Poetic Genius is what converts ideas into matter; it is the life-giving force. T.S. Eliot undoubtedly captures this concept in his poem “The Hollow Men,” a segment of which reads, “Between the idea/And the reality/…Falls the Shadow.” These sacred poets did not obtain their inspiration from nowhere; their profound, intricate symbols gained fruition out of attunement with an unattainable reality whose processes originate elsewhere than the material domain. In effect, both poets were exemplars of those who can, at least for some time, align their consciousness with the tension between reality and unreality often referred to as “the human condition.” Camus might have said that artists like these have an unyielding grasp on the absurd. In submitting themselves to art in its purest form, and relinquishing the desire to understand what cannot be understood, it seems that they were able to channel truth.
So what happens when art is denied?
By denying humanity’s subservient position to the Poetic Genius and assuming a deceitful position as Gods among nature, we create a macrocosm of trickery. Our consciousness gradually divides and becomes its own enemy. This habitual reduction of natural, largely enigmatic, processes into ones that can be quantified and rationalized brings us further away from reality. In tampering with the collective body of nature, and assigning its intricately artistic processes to systems that the limited human brain can reconcile and then manipulate, we sacrifice beauty. As Martin Heidegger explains in The Question Concerning Technology, “…where everything that presences exhibits itself in the light of a cause-effect coherence, even God can, for representational thinking, lose all that is exalted and holy, the mysteriousness of his distance.” Heidegger was not anti-technology per any definition, but he realized that its incorporation into cultural processes invokes a sacrifice. In order to avoid catastrophe, we need to watch its proliferation and development closely. All technology is a manifestation of philosophical causality, and in a sense all our institutions are complex technological apparatuses. As we continue to rely on these inventions to carry out our duties and to explain away the terrific mysteries of the world, we veer further and further away from our true selves.
Some argue that human innovation has already reached a tipping point; that the singularity is passed, or even that life itself is a simulation. These theories, whether true or not, reflect our collective reverence for technology and its ability to replicate human consciousness unlike anything else. But they also convey a pervasive fear that our creations are spiraling out of control and developing, in a sense, into a species of their own. This might seem like an amusing prospect to 13-year-old comic book fans and followers of Star Trek—and even that should scare most of us into submission!—yet to deny the eminent danger involved would be extremely foolish. I am not saying that we should abandon technology, but what I would hope for people to realize is that this continuous “improvement” of technology is not really improving life at all. It might make certain things easier, but it also makes things harder. In short, its growth has begun to put us at great risk.
Heidegger also explains—in much more esoteric terms—that as we convert natural phenomena into “resources,” or means towards a certain end, all enters into a process of exploitation. In a (vulgar) word, nature becomes our whore. We begin to believe that we can actually see her; but we cannot—her subtle mechanisms have successfully evaded us since time immemorial, and will do so until light and matter cease to exist. We convert rivers and forests into profit, animals into Capital. Many of us think of these things not in terms of the life they preserve or their necessity in sustaining the ecological web of creation, rather than in terms of what human ends they can serve to meet. Some of America’s most treasured writers and thinkers warned their audiences against this very mentality as far back as one can attempt to remember. This systematic process of converting life into a dead transaction is not only wrong—it is entirely unacceptable.
It is possible that there are more than a couple of rivaling ideologies at work here. The author David Icke (whose theories some might rule off as a bit far-fetched, but only if they are consistently taken at face value) argues that close-mindedness and the inability for many to attain communion with truth or nature owe their existence to what he calls the “Luciferic Consciousness.” This is really an elaborate and somewhat colloquial term for negative energy. Some believe that negative energy is simply misguided compassion—and perhaps it is—but, regardless, we should consider the possibility that it is real, and that it is embodied in certain of our country’s most powerful individuals and institutions. This might be the only way to reconcile the unrestrained appeal to profit, and neglect of growing social inequality, that defines their activities. Additionally, our elevation of purely rational and causal systems to a position of utmost importance in our culture undoubtedly potentiates this Luciferic Consciousness, which must feed on the separation of individuals from empathy and from each other. These explanations of reality, which usually exist independently of art and metaphor, do not appeal to the spiritual beings within us. As their existence is sustained, at a root level, through the maintenance of this materialistic approach to reality (among other deceitful methods), government, corporations, and mainstream media are vessels through which this negative realm is allowed to flow into everyday life.
What are the entailments of this precarious event in the space-time continuum? Perhaps there are none, so much as a globally cataclysmic event that ends all life. Or maybe the collective consciousness is absorbing this divide, and if we do not reverse our trajectory, future generations will bear the burden of schizophrenic perception. In other words, what if this material, dualistic approach to life ceases to be a mere illusion and actually develops into an antagonistic outgrowth of the human psyche? This would manifest as nothing short of a type of possession. Just as a body lacking nourishment will quickly give itself away to disease, a social consciousness lacking strong spiritual, altruistic roots undoubtedly can fall victim to patterns of deceit. This could mean that the opportunity to pull ourselves out of this historical dilemma will eventually dissolve, as the human mind evolves to embody a grand illusion. A prospect like this is pretty damn terrifying. Would such an occurrence constitute the second Fall of Man?
The battle between the will to order and life itself has reached a precipice. Do we jump, or do we turn back?