A 1400 Word Long Rambling Rant about History, The Enlightenment, Capitalism and The Brave New World

There is no denying that it is an exciting time to be alive.  Though some will argue that mankind is in a constant state of evolution and revolution, therefore these times are no more or less significant than any of the times before them… but I disagree.  We’re in a state of flux and riding the wave of whateveritis to whereveritis that we’re going.  We seem to be experiencing some sort of large scale crisis of meaning… and when that has happened in the past, new systems emerge in an effort to stabilize the structure.

So far though, the course of Western Human Civilization, in all its manifestations and adaptations, has operated based on the same structure… one which features a power base from above, controls the resources, and distributes those resources according to their rules.  When huge shifts have happened throughout civilization, they have occurred because a new group has infiltrated and assumed control of the power base… and they change the rules according to their values and philosophies and ideologies…

The Enlightenment.  The last time there was a massive shift in the rules… The Rational Empiricists, those who were the strongest critics of the Religious Establishment… had finally organized themselves well enough to change the conversation.  Through a series of revolutions, they infiltrated the structure and changed the way that resources were distributed.  Two new models emerged from the Enlightenment… Capitalism and Representative Democracy.

The rules of this game were laid out in a couple of key documents which provided the masses with a new narrative of rights, freedom and equality… The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Social Contract by Russo, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton , A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft, The Emancapation Proclamation and The Delcaration of Independence are a few off the top of my head.

Although the systems changed… and the new narrative had much promise, the structure did not change.  That is, resource control was still concentrated in the hands of a select few… and they were still riding on a fundamental ideal of absolute moral authority, guided by a Christian God.  A Christian God which would reward materially if you did his good works here on earth.  Both before and after the Enlightenment, wealth and power was still concentrated among those who were literate… among those who could spin the best yarns, promise the best material rewards and be the best manipulators of and dictators to the masses.

Capitalism and Democracy were new systems of the best and brightest minds of the times… Replacing previous systems of Imperialism and Monarchy… but they still were being actualized through a top-down structure.  And perhaps worse than the systems they replaced, they were presented and legitimized as the “best” and most objective processes towards the ultimate goal of the new narrative… that of personal freedom, individualism, and consumer choice… things that were attainable by anyone and entitled to everyone, equalized by the checks and balances of these shiny new systems.

Some very important ideas were born in The Enligtenment… but I tend to believe that Rousseau and Locke and Smith had much higher expectations of humans than they were capable of living up to at that point in history.  The lofty ideals of the narratives  did not confront human as flawed, and prone to greed and corruption when faced with the opportunity to advance himself despite the consequences to the greater good.  Like communism, democratic capitalism looks way better on paper than it does in its actuality.

And ultimately the culture of greed, competition, entitlement and individualism that the systems of Capitalism and democracy fostered, inherently compromised the integrity of everything… and has now brought us here, where the architects of Capitalism and Democracy once sat… skeptical, cynical, doubting the norms, and angry…Calling for Change! Now!

And the calls are being echoed around the Western world… Change! Now!

But the question remains; as the ideas and systems of the Enlightenment changed the narrative, whose ideas will shape the next narrative?  Who gets to change and enforce the rules?  Will we completely break the cycle of civilization, and finally change the way we control and distribute resources and power?  Or will we once again reproduce the structure, but frame them with new systems and processes?

David claims that Capitalism is “the only natural system” that it is as old as humanity itself, and that morphs and changes with the power structure.  I tend to agree, but only because I don’t think that those who would replace the structure (which are also a natural byproduct of the structure) have figured out effective delivery systems of that structure… and no one is going to be convinced to abandon the structure with nothing there to take its place.  Therefore the structure remains and the new systems have to adapt to it.

I tend to believe the only ingredient to finally compel us to shakedown power structure will lie in the realm of knowledge of human perception.  Some major revelation which forces us to stop competing for power and resources and re-evaluate everything that we think that we know about human existence.  Indeed, if the pursuits to find absolute, objective truth about our existence, pursuits enacted by the ideals of the Enlightenment, are allowed to progress naturally, then perhaps Western Civilization will be provided the opportunity to actualize… I believe if we are allowed to naturally evolve as a society, then this structural change is imminent.

But we may have gotten to the point, where the current power structure, in its effort to maintain power will do everything that it can to suppress any new knowledge which arises that could potentially cause that shakedown.

We will never be allowed to naturally evolve…

In all likelihood, the structure stays the same, and fulfills its next destiny – the fascist democracy… the perfect dystopian blend of individual freedom and comodification of identity.

Though it might sound like an inherently contradictory system… In my mind, the fascist democracy is the one where the narrative of personal freedom, individual entitlement, and consumer choice as being the raison d’etre, and all those which stand in the way of the pursuit of these things, will be judged and persecuted for it, if not institutionally, then by their peers… It is a recombinant society… the capitalist imprint mutated, and resulting in the effects as prophecized by Huxley, Foucault, Asimov and Gibson…

We will be given robots and bionic eyes (with Twitter integration) and hovercars and SOMA to keep us preoccupied.  There will be a cure for cancer and a microchip that we can implant into our wrists, which contain all of our data identities… S.I.N., PIN, MSI, Interac… we will never have to worry about those pesky cards again.  We will have two minutes of hate towards our political enemies… those who despise freedom and democracy… and enclose the absolute poor and sick in large glass domes… not to mention the ugly and the fat… We will be able to have our genes manipulated to produce the image of perfection… designer babies coming out of their physical vessels of the best and the brightest.

And some might ask… well is that so bad?  A friend of mine told me that she was so primed for change, that if it meant we were hurtled into the Brave New World… she wouldn’t care… she just wanted something to give… for the next phase to make itself visible and certain.  Indeed, as I typed the paragraph above, I ask myself… well is the Brave New World so bad?  Why is it that I continue to fight, what appears to be destiny?  I don’t have the answers to those questions yet… all I know is that I do…

In the end, the systems and narratives that win out will be the ones which holds the most promise.  That spirit that has been with us through feudalism, imperialism and now, capitialism… will morph into its next top-down, heirarchial system… only this time, our brains are much more malleable and squishy… we actually already idolize the cultural ingredients necessary for the top-down structure to take this next leap.  Technology, Beauty and Pleasure.  Therefore, we will almost certainly, and willfully accept the new system, in whatever form it takes.  And be fooled once again into thinking that change has occured and we have naturally evolved to our next form of social organization.

What is Retarded?

This blog began with the title “When worlds collide” and was going to be simply a comment on the recently surfaced claim that Facebook, and other social networking sites could be causing autism… It is very rare that I see two of my “themes” so closely and overtly connected to one another.  But, as I got into the meat and potatoes of it, I noticed I was throwing the word “Retarded” around quite a bit… a word that causes a very negative reaction among the most politically correct of us… and implies a derogatory meaning.  I do use the word Retarded in a derogatory way… but never directed at individuals with cognitive processing problems… I use the word Retarded to describe the slowness of society, policy, in relation to the evolutionary processes our species have been undergoing for the past 100 years… It isn’t people who are Retarded… it’s society and the institution that is retarded…  With all those caveats put in place… this is what I have to say.

An Oxford educated expert has very boldly gone on record by making an intellectual connection between social networking and the wave of mental health issues plaguing society, and particularly autism.  “Perhaps given the brain is so impressionable, that screen life is mandating that more infantilized lifestyle. Now this is based on a little bit of neuroscience, observations, a bit of clinical evidence, there is no one single or conclusive killer fact,” said Professor Susan Greenfield in a House of Lords debate.

Perhaps indeed Professor Greenfield.

In essence she claims that all the fast, bright and shiny objects we play with online are making us a bit retarded…

Now on the heels of this story, a research study was released which indicated that the brains of kids with ADHD were perhaps developing slower than the “normal” brain… The period of childhood is, essentially, getting longer for the distracted mind.  More retarded people?!

Interesting indeed.

So we have two bits here, one suggesting neurological linkages between mental illness and a pervasive cultural phenomena, and one which may be suggesting a link between mental illness and the social phenomenon of “arrested adulthood”: the state of prolonged childhood.

While I like the notion that the Internet, and our use of it, is rewiring our brains… I don’t like the assumption that this is, in itself, is a “developmental problem” for the individual.  I think it is our society with the developmental problem.  Further, I like the notion of a neurological indicator for our defining of development… I don’t like the assumption that this is somehow detrimental for the individual living in the world today.

From my understanding, developmental norms are set by the large-scale patterns of behavioural and cognitive milestones observed within the majority.   When individuals take longer to hit those milestones they are labeled either “special” or “retarded” (depending on who you are talking to).

But what if… and entertain me a bit here… what if it was the characterization of developmental milestones that was a little bit retarded… That is, what if it wasn’t that these individuals weren’t slow in their development at all… what if the developmental milestones which have been guiding us along for the past century or so are no longer relevant for the individual existing the post-industrial world.

If, as a society, a species, and through our culture, our brains are rewiring as a means of adaptation to our environment… an environment that we, ourselves, manufacture on all levels on a day to day basis… And if the outcome of that rewiring are characteristics like those exhibited in ADHD and autism… then isn’t that just evolution?  Is there really anything we can do about it?

The notion of “slow” or “lagging” development is a tricky one for me to reconcile when considering an ADHD and an autistic mind.  It seems to me that these brains are fast… really fast… so while it might take longer to hit those developmental milestones… the in the moment processing is hyper.

Like most ideas which have guided our civilization over the last century, the notion that human development occurs along a linear trajectory is perhaps doing us more harm than good.  Further, the population of those disenfranchised from “normal” is perhaps getting so big, that we have to seriously reconsider everything that we think we know about human development, psychology and cognition.

For example:

Living in the moment without being able to set long-term goals and commitments is one of those developmental characteristics which is considered to be immature and infantile… when you can move beyond your childish ways and become a responsible adult you’ve hit one of the developmental marks of adulcy.  If you can never make that leap to adulcy, and find yourself swimming in the sea of immediacy… you are developmentally retarded.

Until about the 1960’s… looking beyond the moment, setting long-term goals, and making commitments to your family, your community and your country was perhaps an easier thing to do.  Plus, from a survivalist kind of approach, it would have been far more beneficial for individuals who had those characteristics bred in their bones (or brains) because the institutions in our society were focusing around those characteristics…

In the 1950’s it was “normal” for an individual to be schooled for 12 or 13 years (or if they went to university 16 to 20 years), and when they were finished, they entered the workforce to (most likely) settle into their career where they would pay into their pensions and follow through to a happy and healthy retirement.  Even if school was out of the picture, most people who had that bred-in Protestant work ethic could find a job where they could follow the same ‘normal’ trajectory.  Once people got settled into the workforce, they would find a pretty gal or a handsome lad to marry… then have kids and hope that they would follow the same trajectory and become more normal humans.

However those were more simplistic times, and the problems which individuals faced on a day-to-day basis were not nearly as complex as the mess we got going on now.  Their brains were perhaps developing “normally” over the long term, but with far less variation in the short term.   The problems that these simplistic, but normal, brains had to process on a day-to-day basis made it easy to find that trajectory of ‘normal’… because they were tied to routine and habituation.  It was like these brains were on auto-pilot.  Their brains were wired for their times… this doesn’t seem like such a crazy notion now, does it?

Today, as we find ourselves seeking reprieve from these volatile social, economic and culture storms, aren’t we better off if we do live in the moment?  Is setting long-term goals (especially around a career) really a viable option?  Isn’t it beneficial to our survival to be ready, at any given moment, to be able to adapt to any given thing?

Perhaps those whose brains are wired for living in the moment are better off than those whose brains are wired for long-term and stable environments.

This is all just theory of course… I’m talking out of my ass here… but really, is it such a crazy idea?

We have always labelled mental illness and developmental disorders like autism and ADHD as such because they prevent us from “normally” participating in a “normal” society… but perhaps in this tendency, we are dangerously connecting the inability to conform to stale old traditional modern paradigms with mental illness.

Imagine what a different world we would live in if we finally admitted and came to terms with the fact that Western society isn’t “normal”… it isn’t “natural” and it is in fact making us all crazy.

The next time someone uses the word Retarded to describe an individual with extreme in the moment processing capability, but who lacks the ability to conform to the myths of normal development and social etiquette… tell them that they are the retarded ones, for they are the ones who are developing for ages past… not for the future that we are hurtling towards…