Well I thought I'd be consistent enough to keep an average margin of posts per month, but as it happens, life changes....thankfully. New occasions bring new opportunities and I find myself writing as much as ever, although not per blogosphere, as it were.
My ideas are coming together through the question of culture. I am asking myself why the cultural programming I've been endowed with has brought this free-thinking individual to where I am right now. I credit the entire ecosystem of the planet for blessing me with the potentials I have before me, and I pledge my allegiance to the multiplicitude of organisms and ecosystems that will inevitably evolve and pervade all the surfaces of this planet either without the species of which I'm a member.
Thanks life...
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Question of Culture
I've always asked myself why the world is like it is. I still don't have the answer, and don't expect to either, but over the years have developed many more ways of answering life's more humble questions. What is our culture and how has it gotten its shape? Where did it come from and where is it going? Who put it together and why does it seem as though appearances change on the surface while the undercurrents trace back thousands of years? Is there something going on that we as the general populace have no idea about?
Here's my unique way of formulating what must be an ancient question, and what I present as a unique way of answering it; steeped in contrarian perspectives both new and old, the method to my madness is to question what is called culture. To set up the asking I want to outline two different modes of thought. Neither having priority, both are aspects of the existential situation we call human experience.
The overriding thesis at hand is that the origin of this duality comes from a unified source. The basis of experience as consciousness is essentially unity; only in order to experience itself as anything, consciousness must necessarily make its limits. Be they just veils and membranes enveloping relatively independent transitional bodies, the code at their base has common denominators. Two categorical bodies are to be developed and employed here to indicate this fundamental dynamic. One question is to be asked of both ways of thinking: is this a sustainable way for culture to evolve? My answer is that they both need to be balanced consciously for culture to evolve sustainably.
To characterize this dynamic, two metaphors will serve to illustrate the idiosyncrasies of each end of our spectrum. The one I will call culture, for convenience's sake, as it is my way of describing what is commonly accepted as the normative and categorical elements of western society. The other I'm calling community, as the word holds common ground with unity, and hints at the feeling I'm trying to communicate. Culture, as elaborated here, is a process of building, whereas community is a process of growth. Community is an organic function whereas culture is an artificial one. Culture postulates that the original unity breaks down into a duality whereas community recognizes the impervious nature of unity as a polarized spectrum. Community shows that evolution occurs as a process of cooperation among biologically diverse members of an ecosystem whereas culture asserts that evolution happens by competitive domination over the environment by the most able organism.
As a general overview, I'm calling the metaphor of community organic and the metaphor or culture as archonic. The roots of these words indicate how I'm putting them to use here; as organic derives from the Greek root of organon, meaning 'that with which one works', archonic derives from the Greek root of arkhon, meaning 'ruler', or 'beginning to rule' in its verb form. These polarities can be considered as part of a spectrum and not mutually exclusive. Both are necessary and valid modes of thinking and being that constitute the yin-yang balance of this human condition. Try and guess which is yin and which is yang. My position is that in order for any sort of existence or experience, these forces need to be balanced enough so as to provide the form and content on which it can be founded. Therefore it is also my position that these forces are still balanced enough today so that we can experience existence and I can communicate my perspectives. The motivation behind my need to put forth these ideas is that although we're still balanced enough between culture and community to 'be' 'here,' where being is too vaguely defined and here is at a precipice. There has been, and still is, an all-too-much emphasized aspect of culture that implicitly refuses recognition of the importance of community.
It is an overwhelming tendency that summarizes my take on culture: humans have for too long invested their energy and attention into systems that divest them of responsibility for their actions, be they religions, sciences, or systems of authority. The idea that one can rest assured in something external doing everything necessary to provide the individual with sustenance, morality, entertainment, and ultimately salvation, is an irresponsible decision at best, and, more honestly, a parasitic scourge on the planet. Believing that one need not blame oneself for the happenings in and around the community, and that self-satisfaction is the ultimate goal of life, is to condemn the entire population and all of posterity to failure.
Rather, by taking up responsibility for one's own community by first standing up as a unique sovereign individual,
( still in progress)
Here's my unique way of formulating what must be an ancient question, and what I present as a unique way of answering it; steeped in contrarian perspectives both new and old, the method to my madness is to question what is called culture. To set up the asking I want to outline two different modes of thought. Neither having priority, both are aspects of the existential situation we call human experience.
The overriding thesis at hand is that the origin of this duality comes from a unified source. The basis of experience as consciousness is essentially unity; only in order to experience itself as anything, consciousness must necessarily make its limits. Be they just veils and membranes enveloping relatively independent transitional bodies, the code at their base has common denominators. Two categorical bodies are to be developed and employed here to indicate this fundamental dynamic. One question is to be asked of both ways of thinking: is this a sustainable way for culture to evolve? My answer is that they both need to be balanced consciously for culture to evolve sustainably.
To characterize this dynamic, two metaphors will serve to illustrate the idiosyncrasies of each end of our spectrum. The one I will call culture, for convenience's sake, as it is my way of describing what is commonly accepted as the normative and categorical elements of western society. The other I'm calling community, as the word holds common ground with unity, and hints at the feeling I'm trying to communicate. Culture, as elaborated here, is a process of building, whereas community is a process of growth. Community is an organic function whereas culture is an artificial one. Culture postulates that the original unity breaks down into a duality whereas community recognizes the impervious nature of unity as a polarized spectrum. Community shows that evolution occurs as a process of cooperation among biologically diverse members of an ecosystem whereas culture asserts that evolution happens by competitive domination over the environment by the most able organism.
As a general overview, I'm calling the metaphor of community organic and the metaphor or culture as archonic. The roots of these words indicate how I'm putting them to use here; as organic derives from the Greek root of organon, meaning 'that with which one works', archonic derives from the Greek root of arkhon, meaning 'ruler', or 'beginning to rule' in its verb form. These polarities can be considered as part of a spectrum and not mutually exclusive. Both are necessary and valid modes of thinking and being that constitute the yin-yang balance of this human condition. Try and guess which is yin and which is yang. My position is that in order for any sort of existence or experience, these forces need to be balanced enough so as to provide the form and content on which it can be founded. Therefore it is also my position that these forces are still balanced enough today so that we can experience existence and I can communicate my perspectives. The motivation behind my need to put forth these ideas is that although we're still balanced enough between culture and community to 'be' 'here,' where being is too vaguely defined and here is at a precipice. There has been, and still is, an all-too-much emphasized aspect of culture that implicitly refuses recognition of the importance of community.
It is an overwhelming tendency that summarizes my take on culture: humans have for too long invested their energy and attention into systems that divest them of responsibility for their actions, be they religions, sciences, or systems of authority. The idea that one can rest assured in something external doing everything necessary to provide the individual with sustenance, morality, entertainment, and ultimately salvation, is an irresponsible decision at best, and, more honestly, a parasitic scourge on the planet. Believing that one need not blame oneself for the happenings in and around the community, and that self-satisfaction is the ultimate goal of life, is to condemn the entire population and all of posterity to failure.
Rather, by taking up responsibility for one's own community by first standing up as a unique sovereign individual,
( still in progress)
Sunday, September 19, 2010
update
Well, it's been a while since I've posted, mostly because I've been in transit, moving from one place to another as I so often do; also because I've been updating my ideas and how they relate overall, the ideas have subsequently developed substantially. My work of late has focused on the ideas I originally wanted to include in the philosophical sort of treatise that I imagined creating shortly after resigning from academia. Though the ideas I want to express haven't changed very much, the way I express myself has changed quite dramatically. Indeed, I've developed some very succinct ways to show what I have to say that are far more precise and definite than I ever had before. Writing through this blog format has rendered my style more acute than I was previously able to communicate.
What I've been doing is compiling the couple of months worth of writing that occurred as the initiation of the misfit shaman, and incorporating that work into a previous project that was my retort to academia. The post entitled The Stone That The Builder Refused was my first draft at a first chapter for the aforementioned project. It has changed quite significantly over the past few year that I've been entertaining the ideas, even though the heart of the matter remains true to the original intent. The posts that follow will be my work on this philosophical treatise that will hopefully adequately contain the scope of my intended communication.
What I've been doing is compiling the couple of months worth of writing that occurred as the initiation of the misfit shaman, and incorporating that work into a previous project that was my retort to academia. The post entitled The Stone That The Builder Refused was my first draft at a first chapter for the aforementioned project. It has changed quite significantly over the past few year that I've been entertaining the ideas, even though the heart of the matter remains true to the original intent. The posts that follow will be my work on this philosophical treatise that will hopefully adequately contain the scope of my intended communication.
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