I sent this article out to subscribers today (Sept. 11), but the formatting got all messed up and my attempt to repair the formatting only made matters worse, so maybe I’ll fix it later and re-post it here.
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4 more comments...No posts
I sent this article out to subscribers today (Sept. 11), but the formatting got all messed up and my attempt to repair the formatting only made matters worse, so maybe I’ll fix it later and re-post it here.
No posts
The bit I want to pull out and comment on is the use of the word "adolescent" to describe our culture. I have thought that, especially in the notion that it's heroic to refuse to accept limits. That's a very adolescent notion, as is the one you reference, the notion that we already know everything important and are superior to any other culture. But I'm concerned with the question of whether adolescence necessarily leads to adulthood. Human adolescents who don't die become adults--physically, but how many make it all the way to adult levels of moral understanding, etc.? I remember reading several decades ago a hierarchy of focus for humans as we mature, and the last stage was generativity--taking responsibility for raising the young. This didn't mean personal parenthood exclusively--it also meant taking on a sense of responsibility for the culture as a whole, for all our children.. Getting involved somehow in seeing to it that things are done right, in whatever realm resonates with us.
What about as a culture? Caitlin Johnstone, my other favorite blogger, assumes that humanity is on course toward enlightenment and will get to adulthood if we don't blow ourselves up first. But I think of John Michael Greer's argument that this notion of inevitable PROGRESS is the religion of our culture, and there's nothing inevitable about it; that other cultures have assumed that they're backsliding from a golden age or just see a steady state. I don't think it's accurate to assume that groups of people, or all humanity, change as an individual does.
Progress to cultural adulthood COULD happen. Maybe we need a teacher--and there are indigenous cultures all around us ready to help. Trouble is, it also isn't accurate to assume whole cultures evolve naturally. Ours, at least, is under the control of those who own the media, the electronic gatekeepers and the government. And these people are, pretty much to a man (and occasional woman) sociopaths.
We were promised jet packs and computers that would do all our work for us but here we are some forty or so years later James and we can’t format a document the way we want it (you and me both 😁)