The Game of Becoming

Part 43 of Prisoners of the Real

Although history illustrates that one civilization may be buried beneath the foundations of another, this isn't always the case. Sometimes only the ashes remain. If human society is to be rescued and transformed, moving from the aggressively “rational” to the receptively Dionysian, many of our psychic road maps will have to be redrawn. Dionysian capacities are latent possibilities. But they may or may not become actualities.

One step toward the necessary change is honest reflection concerning our fundamental assumption about ourselves. The heart of the rational thesis is the belief that humans are essentially self-serving beasts. This belief has produced fear of our neighbors, and led to wall-building and extreme defensiveness. It has been safer, or so it has seemed, to turn control over to impersonal structures than to trust human nature. Gradually, each village, city, state and nation has come to look upon its neighbors as threats, "aliens," competitors who will either dominate or be controlled. Domination means defeat. And defeat, at the hands of the dehumanized beast called the enemy, normally means destruction.

Fear has given power to elite competitors who claim that control over others – in other words, victory – is the only route to independence and security. But in a hostile world, independence actually turns out to mean isolation. And the "rational" people who achieve the mastery they seek so diligently through self-discipline, ethical neutrality and mechanical effort find at the end that a beast confronts them still. The arrogant dragon has become themselves.

But this beast, who also whispers that everyone else is a brute, is no more than a nightmare image brought into the "real world" by our own minds. It is imagination run amok within a psyche that fears imagination and other natural impulses.

And yet...it can be changed. Reshaped by human will into a pleasing form.

*
**
***

Trust and love aren't merely options that we can take when we have finished with hard-nosed business dealings in the "jungle.” They are demands of the self for warmth and aceptance and "irrational" emotions.

To this rational managers reply, "Of course, that may be so, but it is also important to be prepared for the unexpected. We have to watch out for those who have rejected their better angels. That's why we need a strong defense to ward off predators, and an aggressive offense to push 'em back." Some also argue that intuition, while acceptable in those not in positions of power, is no substitute for facts. And after all, they will add, it's no crime to guard your flanks, lock up at night, keep a weather eye out, or even to get ahead of the game. "You see," they claim, "the name of the game is winning."

But is it? Just as we teach our children about the value of competition we also tell them that it isn't winning but how you play the game that really matters. Perhaps our task then is simply to figure out what the game of living really means to us as individuals and as a group of potentially beautiful beasts.

There is a life's work for all of us.

*
**
***

In the end, the purpose of the game isn't winning. It is playing well. In order to do that in any group experience, as most athletes know, you must work both against and with competitors. The most exhilarating moments aren't those in which you devastate an unwary opponent, but rather occur when the outcome remains in play. Then you feel a dynamic tension of united opposition, a cooperative exchange in which the elation of winning emerges from the excitement generated along the way.

Overcoming the fear that others will dominate us, let us down, steal affection like some finite commodity, and rob us of time, we must begin to build a new faith. Neither time nor love is finite. When our boundaries expand far enough beyond our physical borders, they can become infinite. Dragons need not be fire-breathing beasts. They can breathe life-sustaining warmth if they wish, if they are convinced that is their purpose.

*
 **
***

When Konrad Lorenz wrote On Aggression, many readers confused the word "aggression" with "violence," even though the ethologist emphasized that most animals actually avoid killing. He subsequently realized that in translating his title from German the connotation of the word "aggressivity" had been lost.

Lorenz' insight is that animals and humans do seek some sort of dominance, in the form of a drive that differentiates all of us as individuals. "If you lack personal aggressivity," he wrote, "you are not an individual. You have no pride in yourself and you are everyone else's man." The collective enthusiasm that, unfortunately, produces war is also the motivator for our most creative achievements. "Without the instinct of collective enthusiasm, a (human being) is an emotional cripple; he cannot get involved in anything."

The point is that aggressivity is actually a potential force for spontaneous invention, and doesn't necessarily imply hostility or evil. But when aggressivity lacks purpose, dominance can produce devastation. Purpose tells us where we are heading, and when we have arrived. Its absence leaves us roaming the planet, searching for victories we won't even recognize.

*
**
***

The key to our purpose is intuition, more reliable as a guide than analysis alone has been. The Dionysian approach – spontaneous, lunar-centered, reflective rather than reactive – rests upon the naturally aggressive nature of any inspired idea that struggles to impose itself upon reality.

Intuitive processes demand intimate involvement with the subject of one's attention. You can't be a detached, disinterested observer and maintain the necessary intellectual sympathy. Centuries ago rational men resigned themselves to watching and reacting to what they observed. They called it the "practical" path. In contrast, the Dionsyian path is a "romantic" alternative, one that recognizes the value inherent in the infinite variability of individual acts.

*
**
***

The Receptive brings completion to the Creative.
And feels the pulsing rhythms of matter in space
which is nature.
Creativity is the light power of consciousness;
thinking and seeing.
Receptivity is the dark power of what is inside;
unconscious and
Invisible. What I cannot see may feel threatening.
By yielding, the dark mystery is revealed.
My Creative spirit soars to Heaven and leads with
energetic ideas.
As I am Receptive and absorb them in practical and
Earth-bound work.
A doubled Earth signifies fixed lasting conditions
and mysterious
Powers within that have strength to bring Creativity
to birth and nourish it devotedly.

-- Adele Aldridge, I Ching Meditations

The image of harmony within duality is the root of many knowledge systems. The first two hexagrams of the I Ching illustrate the need for both aggressive creativity and intuitive receptivity. The hexagram on which the meditation above is based, the six broken lines known as K'un, The Receptive, says that although The Creative begets things – ideas, plans, machines – they are brought to life through the complimentary action of The Receptive, which helps us to act in conformity with our situation. This bespeaks an attitude of acceptance.

As Richard Wilhelm explained in his commentaries on the Chinese oracle, the "superior" person allows him or herself to be guided, learning from each situation what is demanded and then following this intimation from fate. This calls for both effort and planning. The Receptive is a planner who uses solitude to discover plans that grow from unique experiences.

*
**
***

Both formal and intuitive knowledge are valuable in building humane institutions. As Bergson wrote, instinct and intelligence, manifested through voluntary and reflex actions, embody two views of a primordial, indivisible activity which can become both at once.

"As a rule," he explained, "they have been developed only in succession...one of them will be clung to first; with this one we shall move more or less forward, generally as far as possible; then, with what we have acquired in the course of this evolution, we shall come back to take up the one we left behind." Of course, cooperation would be preferable, with each one intervening when circumstances require. But the signs don't point in this direction. For several centuries we have relied on the rational, the predictable, the efficient, the material, the absolute. Therefore, it is likely that, as we fully realize the physical and psychic costs of this approach, we will turn – perhaps too much – to the intuitive, the spontaneous, the romantic, the spiritual, the relative.

Still, there is always hope. If we are wise the pendulum will not swing too far this time around from the cool, harsh light in which we now stand toward a fiery darkness. If we are wise the rational and Dionysian will not become antagonists again.

The two are, after all, complimentary opposites. They could fuse into a new synthesis of intuition and analysis and create a community of subjects, a flexible whole in which science and art merge, in which infinity is glimpsed in its temporary structure, and through which we humanize our machines rather than allowing mechanisms to destroy us.

In such a New World, we would replace static order with dynamic tension, re-energizing the dialectic of spirit and matter. In that world, Apollo and Dionysus unite to play the endless game of becoming.

Until then, let us dream.

***

Originally posted on June 3, 2010. To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey

Doomsday Thinking: Imagining End Times

Listen to "#7 Doomsday Scenarios" on Spreaker.

There are so many stories about the end of our civilization, too many to list, perhaps too many for our health. It could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

In this podcast, Greg assesses our worst presidents — the real and the imagined, and our obsession with the end of everything, or a new dark age if we’re lucky. With scenes from Mercury Theatre’s classic alien invasion on the radio. Theme by Dave Lippman.

New Video: Reign of Error

   
On Halloween Eve in 1938, a flood of terror swept the United States. Some people, believing that the world was coming to an end, tried flight or suicide, or just cringed in their homes as "aliens" from Mars attacked New Jersey, then New York and the world. 
     But it was just a prank, tapping a deep national well of pre-war anxiety, and produced for radio by Orson Welles and his Mercury Players.
  

   

     Times have changed so radically since then that, in the face of real disasters like the Three Mile Island “partial meltdown” in 1979, the explosion and fire at Chernobyl in 1986, the 2011 earthquake and Tsunami-sparked disaster in Japan, the election of Donald Trump, or even a deadly virus, many people are deceptively calm. Some simply refuse to believe it.
      Are we really so confident about our ability to cope and recover, or have we given in to an overarching pessimism about the fate of the planet and future of humanity?
     According to a survey by the Encyclopedia Britannica, in 1980 nearly half of all US junior high school students believed that World War III would begin by the year 2000. If you consider the last decade, it looks like the youth of that period – in their 50s today – were only off by a few years.
     Many futurologists, an academic specialty that emerged about 40 years ago, continue to warn that the environment is critically damaged. Yet this sounds positively cautious when compared to the diverse images of social calamity projected through films, books and the news media. Long before Covid 19, pandemics and outbreaks were at the center of dozens of novel and films. Of course, there have always been such predictions. But in the last few decades they have proliferated almost as rapidly as nuclear weapons during a Cold War. Some dramatize a “big bang” theory –global devastation caused by some extinction level event.
     Fortunately, a few do chart a slightly hopeful future, one in which humanity either smartens up in time to save itself or manages to survive.
     Rather than a desire to be scared out of our wits, the attraction to such stories and predictions may reflect a widespread interest in confronting the likely future. The mass media may, in fact, be producing training guides for the coming Dark Age -- if we're lucky.

Variations on a Theme

Sometimes humanity – or California – is saved in the nick of time by an individual sacrifice or collective action. Sometimes, as in the classics On the Beach, Dr. Strangelove or The Omega Man (remade as I am Legend), we are basically wiped out. Occasionally there are long-term possibilities for survival, but technology breaks down and the environment takes strange revenge. In some cases the future is so dismal that it is hardly worth going on, as in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
     In a few cases the end of humanity is just a piece of cosmic black humor.
     All of these are speculative visions, many adapted from ideas originally developed in pulp science fiction or from prophetic statements by figures like Edgar Cayce. The films usually offer a way out (audiences generally favor hopeful endings), while deep doom and gloom tend to gain more traction in print. But both scenarios share the assumption that the track we are on leads to a dangerous dead end.
     We seem to keep asking the same basic questions: How do we get to catastrophe? And what happens afterward? One obvious way to get pretty close is to misuse technology, especially when the mistakes are made as a result of greed – for power, knowledge or cold cash.  

Vermont's Nuclear Plant

      The classic anti-nuclear film The China Syndrome presents a textbook example: greedy corporations ignoring public health and shoddy construction in pursuit of profit. It was a powerful statement in its day, especially given the Three Mile accident just weeks after the film's release, yet predictable in a way and inconclusive on the prospects for health or quality survival in a nuclear-powered world. We are just beginning to have this discussion again.
     An earlier “close call” film, The Andromeda Strain, had a more inventive story and placed the blame on a lust for knowledge (the old Frankenstein theme). But this early techno-triller provided no real solution to the problem of disease or disaster created by scientific discovery. In Michael Crichton’s Andromeda Strain the threat was a deadly organism brought back from outer space, the same kind of self-inflicted biological warfare that heavy doses of radioactive fallout can become. But in the book and film the blood of victims coagulated almost instantly, avoiding the prolonged agony of dying from a plague or the long-term effects of radiation.
     Fear of nuclear power is by no means new. Radiation created many movie monsters in the 1950s, from the incredible 50-foot man and woman to giant mantises, crabs and spiders. But the threat was usually related to the testing or detonation of weapons, not the ongoing use of what was then called “the peaceful atom.” That mythical atom was going to be our good friend in a cheap, safe, long-term relationship.
      Since then, and especially since the nuclear accidents of the 1970s and 80s, nuclear plants have provided a basis for various bleak scenarios. Not even Vermont has been spared, though it sometimes appears as a post-disaster oasis. In the 1970s novel The Orange R, however, Middlebury College teacher John Clagett extended nuclear terror into a future where the Green Mountains is inhabited by radioactive people called Roberts. They are dying off rapidly in a country where apartheid has become a device to keep the Roberts away from the Normals.
     Using a pulp novel style Clagett lays out the overall situation about halfway through:
     “For many years every nuclear plant built had been placed in Robert country, ever since, in fact, the dreadful month in which three plants had ruptured cooling systems, spreading radioactive vapor over much of Vermont, New Hampshire and West Massachusetts. After that no more plants had been built near populated areas; before long, the requirement that the plants should be located on running fresh water and in lightly populated country had brought about the present situation. Norm country was surviving and living high on the power generated in Robert country, where radiation grew worse, year by year.”
     In The Orange R Normal people who live in radioactive areas wear airtight suits and laugh hysterically when anyone mentions solar power. All of Vermont’s major streams and bodies of water have heated up, and the deer have mutated into killer Wolverdeer. Still, the book offers a hopeful vision at the end: the Roberts rise up and take over Vermont’s nukes and successfully dismantle the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as well as a corporate state that is only vaguely described. Most Vermonters have terminal radiation sickness, but for humanity it turns out to be another close call.

Prophecies Go Mainstream

There are simply too many novels about the end of the current civilization, too many to list and perhaps too many for our psychological health. It could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
     Only a few decades ago people who accepted the prophecies of Nostradamus or Edgar Cayce were mocked by mainstream society and even some of their close friends. Cayce predicted that the western part of the US would be broken up, that most of Japan would be covered by water, and that New York would be destroyed in 1998 (perhaps he meant Mayor Giuliani’s remake of Times Square). Nearly 400 years earlier Nostradamus, whose benefactor was Henry II of France, said that western civilization would be under heavy attack from the East in 1999, with possible cataclysmic repercussions. Not far off, it turns out.
     But what is “lunatic fringe” in one era can become mainstream, perhaps even commercially viable, in another.
     The destruction of the West Coast has been featured in numerous books and movies. Hollywood has of course excelled in creating doomsday myths, from the antichrist’s continuing saga in countless unmemorable installments, to total destruction in the Planet of the Apes franchise, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012 and many more.

     Japanese filmmakers have been equally and famously preoccupied with mass destruction. Decades before the current disaster, they even turned Cayce’s prophecy about their country into a 1975 disaster movie called Tidal Wave. Starring Lorne Greene and Japanese cast, it was imported to the US by Roger Corman. Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) describes it this way:
     “Racked by earthquakes and volcanoes, Japan is slowly sinking into the sea. A race against time and tide begins as Americans and Japanese work together to salvage some fraction of the disappearing Japan.” Close, but they missed the nuclear angle.
     Predictions to the contrary, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove remains one of the most memorable doomsday movies. Its black humor and naturalistic performances by Peter Sellers, George C. Scott and Sterling Hayden combine with a devastating premise – that The End may come through a mixture of human error (a demented general) and flawed technology (an extinction level bomb that can't be disarmed).
     There haven’t been many stories based on Nostradamus’ Eastern siege prophecy, although there certainly could be. But a number of films have adapted Cayce’s visions of environmental upheaval. Oddly enough Charlton Heston appears in several, usually as Cassandra or savior. In Planet of the Apes he is an astronaut who returns to Earth only to find his civilization in ruins, apes in charge, and humans living below ground as scarred mutants who worship the bomb. In The Omega Man he is a disillusioned scientist who has survived bio-chemical war and spends his days exterminating book-burning mutants. He discovers an antidote to the plague, but only a handful of people are left to give humanity another chance. The same basic story is told in I am Legend, the book and Will Smith movie. In the latter, Bethel, Vermont serves at the end as a gated refuge from the Zombie apocalypse.
     And then there is Soylent Green, a film that presents the slow road to environmental pollution and starvation. This time Heston is a policeman who eventually discovers that the masses have been hoodwinked into cannibalism. They are also so depressed that suicide parlors are big business.
     Most of the Heston vehicles were big budget B-movies, exploiting popular anxiety but much less affecting than Dr. Strangelove or Nevil Shute’s On the Beach. On the other hand, they deftly tapped into growing doubts about the future with a Dirty Harry-style response.

After The End

Ecologist George Stewart wrote his novel Earth Abides in 1949, before the Atom bomb scare took hold or the environment seemed like something to worry about. But his story of civilization destroyed by an airborne disease took the idea of rebuilding afterward about as far as anyone. In this prescient book the breakdown of man-made systems is traced in convincing detail, in counterpoint with a story of survival without machines, mass production and, ultimately, most of what residents of developed countries take for granted.
     Not many recent books or films are as optimistic about our prospects once humanity has gone through either its Big Bang or Long Wheeze end game. In Margaret Atwood’s multi -volume science fiction saga, for example, man-made environmental catastrophe and mass extinction in Oryx and Crake is followed, in The Year of the Flood, by marginal survival in a strange mutated world.
     The optimism of Earth Abides about the ability of human beings to adapt may be a reason why it did not develop the cult following of more dystopian tales. The more dismal the forecast, it seems, the more enthusiastic the following. Apropos, one of the most popular science fiction books downloaded in recent years was The Passage, Justin Cronin’s compelling mixture of vampires run amuck, government conspiracy, and post-apocalypse survivalism.
      What most of these stories and films have in common is a basic idea: the inevitability of radical, cataclysmic change. Should we manage to get beyond annihilation, apocalypse, Armageddon or whatever, they predict that we are very likely to enter a new Dark Age. Like most things, this too isn't a new idea. At the end of his life J. B. Priestley, the British novelist who founded the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, contemplated such a future. Calling it a “slithering down” he forecast that industrial civilization would one day come to an end.
      But even in a Dark Age there is some hope. The life of the planet will likely continue and equilibrium can be reestablished in time. At least many of us continue to hope so. If the devastation is not total, perhaps a new culture can emerge. The main question thus becomes not whether the Earth will survive but how human beings fit in.
     Near the end of his life H. G. Wells, the master of science fiction who produced optimistic visions in The Shape of Things to Come and The Time Machine, turned pessimist and wrote Mind at the End of Its Tether. “There is no way out or round or through,” he concluded. Life on Earth may not be ending, Wells believed, but humans aren’t going anywhere. Well, at least for the next few months, for most of us that will literally be true. 

     Yet compared with the darkest forecasts, the prospect of a post-modern Dark Age starts to sound more hopeful. Maybe it will just be a long Time Out.

Humanity at the Turning Point

Part 33 of Prisoners of the Real

For a century, humanity has been in the early stages of a great transformation, perhaps the greatest it has ever faced. As revealed in the dissolution of the "superpower" known as the Soviet Union, it is not merely a matter of one economic and social system prevailing over another. All systems are under severe stress. Alliances crumble, ethnic and religious upheavals shake the world, class and racial conflict flares across the US, the planet itself shudders under the threat of environmental Armageddon.

Martin Buber recognized the stakes when he wrote, "What is in question, therefore, is nothing less than man’s whole existence in the world."

During the various stages of human evolution, the central dynamic has consistently been the relationship between human beings and the rest of the natural world. But over the last five hundred years the tempo of our crusade to assert power over nature has increased dramatically, and with devastating effect. As crises pile upon one another, we have slowly begun to see just how fragile our "triumph" has been. In quickly repressed moments of intuition we sense that the high road of progress is actually a high-speed ride along the narrow ledge of an abyss. What we desperately need is conscious, responsible knowledge, and flowing from it, truly heroic deeds.

But taking account of the journey ahead will not be enough. In order to act effectively we will need to acknowledge where the journey began. Human beings first emerged from nature by banding together –to protect themselves, hunt, gather food and work. Yet, from the very start, we faced each other as independent entities. A "social" world was created by beings both mutually dependent and fiercely independent. No group of animals had ever constructed such a society before.

Apes use tools, but don't "produce" them for one another. Insect societies have division of labor, but it governs them completely; they don't improvise, strike out independently, or develop one-to-one relationships. It is precisely this unique quality of humanity – the complex and dynamic tension between autonomy and unity – that has brought us to our turning point.

Communities form, reform and evolve on the basis of the twin principles of growing personal independence and collaboration. In every group, in one form or another, division of labor emerges, each person utilizing special capacities in a renewing, shifting association. This is the first step in the evolution of any human organization. The second is the development of relations between groups – in other words, some agreement to combine effort in the pursuit of an external objective. In doing both, we acknowledge differences in nature and function. No matter what the particular shape or customs of a human society, a balance between functional autonomy and mutual aid must be struck both within groups and in relations between them.

Power centers come and go – cities, states and bureaucracies that boldly guarantee order and security. Yet at the root, what counts is the organic and enduring human community in which we live and work, where we compete with and support one another. And within each community and group, asserting independence while simultaneously fulfilling responsibilities to fellow human beings, is the individual – autonomous and yet profoundly social.

How tragic, then, that these fundamental aspects of human development have been so distorted by centralistic and absolutist institutions. The problem isn't merely that the State has weakened and in many respects destroyed free associations – although it has also done that. The true tragedy is that the centralist impulse has become embedded in all forms of social interaction. It has changed the inherent structure of groups, the family, institutions, and societies, as well as the inner life of humanity. Modern industrial development has meanwhile accelerated society's subsumption within the State.

Struggles between States have become struggles between whole societies. And societies, perceiving threats both from outside and within their very nature, have often submitted further to centralized power as a result. The pattern has replayed itself in varied political systems, from the most brutally totalitarian to the proudest democratic.

As the importance of power, the interests of the State and the marketing of mass culture have saturated societies, the inner development of the individual has become confused and disfigured. The family, work group and community no longer provide a source of reassurance. Individuals cling increasingly to the great collectivities, abdicating individual freedom and responsibility. In the process, a key component in social life – mutual support between human beings – has been severely undermined. In many places and situations, autonomous relationships have become meaningless. As Buber put it, "The personal human being ceases to be the living member of a social body and becomes a cog in the 'collective' machine."

Just at the moment when, in some societies at least, there is finally time to improve community life, it has been hollowed into an empty shell.

Next: Narcissism & Grand Delusions

To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey

MIND GAMES: Cyberspace and Psychiatric Drugs

At least 10 percent of all Americans over six-years-old are on antidepressants. That’s more than 35 million people, double the number from less than two decades ago. Meanwhile, anti-psychotics have eclipsed cholesterol treatments as the country’s fastest selling and most profitable drugs, even though half the prescriptions treat disorders for which they haven’t been proven effective. At least 5 million children and adolescents use them, in part because more kids are being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

This raises some troubling alternatives: Are a growing number of people experiencing psychological troubles? Have we just become better at recognizing them? Or is some other dynamic at work?

One possibility is that the criteria for what constitutes a mental illness or disability may have expanded to the point that a vast number appear to have clinical problems. But there’s an even more insidious development: the drugs being used to treat many of the new diagnoses could cause long-term effects that persist after the original trouble has been resolved. That’s the case made by Robert Whitaker in his book, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America.

Speaking of long-term impacts on the brain, we’re also heading toward a world where humans are directly linked with computers that profoundly influence their perceptions and ideas. Despite many potential benefits, there is danger here as well. Rather than simply augmenting our memories by providing neutral information, the brain-computer connection may lead people into separate realities based on their assumptions and politics.

Brain-altering drugs and digital “indoctrination” – a potent combination. Together, they pose a potential threat not only to the stability of many individuals but of society itself. Seduced by the promise that our brains can be managed and enhanced without serious side-effects, we may be creating a future where psychological dysfunction becomes a post-modern plague and powerful forces use cyberspace to reshape “reality” in their private interest.

Do prescription drugs create new mental problems? And if so, how could it be happening? For Whitaker the answer lies in the effects of drugs on neurotransmitters, a process he calls negative feedback. When a drug blocks neurotransmitters or increases the level of serotonin, for instance, neurons initially attempt to counteract the effects. When the drug is used over a long period, however, it can produce “substantial and long-lasting alterations in neural function,” claims Steven Hyman, former director of the National Institutes of Mental Health. The brain begins to function differently. Its ability to compensate starts to fail and side effects created by the drug emerge.

What comes next? More drugs and, along with them, new side effects, an evolving chemical mixture often accompanied by a revised diagnosis. According to Marcia Angell, former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, it can go this way: use of an antidepressant leads to mania, which leads to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, which leads to the prescription of mood stabilizers. Through such a process people can end up taking several drugs daily for many years.

What may happen after that is deeply troubling. Researcher Nancy Andreasen claims the brain begins to shrink, an effect she links directly to dosage and duration. “The prefrontal cortex doesn’t get the input it needs and is being shut down by drugs,” she explained in The New York Times. “That reduces the psychotic symptoms.” But the pre-frontal cortex gradually atrophies.

Anyone who has been on the psychiatric drug roller coaster understands some of the ride’s risks and how hard it can be to get off. But the new implication is that we may be experiencing a medically-induced outbreak of brain dysfunction caused by the exploding use of drugs. One big unanswered question at the moment: What does Big Pharma really know, and when did they learn it?

Drug companies are not the only ones experimenting with our brains. Bold research is also being pursued to create brain-computer interfaces that can help people overcome problems like memory loss. According to writer Michael Chorost, author of World Wide Mind and interface enthusiast who benefited from ear implants after going deaf, we may soon be directly connected to the Internet through neural implants. It sounds convenient and liberating. Ask yourself a question and, presto, there’s the answer. Google co-founder Larry Page can imagine a not-too-distant future in which you simply think about something and “your cell phone whispers the answer in your ear.”

Beyond the fact that this could become irritating, there’s an unspoken assumption that the information received is basically unbiased, like consulting an excellent encyclopedia or a great library catalog. This is where the trouble starts. As Sue Halperin noted in a New York Review of Books essay, “Mind Control and the Internet,” Search engines like Google use an algorithm to show us what’s important. But even without the manipulation of marketing companies and consultants who influence some listings, each search is increasingly shaped to fit the profile of the person asking. If you think that we both get the same results from the same inquiry, guess again.

What really happens is that you get results assembled just for you. Information is prioritized in a way that reinforces one’s previous choices, influenced by suggested assumptions and preferences. As Eli Pariser argues in The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You, environmental activists and energy executives get very different listings when they inquire about climate science. It looks and feels “objective” but they’re being fed data that fits with their existing view – and probably not seeing much that conflicts.

A study discussed in Sociological Quarterly looked at this development by following attitudes about climate science over a decade. Here’s a strange but significant finding: Although a consensus emerged among most scientists over the years, the number of Republicans who accepted their conclusion dropped. Why? Because the Republicans were getting different information than the Democrats and others who embraced the basic premise. In other words, their viewpoint was being reflected back at them.

Does this sound dangerous? Pariser thinks so, and suggests that the type of reinforcement made common by search engines is leading to inadvertent self-indoctrination. For democracy to function effectively, people need exposure to various viewpoints, “but instead we’re more and more enclosed in our own bubbles,” he writes. Rather than agreeing on a set of shared facts we’re being led deeper into our different worlds.

Whether this is a problem depends somewhat on your expectations. For some people it is merely a bump in the road, a faltering step in the inevitable evolution of human consciousness. Techno-shamen and other cosmic optimists see the potential of drug-induced enlightenment and an Internet-assisted “hive mind,” and believe that the long-term outcome will be less violence, more trust, and a better world. But others have doubts, questioning whether we’ll really end up with technological liberation and a psychic leap forward. It could go quite differently, they worry. We could instead see millions of brain-addled casualties and even deeper social polarization.

How will current trends influence democracy and basic human relations? Increased trust and participation don’t immediately come to mind. Rather, the result could be more suspicion, denial and paranoia, as if we don’t have enough. In fact, even the recent upsurge in anger and resentment may be drug and Internet-assisted, creating fertile ground for opportunists and demagogues.

In False Alarm: The truth about the epidemic of fear, New York internist Marc Siegel noted that when the amygdala — the Brain’s central station for processing emotions – detects a threatening situation, it pours out stress hormones. If the stress persists too long, however, it can malfunction, overwhelm the hippocampus (center of the "thinking" brain), and be difficult to turn off. In the long term, this "fear biology" can wear people down, inducing paralysis or making them susceptible to diseases and delusions that they might otherwise resist. Addressing this problem with drugs that change the brain’s neural functioning isn’t apt to help. Either will the Internet’s tendency to provide information that reinforces whatever one already thinks.

More than half a century ago, Aldous Huxley – who knew a bit about drugs – issued a dire prediction. He didn’t see the Internet coming, but other than that his vision remains relevant. “There will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude,” he wrote in Brave New World, “and producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods."

Pretty grim, but there’s no going back. Despite any dangers posed by computer algorithms and anti-psychotic drugs, they are with us for the foreseeable future. Still, what we’ve learned about them in recent years could help us to reduce the negatives. Not every illness listed in the DMS – that constantly growing, Big Pharma-influenced psychiatric bible – requires drug treatment. And the results of your online searches will very likely tell you what you want to know, but that does not mean you’re getting a “balanced” or comprehensive picture.

(Originally published on 6/15/11, based on a radio broadcast)

Community & Consciousness

Part 35 of Prisoners of the Real

We can't go back. The only route is through the current crisis and on to the next stage of human evolution. But we can only get there if we know where we want to go.

First and foremost, the impulses toward centralization, rationalization, absolutism, and hierarchy must be rejected as means toward personal liberation and global harmony. This is especially difficult at a time when the need for global control is so strongly asserted and threatens to erase the vision of free communities. Complicating matters further is the confusion between the concept of true community and the State. The more a group of people allows itself to be represented from outside, the less community life is left in it.

Community is the joint and active management of what we hold in common, a primary aspiration of all human beings. Survival itself depends on the use of community structures and institutions to promote genuine freedom and spontaneous social action.

Second, we must recognize that community isn't a rigid idea but instead a living form, shaped by daily experience. It must satisfy the demands of real situations rather than abstractions. Like any realization, community is not reached once and for all time. Every moment presents new challenges and calls for original answers. For the individual, community building requires the inner disposition to pursue a life in common, despite the prospect of adverse circumstances and anxiety, tribulations, and toil. What sustains it is spirit, trust and love.

Community begins when its members see their common purpose and relation to the whole, a living togetherness that is the essence of sister and brotherhood. In that sense, few true communities currently exist in our "post-modern" world. Most of our cities have no real centers, and we devote little time to defining what holds us together. That work has mostly been turned over to elected representatives and appointed bureaucrats. Their "rational collectives" leave little space for warmth or friendship in the press of political and economic reality. Visions of togetherness are usually viewed as romantic fantasy, conceivable at all only in terms of their concrete effects.

Dionysian collectives, in contrast, are the seeds of an organic commonwealth that place true solidarity at the center of social experience. Every act of true friendship, every moment of selfless aid in our rationalized "post-industrial" world, brings social transformation a step nearer. This is true community building, and it occurs whenever autonomous actions create dynamic unity.

The Dionysian path is known by many names – metaphysical reconstruction, holistic epistemology, deep ecology, and new age claptrap, among others. Critics rightly note that attacks on rationalism and "instrumental reason" often extend too far, ending in rejection of all forms of purposeful activity and a retreat into the mystical haze of nature worship and “magical thinking.” Wary of the cult of technique, cultural revolutionaries sometimes confuse technology with practice and reject all human inventiveness as wanton dominance. In truth, however, it is possible to make peace with nature even while acknowledging the separation created by our consciousness. As Christopher Lasch explained, "Nature sets limits to human freedom, but it does not define freedom."

Ecological and systems thinking provide a theoretical foundation for the Dionysian approach. The former encompasses the realization that structures that may appear rigid in nature are actually manifestations of processes in continual flux; the latter has moved beyond analysis of complex machines to an understanding of relationships and integration in living systems. After 2000 years of reducing the world to smaller and smaller building blocks, science has finally turned its attention to principles of organization. Every organism is an integrated whole, a living system. Families and communities exhibit the same characteristics of wholeness as cells and ecosystems.

Yet the metaphysical reconstruction implied by a turn to the Dionysian principle also involves reconciliation of two realms of experience that have long been viewed as separate and irreconcilable – the political and spiritual. Marx's claim that religion is the "opiate of the people" has been as debilitating as the notion that enlightenment is a purely personal pursuit, fundamentally incompatible with the "dirty" world of social action.

The keys to a synthesis have been found in ecological consciousness and the post-modern politics of Gaia. Together they form a new cultural paradigm – planetary consciousness. With roots in myth, Gaia re-emerged as hypothesis, out of research on the auto-regulation of the Earth as a living system. According to James Lovelock, originator of the hypothesis, "the entire range of living matter on Earth, from whales to viruses, can be regarded as a single entity." Studying the nature of Earth's atmosphere, he and other researchers discovered that it is not merely a biological product but instead an active system designed to maintain a chosen environment within the biosphere.

Since this initial research Gaia has developed as a theoretical and artistic context, embraced by social critics, articulated in music, and developed as an eco-social organizing principle. There is talk also of a Gaian mode of consciousness, one acknowledging that science has a myth-making quality. Closely linked to ecological concepts, Gaian consciousness recognizes that opposites can – in fact, must – coexist.

This emerging form of spirituality is politically consistent with certain strains of Green thinking, in particular deep ecology, holistic feminism, community-based populism, and bio-regionalism. All of these incorporate a subtle awareness of the oneness of life, the interdependence of its limitless manifestations, and its cyclical processes of change and transformation. The sense that we are connected to the cosmos as a whole is a spiritual revelation that ties together the disparate expressions of this new consciousness.

In The Spiritual Dimension of Green Politics, Charlene Spretnak argued persuasively that Green concepts of inter-relatedness and sustainability open the way toward what she called post-modern spirituality. Human beings, she wrote, are social and interconnected, and the boundaries between us are more illusory than we normally think. Taking account of the nature reverence buried within most religious traditions, she concluded that a spiritual grounding can not only answer a deep hunger in modern experience, but also mesh comfortably with the Green tendrils that have sprouted around the world. Like others who are attempting to describe the next stage of humanity's journey, she found herself in a region where cosmic consciousness and political analysis meet.

William Irwin Thompson defined the current transition as a shift from the cultural ecology of the Atlantic, with its capitalist, industrial approach, to a new Pacific ecology that is more communal and balanced. On the spiritual level, this translates as a move from obedience to symbiosis. Working with a series of paradoxes, he noted that "Good at one level of order becomes evil at another.... In the age of mental understanding of doctrine (the current Atlantic era), obedience to law is evil, for it aborts the development of the mind. In an age of universal compassion (the new Pacific era), understanding of doctrine becomes evil, for it simply sanctifies murder in religious warfare."

The key to a new age, says Thompson, is the acceptance of difference, "the consciousness of the unique that contributes to the understanding of the universal." The main danger, on the other hand, is what he has labeled "collectivization through terror," the stamping out of differences. Just as mono-crop agriculture does violence to nature, a mono-crop society – essentially the extreme of an industrial mentality – would be deadly to human nature. Even Green politics, which may yet develop an ecology of consciousness, could instead become a fundamentalist ideology, rejecting flexibility and promoting a Luddite contempt for innovation.

"The real secret of freedom," Thompson once wrote, "seems to lie in the ability to deal with ambiguity, the capacity to tolerate noise and yet hear within its wild, randomizing abandon the possibilities of innovation and transformation."

Next: The Eclipse of Free Expression

To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey

Dystopia or Hope?

A century ago, novelist and muckraker Upton Sinclair weighed in on the political debate of his day with a play that predicted worldwide devastation when a radioactive element causes a deadly explosion on New Year's Eve in 1999. Called The Millennium, his script follows the attempts of a handful of survivors to create a new society. Oddly enough, the long-lost play, written in 1908 yet never performed publicly, is a comedy in which utopia prevails and all the characters live happily ever after. Looking at the state of the world today, it's hard to be as optimistic.

In Sinclair's fantasy, survivors of global cataclysm come to see the failures of feudalism and capitalism, finally discovering a socialist society that works. As it turns out, however, capitalism has so far managed to squelch consideration of any other option, while wreaking havoc globally and promoting the cynical notion that governments can do little to reduce misery. For many, socialism has become a synonym for repressive state control, a dream that produced totalitarian nightmares.

Sinclair, who focused on labor's struggles and capitalism's excesses, could laugh about humanity's plight and look beyond catastrophe. Today, in contrast, a sense of ultimate doom hangs over the world. Many people have lost faith in a better future. In pop culture, post-modern scenarios often stress the dangers of technology in dystopias built on lies, brutality, and callous inequality. Though the hero usually saves humanity from oblivion, the basic message is that we are headed for a breakdown. Beyond that, who knows? It's an essentially hopeless vision, which subtly promotes the glorification of greed and selfishness. We're all on the Titanic, waiting for an iceberg, so why not just party until the inevitable happens.

Some say the only way out is global revolution, which is almost as dangerous as not doing anything. If rapacious corporations and their transnational institutions imperil the planet, goes the logic, the solution is basically to abolish both. Yet, this approach, like the state's rights movement that seeks to challenge federal power in the US, could leave no way to enforce uniform standards of behavior. Some regions would flourish, others would become police states or ecological basket cases. And we'd all get to watch it on the Internet.

Like it or not, the global village is upon us. The questions are how it will evolve and what constructive role citizens can play. A quarter-century after creating his own millennial vision, Sinclair opted for reform, seizing the Democratic nomination for California governor and advancing the End Poverty in California (EPIC) platform.

For the Right, the prospect of a radical governor was terrifying. For the much of the Left, Sinclair's move was a betrayal. But some, like fellow author John Dos Passos, saw his plan for land reform and socialization of idle factories as a valuable small step. In fact, although Sinclair ultimately lost the election, EPIC radicalized a generation of activists and helped create the Democratic Party's progressive wing.

Rather than sinking into cynicism or clinging to fantasy, Sinclair translated his vision into a practical program for change. And that's precisely the challenge that still faces humanity: to resist despair, sustain a positive long-term vision, and yet confront corporate power with practical, evolutionary alternatives. This means engagement with – not withdrawal from – the emerging global system.

Anti-government attitudes make people susceptible to reactionary, often isolationist appeals. Even though they may understand that no single nation can control violence, reverse environmental destruction, or protect basic rights around the world, many also believe that any form of "global management" is either fantasy or a potential nightmare – the dreaded One World Dictatorship. Only one problem: it's already here, operating behind closed doors and accountable only to those managing its administrative agencies.

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund virtually run the economies of many countries, primarily in the interest of transnational industries and global financial interests. The UN plays a small role, as a forum for dialogue and a convenient place to dump problems. But even there, the real power lies with the five permanent members of the Security Council -- the US, Britain, France, China, and Russia. Rather than worrying about secular humanists or black helicopters, those concerned about the New World Order might want to consider the open conspiracy to create a Corporate World Order.

Some suspicion of government's potential power is certainly legitimate and relevant. Yet, the form of centralized power that most threatens us today isn't public, it's private, the negative power of big business and elite financial institutions. These interests, influencing and sometimes even determining the actions of governments, ought to be the main focus of scrutiny and action. Conveniently, the same interests lead the campaign to convince us that freedom means "me against the world" or "me against the government." Appealing to fears of government intrusion is a convenient way to derail intrusions on the "right" to profit at the expense of the general health and well-being, and exploit in the name of freedom.

Fighting for more responsive and responsible government -- both locally and globally -- doesn't mean surrendering our visions of a better society. In fact, winning a few battles would give hope to millions. But of course, higher aspirations -- an increase in the demands citizens make on their governments -- is precisely what corporate overseers fear.

Self-reliance is a fine idea, but there's no point in romanticizing a bucolic past that never existed. As Doug Henwood puts it, what's the point of treating globalization as the enemy, rather than capitalist and imperialist exploitation? Instead, we can work to democratize the global system, actively supporting the UN as a transitional institution to reduce violence and regain control over economic decisions. According to the UN Charter, the IMF and World Bank are "specialized agencies" within the UN system. Yet, they operate independently, including and excluding countries, imposing unilateral decisions, and undermining the UN's potential as a place to resolve global economic and environmental problems.

The movement to challenge our de facto world government -- the "mobilization against globalization" -- has turned public attention to the issues, and challenged the complacency of corporate-dominated, transnational institutions. More accountability and transparency, as well as consideration of environment, labor, and human rights impacts, is the least we should ask. Beyond that, however, we need to move past fear and work for democracy at the world level.

This means some planet-level guidance, to ensure health and freedom for all, and deal with arms proliferation, malnutrition, toxic materials, and genetic engineering, among other problems. Rather than continuing to accept the myth that government is inherently evil, why not at least consider the idea of effective and participatory global governance, a higher authority that nurtures children, helps poor regions develop along sustainable lines, and defines and enforces global standards of human rights? Rather than assuming government is the enemy, let's take it back and bring it to the next level -- beyond misleading calls to nationalism and toward global democracy.

Reforming and strengthening the UN isn’t a revolutionary agenda, even with more democratic voting, removal of the Security Council veto, a restored economic agenda, and a standing army. It is still a forum for nations -- not people. What we really need is a global parliament, effective enforcement of universal human rights, and trully equitable resource management. But like Sinclair's plan, a small step could inspire future generations to believe that something other than a high-tech dystopia is still possible. Aside from global meltdown as the catalyst to create a new post-apocalyptic utopia, it could be the most likely route to a hopeful and -- dare I say it? -- socialist transformation.

Originally published in April 2000 but worth another look.

MAVERICK CHRONICLES: 2/11/11

A CREATIONIST NATION?

Four in 10 Americans believe that humans were created by God about 10,000 years ago, while only 16 percent of us think we developed over millions of years without divine assistance. The rest say we’ve been evolving for millions of years – but God certainly helped.

Actually it’s not as bad as it sounds. The number of people who accept the “creationist” idea has actually gone down. The high was 47 percent back in the 1990s. As you might suspect, people with less education are more like to be creationists.

Most Americans believe in some sort of God, so it’s no shock that about 8 in 10 think human origins involve some kind of divine intervention—either God created humans according to The Book of Genesis, or merely guided a process of evolution. But it’s nevertheless noteworthy that 40 percent embrace the first of these explanations since such attitudes have political and cultural consequences. For example, communities have been arguing for decades about which explanation of human origins should be offered in school textbooks and curricula.

Soon we could hear it debated bit time, by people who want to run the country – people like Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and other presidential wannabes. So, the question for this week is: What are the chances that the country will someday accept a true radical as its leader? I’m not talking about a leftist, of course, but rather someone who thinks science has a liberal bias and the Bible is a history book? Can it happen here?

This is Maverick Media’s Rebel News Round Up,* broadcast live at approximately 11:30 a.m. Friday on WOMM (105.9-FM/LP – The Radiator) in Burlington.

This Week’s Ten Big stories: Endangered shellfish, death of a detainee, Tea Party developments, creationist nation, New Orleans demographics and Big Brother in Chicago, an immigration video game, Burlington vs. Lockheed, a Great Moment in political payback history, and the rumor of the week.

Live Stream: http://www.theradiator.org/drupal/webcam.html

NATIONAL SCENE

ANOTHER FISH BITES THE DUST

Here’s another addition to the list of creatures in jeopardy – shellfish. According to the Nature Conservancy, which has completed the first-ever comprehensive review of the state of the world's shellfish, the prognosis is basically awful. That’s a technical term.

Globally, about 85 percent of the world's oyster reefs have vanished. In other words, they’re functionally extinct. The main factors in the decline are – surprise! – destructive fishing practices, coastal over-development, and the effects of upstream activities like altered river flows, dams, poorly managed agriculture, and poor water quality.

Oysters are natural water filters and improve water quality. They are also natural coastal buffers, helping to protect shorelines and keep coastal wetlands intact. Basically, they protect coastal communities from storm surges and sea-level rise. So, that’s one more point for climate change.

DETAINED TO DEATH

Another casualty last week was Guantanamo detainee Awal Gul, a 48-year-old Afghan who died on Tuesday of an apparent heart attack. Gul was a father of 18 children and had been kept in a cage by the US for more than 9 years. In late 2001 he was captured in Afghanistan and brought to Gitmo. But he was never officially accused of a crime.

The US claimed he was a Taliban commander, but Gul insisted that he quit the Taliban a year before the 9/11 attack. As his lawyer put it, "he was disgusted by the Taliban's growing penchant for corruption and abuse." His death means that we’ll never know.

So, just to be clear, the US government’s detention policy is that it can impose a life sentence without bothering to prove that the person accused actually did anything wrong.

A TEA PARTY SURPRISE

Here is a strange development. More than two dozen Republicans, some of them new members with Tea Party credentials, joined Democrats in opposing extension of parts of the Patriot Act. A measure to extend counterterrorism-based surveillance provisions of the Act failed in the House when the Republicans bucked their party to oppose the measure.

Three key provisions of the law are set to expire on Feb. 28 unless Congress reauthorizes them. One says the FBI can continue using roving wiretaps on surveillance targets; another allows the government to access “tangible items" like library records as part of surveillance; and the third, known as a "lone wolf" provision, allows surveillance of people who aren’t connected to an identified terrorist group.

“The Patriot Act represents the undermining of civil liberties," says Dennis Kucinich, one of the few Congressmen who consistently speaks out and keeps his eye on this issue. But the Republican House establishment says that he’s wrong and blame Democrats for denying “their own administration's request for key weapons in the war on terror." With a little help from the Tea Party.

HERE COME DA PAULS

The big Tea Party news this week is that Ron Paul may be on the verge of announcing another presidential run. What’s the evidence – aside from wishful thinking? The Texas Congressman will give a speech in Iowa at an event called “presidential lecture series” that features likely Oval Office candidates.

Jesse Benton, advisor to Paul’s Campaign for Liberty organization, confirmed that he is seriously considering another run. Given the likelihood that Sarah Palin will put her assault rifle in the race, it’s important to note that a new Rasmussen poll gives Paul a better chance of defeating Obama than the Mama Grizzly. Palin trails Obama by 11 percent in current approval ratings. Paul is only 9 points behind the President.

The conventional wisdom is that Obama’s second term is virtually guaranteed if the Republicans go with Palin. Of course, that kind of wisdom sometimes proves to be closer to an old wives tale – due respect to “old wives.”

Still, an even bigger surprise is possible. Ron Paul could end up running against his own son, Rand. Last week the freshman Senator from Kentucky dropped hints that he too might make a run for the White House, according to the Wall Street Journal. He admitted such a decision would be premature, yet also told ABC News that he would step up if nominated. He put it this way: “Come back and ask me in a few months.”

Given Rand’s aspirations and his father’s chance of beating Obama, maybe the Republican dream ticket for 2012 is a father/son combination. Very Ayn Rand. Personally, I still prefer a Sanders-Paul independent alliance to a Ron / Rand combo. Nevertheless, here’s a possible slogan for a Paul-Paul slate:

America needs some R & R.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

What changes a place more – public fears or man-made disasters? Let’s consider the cases of two cities, New Orleans and Chicago.

Since hurricane Katrina overpowered the levees of New Orleans and caused such extensive flooding that almost half the city’s residents had to flee, the population has dropped by almost 30 percent. In 2000 there were 485,000 people living there. Census figures released last week say that now there are no more than 343,000.

Before Katrina, New Orleans was an overwhelmingly black city. African Americans made up 67 percent of the population. Today there are 118,000 fewer black residents. Meanwhile, the white population has crept up to 30 percent. There has been a rise in the Hispanic presence, mostly due to a major influx of workers needed for reconstruction.

Almost 60,000 fewer children live in the city, a drop of about 44 percent. In the past New Orleans was proud of its vibrant youth culture. But the disaster has apparently turned the city both older and whiter.

Chicago also used to be a pretty wild and crazy place. Less so now that cameras watch people wherever they go. Last Monday the ACLU chapter in Illinois reported that the city has 10,000 cameras in public places. They’re operated by the police, schools, the public transit system and businesses linked to Chicago’s 911 Center. ACLU wants the city to stop adding more cameras and, perhaps more to point, stop zooming in on people, tracking their movements, or using facial recognition technology without probable cause.

Mayor Richard Daley calls surveillance a cost-effective way to help police fight crime. “We’re not spying on anyone or identifying anyone, or racially profiling anyone,” he claims. “We’re not.” Really. But he also says that it’s impractical to prove probable cause before zooming in. The nightmare scenario he sees involves a judge being awakened at two in the morning. “Judge, we have probable cause,” says the cop. “The person is walking down 22nd Street. By the time we get there,” Daley imagines, “the person’s already at Halsted Street.” Scary.

If you look around almost anywhere in Chicago, you’ll probably spot a surveillance camera: red light cameras, security surveillance cameras, police “blue light” pod cameras. The blue-light cameras have been strategically placed in high-crime areas since 2003. Police say the system works. But the public is divided. Some residents agree with the cops and don’t think privacy is being invaded if you know the camera is there. Others see it as a violation of their rights, or say criminals and gangs have simply moved from major streets with cameras to side streets without them.

It’s the most extensive and integrated camera network of any US city, according to former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Civil libertarians consider it step toward Big Brother. “Chicago’s camera network invades the freedom to be anonymous in public places, a key aspect of the fundamental American right to be left alone,” says the ACLU report. “Each of us then will wonder whether the government is watching and recording us when we walk into a psychiatrist’s office, a reproductive health care center, a political meeting, a theater performance, or a bookstore.”

On the other hand, the cameras have played a role in several high-profile cases. In 2007 footage from a city bus camera helped persuade a suspected gang member to plead guilty to shooting a 16-year-old high school student. Cameras also helped police determine that the 2009 death of a school board president was a suicide.

So, concerns about crime have turned Chicago into a surveillance city-state, while unfortunate events have robbed New Orleans of its cultural edge. It’s hard to imagine how the latter can recapture its Mojo – aside from incentives for artists to move there. But Chicago could just stop installing the cameras.

GAME WITH A MESSAGE

Who says video games can’t have a social conscience? Take the game being developed that has users drive a truck full of immigrants through the desert. The object is to prevent them from being tossed out along the way.

It’s called "Smuggle Truck: Operation Immigration," and is targeted for release in March. In the game players navigate through what appears to be the US-Mexican border. As their truck deals with cliffs, mountains and dead animals, immigrants may fall off the truck's bed. Your scores depends on the number of immigrants you help cross the border.

Alex Schwartz says the idea for the game arose from the frustration some friends of his faced while trying to immigrate. "We felt like this issue was kind of taboo for games and popular media," he says. "So we wanted to build something…about this struggle that we could put into our work and our passion, which is making games."

The message, he claims, is that it’s so tough to emigrate legally that it's almost easier to smuggle yourself over the border despite the dangers. But immigrant advocates aren’t impressed. Eva Millona, director of the Massachusetts Immigrants & Refugee Advocacy Coalition, says the game is in poor taste and trivializes the risks immigrants face under a broken immigration system.
"Last year, 170 human beings died crossing the border," Millona said in statement. "It's disgraceful that anyone would try to make money out of this tragedy by making light of it in a game."

Patricia Montes, executive director of Centro Presente, a Somerville, Mass.-based Latino immigrant advocacy group, adds that people who are trying to emigrate into the US don’t think they are part of a game. "They do it because they are desperate."

The developers claim they aren’t trying to offend immigrants and their advocates. In fact, they went out of their way to make sure the game's characters weren't stereotypical. How? "For example, one of the immigrants is a nerdy looking guy with a pocket protector," Schwartz explained.

The game is currently being tested around Boston.

TOMORROW:

PART TWO – Lockheed, Vermont and the Rumor of the Week

* This is an edited transcript and does not include extemporaneous comments and last minute changes or additions.

Evolutionary Cycles

Part 26 of Prisoners of the Real

Can spiritual regeneration begin as destructive rationality reaches its apex? If so, we’ve come to the end of a cycle that is consistent with the observations of science. 

In biological, psychological and social systems, the interactions between elements gradually decrease. The primary state of unity — call it an intuitive or subconscious collective phase — splits into independent causal chains. This "progressive segregation" is accompanied by an increase in complexity, and is followed closely by the mechanization of various functions.

But progressive mechanization results in a loss of the ability to regulate the system as a whole. Different processes continue irrespective on each other, leading to impoverishment and eventual deterioration of performance. At the same time centralization commences. The system becomes more indivisible, and is subordinated under dominant parts. In social systems, at first these are individuals — charismatic leaders, monarchs, presidents and so forth. Later they are structures.

As the next stage — democratization — begins, the arrangement of structures determines process so that certain results are achieved. Eventually, direction through the structure of mechanisms leads to degeneration – known as entropy, or to regeneration – the birth of a new intuitive collective.

1. In visual terms, the cycle begins with a circle, the symbol for a system, or in religious terms, "being without beginning or end." Within the system are a number of equipotential parts; for example, the human being in a state of nature prior to association through a social contract. In such a state of undifferentiated wholeness, the collective acts as one. Imagine a group of strangers who find themselves in an enclosed space. Before speaking, they are a group of equals, like newborns unaware of the separation between themselves.

2. But awareness of self within a situation results in segregation, differentiation of parts, and clustering into subordinate circles. In embryonic development, the organism passes from equipotentiality to a sum of regions that grow independently. In social systems, this is the tribal stage, the point at which permeable boundaries are established. Labor is divided, associations are formed, and specialization of functions emerges. It's still possible to survive outside of association, however, existing on the fringes or moving between groups.

3. Increased complexity eventually leads to both mechanization and subordination under dominant parts. The community becomes a city, then a State, and leaders emerge. For social systems this is a time of development, exploration and individuation. Boundaries harden and existence outside now segregated units becomes more difficult. Each group becomes unified and indivisible. At the global level, this is the era of nation-states, technological development, and rivalry between increasingly rigid systems. Those who choose to live outside the society of their birth are seen as eccentrics, hermits, or outsiders. Within each society, despite technological innovations providing the illusion of omniscience, individuals can see less and less of the whole.


4. The last stage begins with democratization, the embrace of dictators and an increased reliance on structures that have been put in place during the earlier stages. The need for certain products and outcomes is assumed, and the demands of structures require a decrease in equifinality as the basis for regulation. In other words, rules can rarely be broken, except by elites, since maintenance of the system requires general discipline and obedience. 

Democratization also diffuses dominant leadership values to the masses, who surrender the final remnants of sovereignty in return for individual and collective security. Structure becomes independent of human control, and is unknown as a whole.

As this period of progressive autonomy reaches its climax, mechanization leads to a further loss of ability to effectively regulate. In response, the structure expands its scope to include virtually all sub-units. It has become almost impossible to survive outside this fully rigidified system. Total systemic interdependence has turned participation into a requirement. This stage also emphasizes pragmatism and triage. Unnecessary parts — those that don't adequately contribute to the whole — are discarded. The "spaceship" becomes a lifeboat in which the main requirement is functionality within structural limits, usually defined in purely material terms.

At this stage in the evolution of human society, with inequality, social impoverishment, ecological damage, and violence reaching epic proportions, the structures built to hold back chaos have become suffocating and intolerable for the many. The Great Whale, the bureaucratic way of life, has swallowed almost everyone, and is in the process of making a hell of Earth.

On the other hand, it also is beginning to create space for the emergence of a form of intuitive consciousness, a return to whole behaviors. In other words, there is time for “rational” beings to become what they are not, moving from routines and specialist strategies to ideals and generalist plans. Arrogant dragons can turn into something other than a herd of rhinoceros if the creative in us gives way to the receptive.

Humanity confronts an existential choice: extinction or rebirth. Either way, we will ultimately return to the beginning. Considering that, arrogant dragons would be wise to repent.

Next: Reframing Reality

To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey