“Humans have entered a new stage of evolution” claims Stephen Hawking...

...and I agree wholeheartedly.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/stephen-hawking-the-planet-has-entered-a-new-phase-of-evolution.html

It is easy to look around into human society and to appreciate just how irrelevant a concept of physical evolution – differential mortality as caused by actual genetic traits leading to a genetic, and thus physical, drift in the human species. Our people have not changed in body since we became human over 100,000 years ago. (Despite the nonsensical dreams of the social Darwinists.)

Yet we would be very confused to assume that this irrelevance of physical evolution implies the irrelevance of the concept of evolution as such in our species. Nothing could be further from the truth, for there is nothing in this world that has evolved as quickly as our particular breed of hominids. And all on a different plane from that on which evolution usually applies -- the plane of thought. We are now the organism on which the fate of the planet rests. Have we not become the destroyer and creator of worlds? Time will tell which trait is dominant and which recessive.

Our evolution has been one of culture, thoughts, dispositions – it has been the mind and the interface between mind and body that has changed so very drastically both on the individual level and on the social level. We are a computer whose hardware has not changed but whose software is updated continuously – innovating new ways of connecting with each other and producing as well as consuming information. Innovation has been the name of the game since we abrupted onto the world of thought. This unfolding of a clearing of being at a deeper essence than the blank stare of brute physicality meant that recognition in language could take flight as a very real birdling – struggling to gain control of its clumsy wings at first, and later carving up the air with the slightest calibrations of its deft feathers. These feathers have reached the moon and back, spliced into the core of existence unleashing the power of the atom, formed gods of characters to captivate the mind and soul and raise goosebumps in lovers of Shakespeare.

Weapons, gossiping, scheming, love, hatred, leaders, tyrants and freedom fighters, thoughts of the sacred and metaphysical meanderings – all these things have built up a rich substance into which every human being is now born. A baby born to day is given the same physical limitations and capabilities than one born many thousands of years ago – yet it its thrown into an ether rich in information and in which cultivated crafts abound to harness talent and further its becoming. And this makes all the difference.

All these things matter tremendously in the success of this quest for overcoming that has marked the human journey. The trouble with this evolution in the landscape of though is that it can be as limiting as hostile elements to thoughtless creatures. Devolution is possible too – and this is the downside of the information game – it produces all the trash that holds us back. It produces despots and racists and weak liberals and people enraptured with shoes. It is riddled with bugs that serve no purpose and destroy our collective potential.

For nothing constrains us individuals anymore – except the persistence of wretched habits in human society. For the same faculties that have blessed us (and spawned a ridiculous population explosion over the last thousand years) might be what condemns us to a life wasted and a planet torn apart. We are locked into our suffering, and our pleasures are the seal. And if we rupture our climate, make war, overpopulate the planet to dust and ashes, it will only be due to the vices of our culture – all because we misinformed ourselves to death.

Thus, the critical faculty is crucial in our society as it is in each individual. But the relativistic stance that would insist that there is no such thing as progress, and that all different cultures and ways of doing things are different without seeking to find how to do things better, is an unfortunate enemy to all those who would try to correct the misconceptions of the day. Sadly, anthropology is a discipline which frequently adopts an extreme relativism in view of human progress.

The master of the critical stance, it is attractive and liberating because it lashed out against many of the dogmatic vices of dominant and provincial European culture. Thus it is more advanced in this respect than many of the dominant disciplines which still preach from a supremely world-denying solipsism (which is destroying the world and has been doing so for hundreds of years).

Anthropology is able to deftly point out the crucial contradiction in most dogmas of modernity. It shows how our social claim to universally is culturally contingent, and thus misleading. But like most things – the discipline does not go far enough. It disavows all progress in the name of cleverness, rather than harness the critical faculty to progress.
The point is to embrace the contradiction wholeheartedly (in deference to Hegel) and to realize that it is because and not in spite of its very cultural contingency that there is a real quality of the universal in our fabricated global order.

Of course – this language ceases to be language of the social sciences and crosses the line into philosophy. This is discipline which at its greatest never ceases to have faith in the power of truth to light the way. No discipline pursues pure revelation so systematically. And in an “overinformed” world, where information is incessant but transmits useless commercials rather than messages we should all receive, it is not surprising that the discipline has almost become irrelevant. There are no philosophers, merely scholars of old accomplishments.

But – being able to steer a world that is fast spinning out of control to a virtuous path will take much applied philosophy. Either we bring philosophy back, reflective thought with purpose, or we bail from the ship of life like rats from a sinking ship. Certainly the political transformation in the US is a step in the right direction. But there is a world of work to do still and lots of interests mindlessly committed to perpetuating ills due to their lack of appreciation for philosophy!

Against Idolatry: Forget Michael Jackson

My mother claims that when I was a small boy and we lived in Indonesia (must have been the lateish 80’s) – I really liked Michael Jackson’s music. Most people wouldn’t think of Indonesia when you ask them for the most populous Muslim country, but that it is. So I, having been the only male around when my father was at work, held despotic rule over our driver (and other staff), overruling my mother and elder sisters even though I was but a small boy maybe 3 years old. So returning to my story – I would demand that Michael Jackson be played in the car wherever and whenever we drove. But the claims go further – apparently I would insistently pose the question “Isn’t he the best?”

Now that so many years and the man himself have passed away – I can say that I look back on this moment with a mild sense of shame. You never really know people until all is said and done. And no – Michael Jackson is not the best, in my mind his is a story that substantiates certain cruelties of life:

1) Talent (an overinvestment in one particular skill) often comes at the expense of a proper balance

2) What we value as a society is utterly confused—focusing our collective attention on this event

These two notions are deeply interconnected. Let us not forget Michael Jackson’s story is about the striving of a family for upward mobility. His father rounded up the kids and made them endlessly rehearse for a career in showbusiness. It was probably a miserable childhood, but it made him a fabulous performer who could captivate audiences. But what happens when we equate excellence in singing and dancing with all-around success? We set role models that are profoundly troubled and that should serve as a severe admonition to neglecting a proper balance. Michael Jackson’s success as a pop-star condemned him to poverty of the mind.

The result of his enormous success was a frivolous life of facial degradation – the obsession with sharpened quasi-feminine features and pasty skin. All the fame and wealth that he obtained based on the disciplinarian single-mindedness of his father was put to the service of a becoming someone else, and trying to modify his way out of his own self-image. These facts are self-evident. But it is shocking how the entire world plays dumb and completely goes silent on this profoundly disturbed behavior. Exalting beyond measure his talent and artistic graces—this veneration almost seems forced, as if the public can obviously not ignore the monstrosity of such derangement, so they channel the awkwardness into poses of adulation just to fill in the space.

The inability to recognize Michael Jackson’s failings betray a strange schizophrenia in the public’s perception. It exposes a fundamentalist approach to the notion of success – almost as an insistence that no one who could be so successful could really be so misguided. I would argue that such obstinate insistence in the righteousness and inherent value of “cheap success” is a major reason why there are so many problems which we collectively are dropping the ball on. "If it's got lipstick on, it can't be a pig!" – That’s the modern-day conviction that lubricates people through a world that becomes increasingly abrasive as it gives clear signals that “truthiness” just won’t cut it.

The reality principle always wins – and in this case, the reality is that we have just lived through a very quick “real-estate” bubble again, except the asset was Michael Jackson – a man who had not done anything noteworthy in years, but spend money, get charged with sexual misconduct, and take loans out on his ownership of old Beatles songs.

Some might say nothing is lost with this amount of frenzy. But last year the biggest news story was the death of Anna Nicole Smith. This year it will surely be the passing of a bizarre pop star. It is unlikely that these events are so much as footnotes in the annals of history – so what is the world we are overlooking?