Kick Them Out, Lock Them Up, and Throw Away the Key!
By Carl Golden
The results of the mid-term elections and the consequential dismissal of Secretary Rumsfeld have begun to restore my faith in our brand of democracy, but there is much yet to be done before my faith in our government is restored and I can join the chorus that lauds how great America is. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others are guilty of war crimes that cry out for impeachment and imprisonment. It is enough to know that they orchestrated a concert of lies and half-truths while banging the drums of war in order to drive America into an illegal, oil-mongering invasion of a sovereign nation that never attacked us, resulting in the destruction of one of the world's most ancient cultural cities, the senseless loss of 151,000 innocent Iraqi civilian lives (and counting), the deaths of over 2,844 US troops (and counting), over 22,000 US troops wounded (and counting), and Iraq's hellish collapse into civil war. Add to this immense devastation the federally supported atrocities of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo (as well as the federally unsanctioned atrocities committed in Mahmudiya and Haditha), the export of wholesale torture, the war profiteering of Halliburton and its subsidiaries, the flagrant disregard of the Geneva Conventions, and the use of National Guard troops and mercenaries as regular military, and you have a laundry list of high crimes and misdemeanors that should be enough to kick these brigands out of the White House and send them up river for the balance of their days on Earth. This is the least that America -- the most powerful nation in the history of the world -- and Americans should do to attempt to save face and restore good faith amongst our neighbors. Great power must embrace undaunted responsibility, otherwise tyranny is inevitable. We must face our crimes as a nation by bringing the criminals to justice, then can we reclaim our place in history as America the Beautiful. Right now, we are America the Ugly.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Technology and the Specter of Death
By Carl Golden
(Originally written: December 5, 1995)
Death comes to us all despite our technological sophistication. This is common wisdom that any person could grasp regardless of cultural and educational background. Another idea is not so common: all life on Earth as we know it may cease to exist because of sophisticated technology. Although many people do not wish to think about their own mortality, no one can reasonably deny it. We live with it every day subconsciously if not consciously -- before we cross the street we look both ways. However, to consider global extinction of life as we know it not only seems unreasonable, it is offensively absurd. It undermines everything -- personal aspiration, family, parenthood and culture. In a word, it undermines hope. Yet, we ignore it at our certain peril. Any reasonable hopes of a viable future must be rooted in serious contemplation of many of the possible (if not inevitable) scenarios of serious degradation of the biosphere.
Many deadly specters haunt humanity and life in general today: the possibility of nuclear holocaust, global warming, widespread toxic waste, increasing loss of diverse ecosystems, over population, and biological immune systems breakdown to mention a few. Each of these is global in scope, each cuts across the human/non-human animal divide, and each arises from human technological progress. Although it would be fruitful to reflect upon these specters and their respective relationships to technology, this approach would go beyond the scope of this work. Instead, let us consider the hallowed ground of these various specters: the technological manifesto itself.
David Rothenburg, an environmental writer, argues that technology is "extension". The inherent limits of our hands, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and mind are extended by material technologies. The jackhammer tears through asphalt that is impervious to our hands. The telescope reveals Mars to our relatively shortsighted eyes. Amplifiers enable the expecting mother to hear the heartbeat of her unborn child that would otherwise be lost to her naked ear. Chemically synthesized perfumes that mimic rare essential oils enable us to concoct outrageous cocktails for our olfactory sense. Chemical additives in foods enable us to taste subtle flavors that would otherwise go unnoticed. The computer enables us to access and store greater amounts of knowledge than could our unaided minds. These extensions have proven powerful, so much so that the prowess of Western cultures, especially American culture, is measured by our technological performance. We get the job done, whether it is moving a mountain, finding a medical cure, going to the moon and beyond, or launching a war. Like the popular Niki slogan, the technological manifesto is, "Just do it."
This manifesto, however, implies something deeper than Rothenburg's extension, which correlates technology with effect rather than cause. This is not a radical enough understanding, because prior to extension is will. Technology's extension of our physical limits is the reification of the will to power. Technology does not extend our will; rather, it embodies our will -- it is Aladdin's magic lamp.
However, herein lies the problem: There is a genie in the lamp, and it is dedicated to serving the will that released it. What if we have willed the wrong thing? The developer of a bomb can change his agenda -- both Oppenheimer and Einstein came to regret their participation in the development of the atom bomb -- but the bomb and the vast infrastructure devoted to building, selling, disseminating, and maintaining the bomb remain dedicated to the original agenda. Our technologies and their vast infrastructures take on a life of their own, serving anyone who shares the same dedicated will.
There is an even more serious concern than this narrow commitment to fulfilling our various technological manifestos. Having dedicated ourselves to this course of power and technology, we now find that no exits exist short of cultural revolution. We can discuss ethical concerns, but we cannot really do something about those concerns, because we are dedicated to a culture premised upon the will to power. We are caught in a Catch 22 positive feedback loop because the will to power designs technologies that embody a powerful will, which then feeds the will to power, and so the loop spins on and on profoundly incapable of radically changing its direction, even if that direction is a literal dead end.
This is cause for despair, and there is much despair in America, as well as denial. Unfortunately, many Americans have gone beyond despair and denial. They have embraced the dead end as a self-fulfilling prophecy of "just punishment". Popular evangelical Christian religion illustrates this point very well. One of the main teachings of this tradition is the myth of Armageddon, which is a great battle that destroys the world of non-believers so that Christ may return and rule over the earth for a thousand years. In their view, helping to bring about Armageddon is a good thing. Take for example the hymn that Sister Royce Elms sings at the First United Pentecostal Church of Amarillo, Texas, whose congregation is employed by the Plantex factory, where all U.S. nuclear warheads are finished: "Could it be that this will be the day that starts eternity! The day that we've been waiting for so long?" Indeed. These people are trapped into depending upon making bombs that can obliterate human civilizations for their own livelihood. This is madness, and America is sick to our core with this kind of madness.
So, what are we to do? Join the Christian millennium madness and embrace Armageddon? Or do we engage the difficult business of a cultural revolution dedicated to riegning in the modern lust for power and transforming our culture as we know it, while avoiding a global dead end?
Revolution is scary. What if it fails? Then, where are we? Good questions. We don't know the answers, but we do know where our headlong pursuit of the technological will to power will end. In this case, the devil we don't know may be the preferable choice.
Revolution. How do we do this? Consider the following: The will to power must be guided, if not totally supplanted, by the will to be, which recognizes no greater value than the health and prosperity of all life. Its ethic is one of radical restraint. Its manifesto would be, "Consider the seventh generation." The place to begin this work of change is by deeply contemplating the dead end scenarios of the technological manifesto. In the inevitable anger that such contemplation would bring about, we can find energy to set out a new direction.
We must create a new story with heroes of a different stripe. (I suspect that these heroes would not look like Arnold Shwartzenager in The Terminator.) In this story, the will to be is paramount, and the hero finds the courage to do what must be done in himself for those whom he loves and for what is loved. When the hero is called upon to fight, he or she fights to protect the Way to Life not the Way to Emperial Technocracy. Once technology and culture were to embody the will to be, then this life saving genie would promote itself in the same kind of positive feedback loop as does our present technocracy, based on the will to power. The edifices of human culture, given their tendency to "self-promote", would ensure the success of the will to be.
So, we must choose. Death or Life? Power or Grace? We don't have long to ponder. As for me, I choose Life. I choose Grace. I have dedicated myself to work toward this end.
By Carl Golden
(Originally written: December 5, 1995)
Death comes to us all despite our technological sophistication. This is common wisdom that any person could grasp regardless of cultural and educational background. Another idea is not so common: all life on Earth as we know it may cease to exist because of sophisticated technology. Although many people do not wish to think about their own mortality, no one can reasonably deny it. We live with it every day subconsciously if not consciously -- before we cross the street we look both ways. However, to consider global extinction of life as we know it not only seems unreasonable, it is offensively absurd. It undermines everything -- personal aspiration, family, parenthood and culture. In a word, it undermines hope. Yet, we ignore it at our certain peril. Any reasonable hopes of a viable future must be rooted in serious contemplation of many of the possible (if not inevitable) scenarios of serious degradation of the biosphere.
Many deadly specters haunt humanity and life in general today: the possibility of nuclear holocaust, global warming, widespread toxic waste, increasing loss of diverse ecosystems, over population, and biological immune systems breakdown to mention a few. Each of these is global in scope, each cuts across the human/non-human animal divide, and each arises from human technological progress. Although it would be fruitful to reflect upon these specters and their respective relationships to technology, this approach would go beyond the scope of this work. Instead, let us consider the hallowed ground of these various specters: the technological manifesto itself.
David Rothenburg, an environmental writer, argues that technology is "extension". The inherent limits of our hands, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and mind are extended by material technologies. The jackhammer tears through asphalt that is impervious to our hands. The telescope reveals Mars to our relatively shortsighted eyes. Amplifiers enable the expecting mother to hear the heartbeat of her unborn child that would otherwise be lost to her naked ear. Chemically synthesized perfumes that mimic rare essential oils enable us to concoct outrageous cocktails for our olfactory sense. Chemical additives in foods enable us to taste subtle flavors that would otherwise go unnoticed. The computer enables us to access and store greater amounts of knowledge than could our unaided minds. These extensions have proven powerful, so much so that the prowess of Western cultures, especially American culture, is measured by our technological performance. We get the job done, whether it is moving a mountain, finding a medical cure, going to the moon and beyond, or launching a war. Like the popular Niki slogan, the technological manifesto is, "Just do it."
This manifesto, however, implies something deeper than Rothenburg's extension, which correlates technology with effect rather than cause. This is not a radical enough understanding, because prior to extension is will. Technology's extension of our physical limits is the reification of the will to power. Technology does not extend our will; rather, it embodies our will -- it is Aladdin's magic lamp.
However, herein lies the problem: There is a genie in the lamp, and it is dedicated to serving the will that released it. What if we have willed the wrong thing? The developer of a bomb can change his agenda -- both Oppenheimer and Einstein came to regret their participation in the development of the atom bomb -- but the bomb and the vast infrastructure devoted to building, selling, disseminating, and maintaining the bomb remain dedicated to the original agenda. Our technologies and their vast infrastructures take on a life of their own, serving anyone who shares the same dedicated will.
There is an even more serious concern than this narrow commitment to fulfilling our various technological manifestos. Having dedicated ourselves to this course of power and technology, we now find that no exits exist short of cultural revolution. We can discuss ethical concerns, but we cannot really do something about those concerns, because we are dedicated to a culture premised upon the will to power. We are caught in a Catch 22 positive feedback loop because the will to power designs technologies that embody a powerful will, which then feeds the will to power, and so the loop spins on and on profoundly incapable of radically changing its direction, even if that direction is a literal dead end.
This is cause for despair, and there is much despair in America, as well as denial. Unfortunately, many Americans have gone beyond despair and denial. They have embraced the dead end as a self-fulfilling prophecy of "just punishment". Popular evangelical Christian religion illustrates this point very well. One of the main teachings of this tradition is the myth of Armageddon, which is a great battle that destroys the world of non-believers so that Christ may return and rule over the earth for a thousand years. In their view, helping to bring about Armageddon is a good thing. Take for example the hymn that Sister Royce Elms sings at the First United Pentecostal Church of Amarillo, Texas, whose congregation is employed by the Plantex factory, where all U.S. nuclear warheads are finished: "Could it be that this will be the day that starts eternity! The day that we've been waiting for so long?" Indeed. These people are trapped into depending upon making bombs that can obliterate human civilizations for their own livelihood. This is madness, and America is sick to our core with this kind of madness.
So, what are we to do? Join the Christian millennium madness and embrace Armageddon? Or do we engage the difficult business of a cultural revolution dedicated to riegning in the modern lust for power and transforming our culture as we know it, while avoiding a global dead end?
Revolution is scary. What if it fails? Then, where are we? Good questions. We don't know the answers, but we do know where our headlong pursuit of the technological will to power will end. In this case, the devil we don't know may be the preferable choice.
Revolution. How do we do this? Consider the following: The will to power must be guided, if not totally supplanted, by the will to be, which recognizes no greater value than the health and prosperity of all life. Its ethic is one of radical restraint. Its manifesto would be, "Consider the seventh generation." The place to begin this work of change is by deeply contemplating the dead end scenarios of the technological manifesto. In the inevitable anger that such contemplation would bring about, we can find energy to set out a new direction.
We must create a new story with heroes of a different stripe. (I suspect that these heroes would not look like Arnold Shwartzenager in The Terminator.) In this story, the will to be is paramount, and the hero finds the courage to do what must be done in himself for those whom he loves and for what is loved. When the hero is called upon to fight, he or she fights to protect the Way to Life not the Way to Emperial Technocracy. Once technology and culture were to embody the will to be, then this life saving genie would promote itself in the same kind of positive feedback loop as does our present technocracy, based on the will to power. The edifices of human culture, given their tendency to "self-promote", would ensure the success of the will to be.
So, we must choose. Death or Life? Power or Grace? We don't have long to ponder. As for me, I choose Life. I choose Grace. I have dedicated myself to work toward this end.
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