I've been thinking a bit more about "the mind of god/mind of man" issue that has been bouncing around in my head due to discussions about Louis Agassiz and perhaps Transcendentalism.
It has seemed to lead logically into Arendt's thinking on Totalitarianism.
Monocultures and Monotheism. A reaching after domination by a single idea and a single species. Knowing the mind of God; The mind of god is the mind of man is the mind of the universe is the highest being, etc.
I just finished reading a short book called The End of the Wild by Stephen Meyer to support my show on Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (what exactly can that "legacy" be when it seems to have only spawned partisan economics?). The End of the Wild points to the fact that all species which are surviving are only those "fitted" to live in man's orbit or wake. The environment continues to be reduced and will become a sameness.
Chaos is sameness, rather than what I think is the common misconception of it as crazy randomness (that is a better definition of fecundity, of life!).
The Bible is a testament to monoculture as well as monotheism. It is a giving up of all randomness to serve a single idea. The single idea is arbitrary but serving it is deeply logical. This leads to the rightness of murder and extermination of whole peoples and cultures. The Nazi idea of a "master" race logically justifies extermination of the lesser races primarily to try to guarantee a "clean" bloodline.
That is Arendt's Totalitarianism. This is the human perception of the human species. Dominion and Mind. The Bible seems to me then a description of the human mind as it comes to understand its arbitrary capacity for dominion. The IDEA is all that's needed.
Perhaps this terrifying logical outcome is unavoidable in the human: the chaos of the human as monoculture.
This, I think, is the drive to be entertained by vampires and zombies--we all know that we are superfluous when it comes to the IDEA and the arbitrary application of Power. Monocultures are not about individuals, not about freedom, not about rights...(neither are monotheisms by the way--that would more properly apply to the fecundity of pagan cultures). Just think of the words to realize the direction we're taking--monocultures lead to sterility.
What can we do if our "masses" are "superfluous" and their "belonging" is engaged by a terrible ideal? This seems too easy, easier and easier, in the daily "chaos," the sameness of experience encouraged by our tech-media cultures.
What is a "like" button and what does it serve?
No comments:
Post a Comment