Reply
Wed 16 Apr, 2003 07:23 pm
Very important treatise: "The exponential growth of religious crony capitalism began in 1980 with Reagan's pandering to the religious right for votes. This movement achieved regional dominion in 1994, when the Southern Baptist Convention took over the Texas Republican Party. It achieved national dominion two years ago when Old Testament "compassionate" conservatism was brought directly into American government by the supremely political appointment of George Bush and several like-minded corporate cronies and inside traders. This absolute breech of America's contract between church and state constituted the death of Jefferson's Democracy."
BUSH'S FATAL IGNORANCE OF EVOLUTION
Dr. Gerry Lower (For Bush Watch) - 04,17.03
Keystone, South Dakota
Authors note:
Over the past century, the various world cultures have been increasingly interactive under the aegis of a nascent global economy as directed largely by the machinations of western capitalism. As is traditional following western capitalizations and economic unifications, there is now the resulting western need to nourish larger sociopolitical organization by way of international and global treaties. Unfortunately, the Bush administration sees this necessary unification as properly occurring only under American crony capitalistic dominion, never mind democracy, never you even mind logic and knowledge. Indeed, the Bush administration is quite unable to make a distinction between the values of Democracy and the values of crony capitalism, as if the Tories had won the Revolutionary War.
Adequate comprehension of this situation in the interest of human maturation and survival requires understanding the general features of western cultural evolution so that we might recognize overriding evolutionary imperatives in spite of the Bush administration's imperialistic dalliance. While one cannot do justice to cultural evolution in a short essay, it is possible to gain enough insight to see through the Bush administration's imperialistic agenda. Honestly seeing what is happening in the world, of course, is prerequisite to doing something about it, and the only honest and useful way to accomplish this is through evolutionary eyes.
-----------------------------------
The Concept of Cultural Evolution
The fact of biological evolution has been with us since Darwin's time, nearly 150 years ago, as a common denominator explanation for human origins on earth. Biological evolution, because it is based on empirical observation and logical organization of the resulting ideas, provides an explanation of human origins independent of cultural background, an explanation involving the underlying evolution of genomic information beneath human biological forms. In other words, we are all from the same place, regardless of what we have been told.
Culture consists of the ideas, words and actions we use to define and control ourselves and the world we live in. It ought surprise no one, then, that it is similarly possible to speak of cultural evolution as a common denominator explanation for human intellectual origins on earth. Because cultural evolution is based on empirical observation and logical organization of the resulting ideas, it provides an explanation for human growth and maturation independent of genomic background, an explanation involving the underlying evolution of ideologic information beneath human cultural forms. In other words, we all think in basically the same ways, "acceptible" ways of thought being established by culture not genotype.
For those accepting biological evolution, for those able to appreciate the immense explanatory value of evolutionary thought and knowledge, then the existence of cultural evolution simply must follow, even if philosophers have not yet been able to develop frameworks for rigorously defining the process. For those who recognize evolution in their own creative efforts, the existence of cultural evolution is a given.
Knowing that a thing exists, however, and adequately defining that thing in the interest of comprehension and control, are two different states of knowledge, the former intuitive/empirical, the latter empirical/logical. So, we must acquire an adequate grasp of the larger cultural process in which we are currently embedded, because it is our only hope for maturation and survival. Truly, it is a long way from the beat of tribal drums to the world wide web. Clearly, there is a lot more than time between Abraham and Einstein. Obviously, we are all caught up in a process larger than ourselves, a process not yet of our general comprehension or yet of our own design. In other words, cultural evolution is self-evident to anyone
who thinks about it, yet remains inadequately defined in empirical/logical terms. We have not yet figured out a way to think about all of this, as we continue to follow the ancient western Biblical script.
To look at the world through the eyes of a world subculture (e.g., Judaism, Confucianism) is not helpful simply because cultural evolution cannot be comprehended from within the world views of the human subcultures which it embraces. This fact leaves the world's traditional cultures without a means to deal with what is happening in the larger world, and many of them (including America) have retreated, for lack of authentic democratic leadership, back into the belief systems of their feudal pasts.
Comprehension of cultural evolution requires departing the world of things and the world of supernatural conjecture for the world of empirical/logical ideas and natural philosophy, the world of Thomas
Jefferson and America's Deist Fathers. It requires reductive reasoning in the synthesis of a systematic viewpoint, looking at life from the top down as well as from the bottom up, looking at life on the whole, embraced by the intuitive concepts of Oneness and Interconnectedness. It requires living in the world of Einstein and taking leave of Newton's world. We are speaking here of global thought and philosophy for a global world.
The Concept of Conceptual Evolution
A central feature of human biological evolution is that, at any given point in time, virtually all preceding biological exemplars remain represented by living descendants and fossil remains. In other words, observation of human biological diversity at a given point in time provides a panorama of preceding biological exemplars (from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens sapiens) which can be placed into an ordered temporal sequence, a fact which makes comprehension of human biological evolution possible. We have found the bones and they tell our biological story, independent of cultural background.
A central feature of human cultural evolution is that, at any given point in time, virtually all preceding cultural exemplars remain represented by living practitioners and recorded human history. In other words, observation of human cultural diversity at a given point in time provides a panorama of preceding cultural exemplars (from Judaism to Roman Catholicism to Lutheranism to British Protestantism to Unitarianism to Jefferson's Deism) which can be placed into temporal and evolutionary sequence, a fact which makes comprehension of cultural evolution possible. We daily see the bones of our cultural past in action and they tell our cultural story, independent of genomic background.
Conceptual evolution in Science, the evolution of how we think about the world and how we see the world, is the basis for cultural evolution. Conceptual evolution has occurred almost exclusively, most honestly and most naturally in Science. It has been the evolving world views of Science which have most influenced traditional cultural world views, in driving cultural evolution away from ancient tribal authoritarianism and despotism and toward individual self-determination and freedom. Comprehension of cultural evolution, then, requires comprehension of conceptual evolution in Science and how the resulting knowledge and world views have impacted traditional cultures to get us where we are currently stationed. It requires comprehension of the evolution of human thought and knowledge.
This in turn requires consideration of an evolutionary theory of knowledge which can be moved through time to provide an explanation of how our thinking has changed and how the resulting knowledge has influenced cultural evolution toward the self-evident goal of human self-comprehension. In doing so, we begin in the beginning with Socrates.
The Socratic Theory of Knowledge
It was the great insight of Socrates to recognize that adequate knowledge consists of adequate answers to adequate questions. This definition is quite far-reaching as it allows us to categorize knowledge on the basis of the questions we ask, and we can ask only three types of General Questions, WHAT, HOW and WHY. All other questions, WHO, WHEN, WHERE, and WHICH are Qualifier questions which provide names and locations in space and time, important questions from historical perspectives, but not critical to understanding pure knowledge.
In the natural course of evolutionary events, western religion began its search for relevance by asking "Why" questions, right up front, never concerning itself much with What or How, bothering only with the myriad applications of god's law in providing the "Why." In Science, the search for knowledge, and thence relevance, necessarily began with "What" questions and worked its way up from there, simply because it is difficult to know How and Why anything happens if one does not know What one is dealing with. Religion has always had it thusly backwards, imposing its own "Why" upon all natural "Whys."
WHAT? - DESCRIPTIVE KNOWLEDGE : Formal answers to What questions came with the emergence of Inductive reasoning and Descriptive knowledge in Greece about 2500 years ago. Inductions involve reasoning upward in a hierarchy of knowledge, reasoning from what is particularly true to what is generally true. Greek physicists induced the existence of "atoms" and Greek physicians induced the existence of material causes of disease, "miasmas." Both ideas recieved empirical validation over two millennia later. By the end of the 19th century, everything was, indeed, made up of atoms and, yes, pathogenic microorganisms did make people sick. The Greeks were right about most everything.
Plato had made God of the human mind and the human mind, free of
superstition and supernaturalism, and choosing to live in the real world, conceived and implemented Science, along with a scientific ethics (Hippocratean). As its political philosophy, Science naturally implemented Democracy in the form of Greek city-states.
HOW? - MECHANISTIC KNOWLEDGE : Formal answers to How questions came with the emergence of Deductive reasoning and Mechanistic knowledge with Newton and friends about 300 years ago. This extension of logic required a conceptual extension, which required an extension of human vision, enabled externally by the telescope and internally by the
microscope. Deductions represent reasoning downward in a hierarchy of
knowledge, from what is generally true to what is specifically true.
European physicists deduced the motions of the planets and European
physicians deduced the causes of infectious disease. God became a wise and accomplished clockmaker whose methods were entirely comprehensible by the human mind so that the people might have the gift of choice and the reward of real world problem-solving.
The Euro-American Enlightenment was on schedule (from Newton and
Spinoza to Locke to Jefferson) and Democracy was re-discovered, re-
synthesized and re-implemented in America, all at the expense of traditional religious belief, the practitioners of which were, of course, Jefferson's chief antagonists. In keeping with the mysticism and scientific logic of the Enlightenment era, Jefferson placed God in the "head and heart" of the people and placed the Highest Authority in "the will of the people, substantially declared." Jefferson's God was the God of all people.
WHY? - SYSTEMATIC KNOWLEDGE : Formal answers to Why questions came with the emergence of Reductive reasoning and Systematic knowledge with Einstein and friends about 100 years ago (notice how the
conceptual breakthroughs always come in physics and math first). This
logical extension also required a conceptual extension, enabled externally by the conceptual methods of astro and subatomic physics and internally by the conceptual methods of molecular biology. Reductions represent explanations of behaviors at one level of organization based on observations at underlying levels of organization (analytic reduction) and integrations of those observations into a natural historical, hierarchical viewpoint of the whole (synthetic reduction). Physicists reduced heat to a matter of statistical mechanics and sub-atomic behavior to a matter of quantum mechanics. Biomedical scientists and physicians reduced the
neoplastic diseases to an understanding of mutational disruptions at the level of the cellular genome. The human genome was mapped and all of our connections to earth's flora and fauna, all of our connections to each other, were exposed.
God is found in the information beneath the entire living system,
emergent from the inside out. The moon orbits the earth because it is the most natural thing for it to do. Pasque flowers burst through the snows of Spring because it is the most natural thing for them to do. People seek honesty and freedom and fairness because it is the most natural thing for them to do. This is just the way the real world works.
Life comes entirely of itself, no pushing or pulling from the outside required, only political pushing and pulling here on earth to keep the people from being natural. As the Industrial Revolution followed Newton, the Informational Revolution followed Einstein, and we are currently awaiting the inevitable cultural revolution based on systematic knowledge of the whole, because until we can be ourselves, on a global basis, we are invariably captives of someone else's past.
The Nature of Cultural Evolution
Now, it is simply the case that the entirety of western cultural evolution has revolved around the millennial conflict between transcendentalists (religious conservatives who believe that comprehension of life requires a supernatural, external authority directing causation on earth) and empiricists (scientific liberals who believe that the comprehension of life requires nothing more than observation and integration, that the causes of earthly phenomena are entirely earth bound. Empiricists tend to hold their views because they are honest views and because they can be built upon to extend and enhance human comprehension and control. Transcendentalists tend to hold their views because they allow self-justification of wealth and position as a reward for belief, an indication of godly favoritism, nothing more than that, really, although they seldom know that this is why they believe in the unbelieveable.
In considering the evolutionary dialectic between transcendentalism and empiricism, we can conclude immediately that cultural evolution does not proceed in a linear manner (as conceptualized in the religious west) nor does it proceed in a circular manner (as conceptualized in the ethical east). Rather, as conceptualized by the dialectic mind, cultural evolution proceeds in a spiral manner and it does so at a logarithmic rate, the time intervals between major events getting shorter and shorter, as is self-evident, once one begins looking for such characteristics.
On the spiral of scientific empiricism, for example, it took over 2,000 years from the emergence of Inductive/Descriptive thought in Greece to the emergence of Deductive/Mechanistic thought in Europe with Newton and friends. It then took only 200 years for the emergence of Reductive/Systematic thought in Europe and America with Einstein and friends. Today, just 100 years after the emergence of reductive thought and systematic knowledge, we have reduced life to the information resident inside all things, i.e., physical, biological (genomic) and cultural (ideologic) information. We finally know where we come from and to whom we are related, no more guessing.
Information runs everything, from the inside out. God, the highest authority, is embedded in what we know and care about. It is our ideas and actions which mold our world and define our God. Determined
authority comes from within as we struggle to comprehend and control a probabilistic world on the outside. Without that internal authority, known as human choice, and a good deal of honest, reliable knowledge to back up our choices, where would we be? Based on historical and evolutionary evidence, in this conceptual world there is no where to go but up. Conceptual growth and spiritual growth are one and the same. Honesty, Compassion and Creativity are akin to Godliness.
On the spiral of religious transcendentalism, for example, Holy Roman
imperialism ruled the western world for some 1200 years, Catholic and
Protestant colonialism ruled the western world for some 300 years, and neofundamentalist Republican crony capitalism is already at the end of its cultural rope in just a few decades, having quickly come to a self-righteous unilateralism that leaves little room for input from the rest of the world. Independent from human knowledge, this neo-imperialism has been driven by the same attitudes and ideas driving despotism since 1054 AD, when the Bishop of Rome decided that he alone ought rule western Christendom, and ended up striking his own church assunder. Based on historical and evolutionary evidence, in this transcendental world there is no where to go but down. It is ultimately nothing but a matter of self-fulfilling prophecy.
In other words, there is clear and definable order in the time intervals between events in conceptual and cultural evolution. With regard to Science, these time intervals define an ascendent logarithmic spiral. Science acquires more and more knowledge at a faster and faster rate. Because conceptual evolution has generated knowledge necessarily in conflict with traditional religious belief, there is a reciprocal order in the time intervals between events. With regard to religion, these time intervals define a descendent logarithmic spiral. Religion loses more and more authority at a faster and faster rate.
When logarithmic spirals are observed from a perpendicular plane, they project in two dimensions as a logarithmic sine wave. In looking at western cultural evolution in this manner (see westernwave), the eras of Roman imperialism, European colonialism and American capitalism emerge in defined temporal windows, the longevity of each era getting shorter and shorter as a function of an increasingly educated public's unwillingness to abide religion-based despotic political philosophy.
Bush's Role in Cultural Evolution
With the emergence of Republican crony capitalism, western religion has raised its supernatural head for the last time, in an effort to control the world and the reality we live, in the name of the few, in blindly approaching its own prophetic end. Bush and several of his cronies, hack religious "theologians," are self-ordained as agents of "god" in the implementation of a "crusade" against "evil" and self-proclaimed warriors in the battles of the apocalypse. In keeping with its apocalyptic vision, the Bush administration's last hurrah for religious despotism is already dead in principle, and current evolutionary frameworks, when extrapolated into tomorrow, would suggest that it is not going to be very long lived.
The exponential growth of religious crony capitalism began in 1980 with Reagan's pandering to the religious right for votes. This movement achieved regional dominion in 1994, when the Southern Baptist Convention took over the Texas Republican Party. It achieved national dominion two years ago when Old Testament "compassionate" conservatism was brought directly into American government by the supremely political appointment of George Bush and several like-minded corporate cronies and inside traders. This absolute breech of America's contract between church and state constituted the death of Jefferson's Democracy.
In order for the Bush administration to fulfill religious prophecy by discrediting religious morality and crony capitalism in the eyes of the world, it would be essential for the Bush players and followers to be absolutely blind to what they are really doing and why they are doing it. This, of course, is precisely the case in America today, where conservatives continue to teflonize and tolerate the self-righteousness and belligerence which the Bush administration administers in their names.
So, while the religious Bush regime is hoping to implement a global
economic and religious dominion, it is far more likely, if not certain from evolutionary perspectives, that the Bush regime will utterly discredit itself in the eyes of the world and put an end to religion-based right-wing political philosophy forever. Given the administration's underlying religious zeal (upon which their actions are based), this is almost certainly the only outcome. There is also, to be sure, a profound sense of evolutionary necessity in this.
The goal of crony American capitalism, of course, is to make the entire world just like contemporary America, full of people who will consume to the best of their abilities and abide a corrupt crony capitalism. Unfortunately, the World Watch Institute has calculated that making the world just like America would require almost four additional planets. Consumerism and crony capitalism on a global scale is not only unattainable but also unsustainable, except in the eyes of those whom Jefferson referred to as "fools or charlatans." Because it is blindly attempting the physically impossible, the Bush administration has no option but to fail. Fail it will, because Bush's agenda is so entirely out of step with evolutionary imperatives and global necessity.
Given the fact that Democracy has been around for over 200 years and has been adopted by dozens of nations, it is now simply too late to expect that a new western imperialism will long survive world opinion, especially in those democracies having noticeably greater concern for the people and their rights than contemporary America. It is, after all, Biblically prophetic that the people will have their say, their day of judgment against millennia of self-righteous, despotic dominion by the rich, and this will be a global judgment.
If there would be any common denominator beneath the moral and fiscal
bankruptcy of modern social systems, be it communism in Russia or democracy in America, it would be the rich and powerful, those who attempt to compromise the values and principles of their social systems to no one's benefit but their own. Jefferson said it all in pointing out that "Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains." In Bush's quest to seek out and destroy "evil" in the world, he has conveniently blinded himself to and is fully aligned with its root causes, i.e., greed, ignorance, vengeance-based moralities and old-fashioned self-rightousness. This shortcoming is something of a prerequisite for any would-be anti-Christ.
Sitting near the top of the curve for western capitalistic dominion, we can ask how long is the road to Bush's inevitable apocalypse? How long until the curve crashes to the ground in global disgrace? How long until the people will have their day of judgment against cultural world views that promote the rich and the self-righteous? How long until we realize, as did Abraham Lincoln, that all capital comes from labor, that economic systems start at the bottom with those who do the work? It all depends on when we, the people, decide to give up the Hamiltonian bill of goods sold to us after World War II and return to the Jeffersonian values from which we, as a people, emerged. If we give up the pursuit of money for pursuit of an honest family, community, national and spiritual life, we would quickly learn that, despite all of our current wealth, we have no where to go but up.
Human decisions are best made on the basis of what we know and what we care about. Money is not even part of the equation. Money is something we look for once we decide what we are going to do. We best
get back to doing Democracy. Its just the way the world works, and it is the way the world works best.
darwins theory is beautifully and elegantly simple. Extension of his theory into cultural and social development , have all been done by others , not Charles Darwin.Others have used Darwin in their attempts to hack for their own pet, and often, contradicting views. like fascism and Communism, both quoted Darwin to "prove" their own unique social imperatives. SO dont believe it.
Reply to Farmerman
Farmerman wrote: "darwins theory is beautifully and elegantly simple. Extension of his theory into cultural and social development , have all been done by others , not Charles Darwin.Others have used Darwin in their attempts to hack for their own pet, and often, contradicting views. like fascism and Communism, both quoted Darwin to "prove" their own unique social imperatives. SO dont believe it."
Farmerman, I'm confused by your comment's relevance to the WHOLE of the treatise.
Of course, Darwin's work was misused by social darwinist scoundrels, such as Hitler's Third Reich, and many others which continue to this day.
But I don't make the connection between your comments and the author's thesis re the big picture of cultural, social and religious evolution. I don't recall cultural evolution being a part of Darwin's work. As far as I know it was based on biology.
Help me understand.
BumbleBeeBoogie
Hi BumbleBee,
The article rambles through a number of points, many of which seem debatable. I don't know where to start.
Can you boil it down to the point(s) you would like to discuss.
Thanks,
He may not believe in evolution, but he practices natural selection.
Reply to Rosborne979
Rosborne979, I think I prefer that you choose those opinions of the author that capture your interest or with which you find fault.
BumbleBeeBoogie
Ok BBB, what I take from the article is that the author has discovered the concept of "Memes" a'la Dawkins. And the author is basically trying to qualify the parameters of memetic "evolution" with periodic analogies to biological evolution.
I'm not sure I see the ultimate "point" of the article however, since it seems more focused on convincing the reader of the obvious reality of Memes in human society.
What part of it interests you?
The Last Hurrah of Religious Imperialism
CounterPunch - January 30, 2003
http://www.counterpunch.org/lower01302003.html
The Last Hurrah of Religious Imperialism
Class Warfare Against the Poor
By DR. GERRY LOWER
The Bush administration has done everything possible to enfranchise their constituency, the already-too-rich, with tax cuts to make them even richer and raise them even higher above those who must work for a living. It has also done everything possible to disenfranchise the working poor by providing them little relief and little hope for a return to fairness and equality in American life. In other words, the Bush administration has been the primary source of the policy decisions which have fueled notions of class warfare in America.
Yet, when those who still favor the values of honesty and fairness speak out against the Bush administration pograms against the working class, Bush comes back with claims of "class warfare," along with reminders that the rich invest their hard earned money to exploit natural resources, create goods and services, and provide jobs for the people. It follows that rich investors ought be revered and not criticized.
Implicit in this stance is an utter lack of empathy in the notion that the working poor are unjustified in their grievances, a bunch of whiners, much like Osama bin Laden who, we are told by the Bush administration, is just envious of American capitalism and our "freedom" to exploit and capitalize. Given Bush administration policies which nourish class warfare, and given the absolutist, infallible JudeoRoman world view which the Bush administration imposes upon the people, it is simply characteristic of the right wing to defend itself by chastising the victims of its policies, as if the poor have no one to blame for their situation but themselves.
This is simply the JudeoRoman tradition at its worst, re-emergent now in America. St. Bernard, while gazing upon the glories of the Church, once commented, "Thus, wealth is drawn up by ropes of wealth, thus money bringeth money ... O vanity of vanities, yet no more vain than insane. The Church is resplendent in her walls, beggarly in her poor. She clothes her stones in gold, and leaves her sons naked."
Does "class warfare" exist? Well, of course is does. Indeed, class warfare would be what much of the past two millennia of western cultural evolution has been all about. It is, indeed, the story of western cultural evolution that power was originally placed in the hands of the despotic few under the values of JudeoRoman religion, only to be ultimately and legitimately placed in the hands of the people under the values of Democracy. That this evolutionary outcome in America has been compromised out of sight by the values of JudeoRoman religion and crony capitalism only points to the class warfare that has existed in America from the start, and to the fact that America currently occuppies an ideological position precisely 180 degrees removed from the position which birthed it.
In terms of the proper placement of power in America, it remains a conflict between the Revolutionaries and the pro-British capitalistic Tories, with the Tories now in control and only doing their thing by exploiting nature and dominating the people in the name of enriching and empowering themselves and their despotic agenda. Jefferson did, in fact, warn the people in 1816 about the emerging corporate aristocracy which was already stealing power from the people. He summed it up with the comment that "Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains." American democracy has, in fact, been highjacked by the rich.
Arnold Toynbee has pointed out in his "History of the World" that one common denominator beneath cultural revolutions is the nature of the gap between the "haves" and "have nots." When this gap becomes too large, revolution narrows it again. Today that gap in America (built as it was on capitalistic notions of fairness and equality) has become the largest in the history of the human race. We have people in America worth many billions of dollars and we still cannot find a way to get a living income and a little respect to working people, we still cannot find a way to get educational and medical needs to the people that make America work. We stand alone among the western democracies in achieving this despotic result.
Is there a conspiracy among the rich to feed off the poor? Well, of course not. There is no need for a conspiracy when large numbers of rich people think similarly and support leadership in no one's interest but their own. By now, the Republican notion of "supply side" and "trickle-down" economics is well ingrained in America's rich, to the extent that they think it sacred ground. It is not so much a group conspiracy but more a cultural conspiracy, launched millennia ago by those living in a despotic Biblical world, those who made despotic political philosophy into a religious way of life, now imposed upon the world once again by the Bush administration.
It is, indeed, a cultural thing, the people being coersively manipulated by the Bush administration according to a despotic Biblical world view which the people had no part in authoring and certainly have no obligaton to follow. That being the case, it is clear that this last hurrah of religious imperialism will have to play itself out before the people will have another opportunity to define their own reality.
Human culture consists of the ideas, words and actions we use to define and control ourselves and the world we live in. If we are ever to eliminate the culture-driven class warfare which has flared back up in America, it is back to the values and principles of democracy that we must return. We must rethink these values on purely human terms, disallowing influence from the JudeoRoman and crony capitalist values and viewpoints which have momentarily stifled democracy in America.
Class warfare is a given in post World War II America, now perpetrated against working mothers as well as working fathers, nevermind the detrimental impact on America's families. As citizens of the modern world's first democracy, it is given that our only real duty is to maintain and implement the values we purport to hold. It's called growing up, a mature acceptance of our responsibilities as thoughtful, caring citizens.
BumbleBeeBoogie to Rosborne979
Rosborne979, I am not a scholar, so I knew nothing of a "Meme" or Dawkins. So after your helpful information was posted, I searched for more information to overcome my lack of knowledge re Memes. They have a provocative perspective. I will have to do some reading re their ideas. Thank you for the information.
My interest in the author's article stems from my life long concerns about "organized religion" and its impact (both good and bad) on people throughout history.
The article points out the dangers of organized religion and the pursuit of power, wealth, and population control to achieve and protect these goals. It also illustrates the current use of organized religion by the Bush administration et al in pursuit of those goals. My concerns are about combining the power of government, organized religion---and commercial intersts. I don't care what religion it is. It's the combination that concerns me.
BumbleBeeBoogie
Hi BBB,
I agree with your concerns regarding organized religion and its overall deleterious effects on humanity, especially when combined with governmental power.
That's why I'm a supporter of
http://www.au.org
Organized religion is particularly damaging when combined with governmental power (something the founders of our constitution knew well), which is why I'm a strong proponent of the first amendment of our constitution, a constitutoin which the president is sworn to uphold and protect.
In my opinion, the Bush administration is not only violating it's oath to uphold the constitution, but it is actively trying to undermine the first amendment based on personal beliefs of the president and on pressure applied by the religious right. I don't actually believe that the administration knows what it is doing is unconstitutional, but I think that they are allowing themselves to use their own interpretation of the constitution instead of the interpretations of the courts (many laws are ambiguous). It is within these cracks and grey areas that they are exerting pressure to chip away at the wall of separation of church and state. (Example:
http://www.au-ma.org/bush.html )
The intentions and meaning of the first amendment of the constitution, and indeed the whole constitution has been debated for years. The words "wall of separation" are not in the constitution, but instead appear in letters written by Thomas Jefferson (
http://w3.trib.com/FACT/1st.jeffers.2.html ).
It's clear to me from these letters and from other sources, just what the founders intended by the first amendment.
(
http://w3.trib.com/FACT/index.html )
It's unfortunate that few alive today have felt, or remember, the tyranny which inevitably results when this "wall of separation" is removed. We see it all around us, even on front page news. But because it's someone else's religion (Islam or something else) we think it can't happen to us. But christian fundamentalism is just as pernicious as all the others, and it's fighting hard to gain control of our government, even as we speak.
Best Regards,
READER-AUTHOR COMMENTS re ON BUSH & CULTURAL EVOLUTION
BUSH WATCH...TODAY'S COMMENT re ON BUSH & CULTURAL EVOLUTION
On Bush And Cultural Evolution
"My thesis in a nutshell: Culture is made by people, all people were once children, therefore how we care for our children profoundly effects what kind of person they end up being, and these people either help advance or retard the dynamic punctuated equilibrium of cultural evolution. "
From Michael Sullivan to Jerry Lower, author:
I'd like to make a few small comments on the excellent and well thought out essay by Dr. Lower about Bush and cultural evolution.
I am a computational molecular biologist and also spent several years as an elementary teacher and doing curriculum development work in science education.
First of all, I cannot fault your essay as regards to scientific progress effecting cultural evolution. I feel however, that you have overlooked an issue which should not change your conclusion but will put a much finer point on it!
I would argue that cultural evolution can also be correlated with progress in child rearing practices and lost when these practices decay. Early childhood nutrition and stimulation are the most profound causative factors effecting physical and intellectual development.
Aboriginal cultures have great reverence for their children, and yet as hunter-gatherers the child's quality of life depends on the day to day success of the tribe. Larger clan structures became the roots of the first agrarian civilizations which had stable quality nutrition for children for the first time and consequent cultural advance (writing).
Certain ancient civilizations stand out starkly against vast tracts of time without such highly organized culture. Take the ancient Egyptians for example. Recent archeological evidence shows that the pyramid builders had a core of high status engineers, masons, stonecutters, administrators and other functionaries. Laborers rotated in and out of their villages in what now appears to be actions of civic pride, and their working and living conditions support this: Rich diets of fish, beef, bread, and beer were provided on a vast scale and living quarters were austere but comfortable. These findings belie the long held notion that the pyramids were built by slaves or conscripts. Therefore: good child nutrition leads to healthy populations, the trades had good apprentices and the Egyptians produce a Wonder of the World!
The dark ages in Europe illustrate the opposite condition. Child rearing practices were brutal, malnutrition and disease led to a dull and beaten vast feudal underclass, with an ignorant and brutal ruling class. Even Rome treated their children better.
The Renaissance led to a beautification of all children in the image of the child Christ and interestingly child rearing practices improve and great cultural progress follows with Michelangelo and Da Vinci as exemplars.
The industrial revolution again resulted in maltreatment of children, who were pressed to work as wage slaves in the burgeoning textile industry. A consequence was virulent nationalism and 3 centuries of wars.
The American Revolution, followed by others in Europe led to a progressive and humanist approach to child rearing which led to the introduction of compulsory education and eventually child labor laws.
Today our children are under another attack. The resources committed to child nutrition and education are a vanishingly small amount compared to our vast national wealth and getting smaller. Perhaps history teaches that when a certain critically low ratio between child spending/total wealth is reached, society begins to break down (school shootings, serial killers, delinquency etc.).
My thesis in a nutshell: Culture is made by people, all people were once children, therefore how we care for our children profoundly effects what kind of person they end up being, and these people either help advance or retard the dynamic punctuated equilibrium of cultural evolution.
--Kindest regards, Michael Sullivan, 04.18.03
------------------------
"In other words, this entire thing boils down to human self-concept, does it not? We do not have social and political problems in America. We do not have environmental problems in America. We have problems with self-identity, caused by our having been coerced into becoming consumers instead of citizens, all in the name of crony capitalism. I do believe that compassion and knowledge would go ever so much farther than money in solving human problems."
Dear Michael (response from Jerry Lower),
Thank you for your kind comments and for your discussion of the importance of parent-child relationships in cultural evolution. You are correct, of course. Of all the relationships in the world, parent-child relationships are the most important. I have a respected friend who was raised in Nazi Germany by a hard-line Catholic father (what a combo!) and he has since devoted his life to lecturing about the fundamental importance of that relationship. The first Christian had a good deal to say about that relationship as well in thinking of children as the light of the world, which they are.
The question to ask, of course, is what destroys that natural relationship? And here is where culture comes into the equation, the ideas and actions of larger sociocultural human organizations which impose themselves upon the parent-child relationship. Imagine being raised in Nazi Germany. Hell, imagine being raised in contemporary America, where most of our young people are lost right along with their parents. Much of what we Americans have been asked to believe over the past half century is simply not worthy of human belief, and parents have largely dealt with that fact by covering it up, ignoring it and going with the flow to provide their children with really no viable information as to how the world does work or ought to work. One just needs money, thats all, don't ask what for.
In considering societal impositions upon family relationships, it is also true that some of us turn out the way we do because of that imposition, and others of us turn out the way we do in spite of that imposition. I live in a very conservative and very religious and very capitalistic socio-cultural arena (and a South Dakota arena it is) where many young people I have met haven't asked a "why" question in years, nor have they had any answered for them. And, yet this anti-intellectual social arena has produced some of our greatest liberal thinkers, e.g., Senator George McGovern, Governor Peter Norbeck and Dr. Van Potter, the "Father of Global Bioethics," in spite of it all. In the same way, my friend's hardline Nazi father in Germany, by going over the hard line, produced a very warm and decent and actively-caring person in his son. Amazing how the world works, is it not? The shortcoming of this approach is that it involves an immensely steep and tortuous learning curve.
So, I think it is not people who need changing so much as the cultural systems which define what it means for them to be human and part of a people. I am pushing for Jeffersonian Democracy because I think we should see ourselves as thoughtful and caring, interdependent citizens, quite able to understand life and nurture fairness and freedom. That would be all I ask.
In other words, this entire thing boils down to human self-concept, does it not? We do not have social and political problems in America. We do not have environmental problems in America. We have problems with self-identity, caused by our having been coerced into becoming consumers instead of citizens, all in the name of crony capitalism. I do believe that compassion and knowledge would go ever so much farther than money in solving human problems.
Great to hear from you, Michael. Thank you again for your kindness. Please feel free to maintain the dialogue.
Most respectfully, Gerry Lower, 04.18.03
The issues raised here are very interesting. On the subject of separation of church and state, it might be interesting to look at when they diverged, and why.
I am thinking that early religions were in effect the state - religious beliefs and laws formed a basic structure and guide for people to follow. However, as time went on, technology and discovery resulted in religious beliefs being somewhat out of step with meeting material social needs. Such as who owns what, who leads the army, the price of wheat, etc. A division of labor, if you will, developed, with a priestly class and a ruling class, each usually separate, sometimes at odds, and sometimes joined under one entity.
Fast forward to the American Revolution where once and for all a separation between chuch and state, with the addition of a democratically elected government (representative), became codified in the Constitution. Still the push and pull between state and church persists.
As a stark example of how bad it can be when the church and state are the same, witness Hitler's attempt to create a German national church to replace all other religions. This church was to be, in effect, the end of Christianity in Germany and occupied Europe, replaced by pagan Teutonic rituals and with Hitler as the god-head. Hitler and his henchmen set about to eradicate all non-Nazi religions, and probably would have succeeded had they not lost the war.
This is not to say that a Christian state church is a better alternative. By its nature, a single state church seeks to nullify all other religions not in concert with its own. The Romans had a somewhat slick solution to this - they avoided the drawbacks of a single state religion by allowing for the worship of multiple gods, and tolerated any religion as long as that religion also tolerated the worship of multiple gods. This worked well except for a few pesky religions that insisted there is only one true god: Judaism and later Christianity. Modern Christianity, and especially Roman Cahtolocism, carries with it a superficial semblance to the old ways: one gets not just one diety, but the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Plus a bonus: Mother Mary, and a pantheon of lesser "dieties" in the form of saints. However there is one big difference - formally there is only one God, one supreme being.
Monotheism carries with it a drawback - when it becomes a state religion is becomes intolerant of any other religion. It does not enjoy the ambiguity of state multitheisms which allow them to embrace or tolerate other multitheistic religions. The state monotheism is therefore, by its inherent lack of diversity, relatively brittle, as Ankenhaten's descendants discovered, and as the oppression of state monotheistic religions in later Europe and the middle east have demonstrated. The best solution appears to be a separation between religion and state. Yet there seems to be a continuing push and pull between the two, as the religious laws that govern morality and behavior inevitably overlap, and sometimes conflict, with those of the state.
Just some thoughts - your mileage may vary.
The article cited is a political document with no value for scientific talk, I must say.
I have an experience of being trained in reading and writing articles for being a scholar, also had taught some students in writing their theses. This kind of document is not a scholar work.
However I think your talks on this material may be of great value.
in reference to BumbleB and Grumbli;
e.g. :"I am thinking that early religions were in effect the state - religious beliefs and laws formed a basic structure and guide for people to follow."
The prime cause of entrapment by religious belief came prior to that from primitive times; the original purveyors of the power of the supernatural were the tribal witchdoctors who by capitalizing on the natural fears of the dark (both actual, and figurative), took powerful control over the minds of their subjects. This control by manipulation of the unknown gave them power and wealth within their society, and has continued throughout history.
The only escape lies in thought. And the only way that education can lead society out of the darkness, is by teaching the young to think!
BoGoWo, teaching thinking?
BoGoWo, if children were taught to think instead of being taught what to think, our society would be vastly improved. I fear the only thing most children are taught, starting early in their schooling, is to learn the answers to tests required by school systems to retain their public financing.
What a waste of our future intellectual capital.
I think I must have driven my teachers nuts through my school years. I was always asking why, and challenging what was presented to me, placing my teachers in the position of having to defend the facts of what they were teaching. I must have been a real pain in the ass.
-----BumbleBeeBoogie
BBB..
When you were told that the probability of Head/Tail of tossing a coin was 1/2 to 1/2, you must have asked, "Humans ever can confirm it?"
(Then you were an excellent student.)
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace