An Afflicted Culture of Greed, Fashionable Ignorance and Oozing Anxiety
I spent my childhood watching ‘The Sound of Music’ (1965) and ‘Cabaret’ (1972) so I really thought the rise of fascism would have more show tunes. (Rohita Kadambi, writer, comedian, viral tweeter)
A friend of mine is dying of prostate cancer and likely has only a short time remaining. We met each other 23 years ago at the Kansas City Zoo, where we both performed as interactors. Interactor is a term commonly used in evolutionary biology, referring to an entity that natural selection acts upon.
As well, an interactor is also a person who engages with members of an audience, in this case the visitors to the zoo; a performer that creates a story with the help of the audience. The visitor, ideally, becomes a willing “cast member” assisting the performer in the suspension of disbelief, while learning about the animals in their habitat and their importance to all of us….
Of course, all of us are both participants and observers from the very beginning, the first time as well as all the subsequent times. The stardust never vanishes but just reshapes itself.
The Real Wonder of It All
It is possible for human beings to live happy lives, but not because they think that they are the center of the universe or because they fear the gods or because they nobly sacrifice themselves for values that purport to transcend their mortal existence. Unappeasable desire and the fear of death are the principle obstacles to human happiness, but the obstacles can be surmounted through the exercise of reason.
The exercise of reason is not available only to specialists; it is accessible to everyone. What is needed is to refuse the lies proffered by priests and other fantasy-mongers and to look squarely and calmly at the true nature of things. All speculation—all science, all morality, all attempts to fashion a life worth living—must start and end with a comprehension of the invisible seeds of things: atoms and the void and nothing else.
It might seem at first that this comprehension would inevitably bring with it a sense of cold emptiness, as if the universe had been robbed of it magic. But being liberated from harmful illusions is not the same as disillusionment. The origins of philosophy, it was often said in the ancient world, was wonder; surprise and bafflement led to a desire to know, and in turn laid the wonder to rest. But in Lucretius’ account the process is something like the reverse: it is knowing the way things are that awaken the deepest wonder. (Titus Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, (around 54 BCE; from The Swerve, by Stephen Greenblatt, 2011)
So Who Makes It Out and Why
A hominin you say? It is tantalizing because we still aren’t really sure. Oh we can speculate, develop hypotheses and remain optimistic that we’ll eventually know. Hominins are the group consisting of modern humans, extinct human species and all our immediate ancestors. How did we end up with exclusively us—Homo sapiens?
According to Sarah Wild the author of Human Origins: A Short History, some 300,000 years ago, not very long in evolutionary time, something like nine hominin species were wandering around Earth. But around 40,000 years ago we Homo sapiens were the only humans remaining, animals using two legs for walking upright—bipedalism.
For scientists, the debates and arguments have become even more intense. Was it infant survival rates, tool making discoveries, population size and genetic diversity. What part could larger social networks have played? Rapid environmental changes were occurring in many places, which may have affected available food resources. What might the invention of the sewing needle, for example, have brought about … warmer shelters, keeping infants warm and, yes, simply good fortune.
Above all, from what I’ve read, it certainly seems that regardless of one’s particular scientific viewpoint of human origin, most of the researchers overwhelmingly agree that the ability of a group to adapt to a changing environment, the willingness of the group to “network” successfully and the ability to cooperate more frequently with the “other,” rather than confronting who was not like the rest, these were our ancestors most likely to succeed and pass on their genes. It seems so very modern or merely … sadly pathetic at this point.
And Then There Were None
America at the moment has become both a strangely confusing place as well as drearily familiar and frequently irritatingly mindless and thoroughly dull-witted. Of course the rest of the world continues on a rusty treadmill unable to get off, let alone actually consider a new method of looking at ourselves and all the life around us.
Back in 2007 the journalist Alan Weisman came out with the book The World Without Us. It was an imaginative thought experiment; he considered what would happen if humankind suddenly vanished. Would all the other inhabitants of planet earth be better off? Well, maybe, in the very long run, probably some 10,000 years or so after all the chemical toxins, pollution and possible nuclear radiation dissipated. And we haven’t even mentioned the misery that millions of domesticated animals would probably face when the humans suddenly disappeared.
In his book, Weisman suggested that the carrying capacity of Earth’s human population was approximately 2 billion people. Sixteen years later I’m inclined to agree with that number even more. We’re currently at more than 8 billion Homo sapiens and likely to hit 9 or ten billion by 2100. No, not a good thought in so many ways.
Dreaming of the Gardens of Cordoba
I long for the vanished gardens of Cordoba. However, before the gardens must come the fighting. And I must do it because the Turks have European guns. But I fear to do it. ( Prince Faisal I, a leader of The Arab Revolt and advancing Arab nationalism in World War One. From the movie Lawrence of Arabia)
How do we explain it, the behavior of pretty much all of us? What must occur for all of us to continue to reshape ourselves again and again? The ongoing, current crisis in 2023 with the Israelis and the Palestinians for example; the colonizers and the terrorists, the terrorists and the colonizers driving the madness.
Who has the best god? Who does the land belong to? Demonstrations have now sprung up around the U.S. but arguably few people actually understand any of it. Each side of course hates the other side. Does it matter if you understand the issues or have the slightest understanding of the region’s history?
It’s easy to understand—of course. Now the Ottoman Turks, well, they breached the walls of Constantinople in the 15th century. (The Christians in this part of the world were primarily Orthodox or Eastern Christians, unlike the Roman Catholic Christians back in western Europe).
Constantinople was built on the Bosphorus sea strait by the Christian-Roman emperor Constantine in the 4th century, who converted after having a vision on his way to battle someone. Before that he was a pagan and certainly not a Christian. Anyway, the Ottoman Empire, who practiced Islam, controlled the region for about 400 years….
But you really have to go back thousands of years to the ancient lands of Judea and Samaria, which they were called in ancient Hebrew texts. Now, many orthodox Jews (the settlers) in Israel today call the lands sacred, where many of them think they’re entitled to inhabit and expand upon, but where present day Palestinians currently call home, along with other people, some of whom are Bedouin nomads with their own distinct culture, and probably not that interested in the obsessions of the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Nobody liked anyone in those good old days, where the spirits talked to everyone on a daily basis. The desert tribe of the Jews didn’t like the Samaritans because the Samaritans built their own temple, which the Jews considered pagan.
We’re not going to discuss the Assyrians, the Babylonians and the Egyptians or even the Philistines and Persians because that’s another long, convoluted story and they had different gods and different facts. As an aside, this was a good time for the gods in general; Hinduism got its start between 2,300 and 1,500 BCE. This religion was a fusion of numerous assorted beliefs. Buddhism got a late start, sometime in the 5th century BCE, and Islam, while getting a very late start, spread like wildfire beginning in the 7th century AD.
At some point the Roman Empire controlled the region and burned down the Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. The Jews didn’t like the Romans. Some person named Jesus supposedly promised the “end” was near, meaning the end of the Roman occupation was near, not the entire world. The Christians created the end-of-the world rubric.
The Ottomans picked the wrong side in WWI and lost their decaying empire. The English and French imperialists divided up the Ottoman lands and created a collection of new countries. People jockeyed for influence and power and control. Naturally everyone stabbed everyone in the back while still conversing with their respective gods.
After WWII and the Holocaust in 1945 Europeans along with the Americans wanted to provide a homeland for the Jews in a place called Palestine, which was also mentioned during WWI, when the Balfour Declaration was issued by the British government in 1917, which supported the establishment of a Jewish homeland, an area that had a small Jewish population, but was still part of the Ottoman Empire with a lot of Muslims, some of whom were Sunnis and some who were Shiites and they frequently disliked the other because the “other” had an incorrect interpretation of Islam and presumably the Koran, the sacred text.
Now there were a lot of Arabs living in the region where the Europeans and the Americans wanted to resettle a lot of Jews. Unfortunately the Arabs really were not consulted about this newly created country that would house these new immigrants, who were not really “new” in a historical sense.
More backstabbing occurred. Everyone of course knows about antisemitism, more or less, and who killed this person called Jesus. Christians of course think it was the Jews. Later of course anti-Muslim sentiments grew rapidly to match the dislike of Jews.
At the present time in 2023 we don’t know what to do in the region, except see a great many people die, especially children, and we read our sacred texts, hold meetings and increase the backstabbing and jockey for position.
Evolution is slow and the Homo sapiens believe some invisible god has made promises to everyone. Of course the promises are different ones for the different tribes. Three thousand years ago the gods were making the same promises This should clarify everything. But it will also make many people deeply depressed but also put money in the pockets of the arm dealers and therapists in developed countries.
Now back to the gardens of Cordoba. I as well dream of those gardens. Cordoba is a city in southern Spain and was a very long time ago the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate. In the ninth and tenth century it was the largest city in Europe and possibly the largest city in the world at the time. The Moors, from North Africa, conquered the area in the 8th century.
It was by far Europe’s most sophisticated and cultured center and rivaled the splendor and learning of cities like Damascus, Baghdad and Constantinople. Believe it or not there was a peaceful coexistence of three different cultures: Jews, Muslims and Christians. No wonder Prince Faisal dreamed of Cordoba. We all should.
A True American Story
It’s a story about water and how we’re running out of it in this country—but not only this country. It might also be a metaphor of sorts, as large as the country itself. Some might claim it’s more like a fable, where we could use animals as characters I suppose.
But then again it may really be about a darkening tale of a superpower in decay, brought about by bottomless greed, cartoon capitalism and an archaic Constitution that needs to be badly rewritten. Above all it’s really time to bury the Founding Fathers once and for all and those camp followers on the Supreme Court that continually want to know what all those old rich men were thinking when they wrote the document in the first place.
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. (Martin Luther King)
As Groundwater Dwindles, Powerful Players Block Change
This NYT article is well worth reading because it is about our very survival, much sooner than much later. This year has been the hottest ever recorded and has cost all of us billions of dollars. Increased evaporation and decreased precipitation will only make matters worse. But, of course, you’ll hear still the plaintive cry of little men, greedy men, the defenders of a tired and decrepit status quo: YOU’RE HURTING OUR WAY OF LIFE!
For me the article even had some elements of the latest Scorsese’s film Killers of the Flower Moon, the story about the exploitation and murder of members of the Osage Indian tribe in Oklahoma in the 1920s, where pure unadulterated greed guided the actions of pretty much an entire community. We stole it fair and square in the first place and it will always be ours, you betcha.
Is it little wonder that so many reactionaries and little men, ignorant men want to suppress the actual history of America. Bread and circus can hold back oozing anxiety for only so long. Football games seven days a week won’t prevent the catastrophe.