What I got from this was - let’s come up with something… let’s come up with something… let’s come up with something. If we click our heels together three times, maybe we’ll come up with something.
Just come up with something already, and stop trying to please everyone. Be a little more divisive… in fact, be a lot more divisive, and let the chips fall where they may! Take a fucking chance!
First there was GrecoRomanism, then there was JudeoChristianity, then there was GrecoRoman JudeoChristianity (medievalism), then there was JudeoChristian GrecoRomanism (modernism), then there was postmodernism, (drum roll) and now what we need is… (blank). God, you guys are such teases! it’s like you work us up with so much hype and hyperbole, but fail to finish us off. I mean what is it, are we egoistic, altruistic, somewhere in the middle, closer to egoistic or altruistic? Pick a spot and stay there, for fucks sake.
Darwin, Lamarck, Alien Human Hybrids… Jesus?
Here’s where we are, modernism is failing, there’s global warming, peak oil, overpopulation, materialism, corruption, corporatism, what we need is…? How 'bout less work… yeah, that’s right, less work. I say we give into our innate slothfulness and tell everyone to go fuck themselves, the politicians, our employers, everyone. Consume and produce nothing, absolutely nothing, or next to nothing, that’s a start. Maybe progress isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, material, social or technological. We started valuing all these behaviors and institutions - education, greed, free markets hard work. Obviously we overvalued them. You could say hard work is responsible for many, if not all our woes. If we worked less, were more dependent on serfdom/slavery, mouched off of others and the system more, demanded our necessities for less, we wouldn’t be in this predicament now would we, with the stress, the materialism?
I mean we started valuing human life, and look where it got us - overpopulation, pollution, etcetera, so maybe human life isn’t as valuable as we thought it was, which is not to say it has no value… just less, so maybe some of those things protecting it like human rights, advanced medical technology and shit, have to go. You can overvalue and undervalue things, life is about balance, no? Nothing is sacred, everyone and thing must continually prove themselves worthy. People, places and things fluctuate, and so do their value, accordingly, respectively.
I’d say what you people should do is jot down all the problems you have with modernity, and then come up with realistic solutions to those problems. Do the hard intellectual labor, one or two problems at a time, rather than have your heads in the clouds. You don’t even need to come up with one solution, come up with several if need be, even if they contradict one another, then decide which are more feasible. You don’t have to agree on everything, allow divisions to form, so long as everyone agrees modernity is a problem we need to solve, or so long as we agree we need new values, whatever they may be.
Keep in mind you already have a lot of these values, you shouldn’t be continually starting from scratch, wiping the slate clean, you probably already have some values, unless you’re five, so build on them, rather than continuously discarding and beginning anew, wiping the slate clean every month or two.
I mean where do you stand, FC, are you a Darwinist or not? I am, more/less, I have a few reservations, but Darwinism explains human origins to my satisfaction, which is not to say I’m not the least bit interested in alternative theories. It’s a damn fine theory, so if human beings are fundamentally selfish, at the end of the day, one world government (be it Jewish, Christian, Muslim or secular humanist), peace on earth and good will toward men, seems unlikely, does it not? I see life as a continual war, there’s never, ever going to be perfect peace, or perfect harmony, they’ll always be power struggles. I do not believe history is linearly progressing but cyclical, there’s no beginning or end of time. My primary responsibility is myself, number one, humanity is of secondary importance. Now where do you stand, are we in agreement?