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| Contemplating sanity |
I felt sort of the same after my previous post about anger, how it somehow said absolutely the wrong thing for the time but wasn't what I intended at all. Who knew. Anyway, I didn't know what to say after that.
Today I started reading Trip by Tao Lin, which is the author's thinking about Terence McKenna, a fairly controversial proponent of the value of psychedelics. I started poking around on the internet for stuff by or about McKenna (he died in 2000 of a brain cancer) and among other things came across some stuff he wrote about a "world soul". He postulated that the world has a soul that is aware that one day our sun will die and the world with it, so it—the world soul—is looking for a way to move elsewhere, but all it has to work with is protoplasm. From a protoplasmic perspective there is still loads of time to figure it out, but from a world soul perspective, time is short. Anyway, McKenna's theory is that all of world history is about that, the world soul working toward moving somewhere else before the sun dies.
I have no ideas or personal experience to support or refute this theory so I'm not going to say anything about that. However, taking the long view on current crises (multiple at the moment), what I see is humanity struggling to figure it all out. How do we live together without destroying ourselves or all of life on this planet? How do we resolve conflict without doing irrevocable damage? How much suffering is necessary to get to the other side?
For some, the answers are simple and straight forward and the fact that we are not doing the simple and straight forward thing is evidence of our colossal stupidity. Or meanness, or short-sightedness, or whatever your favourite term for it is. But in the time scale of evolution we are a brand new species encountering dilemmas no other species has had to deal with and very little in the way of precedent experience or knowledge to draw on. We argue a lot.
For some, the answers are simple and straight forward and the fact that we are not doing the simple and straight forward thing is evidence of our colossal stupidity. Or meanness, or short-sightedness, or whatever your favourite term for it is. But in the time scale of evolution we are a brand new species encountering dilemmas no other species has had to deal with and very little in the way of precedent experience or knowledge to draw on. We argue a lot.
I know what I would like this world to look like, what kind of world I think would be peaceful and livable. But I have no idea how to get there from here, without a whole lot of struggle and suffering that may not make the effort worthwhile. I suppose there could be a miracle, but the essence of a miracle is that it is unexpected and unconventional, not something to be relied on.
Another quote from McKenna was about sanity and the paradox of parenting. He said that sanity involves being well-adjusted to your environment and culture. But if your environment and culture are insane, do you really want to be well-adjusted? And if you are a parent, what kind of outcome do you want for your children? To be "insane" or to be well-adjusted to an insane culture?
5 comments:
I don't really see we have an insane culture. I see that it works well for most people but not all. I have long had a view that humans cannot be divided by race or religion but rather by are they caretakers or destroyers. You find some of each in each religion and race. For the problems the US is currently facing, I believe start with education and the legal system. People have a lot of opportunities here if they take them but it requires a skill, which means an education. And immediately deal with the legal system to be sure all are equal under it and our police departments where bad apples, like the recent murderer, are kicked out. He had had too many complaints against him to not see him as a bad fit for keeping the peace.
I think that in theory you are right, but the devil is in the practical details. Reforming education and legal systems is easier said than done, and takes time. There are folks who have waited way too long for those reforms already to be patient with a slow pace of change. In reading about the Minneapolis police situation I have come across opinions of those close to it that say that it is more complicated than just one bad apple. My thinking about current news includes stuff going on globally and in other locations besides the USA, I only mentioned it because of the Trudeau video I saw. Racism is not limited to the USA (as Trudeau pointed out when he finally did speak), there are problems with how to deal with the current pandemic, environmental degradation, climate change, human rights, poverty, etc etc all over the world. Take your pick. When you look at all that humanity faces these days, and the history of how we got to this point, I can’t really agree with you that we have a sane culture.
If it's not sane, how did you fare under it?
We had two young guys we ran into when we were coming to Arizona. Both were legal immigrants. Both were Trump fans. They were young and buying up rentals to increase their personal wealth as they worked at jobs (where we met them). Both, neither knew the other, both were minorities and wanted to tell what they loved about the US-- opportunity. They had a chance if they were willing to work, they could succeed and felt they were. I agree that the billionaires, like Gates have profited far more than the rest of us, but I grew up with less than i'd had with my growing up years. We sacrificed to get my husband advanced education. My kids are both doing well and making more than we made. What was the secret-- willing to work and an education. It can be any skill but it is what is required and all the blacks we've had as friends, all went that route.
Very interesting post. Some believe that we are gone past the point of no return with regard to climate change and the finite exploitation of the earth's resources.
My thinking for a while aligns with yours in that there is a form insanity especially in the tolerance of the transfer of wealth to just a few, who control the governments, etc. I see it clearly here, being a tiny province where many of the MHAs are openly corrupt and "on the take" and only looking out for themselves.
Privilege shuns those who can't make it to their side, to keep the privilege intact.
So yeah, I think we're all a little insane to tolerate such massive inequality. Or downright callous.
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It is way too easy to find examples of insanity so I am not going to bother to list them any more than I already have. It would be either not nearly long enough or way too long for a comment. If you are not sidelined by any of the numerous '-isms' then of course you can fare well with a little educated effort. Somebody or other said that the measure of a civilization is how well it cares for its least advantaged, most vulnerable members. Do the math.
And that's all I'm going to say about that.
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