Walpurgis

6:30am: Record of Iraq War Lies to Air April 25 on PBS
Bill Moyers has put together an amazing 90-minute video documenting the lies that the Bush administration told to sell the Iraq war to the American public, with a special focus on how the media led the charge. See it on PBS from 9:00 to 10:30 PM on Wednesday, April 25. Spending that 90 minutes may save you time - some reviewers are claiming you'll never watch television news again - not even on PBS, which comes in for its own share of criticism.

Read the entire article at: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041207D.shtml

12:46pm: Here's the Hoon

11:07pm: starving hope
A current theory on the origins of life supposes that complex life evolved as a breeding house for bacteria (yet more insulting than the ancestral ape - could our origins be any more inglorious?). The great number of necessary and symbiotic bacteria that lives upon and within human beings, and the global dominance of these microscopic life-forms, exposes our hubris as a species with universal notions of our own greatness. Some people think we're in the business of replicating "memes" and genes - but really we are here for the germs. Give thanks to the germ.

We all probably know that human beings are barely a blip on the evolutionary scale. But we humans seem to be a natural disaster on that scale - eating and hunting other species into extinction, polluting and destroying ecosystems as it suits us. In our effect (and perhaps our ephemeral beauty), we are somewhat like a sudden tsunami, a chain of volcanic eruptions, or a large extra-terrestrial impact.

Unlike such upheavals, we have a trait that helps primates in groups get along - conscience - and it pricks us occasionally when we look into the suffering eyes of another animal, or witness the environmental despoilation of our natural expansiveness. But this trait isn't enough to put a stop to the "heart-ache and thousand shocks" all flesh is heir to - that is not what conscience evolved for - we can barely think beyond the small social-group confines are brains are attuned to.

It seems to me that the human species is a natural disaster - an unusual kind, easily comparable to previous natural catastrophes in terms of speed, impact, and lasting ruination. Here you are - a drop in the tidal wave, ash in the blackened sky, space ice crashing into the ocean. Strangely, sadly, some of us aware of it, but we have no more power to prevent the onslaught than those Adam and Eve microbes that joined together to make a multi-celled being.

Some of us hope, but hope is yet another biological urging towards more, pushing us on to exist. Hope comes from the stomach where our little ancestors live.

11:11am: World War

"If any question why we died
tell them because our fathers lied."

8:51am: The current Holocene extinction event
A 1998 survey by the American Museum of Natural History found that 70% of biologists view the present era as part of a mass extinction event, the fastest to have ever occurred. Some, such as E. O. Wilson of Harvard University, predict that our destruction of the biosphere could cause the extinction of one-half of all species in the next 100 years. Research and conservation efforts, such as the IUCN's annual "Red List" of threatened species, all point to an ongoing period of enhanced extinction, though some offer much lower rates and hence longer time scales before the onset of catastrophic damage. The present Holocene mass-extinction event is older than recorded memory, but evidential from the paleontological record, showing what has been taking place since Homo sapiens hunted the prehistoric megafuna ( e.g. mammoths, saber-tooths) into oblivion.

"By conservative reckoning, the planet loses three or four species an hour, eighty or more a day, thirty thousand a year - the highest extinction rate in 65 million years." (Richard Ellis "No Turning Back - the life and death of animal species" 2004 Harper Collins p357)

Historically, people have hunted the most dangerous predators to extinction or ecological marginalisation (which eventually means the same thing) so as to ensure their own survival. But for humans, survival is not just a matter of eating, it is a matter of surviving beyond life.

"Man used his ingenuity to fill his stomach, to get control of nature for the benefit of his organism; this is only logical and natural. But this stomach-centered characteristic of culture is something we easily loose sight of. One reason is that man was never content to just stop at food: he wanted more life in the widest sense of the term - exactly what we would expect an organism to want if it could somehow contrive to be self-conscious about life and death and the need to continue experiencing. Food is only one part of that quest; man quickly saw beyond mere physical nourishment and had to conceive ways to qualify for immortality. In this way the simple food quest was transmuted into a quest for spiritual excellence, for goodness and purity. All of man's higher spiritual ideals were a continuation of the original question for energy-power." (Ernest Becker's "Escape from Evil", 1975. p22)

People make heroes of those who kill monsters. Ancient kings and modern hunters have all bragged about how many animals they have killed, and myths are full of heroes who kill predator monsters to protect their people. Dangerous animals have served as protagonists in our hero-myths. We have been so afraid of being destroyed by them, we seek to destroy them all.

"The list of legendary battles between heroes and monsters is long. There's Marduk versus Tiamat, Theseus versus the Minotaur, Perseus versus the sea monster, Ninurta versus Anzu, Sigurd versus Fafnir, Rama versus Ravana, Saint George versus the dragon, Odysseus versus Polyphemus, Nayenezgani versus Teelget, Bellerophon versus the Chimera, Oedipus versus the Sphinx, Minamoto-no-Yorimasa versus Nue, Tishpak versus the Labbu, Heracles versus the Nemean lion, and of course Beowulf versus Grendel..." (David Quammen's "Monster of God", 2003, p260)

Predatory animals make us nothing but *meat* - this awareness would have been one of the earlier forms of human awareness. Seeing one of them kill, eat, and destroy a fellow human being must be a terrible shock. They challenge the supremacy we wish to ensure, so they must be destroyed. They are a natural mortality-salient condition, exposing our soulful selves as flesh for rending, and so they must die on the fatal point of our heroic belligerence. We are mighty, they are gone or in our cages.

"We know that men often kill with appetite and excitement, as well as real dedication, but this is only logical for animals who are born hunters and who enjoy the feeling of maximizing their organismic powers at the expense of a trapped and helpless prey." (EB, EFE, p152)

If you want to live in "harmony" with them, you must allow them to live in their natural ranges - which means an overlap with human life, which means the inevitable "man-eating". Marginalising these dangerous animals in preserves amounts to reducing their viable population so much that any small disaster could wipe them out of make the remains of their gene-pool inadequate.

"Harmony" is an illusion. There can be no harmony with the human species because we constantly seek to change eco-systems to suit our practical and psychological needs. There is no escape from humanity "the only thing wrong in the world" - as Otto Rank put it.

Simply put: there isn't room on this planet for "dangerous" animals and our sense of danger.

I'm afraid that we are making the environment so fragile that it will not be able to withstand our pressure or the small catastrophies that will inevitably shake, drown, or burn the flimsy remains.

"Advancement" for humans usually means extinction or decimation for other animals. Things might be better than ever for us, but they've never been worse for any living animal you might name - except the rat, cockroach, and maggot.

Humans will eventually evolve into something else, or be wiped out.

"The tragedy of evolution is that is created a limited animal (on a limited planet) with unlimited horizons... It seems that the experiment of man may well prove to be an evolutionary dead end, an impossible animal - one who, individually, needs for healthy action the very conduct that, on a general level, is destructive to him." (EB, EFE, p153).

2:55pm: Fantasies of Control:
Our vulnerability threatens us with uncertainty and death. For life to be controlled by gods or a God (or even merely by secret societies or mysterious intelligences) is to live a safer and orderly life. Misfortune and suffering all have their purpose - even if it is for the pleasure of a sadistic deity, or some ultimate but unknowable end.

Today we live the fantasy that we can control life, that our technology can achieve the miracles promised to us by religions. We believe in rationality and progress, that our innovations will solve our problems, that intelligence is a great good, that we can direct the course of evolution.

In this way we have put humans back above animals by turning Darwinism into another belief system of transcendence. We deny our animal bodies by using the very theory which shows what mere animals we are. Many people still find the idea that we are clever primates offensive. We anticipate growing beyond our current state, into some sort of demigod-hood. There is the hope in technological progress that we will augment ourselves to the point of supreme power.

Today's religious societies shed blood to convince us all that we must obey God. But the minority of secular cultures, with their scientific and Enlightenment heritage, and their guilt about Nazism, Fascism, and Communism, they expect a technological salvation - better medicine, longer lives, more youthful looks, super-longevity, post-humanity. This is but a continuation of the faith in progress and the denial of animality that informed the extreme politics of 20th century Europe. Even the falling of Europe's utopias has not shaken our faith in progress because science still delivers the miracles of technology in the place of religion, and grows in promise - universal expansion.

Old religion clings on, re-packaged for the consumer as a life-style, or informing our thinking through traditional morality and pre-modern concepts. And so our belief that history is "going somewhere" towards an ultimate meaning persists - and science seems to be proving it to us, while the prophets of science promise freedom from work through robot slaves, freedom from the body in uploading or augmentation, freedom from limitation through virtual fantasies, pleasure-centre manipulation, a multi-media of novelty to excite the organism and invite meaningful movement in action, sex, and a vital sense of victory.

But with all our knowledge and technology, we have only managed to create more disastrous wars, poisonous ruins of land and sea, and societies which are driven by finite and dirty fuels. There is progress in the standard of living, the exploitation of resources, the increase of knowledge, but there is still no progress in compassion - we destroy other animals casually - worse than ever, and our brutality towards other human beings is still unmatched in the animal world. Happiness remains elusive and ever marketable.

We continue to ignore the current man-made mass extinction, feasting our bellies with the last of the species. Humans have a great capacity to deny death, to limit their vision and empathy, to explain away disasters with excuses and theodicy, and so the carnage continues until we make our own lives unlivable. We won't be saved by the technologies we create because they have effects beyond our control. The species is not acting in concert, different laws and illusions govern our behaviors, increasing the chances of technological accident or intentional, yet out of control, attack. Even if a lethal man-made war or accident does not destroy us, we are still likely to destroy too much of the biosphere to survive. We cannot unify in an enlightened world-state to govern our resources and errors, because we could not comprehend such a vast task, and - more importantly - our psychology demands an out-group, a scapegoat who we can blame and defeat so as to inflate ourself - our hubris is a defense against our terrifying knowledge of meaninglessness and death.

Our species is doomed - Darwinism keeps shocking us with that fact. Even if we survive natural and self-caused cataclysms, even if our great numbers are cut back, and a small population manages to survive the aftermath and live in safety, we will eventually evolve into another life-form or we will become extinct.

Evolution is not progress.

6:47pm: Terrorism
Terrorism is a tactic, not a persuasion. Try "War on Ambushes," instead of "War on Terror," and see how it sounds. Terrorism is private war.

The term "terrorist" was first used by the British to describe militant Zionists in Palestine. These people now rule Israel.

The USA is promoting - as well as exercising - (state) terrorism. You can include Russia, Israel, Uzbekistan, Columbia, China, Haiti, etc. in this category. This isn't anything new, Bin Laden's crowd was trained by the CIA and funded by Saudi Arabia to go into Afghanistan. The Saudi signing those checks also signed checks investing in Bush companies.

The "War on Terror" is a war on war - a preventative war. This is explicit in the new The National Security Strategy of the United States of America:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss5.html

4:49pm: The Power of Nightmares
I caught a documentary on TV a few nights ago "The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear" directed, narrated, and written by Adam Curtis. You can watch it for free here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1002626006461047517&q=power+of+nigh
tmares

It roams over the events that lead to 9/11 and the aggressive response to it in Afghanistan, Iraq and the U.S. (against its citizens). In short, it reveals that Al-qaeda are little more than an invention, along with WMD, links with Saddam, etc. It properly portrays radical Islamists as disperate and de-centralised, united only by Islamist ideals, and certainly not as organised with "global reach" - one scene where U.S. soldiers search Tora Bora - bombing every cave and crack they can find - almost humourously reveals the shadow-chasing that these wars have involved. (Caves and shadows - looks like we're still not out of Plato's dark depths yet.)

The documentary seems to imply that this is a conspiracy of sorts, or at least that Western politicans know that terrorism is something they
can exploit (and by implication are terrorists themselves). Or as Curtis puts it:

"In the past, politicians promised to create a better world. They had different ways of achieving this, but their power and authority came from the optimistic visions they offered their people. Those dreams failed and today people have lost faith in ideologies..."

If you decide to watch it, you'll find the following critiques interesting too:

http://medialens.org/alerts/04/041118_Power_Of_Nightmares_1.HTM
http://medialens.org/alerts/04/041119_Power_Of_Nightmares_2.HTM
http://medialens.org/alerts/04/041207_Curtis_Response.html

8:42am:

Our governments fear exposure of their institutional violence and corruption: the fact that party politics is a corporate sham, that the corporate media is a sham, that the Western promotion of human rights and democracy abroad is designed to camouflage the violent control and exploitation of defenceless people.

What are the real interests and goals shaping modern politics, economics and international affairs?

4:41pm: Extinction

The West African black rhino is officially extinct.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5167266.stm

The white rhinos, elephants, tigers (the 3 of 6 species left I mean), and sea-mammals are probably next. One day, future generations might marvel that these animals lived, much like we do the dinosaurs.

At least Hollywood will be able to make a CGI based movie out them.

8:51am: Heroism

Humans need self-esteem to live, and this self-esteem is constituted symbolically. The need for self-esteem is driven by narcissism: the self-absorption that defines the self-conscious human animal. This combination of narcissism and the need for self-esteem "creates a creature who has to feel himself an object of primary value." To stand out in the world, to really mean something, a person must be a hero. The wish for heroism is natural and necessary, and society provides a "symbolic action system" which structures social interaction by defining human roles and norms. All societies, regardless of ideology, technology, or belief, are hero-systems that sustain the hope and faith that what people create "are of lasting worth and meaning, that they outlive or outshine death and decay".

In each society, people do different things to earn their sense of heroism, and some are more adequate than others. Today our heroics are a matter of earning enough to be comfortable, to have our nice homes and new cars, our consumer goods and holidays in the sun, to have smarter children and a respectable job. But few people dare to admit that what they are doing is a matter of earning self-esteem to make oneself feel so important that even death cannot belie and negate oneself - because a hero lasts forever; whether through his or her children, some sort of creation, a business, or art-works, through some sort of legacy, or acts of goodness and virtue.

But today we are living a crisis of heroism. Popular religions are openly defied and questioned, patriotic wars are seen as unjust and wasteful, and the accrual of monies and goods is not enough to satisfy the deep yearnings for cosmic meaning. The world today seems too big a place for heroics. Among the small tribe everyone could count as meaningful in the cosmic scheme of things, but on the world stage, people shrink to obscurity.

What then, should the basis for heroism be today? How should we all be able to earn our self-esteem without deleterious cost to others?

1:37pm: Heroism of the Microcosom

Human beings are illusionists, escapists, dreamers - all in search of the heroism which will provide each of us with enough self-esteem to provide psychological equilibrium and forward-momentum.

We have a long history of escapism, beginning with the rituals which imparted a sense of purpose, cosmic importance, and belonging. We are escape-artists, freeing ourselves from the prison of flesh.

These rituals multiplied, and the human drama was eventually played out for reasons of entertainment, as well as religion. There still is plenty of overlap, but as technology and the arts advanced, the
differences between the two ways of playing out the human drama became more distinct.

Today entertainment is often sold so that the consumer is the hero - 1st person video games, "choose-your-own-adventure" books, RPGs. Or
the entertainment allows close identification with the hero - the "everyman" of certain plays, movies, and stories. The cult of the celebrity is a natural extension of the entertainment-drama (with parallels to the cultishness of the religious-drama), and here transference and group-belonging come more strongly into play, reinforced by the high value placed on fame and fortune.

Perhaps these hypnotic hobbies are growing so as to replace the failing illusions of certain religions. Being a hero is often better than worshipping a hero. As our technology improves, our escapist options proliferate and become more convincing.

There may come a time when Virtual Reality is realistic and more completely - or totally - immersive. The science fiction writers have
explored this theme often, but to my knowledge they have not explored the idea of an atomised society where individuals remain mostly "plugged-in" to their individual escapist dramas. In this VR world you
can choose your own hero-system, with YOU are the central figure.

Perhaps the failing collective hero-systems will be replaced by the technological options that allow us to turn away - as usual - from reality, and forge our own cosmic specialness in the paid-for privacy
of our own VR worlds. In such a world you can have whatever you want, be and do whatever you - the ultimate human fantasy. Will we turn away from such a promise when it is so near?

Though we are some steps away from this picture, current trends show that we are getting closer. There is no end to the appeal from the entertainment industry to share in heroics or be a super-hero and, as the "crisis of heroism" continues, the move towards heroics in the microcosom have already begun.

4:10pm: Class War

The disproportionate concentration of wealth/power in the hands of so few is war by other means.

Imagine - you are starving or struggling to live, and the healthy, wealthy, comfortable people next door are not sharing a penny. They are thus complicit in the circumstances which endanger your life or impede the quality of that life. They have indirectly taken from you, and keep taking, because they control vast resources beyond their needs and thus keep you - who desperately needs only a tiny fraction of their wealth - out, and they keep you out until death.

Is this not just one siege in a total war?

***

A note on Bill Gates, the favourite philanthropist of our times:

Funny that there are so many other philanthropic institutions NOT run and founded by a multi-billionaire doing just as much good.

We don't need obscenely rich and powerful people to help those in need. The only reason why BG can help is because of his massive concentration of wealth - and that concentration impoverishes others.

His charitable works do not justify his massive and unfair wealth. Indeed, his charity looks cynical and sick to me, considering BG could solve the problems of starvation in Africa at a stroke. His multi-billion$$$ "worth" amounts to more than the GDP of most of those countries put together.

Besides, BG is focued on the symptom of a deeper problem, and so is not going to solve it. Most of Africa's problems are caused by old and illegitimate debts imposed a century ago, debts which cost many
African countries more than health-care and education combined annually.

No thanks Bill - we are at war.

5:32pm: Calling Robin Hood...

According to a United Nations report issued in 1999 (as described by London’s The Guardian on July 14, 1999), the world’s three richest people are worth more than the combined resources of 36 of the world’s countries.

The richest 200 people in the world have a combined income equivalent to 41% of the world’s population. According to the UN, an annual contribution of 1% of the wealth of these 200 people would be enough to give free access to primary education to every child on the planet.

Americans belched one-fifth more carbon into the atmosphere than China (with 4.5 as many citizens) in 1996; the average American uses 115 times more paper and 227 times as much gasoline as the average Indian (Myers, 1997).

This level of consumption is beyond the carrying capacity of the earth, and threatens the integrity of "strategic resource stocks such as topsoil, forests, grasslands, fisheries, biodiversity, climate, and the atmosphere." (Myers, 1997, p. 54).

Myers, N. (1997). Consumption: Challenge to Sustainable Development. Science, 276, 53-55.

2:27pm: Anton the lidda goobster!
Anton was born 18th May (sorry, I've been busy!). He was 8 pounds and 50 cm exactly.



Almost straight-away he was lifting his head to feed. Not long after he was opening his eyes, looking us straight in the face. He has proven to be curious, attentive, calm, and not too fussy.

2:29pm: something worth repeating

The Human Body Becomes a Body Politic


By Richard Koenigsberg

Totalitarianism conceives of nations as omnipotent bodies that encompass and contain everything within them. In Hitler's fantasy, the German people were united within a gigantic body politic as if a single mass of flesh. Insofar as each individual was fused with this body, therefore there was no such thing as separation or separateness. Hitler did not believe--refused to acknowledge--that there could be a domain of reality separate from the nation-state. Each human body could survive only when bound to a body politic.

Hitler imagined Germany as a national organism consisting of people as its cells. He was the head or brain of this organism--the will that generated action. In the Nuremberg rallies, Hitler sought to concretize or materialize his bodily fantasy of nationalism. He imagined that the tens-of-thousands of people gathered and marching together at this location constituted a single body--flesh and blood of a gigantic organism.

Hitler insisted that the German nation was a real entity, not merely an abstraction. His fantasy of the German nation as an actual body politic crystallized at the Nuremberg rallies. Hitler created these rituals so that he could perceive or "witness" Germany. At the moment that people marched into the stadium and moved before him, Hitler lost his doubts about the reality of the German nation. Suddenly, the vague, abstract concept of the nation became a concrete reality--a genuine "substance of flesh and blood."

Norman O. Brown in Life against Death: the Psychoanalytic Meaning of History states that "New objects must substitute for the human body, and there is no sublimation without the projection of the human body into things" (p. 281). Hitler and the Nazis sought to recover the infantile fantasy of an omnipotent body through creation of an omnipotent body politic. The fantasy of an omnipotent body was rediscovered in a projective container: the German volk.

Nations are imagined to be entities contained or encompassed within a vast, geographic space.

America the Beautiful:
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

God Bless America:
From the mountains,
To the prairies,
To the ocean,
White with foam,
God bless America,
My home sweet home.

To the extent that one identifies with one's nation, one becomes this vast, geographic space. The boundaries of one's ego expand so that one imagines that what is contained within the space of one's nation is contained within one's self. The wound of separation from the fantasy of infantile omnipotence is healed by virtue of connecting to a new omnipotent object. The ego fuses with a gigantic body of territory in order to imagine that it is powerful and immense.

According to Freud in Civilization and Its Discontent (p. 15):

Originally the ego includes everything, later it separates off an external world from itself. Our present ego-feeling is, therefore, only a shrunken residue of a much more inclusive--indeed, an all-embracing--feeling which corresponds to a more intimate bond between the ego and the world about it.

The infantile ego imagines that the entire world is contained within or attached to it. A trauma occurs when the ego recognizes that it is separate from the world. The ego splits off from the world. One comes to perceive one's smallness and insignificance: the world is no longer bound to the self. Identification with one's nation represents an effort to recover the all-embracing ego-feeling. The entire world (the portion of it contained within one's nation) is re-incorporated into the ego.

Identification with one's nation implies equating one's ego with everything that exists and occurs within the boundaries of one's nation. The ego expands by projecting itself into or incorporating everything that exists "out there." Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel (in The Ego Ideal) states that the individual's megalomania finds its expression when each person's ego is "extended to the whole group." The group according to Chasseguet-Smirgel allows each member to feel himself to be, not a minute, undifferentiated particle of a vast whole, but on the contrary "identified with the totality of the group, thereby conferring on himself an omnipotent ego, a colossal body."

The nation is the fantasy of an omnipotent ego, projected into the world. Nations are symbolic objects permitting us to recapture our lost omnipotence; curing the wound of separation. The tendency to identify with one's nation and culture seems so natural and normal that we rarely take note of the fact that a psychological mechanism is involved. The unconscious fantasy of being fused with the symbolic order constitutes the basis of the individual's relationship with society.

To internalize one's nation into one's self is to incorporate: its entire history, especially its wars; its political leaders; its artistic achievements; it's natural wonders and monuments; its scientific achievements; its cities and buildings; its economic development; its crimes and criminals; its music and movies; its sporting events and athletic heroes. That which is distant from the self comes to be experienced as very intimate with the self.

People make statements like "we" won (or lost) the war; or that "we" sent a man to the moon; or that "we" won a gold medal in the Olympics. People make these extraordinary statements, but it doesn't seem extraordinary when they do so. The fact that one is a citizen of nation gives one the right to make such statements. Nationalism means that everything that occurs within the boundaries of a certain geographic space is imagined to relate or belong to the self.

The individual's sense of smallness and limitations is overcome or denied through a psychic mechanism allowing one to equate one's ego with an entire nation. Freud theorized that the ego is ultimately a body ego. Insofar as this is the case, incorporation of the nation into the self possesses a psychosomatic meaning. The entire nation becomes a part of one's body. One's body becomes a body politic.

The wound or loss of self that occurs upon separating from infantile love objects leads to identification with one's nation and culture as a means toward healing the split within the self. Separation means that the ego has been severed into two: one has lost a part of the self. One overcomes the sense of separateness, frailness, incompleteness, helplessness, and insignificance--by attaching to an omnipotent body politic.

Felix Deutsche in On the Mysterious Leap from the Mind to the Body (1959) states that the process of symbolization originates in the "need to make good for the loss of the body's integrity by reintegrating into it adequate substitutes. The symbolization substitutes the amount of loss which the lost object represented to the individual" (p. 80). Nazism represented the attempt to find the lost object in a body politic. The Nazi movement represented a social construction of reality based upon projecting the fantasy of a gigantic, omnipotent body into the outer world.

Hitler sought to "find the lost object in the external world" (Norman O. Brown). Nazism was based upon a shared fantasy about the body. Howard F. Stein put forth the concept of "psychogeography" in Developmental Time, Cultural Space (1987). Stein states that the scope of psychogeography is the "unconscious construction of the social and physical world." Men and women according to Stein "fashion the world out of the substance of their psyches from the experience of their bodies." Fantasies about the body are transmuted into descriptions of one's own group and of other groups. Projected outward, Stein declares, "the fate of the body becomes the fate of the world."

Hitler desired to re-fashion the German nation so that it could become a "closely knit body." People would fuse together like cells of a body to create a single, cohesive entity. At the Nuremberg rallies, Hitler sought to materialize this fantasy of Germany as an actual body politic. Tens-of-thousands of people marched in rows and acted in unison--as if cells of an orderly, well-functioning body with Hitler as head, dictating the body's actions.

In order to actualize Hitler's fantasy of the body politic, it was necessary that each individual be obedient. People had to act in concert for the benefit of this body--mindful of its needs. A cell cannot act independently of the body of which it is a part. A cell cannot act autonomously because it does not possess autonomous existence. Cells live only to the extent that they are bound to a body.

Apparently many Germans embraced Hitler's fantasy. By acceding to the fantasy of being cells, the German people imagined that they were part of an omnipotent body. Hitler believed that the power of Germany derived precisely from this capacity of its people to act in concert--as one body. Whereas people in other societies acted as individuals--doing their own thing--Germans acted together. The Nazis imagined that obedience to Hitler--willingness to act in the name of a collective purpose that he defined--would confer upon them enormous power.

Hitler conceived of nations as people welded and fused together to create a cohesive body. Insofar as nations were bodies, it followed that people could not exist in a condition of separation from their nation. Hitler became enraged when he contemplated the idea that some people might wish to go their own way--to exclude themselves from the national project. In 1933, Hitler declared that he wished to "exterminate the things that tear our volk apart."

11:54am: True Maturity

"...one of the crucial projects of a person's life, of true maturity, is to resign oneself to the process of aging." (Denial of Death, p215, 1973)

On this point, I suspect Becker is wrong. I don't state this with much confidence, as I am critical of Becker from a perspective of hope and faith in medical advance - my particular crutch. That said, there is still good reason to doubt Becker. An brief overview of medical advance puts my criticism into perspective:

"At the beginning of the 20th century, life expectancy at birth was around 45 years. It has risen to about 75 thanks to the advent of antibiotics and public health measures that allow people to survive or avoid infectious diseases. Society adapted to that dramatic change in average longevity, and few people would want to return to life without those advances. No doubt, future generations accustomed to living past 100 will also look back at our current approaches to improving health as primitive relics of a bygone era." Sinclair & Guarente's article in 4/06 Scientific American.

This does not seem to be directly an issue of aging - but it is. Becker assumes that aging is a natural affair which we should accept as inevitable. Yet we do not accept such inevitability with regards to diseases, indeed, we go to great lengths and cost to stop disease - this is why, on average, we live until 75 and not 45.

Recently, some biogerontologists have come to view aging as a form of disease. Though the aging process is not fully understood, there are good reasons to draw parallels between aging and disease. Just as we do not accept disease because it is natural and inevitable, why should we accept aging for the same bad reasons?

Becker does not call for stoical acceptance of all bodily afflications as a sign of maturity. As a humane man, I'm sure he would have applauded our medical advances in treating illness and disability. Why then, does he believe that aging should not be "cured" by the same medical means?

Even someone with an ageless body will eventually die due to accident, suicide, or homocide. Ageless people could expect to live for an average of around 600 years before this would occur. During this long life would be time to reach the maturity of death-acceptance that Becker believes to be "true maturity". There is no contradiction in living a long life to accept death nor in living the lives we live now, trying to postpone death -from disease or age- through healthy living and medical technology, so that we might have more time to live, and more time to accept the end.

Many people are unwilling to see the benefits that medical and technological advances can bring. These technophobes and bioconservatives invoke visions of mass death and destruction - nanotechnology mean the risk of "ecophagy", or cloning invokes the vengeful wrath of God. Clearly, these cautious and fearful people use the most powerful psychological tool they can to prevent scientific progress - fear of mass annihilation. But so too the transhumanists and technophiles who emphasise our brief lives and early graves compared to the possibilities of future longevity.
Becker's "twin ontology" of fear of life, fear of death has become a twin politics of longevity now or never.

12:54pm: Quinoa
Quinoa is a meat replacement.

"The quinoa seed is high in protein, calcium and iron, a relatively good source of vitamin E and several of the B vitamins. It contains an almost perfect balance of all eight essential amino acids needed for tissue development in humans. It is exceptionally high in lysine, cystine and methionine-amino acids typically low in other grains. It is a good complement for legumes, which are often low in methionine and cystine. The protein in quinoa is considered to be a complete protein due to the presence of all 8 essential amino acids. Some types of wheat come close to matching quinoa's protein content, but grains such as barley, corn, and rice generally have less than half the protein of quinoa. Quinoa is 12% to 18% protein and four ounces a day, about 1/2-cup, will provide a childs protein needs for one day. The 6-7% fat of quinoa is relatively high when compared to other grains, but it boasts a low sodium content and also provides valuable starch and fiber. Quinoa also contains albumen, a protein that is found in egg whites, blood serum, and many plant and animal tissues. The seeds are gluten-free which makes this a nutritious and flavorful alternative grain for those with gluten sensitivity."

Quinoa (pronounced *keen-wah* apparently) cooks in only 15 mins and that 1/2 cup of quinoa is enough protein for a child for the whole day:

http://chetday.com/quinoa.html

8:35am: What is it like to be a God?
How would you create the cosmos if you had godlike power? Can you imagine a new reality with some recommendable features?

Feel-free to take whatever character and power (real or imagined) that might recommend themselves, and give a sense of what could be expected in your Creation - whether the changes are small or total.

12:35pm: Faith and Ignorance
What is faith? There are varying definitions, but one popular definition is that faith is a matter of knowing that one does not know - a self-aware ignorance, an acknowledgment that we know nothing of the divine.

Trusting and hoping in the unknown is faith. God is not known, yet the faithful trust.

This form of faith seems absurd (which is fine for Tertullian and Kierkegaard). If we do not know whether there is a god or not, why have faith that there is? Why not put the question of knowledge aside as intractable?

Before we put our faith in god, we need a particular version of god to have faith in. Will it be Allah or Buddha? God or Cthulu? Once we have made that arbitrary decision (arbitrary because there is nothing to help us decide which god is closer to reality) or if we have simply grown up with a particular idea (another arbitrary factor), we need then to put faith in the god's representatives (humans), the gods holy books (written by humans), the gods traditions (invented by humans)... That's a lot of faith!

Perhaps we do not need to choose which god to have faith in, but instead we can have faith in an abstract, amorphous god, a god who's desires and commands are not known? But then, why bother with such a god? Such a god might give us nothing in return, not even hope because we wouldn't know what to hope for. Why put faith in something so utterly vague?

God is not known by us and neither is the Flying Spaghetti Monster - do people have faith in him too? What about his friend, the Pink Elephant?

Why have faith in something we know absolutely nothing about? If one argues that we do know something, this presupposes god in the first place and flies in the face of the idea that faith in trust and hope from a position of ignorance. At least practical faith - like trusting that a car coming towards us won't his us - is based on a little knowledge i.e. what we know of how people usually drive. True, some people have accidents, others even cause them on purpose, but usually we can have faith that the other motorist will drive carefully - i.e. we know at least *something* about what we are putting our faith in because we know a little bit about human behaviour.

Why bother with this kind of faith when people can obviously live without such a faith? Why not put faith in, say, human progress and compassion? A better future could be our transcendence and our hope, and one is which we can actually work towards rather than throw prayers at.

Who would you rather trust? The scientists working at the University of Calgary on a cure for type 1 diabetes? The social worker in Illinois driven to help the people s/he's responsible for? Or God who, well, hasn't done anything much - ever - unless you have claim knowledge that he has. Why trust something silent, invisible, intangible, unknowable, and thus inconsequential?

To avoid these problems, the faithful have to show that they have some knowledge of god - which raises another set of problems.

8:27am: A new breed of soldier

Animals have been trained for military service for a long time - especially dogs (and later horses and camels). The "dogs of war" have probably been around as long as they have been domesticated (during the Mesolithic, 10,000 years ago). Recently though, the military has ramped-up its' "recruitment" drive further into the animal world.

"U.S. Military Plans to Make Insect Cyborgs"
by Shaun Waterman, Published on Tuesday, March 14, 2006 by United Press International

"Pentagon Develops Brain Implants to Turn Sharks into Military Spies" by Steve Connor, Published on Thursday, March 2, 2006 by the Independent/UK

"Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina " by Mark Townsend in Houston, Published Sunday September 25, 2005 by The Observer/UK

If this kind of technology develops to a greater
complxity, how long will it be until POWs, criminals,
deserters, and pacifists are so forceably "militarised" to fight wars?

But what do you expect? We butcher animals for food, so
why not for war?

"Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue
it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over
the birds of the air, and over every living thing that
moves upon the earth" Genesis, 1:28.

"(Allah) has made the earth your couch, And the heavens
your canopy; and sent down rains from the heavens; And
brought forth therewith Fruits for your sustenance... It
is He Who hath created for you all things that are on
earth..." Al-Baqarah 22 and 29.

12:55pm: Creation

The origins of the cosmos used to fall within the realm of theology, but now that we can turn an empirical eye on the universe, it is obviously a scientific question (like the origins of life and of babies). This is why some perceive a "war" between science and religion, because scientists keep "taking territory" from theology. This is not so, it is just a matter of science now having the tools to explore material reality more deeply, and of theology finally dealing with its proper sphere of questions and ideas (questions of ethics, metaphysics, aesthetics, etc.).

One of the most popular creation theories of science, the Big Bang, is a good theory that many scientists agree with. I don't think the Big Bang is the final answer to the question of the origins of the cosmos, but it is a good theory developed using our best current instruments and minds.

The appearance of the cosmos – like any historical event - is contingent, and contingency is something science cannot explain. There are historical facts (e.g.: King Charles I was beheaded in 1649 in London, England) and scientists can make certain claims about these contingent facts (e.g. Charles' remains show that the axe broke "x" amount of bones in his neck and was brought down with "y" amount of force) but science cannot explain *why* this fact came to be at this time and place. Charles could have been beheaded earlier or later or not at all because the fact rests on decisions people made and how the course of events was affected by factors beyond human control (e.g. bad weather during a pivotal battle). There is nothing in scientific laws that determines that contingent events happen when they do.

This is why non-scientific explanations have more power to explain contingent events (e.g. the psychology of Oliver Cromwell, or the widespread belief in the Divine Right of Kings) - contingent events including the origin of the cosmos. Science can show how the event might have happened, but not why it happened then.

The evidence and success of scientific cosmological theories make more sense to me than some sort of deity creating reality out of chaos/nothing/him/herself. Does anyone believe in the chaos organizing Demiurge anymore? No, a more powerful God-idea replaced it - a more psychologically forceful explanatory idea.

Like Aristotle's geocentric theory of the universe, these ideas about creation are old ways of thinking, anachronisms (e.g. Genesis is comprised of two ancient pre-Judaic myths). Does anyone take the four humours seriously anymore? If so, does their medicine make people better than modern medicine? No.

Aristotle thought that we only had to think about reality to understand it - but he was wrong. We have to form theories, make predictions, and then measure, observe, and compare our findings to see if the predictions were correct, and therefore if the theory is good - at least when it comes to material reality, of which humans are a part. But humans invent symbolic reality - an emergent phenomenon (like self-consciousness) which science cannot explain through reduction or analysis of parts. Instead we have sociology, psychology, philosophy, etc. to deal with these emergent issues (which are, in essence, more complex because they are founded on, and grow from, the complexity of materiality - a person or a society are greater than the sum of their parts due to the interaction of the constituent parts).

This does not mean that scientific ideas about cosmic origins are incompatible with religion - so long as religion keeps up - otherwise it becomes another sad anachronism. In the 50s the Pope declared BB theory to be compatible with the Bible. A good theologian can make science work for religion. Science gives us facts to inform our ethics, etc. but leaves a vast space beyond empiricism for the humanities and arts to explore - especially those phenomenon that are contingent and emergent.

It seems unlikely that the theories of science will have much explanatory power for many people. Many scientific theories are difficult for the layman (partly the fault of how scientists communicate, partly due to the distorted perception, and ignorance, of science) so it would be best if scientific theories could translate into some sort of fact based mythos. This would require a religious-minded genius with great charisma, or perhaps a concerted effort among popular religions to synthesise scientific theory with religious myth (something which has been going on for some time now, and with mixed results).

The problem is that myth often become dogma (e.g. the Xian creation stories from Genesis) which in turn becomes a conservative force which blocks changes to the myth when the theory behind it is revised. Such a myth making enterprise would require flexible myths and flexible believers.

Consider the chasm between the person who believes in moral absolutes, certain life after death, the literal truth of a holy book, the total authority of a deity, etc. compared to moral and eschatological uncertainty, historical-critical interpretation of holy texts, and the autonomy of human being. There are different ideals and they can be evaluated. I'm nothing special, but I can get through life without absolutes like God, Good and Evil, Heaven and Hell, Truth, Certainty, and Love - so why can't everyone else who has had the privilege of a Western education?

Religionists might believe their creation myths fervently, but I do not hold to the BB theory with that kind of passion. If a better scientific theory comes along, I'll take it, because I'd like an accurate picture of "how". In the meantime I can keep asking myself "why" and forming philosophical ideas and psychological explanations.

This is the difference between religious creation myths and scientific cosmology: the religionist must invest a great deal of psychological trust in their creation-explanation because it is a "why" as well as a "how" explanation. Whereas scientific creation theories are dynamic and provisional, and do not imply anything about "why". The only people who "fervently" believe in scientific theories are scientists with reputation and pride to lose, and a few people guilty of scientism.

3:31pm: The Revelation of Jesus Christ

Perhaps the most weird, entertaining, and certainly the last book of the Bible to be written (around 100AD), "The Revelation of Jesus Christ unto his servant John" (incorrectly known as "The Book of Revelation") is very popular these days. The book is not really very clear, being metaphorical, muddled, and widely interpreted. These reasons, coupled with the sensational imagery found therein, probably explain why the last book is so popular. Indeed 59% of Americans (according to a 2002 Time/CNN poll) believe that "The Revelation of Jesus Christ..." forecasts events that are yet to come.

Even 10% of US citizens believing this would be scary, but 59% is shocking. The USA is supposedly the only remaining world superpower, and an economic leader of the 1st world. Why then, do the majority of the country's citizenry believe in this highly contraversial - and vague - eschatology?

9:30am: Cosmology & Theology

There are some religious statements and ideas that I can agree with:

All is One (as supported by Alain Aspect's "Bell experiments").

There is something greater than us (society, the biosphere, the Universe).

There is a creative force (whatever physical forces were present at the original point of the Universe, if the Universe can be sensically spoken of having origins).

These basic religious ideas are in accord with the most penetrating theories, instruments, and observations of today's physics.

But does it really make sense to speak in terms of the plans, desires, and especially the character of god? Understanding the personality of divinity is a theological game, and only some sort of revelation from god himself can show us who he really is (unless god has left us clues regarding his personality e.g. though holy texts or the events of history).

Theology often goes wrong when it posits some sort of character and moral driving force as a part of cosmological ideas. When god is assigned a personality which can supposedly be communed with (which lends us meaning, moral absolutes, life after death, and so on), the cosmological ideas of Oneness and greatness are degraded through anthropomorphisation.

The anthropomorphising Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) are especially concerned with the character of their god, and try to understand this personality (who's characterisics grew out of ancient Greco-Roman philosophy). These 3 religions are "action" oriented - it is by enforcing and spreading the word and law of god by altering reality through religious acitivism that these religions achieve their aims. They are motivated primarily by codified laws and prophecies. For Islam, obedience to god is the highest virtue. For many Jews, adherence to the Laws is very important. For Christianity and for Islam, god's will is absolute, it should be universal for all people, and it moves time towards a finale where everything is judged, balanced, and accounted for - the ultimate goal and promise for believers.

These prophetic religions make a lot of assumptions about the personality of god, based only on their exegesis and interpretation of history, which is seen through the lens of understanding god as an interventionist, miraculous, and personal.

Becker wrote about how our actions, how "doing something" can lend us a sense of purpose, allowing us to exercise our organismic expansiveness. Keeping busy doing gods will may have brought us wars, inquisitions, and genocide, but the action-orientation also resulted in science and exploration. Many of today's successes, comforts, and knowledge are built upon uncounted corpses, the result of the failures and successes of these action religions.

There are other religions which have a more mystical bent, and a non-linear view of time, making them less action-oriented. These religions are less likely to be concern about the personality of divinity - like Theravada Buddhism and versions of Hinduism, Zen and Taoism, which assign little or no personality to their cosmological ideas; there have also been many theological deists who assign god a creative role only. This illustrates that religion can be a powerful and useful force without the need for anthropomorphisation.

If other religions are able to moderate their need for a guiding, comforting, and meaning-giving personality, their doctrines would be more flexible and the faith would be less prone to take offense. The caricaturing of a god would not enrage, blaspheme would have no meaning, the destruction of holy objects and sites would have less impact - in short, religions could explore our human place within the cosmos, rather than our relationship to a persona with a variety of anti-social personality traits of the kind that demands revenge, war, worship, obedience, etc.

Religion can take the form of cosmological meditation, of the concern for human being within an immesurable universe, where a god-like personality is irrelevant. A religion of this kind is close to scientific and humanistic investigation and understanding, and does not often fall foul of the fanaticism and blinkeredness that dogs the followers of overpowering and demanding personalities. Moving away from this cult of absolute personality to the contemplation of a less personal and less human divinity is a move away from our abasement before a fictional, but fiercesome, tyrant.

4:03pm: Theology 101

Questions of god work in at least two epistemological areas:
1. you can *believe* in god or not
2. you can claim *knowledge* of god or not

Few people are going to claim knowledge of god - some do, but they can never prove or demonstrate the reality. Some religions claim that such knowledge can be revealed. But these claims, and the "evidence" put forward, only serve to bolster belief, and do not further knowledge about god.

Most theists claim to believe in god. This is how some people define faith - belief without knowledge.

Atheists also have no knowledge of god. If they know what they're talking about, atheists claim not to believe in god either and they do not take a "leap of faith". Such atheists understand that one day god might be known by them, but until that time, we have no real knowledge, only belief.

The a/theism debate is about what people believe, and why to believe it - it not about knowledge. Again, some people claim knowledge, but it is not verifiable in a satisfactory way - if it were, there would be no atheists.

Many religious believers consider their belief in god to be the truth (or closest to the truth) because of the "knowledge" of god they have aquired through revealed texts, long-standing traditions, and the revelations and miracles of other believers. This is why believers make knowledge claims about god e.g. God is love, Allah is great, etc.

However, these knowledge claims are really matters of belief - the theist believes they just saw the Virgin Mary, the theist believes Mohammed wrote the Koran, etc. These beliefs often inform the theology, and this theology is where the claims to knowledge come from. Theists "know" god because the Virgin Mary said some things about him. Theists "know" god because his word was written down as the Koran.

Scientists like Kepler and Newton believed that their discoveries in mathematics and geomatry was the very same knowledge that was in the mind of god: in this way they could "know" god. But this is not knowledge of god, this is knowledge of maths, or the Torah, or of "revelatory" events. It is belief which leads theists to think that they know god when they merely know a human artifact, event, or concept.

Knowledge of god is thus a circular affair, founded on beliefs. If you accept the reason of this argument, then you will see that the a/theism debate is one of beliefs and not knowledge.