Difference between revisions of "Black Mass, Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia"

Revision as of 04:06, 7 June 2010

(This page is still under construction.)

This recent book by John Gray, another bestseller, works like a washing machine for contemporary belief systems, superstition and political convictions. Readers of this book should be prepared to see many of their cherished beliefs turned into shreds and to perhaps see their purpose in life and their sense of determination evaporate in thin air. Basic concepts in our culture and our political systems are being subjected here to occams razor and to the sobering effects of objective reason and realism.

Gray's discourse should be obligatory reading for politicians and leaders in government. That would help prevent much of the delusions and misguidance that keep making humanity suffer from the hands of their leaders.

Below we add a short selection of Gray's texts, showing in a nutshell what he is trying to convey in this book. Subsequently we will point out where, in our case, we differ from Gray's point of view and what we would like to add to his story in order to make the picture more complete and understandable.

Sobriety and realism as an antidote to systems of superstition and to traditional flaws in politics and culture

(quotes from Gray)

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(***** t/m pagina 280 ****)

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Laws of evolution; blind selection pressures precluding lasting harmony in human relations

(Comments on Gray's "Black Mass")

Gray stresses in his books that struggle and strife apparently are indispensable ingredients of human society and that social dilemma's are an innate part of human political life.

Since Homo sapiens is also a primate species, be it an intelligent one, stemming forth and being part of evolution, we can never escape from the basic characteristics of evolution in operation. Some scholar from the past once said that "civilization is a conspiracy against evolution" and that remark is quite on target. The more "ideal" a society is organized and the more "just" and "fair" to its members it operates, and the more peaceful it happens to be, the more selective forces within such a society have been suspended. One does not need to be a professor in population genetics to understand that such a situation is inherently unstable, leading to genetic pollution and eventual collapse of the "just and fair" society itself, rendering its members again to the raw and uncontrolled powers of natural selection and competition.

Selection pressures and competition unavoidably produce conflict and stress on the personal level, but the same holds for larger groups of people and the power structures ruling human life. Also on the level of large organizations and political structures the same considerations of evolutionary rules and requirements apply. Elsewhere on this Wiki (refer to .....) it is pointed out that in our species power structures on the level of meme-sets have taken over the lead in our evolution since some 10.000 years. That implies that Homo sapiens since that time is saddled with strife and conflict to the second power. Not only are we subject to the primordial competition and selection forces on the DNA level, but as organized groups we are also subject to mechanisms of competition and struggle on the level of groups and large organizations, of which human individuals are members.

And on top of all that there is a built in permanent friction between the selection demands on the DNA, the Gene level end the selection demands on the Meme level. These two evolutionary processes operating at different speed, being subject to these two evolutionary processes at the same time, renders us humans as being torn between conflicting demands of the two different non-synchronous evolutionary processes. So, yes, we cannot but agree fully with Gray, stating that humanity is convicted to live with insoluble dilemmas and conflicts.

Only more insight and understanding, sobriety and courage can help us to acquire some tools enabling us to make rational choices that will improve our chances for survival.

Point Omega: apocalyptic fantasy or realistic perspective ?

This Wiki is about arguments for the assumption that humanity will at some time in the future, presumably not so far away, move through another qualitative shift in its existence, to be labeled as Point Omega, using the phraseology of Teilhard de Chardin. Reading Gray, we have reasons to scrutinize these ideas, because they are an example of apocalyptic thinking par excellence.

This Wiki brings forward arguments (***** refer to ****) about the why of the strong human propensity for teleological thinking and thus for all important changes happening in the future, for apocalyptic "stories' as laid down in the traditions of our large religions. Because Homo sapiens is "artificially" brought into telic dominant states by the power structures ruling our lives nowadays, there is an artificially pumped up desire and need for such apocalyptic stories to believe in. That way this Wiki presents additional arguments why Gray's observations are quite adequate and correct and how this typical human propensity for believing in stupid, simplistic apocalyptic religious and/or political stories has come about.

On the other hand, this Wiki also presents arguments (***** refer to ****) why the human behavioural repertoire contains possibilities for social group life that are quite at variance with anything we are familiar with today. It is argued that the (evolutionary) mechanisms that keep the present power structures and the concomitant human misery in place, are becoming quickly more unstable, simply because of technological developments that cannot be turned back. It is argued that once intelligence "breaks through" and starts understanding itself, once Homo sapiens understands the rules and laws of the evolution of intelligence and thus the core of its own existence, the break down of a host of cultural mechanisms that keep human beings artificially in states of neurosis and stupidity, in states of blinded slavery, will crumble down and release an unheard of intelligent and creative potential that has been laying dormant in human societies for many millennia.

These are two reasons to watch our steps carefully and to think over all arguments pro and con at least twice.

Science and/or religion; lessons for politics

(quotes from Gray)

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(******** t/m pagina 294 ********).......................................

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The role of religion in contemporary society

(Comments on Gray's "Black Mass")

Gray makes an important point here, which is that the human species has a very strong inborn need for religion. In western societies, in our cultures in The West, he says, religion is special in the sense that it competes with science in claiming to be rational, causing a continuous current of conflicts between science and religion, or rather between religion and rationality. Supposedly, this tendency to generate conflicting meme sets is less strong or almost absent in the East. In his view it is of the utmost importance that humanity, and in particular western societies, start recognizing religion for what it is, meme sets that fulfill the needs of human beings that cannot be satisfied by rational scientific thinking, by any rational information generated by scientific methodology. Being fully understood by its carriers, religion will thus be stopped from screwing up politics and other high level management of human societies, without needing to be abolished. It then can keep fulfilling its goals harmlessly, without endangering humanity's potential to survive.

As can be underpinned elsewhere on this Wiki (refer to .....), we are of a slightly different opinion. We do agree fully with Gray that the way religion has been and still is used in Christianity, in Judaism and in Islam, has become such a grave danger for humanity that it threatens our very survival. The uncontrolled proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is becoming lethal in combination with political systems that are vulnerable to religious irrationalities. However, we do not agree with the idea that the need for religion is such a strongly innate human basic drive. It is in our view indeed a strong human drive in our days, as it has been already for thousands of years, but a better understanding of the present day human psychological condition, as compared to what are the innate possibilities of the human species, can explain how religious behaviour, and the drives and needs behind it, are to a large extent the result of telic overdominance (refer to .....), which, as is shown on this Wiki (refer to ......), does not need to last forever . Telic dominance destroys the capacity to play, the capacity to explore, the capacity to learn at an optimal pace. Telic dominance saddles people with an unstoppable urge to find "goals", to grab any clues available that can provide some purpose for one's activities. A typically telic attitude is to settle for the time being for "sufficiency-oriented" models and solutions of reality (refer to .........). Normally, such emergency triggered short term solutions for producing models of the situation(s) will in due time, subsequently, be integrated further with other short term sufficiency-oriented models and concepts, and will eventually be replaced by more concise "necessity-oriented" models of reality, models that are more efficient and can better survive later bouts of further exploration and challenge. Telic (over)dominance strongly blocks the production of necessity oriented models of reality and also blocks the full natural tendency for curiosity and psychological growth towards maturity. Telic dominance thus enhances superstition at all levels, combined with a seeming greed for explanatory "stories", no matter how stupid and shortsighted they may seem from an intellectual point of view.

On this Wiki (refer to .....) it is argued that the present day overdominance of telic states, together with the resulting high levels of mass neuroticism and reduced intelligence, is the unavoidable but transitory result of the specific evolutionary phase humanity is in. Some millions of years ago our hominid ancestors rather suddenly developed a higher level of intelligence and of speach and communication capacities. This only could occurr after some trick had been acquired which was quite novel in evolution, namely a peculiar, but highly effective block on self awareness, preventing intelligence to be utilized fully on issues regarding the own behaviour and the behaviour of group members. This was necessary to prevent intelligence from reducing fertility, necessary to prevent proximate causes of behaviour to interfere with ultimate reasons for behaviour, because the latter would render a too high intelligence level as self defeating. Only the evolutionary trick of Self Blindness could render higher levels of intelligence an ESS (evolutionarily stable strategy).

Then, after having developed over a couple of millions of years an ever higher level of intelligence, combined with ever more efficient levels of Self Blindness, the agricultural revolution set in. That agricultural revolution triggered a strongly increasing evolutionary pressure on the development of ever more sophisticated organizational structures, meme sets giving large groups of people an evolutionary edge over competitors. Since the evolution of meme sets in principle runs much faster than does the old fashioned DNA based physical evolution, the meme level evolution soon took over the lead from the gene level evolution in the Human species. This striking difference in speed causes a friction in the Human species between its genetically programmed "natural" needs and urges on the one hand and the requirements of the ruling meme level power structures on the other hand.

Power structures are served best with human beings capable of serving well the impersonal requirements and needs of such power structures themselves, also where that is conflicting with the old natural needs and urges. One trick of power structures to achieve such goals is to render the human carriers of such power structure neurotic. Neuroticism may reduce the useful behavioural output of persons, but on the other hand strongly increases possibilities to monitor, control and direct their behaviour to the advantage of the power structure in question. So Homo sapiens ended up in a situation where in the more "civilized" and powerful parts of the world neurotic states and truncated behaviour became the norm rather than the exception. The already inborn propensity of Human beings to be blind for their own and each others behaviour, feelings and motivations, of course was of great advantage to the powers structure's neuroticizing devices. Organized religion is one of such device, keeping huge masses of people bound in irrational but effective states of ignorance and slavery. As is shown elsewhere on this Wiki (refer to .....) such types of mass religion are only possible, are only stable as long as telic overdominance and neuroticism are being maintained. As soon as more healthy levels of telic / paratelic balance and personal growth set in again, people tend to escape from the blinding clusters of organized religion. Such individuals may, almost automatically, then produce high levels of intelligence and creative output, but they are lost for serving the blind pushing power of the power structures they happen to live in. Therefore it is no surprise that the most successful power structures are best versed in suppressing personal development and health.

Since large and successful organized religions only can survive in large power structures, they must serve those power structures well and therefore they must, by definition, help keeping their carriers silly and malleable and subordinate to the power structure's impersonal needs. So, by definition again, large organized religions always bring their believers almost exactly the opposite of what they pretend to give, namely spiritual growth and awareness and happiness. On the contrary, they should, in order to be successful, keep their carriers as dumb as possible, as confused as possible, and as insecure as possible, otherwise the power structure they live in would crumble down, ending also the religion in question. The needs of a successful symbiosis between religions and power structures is therefore clear.

Point Omega, another delusive apocalyptic "story", or based on sober scientific assessment ?

The notion of a Point Omega being at hand shortly in human history would fit seemingly seamlessly in the usual apocalyptic world views of which type of meme sets Gray eloquently lays bare the irrational roots. However, we are of the opinion that on this Wiki it is argued successfully that scientific data are available, suggesting that humanity is indeed at the brink of another qualitative shift in cognitive and social behaviour, equaling the importance of the agricultural revolution, but - rather suddenly - occurring at a very much higher speed. If our point of view is correct and can survive Gray's scrutiny, it also implies that humanity, swapping from a state of telic overdominance to a - natural - state of telic / paratelic balance, will lose its hang for superstitious beliefs, simply because the paratelic state does not produce such an all overriding need for simple but comprehensive "stories" to explain it all. Paratelic states produce curiosity instead and even a liking for uncertainties. A healthy rhythm of telic and paratelic alternations, as mother nature meant us to function, will subsequently produce more "necessity oriented" models of reality, replacing and rendering an overflow of superfluous rough and ready "sufficiency-oriented" models of reality. Few "necessity-oriented" models can replace very many "sufficiency-oriented" models, rendering a far more reliable and far more efficient overall model of the world. Religion and other superstitious belief systems will then automatically disappear through atrophy and just survive for a limited period of time in the less important corners of the human world, without posing grave dangers to us all and without making a rational approach to governing practically impossible, as is nowadays still the case as Gray very eloquently illustrates in his book.

In the last pages of his book Gray mentions: "The chief intellectual obstacle to coexistence among religions is a lack not of mutual understanding, but of self-knowledge." We fully agree with that statement. It was argued above that already from the time the hominids expanded as hunter gatherers on the African plains and intelligence started to reach higher levels, a specific block was built into our genes, making it very difficult for us to regard our own and each other's behaviour, a characteristic we labeled as "Self-Blindness". This very specific evolutionary "invention" made it possible that intelligence exploded in the case of one of the hominids, producing one strand called Homo sapiens. Self-knowledge is therefore not easy to achieve for human beings, but the theory behind the Point Omega idea points out that the disappearance of telic overdominance will improve the spreading of more rationality, even in thinking about ourselves and each other. "Necessity-oriented" models will automatically get the upper hand, to the extent that superstition and other "sufficiency-oriented" simplistic ideas will sink back to the level of local folklore. In our view Gray's admonition will thus come true, were it that the religions themselves will stop playing a major role in human history. They will eventually be regarded as unfortunate, but at that time unavoidable, human characteristics from a past era.

Time will tell whether the ideas as presented and discussed on this Wiki are valid or that the notion of a Point Omega coming soon is just another of the apocalyptic delusions Gray describes so eloquently.