equality

January 28, 2013

The Comfort of Homogenous Conditioning

“Abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor survives it. Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory – precession of simulacra – it is the map that engenders the territory and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map. It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges subsist here and there, in the deserts which are no longer those of the Empire, but our own. The desert of the real itself.” ~Baudrillard, “The Precession of Simulucra”, Simulucra and Simulation

Whatever_Happened_To_Baby_Jane_Doug_Bowman_flickrYou see, sameness works as a colloquial ideology, is synonymous to equality and fairness, and is upon which justice, comradery and companionship can be served. Upon which social roles/egos are constructed and adhered to, upon which identities are built and held dear. This is why uniqueness is wanting in the machine. Uniqueness means no more equal protection under the law, it means justice is not balanced, it means partners are not equal and the institution of marriage does not mean union. It means there is hatred in love and evil in good. Suddenly, things become very muddy. A system cannot function properly under true individuality as it cannot accommodate it. It can only pervert so that it resembles homogeneity closely enough that it can be assimilated, else the whole system grinds to a halt, and it falls apart.

Cyborg_Rising_Alain_Godineau_flickrA system has slots; a machine, gears. Moving parts, and all the moving parts have names and all the names must be true. No question for question brings pause, and in pause, there is no motion. When there is pause (or in another essay under another name could be called quiet when contrasted with the need, the compulsion for constant noise however stimulated and however delivered from the source) comes moments of breakdown. The machine if not perpetually moving (remember that motion is homogeneity) then decay begins immediately. That is to say the persistence of anti-homogeneity is a desperate will to self (the machine and its body of Worker Bs as self) preservation, elsewise death, a kind of nervous breakdown occurs, where a hold on a reality cannot be certain. Homogeneity and sameness promise known’s and certainty’s, easy living without mucking up the brain too much with incongruities.

For why do most people (the Worker Bs) abhor any who does not subscribe to their specific attributes or beliefs? Or perhaps why one is arrested if one’s house does not meet code, despite its obvious safety. Or perhaps why one is not served if one is not the same nationality with the same national beliefs. Who cares the similarities, who cares the original sources and how that applies to many so-called beliefs? Who cares the obvious evidence of certain delusions?

You see, ultimately, homogenous conditioning is comfortable. It’s easyPix_Jockey_3000_Roberto_Rizzato_flickr to comprehend. The questions do not run too deep.  The answers flow from the tongue in simple terms. Friendships are safe, and relationships pure and honest. The machine includes a contradiction, however. That of competition. In competition, there must be by definition a winner and a loser. Someone must be the better. Fret not, this is easily circumvented. The competition has rules, which all parties must follow, so that no one person has an advantage. Everyone comes from equal footing. Therefore, the win is a fair one. Again, homogeneity: fairness equality. I mean, it’s why cheating is not allowed. That is not a fair game. Sure; you can win by your own skill or merit, but you’ve got to be fair. You’re not allowed to profit, to gain an advantage from that skill or merit. That’s just not good sportsmanship.

Change is not good sportsmanship. Change means new rules and new rules mean old rules may no longer apply. Change means discomfort and grumbling ensues. No one likes to be inconvenienced, not in this age of [immediate] convenience. I mean, it is just a matter of people  not wanting to be disturbed? Or maybe it’s a subtle form of ‘Don’t tread on me’? Or maybe it’s the Peter Principle in full effect?

Cyborg_2.0_JD_Hancock_flickrI think it’s because of the nursery rhyme, Humpty Dumpty. People are afraid of the Great Fall (read: lose their identity) and they won’t be able to pull themselves back together again if things aren’t always and shall stay the same, in a world where every body is equal. I mean, traditional therapy is the idea that the self will be reconstituted. Conventional depression as the idea that the self (the connection to the machine and its comfortable [womb] homogenous conditioning) is in desperate need of rebuilding. To be resurrected as correct, to belong again to the popular consciousness, to be plugged back in. The self needs to be told that it does belong in the world (of homogeneity) and the world (the machine) accepts it. The self is approved above all reproach. An electronic baptism, clean in the eyes of god (god as the wholly machine). Righteousness appealed and delivered good. Sin-free, absolved of all sin and error.

Bureaucracy—an arm of the machine—includes this absolution. Cyborg_Madonna_Ian_FlickrWorker Bs are protected by the anonymity employed in the machine. Worker B is but a faceless, supposedly pleasant voice located miles away from the point of wrong (the actual error/problem in need of remedy). A general name as common as a raindrop. Total disconnect, neutral, neither friend nor foe. Worse than an adversary. What use is reason under such circumstances? There can be only might (read: smite from the apostle [AKA the boss] to find salvation).

A Worker B is only ‘WORKER B’, one of the many, a body corporate. A member of the corporation (read: corporeal; a pseudo-person, god’s image). Worker B only has meaning when understood as the corporation (another layer of inception. Do you see how I mean inception of the machine? Layers upon layers of cognitive engineering; a multi-dimensional, complex construct that exists only in abstraction, so doesn’t really exist at all, merely realized by the mind).

*Image credits (all work used under CC license)–
“Whatever Happened To Baby Jane” by Doug Bowman

“Cyborg Rising” by Alain Godineau

“Pix Jockey 3000” by Roberto Rizzato

“Cyborg 2.0” by JD Hancock

“Cyborg Madonna” by Ian

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November 20, 2012

Time To Pretend

“All the great empires of the future will be empires of the mind.” ~Winston Churchill

What I mean by hard-wiring caused by years and generations of socialization is that genetically humans are now predisposed to suffering. Suffering, in the social environment, has become normalized, and anyone who should deviate too far from this standard is considered “crazy” or abnormal.

Now, before I continue, let us come to an agreement about what constitutes suffering? Not a definition of suffering but what can be called suffering in the human condition (as we exist in a societal environment). In what form does suffering come? Suffering can be called an intangible state of being, that is, one’s being exists in a state of suffering. Suffering, once had a definite and easily determined cause, i.e., racism (but let us not veer off into efforts of indoctrination or further observations at this movement through sociology’s eyes just yet), womanizing, immigration (and by immigration, I mean, in the early days of Europeans arriving in America and their efforts at rising out of poverty), etc. [NOTE: I purposefully chose social movements, that is large acts of deliberate oppression enacted upon other groups of humans by other humans within a society. I could not go to an indigenous culture for several reasons, but mainly, because I don’t consider myself well-versed enough in indigenous culture to do so and I think much of human suffering that we are talking about stems from western culture and western society constructs. Further note: I am looking at human suffering solely from an anthropological perspective]. Okay, these kinds of mass suffering no longer effects western society as deeply, save only in a mass destructive way, i.e. Hurricane Sandy, and human suffering suddenly comes to the forefront.

Sociology says that natural disasters are usually the times in which human beings will come together and forget about all the differences that the day before loomed so important as to cause neighbor to fight with neighbor and realize that “We are all human beings” that we bleed the same blood, etc. etc. Well, why is that? Why is it that humans only understand suffering following a natural disaster (there is a whole other element about this that disturbs me when I think upon it. In what I have been reading of late (anthropology, molecular biology, organic chemistry, which are naturally intermarried and naturally lead to consciousness) it seems as if humans do not unite because suddenly they caught a glimpse of what is really important, but out of fear and a unity in loss. Everybody understands loss)? It is as if humans require a disaster, some cataclysmic event, in order to set aside our petty differences. I think this is part of the reason why these unified acts of kindness are only temporary. Once enough time has passed, or that the event is forgotten or that some other kind of remedy has occurred, that time of bonding falls away, and we return to our “normally” suffering selves. This is a fundamental problem, I think.

I reason that there must be some deeper cause for humans’ [current] inability to understand human suffering or the suffering of others. I mean, if you believe in Kohlberg’s scale of Moral Development, there is more than one dimension, more than one scale of existence, and some humans exist on different scales. We are not all equal, in other words. Now, here is an element of reality that some are reluctant to discuss or even entertain the notion that it is true. We are not all equal. Equality can only be an extrinsic quality offered to humans in society; meaning, equal protection from police, equal representation in court, equal opportunity at law, you know, this kind of philosophy. However, it is not true biologically, psychologically, physiologically, culturally, or genetically, you know? I think we don’t fully understand this, as humans. There is a distinction in some things. It is only so on a certain level. It’s like humans try to create a unified theory of everything in everything. This would create a homogenous existence, what could be learnt from this? What use is a homogenous existence? That would be like playing the game not to lose. Risk is not necessarily a negating property, nor is chance, and I think that playing the game not to lose is to surrender risk and chance.

But, don’t get me wrong, I acknowledge that there is potential and probability that the world can be different. I think fear is a powerful obstacle. But, this too, will end. As in chaos theory and entropy, randomness slows down to order, and order slowly breaks down [entropy] and then transforms to something else, some other unrecognized pattern (what we then call chaos). We, as a race of humans, are learning that the once archetypal ways of living are outdated and obsolete. We are realizing that the acts we have and are committing upon ourselves, upon our consciences, upon our environment, upon the planet; we are now comprehending that every act has an equal and [sometimes] opposite reaction. We are learning to love what we are and then live that way. The times are changing and the time to pretend ends like a clock slowly winding down until it stops on high noon.

*Digital Art by Jeanne Masar.

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