Insanity of our culture

The level of insanity of our own culture can be somehow demonstrated based on the acceptance of insanity of other cultures. By ‘our’ culture I mean Western, secular, liberal culture which grew up thanks to enlightenment, science, industrial revolution, ancient Greeks, etc. Western culture should be rightfully considered the most advanced on this planet so far (unless unlikely of course, a theory about an ancient, more advanced civilisation would turn out to be true).

By insanity of other cultures I understand practices which are against universal human rights, such as honour killings, genital mutilation and other unacceptable customs. Some of those practices were wiped out due to influence of the West – for example sati (immolation of widowed women in India), cannibalism, human sacrifices, etc. But some questionable practices still exist and for some reasons – even in the Western countries – for example some elements of Islamic Sharia law which discriminates women.

Insanity of Western culture can be also somehow determined based on its own self-despise and confusion in issues like: multiculturalism, what are universal values and what we stand for? And of course, there are reasons for that.

MG

Truth

The main point I want to make here is that the truth is not always the most important thing. In fact people often pretend that something is true (e.g. Santa Clause) in order to do good things for bad or untrue reasons. It comes to my mind the quote from Terry Pratchett’s “Hogfather”. By the way, it is amazing how many deep ideas found their place in this short peace of text:

“Death: Humans need fantasy to *be* human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?
Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
Susan: So we can believe the big ones?
Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
Susan: They're not the same at all.
Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.
Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?
Death: You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?”

We have here the problem of truth and fantasy, what it means to be a human, evolution, a metaphor from the Bible, moral duties, the role of beliefs and some physics.

Usually, people try to confirm their experience with their convictions they hold dear as long as they can, but sometimes changes in their lives force them to changes in their belief systems. When looking for the truth we may find different answers than we were looking for. After all, truth is a dangerous thing.

Open minded

People get infected by ideas simply because our brains are pattern-seeking devices. We always try to link the dots and fill gaps – even if we cannot. We also seek control and order – that’s why we categorise things. In an attempt to have influence over things and processes we didn’t understand we created magic. In order to feels safe we invented religion.  In order to understand and submit the world around us we developed science. To express ourselves we often use art.

These days we use technology in more ways and to larger extend than we have done ever before.  Although modern technological progress was a direct result of scientific discoveries many of us still lives in more or less superstitious paradigms. Apparently, old habits die hard but the next tests for our species lie ahead: how to accommodate and feed the growing number of people? What about climate changes? How dissolve social inequalities and injustice throughout the world? The world is bound to change within the next 50 – 100 years more than it had changed in any analogical period in the past. We simply cannot go further sticking to old ideas and old worldviews. To be open-minded is a good start. But then, children’s minds are open as well – and what we do? We allow them to get infected and brainwashed by old memes, old ideas.

MG

Why nothing matters (nothing)

Why do you think something matters? After all, it is just your personal opinion. It may mean perfectly nothing to other people, nothing at all. An occurrence of something appearing to be meaningful to you is simply a manifestation of your own imagination, a reflection of your own mind. Mind, which does not exist per se; your mind which gives you a false sense of self which derives from all the evolutionary steps which led to Homo sapiens and from all the social programming you have been submitted since your birthday. You cannot even control it. You are so often lost in the narrative of your thoughts. Is not you who thinks them, it is your mind. When you go sleep you switch off your consciousness and you lose all the control you have thought to have; after awakening you hardly even remember your dreams. Something called “you” simply does not exist beyond temporary and fugitive moments.  In a sense, you are an illusion and equally illusionary your thoughts are and nothing matters. 

On the other hand, that sense of you is truly unique; it is all you have got and all you can experience in this very moment. You can make it wonderful, you can make it miserable – after all, it appears you have some choice – at least it is healthier to think in that way – so make your experience meaningful because you matter and what you think matter as well. After all, everything matters.

MG

Paradox

Human race try to preserve its sense of existence through myths, beliefs, religions and ideologies. Whole societies and their particular members give themselves identities through holding various ideas, various beliefs.  Since the dawn of humanity people tell themselves stories about spirits, immortal soul, about going to heaven after death. All of that in order to gain identity, to gain meaning, to preserve sense of existence, to deny death. And yet the same ideas, the same memes often prompt violence and bring death. And that is a paradox

MG

Three ways of understanding the world

In order to survive we humans had to create models explaining world around us and we have at least three ways of doing it:

• Through beliefs - creating mythical explanations, something to believe in without logical and critical thinking – for example various myths, legends, prophecies, religions and faiths
• Through paradigms, philosophy, analogy to things that exist; an attempt to create a plausible explanation how things might be working through some sort of rather logical thinking, sometimes clearly providing models which seems to be not provable experimentally or cannot be called science and which may be an expression of some sort of convictions or assumptions about the reality through the prism of existing culture – for example in the past mechanistic paradigm of the universe, or more recent concept of Spiral Dynamics which gives some sort of roadmap to humankind development.
• Through science, through scientific method – where concepts are scrutinised and facts needs to be proven scientifically; the highest achievement which have changed the world we are living in.

MG

What kind of map do you have?

A map is essential for travelling as a visual representation of the area we travel. In life paradigms serve as maps. Paradigms are models of reality. These are what we think, imagine and believe about the world, the life and ourselves. Our beliefs about the world don’t mean the reality itself. Alfred Korzybski stated: “the map is not the territory". Similarly, an oil painting depicting the landscape is not the landscape itself. It is the representation and an artist’s individual interpretation of the real landscape. All of us are such artists when we paint with brushes and colours of our minds the world around us.

Firstly, we perceive through our senses only a portion of reality. Some species such as dolphins and bats have different senses not available to us, and we do not see in infrared of ultraviolet light. Secondly, only a small percentage of the information reaching our brain reaches our Consciousness. It can be compared to illuminating the surface of the water with a reflector. A bright spot of light slides the surface of the water. The water seems to be a lake or a river but in fact it is an ocean. And there is no way to tell what is under surface of the water or where is the nearest beach. In a sense each of us is a drop of water which reflects the universe. Senses are in fact extensions of the brain. Technically speaking, eyes do not see but the brain “sees” (interprets) through the electrochemical impulses reaching the brain. Information that comes to the brain is filtered and interpreted for example through the prism of personal filters, experiences, preferences, etc. Going deeper into that, we could discuss the nature of reality, quantum physics and interesting philosophical questions. It is worth remembering when we try to answer questions such as: What is the world, who we are and where are we going? What does it mean to be a human?

I think the questions are more important than the answers. The questions channel our minds and our thinking. The questions remain mostly the same but the answers tend to change along our development.

Over the centuries humanity has reached thousands of unique worldviews. Every ever existing society tried to find their answers to the above questions. That wealth of humanity can help us better understand life and ourselves. Ken Wilber, the creator and propagator of the integral theory of everything, put it like this: “all views have a degree of truth” because “no human mind can be 100% wrong. Or, we might say, nobody is smart enough to be wrong all the time”. At the same time nobody has the monopoly for the truth. All worldviews turning what they really are – ways of thinking, models of reality, paradigms – into undisputable truths, dogmas – are harmful. Dogma – the term not restricted to religion – deceives, deludes, impoverishes, restricts Dogmatic attitude regardless of the subject is an open demonstration of delusional conviction: “I know better because I know the truth, all other people are wrong and I am not going to listen to them. “

What is behind such a dogmatic attitude? The mentality of “Us and Them”; dichotomy good-evil, black-white; mentality of “besieged fortress”; the ongoing effort to “fight for the faith” or for the ideology; ideas of self-sacrifice and martyrdom; complete confidence in the superior authority and its representatives, fear of committing thought crimes; defensive attitude against other views or lifestyles regarded as wrong, sinful, dangerous, etc. The world is a stage on which the conflict takes place between good and evil. Of course, that’s just a one version of manifesting human Ego.

It is often necessary to take a step back from the painting to see the whole. A piece of jigsaw puzzle says very little about the whole picture. Being limited to just a one worldview is like fixation on a simple element of the puzzle. Broader perspective on human development is proposed by theory called Spiral Dynamics. It applies to both individuals and societies and it is associated with people as Clare W. Graves, Don Beck, Chris Covan, Ken Wilber. Spiral Dynamics is a very plausible model which uses colours: Beige, Purple, Red, Blue, Orange, Green, Yellow, and Turquoise for different stages.

The dogmatic attitude mentioned earlier is characteristic for Blue. Above the Blue there are further four phases’ developments of consciousness which are also psychological structures, value systems and ways of adaptation in different spheres of live.

Field of knowledge called memetics is another interesting way of thinking about culture. For memetics the central concept are memes – units of cultural information. Just as there are genes in genetics (biology) so there are memes in memetics (culture). “Virus of the Mind” is the revealing title of Richard’s Brodie book. Memes are mind viruses which compete with each other in our minds. Examples of highly contagious memes are fashions and religions.

Assimilation of new points of view is beneficial because it allows to better understand the world and ourselves. With new ideas we can create new and better maps of the world. Oliver Wendell Holmes put it like this: “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”

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