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Faltering steps are now trying to address the worst excesses of the rather reckless ways in which we humans exploit both the environment and one another. Whether we consider the damage done to the surface of the planet, or the millions murdered with our advanced killing systems, there has long been an acknowledgment that such activities would ideally be reined in – if only to mitigate the fears they perpetuate.
In terms of causality, ideas about how to address such matters often seem to mistake symptoms for causes. For example, the idea that new so-called green technologies can stop our species from ruining the planet is arguably just naïve wishful thinking that overlooks how and why we got here in the first place. Although it may be possible to modify technological activity whilst simultaneously reducing the consequential damage to the biosphere, such dubiously named sustainable development fails to address the real issue by ignoring the wider evolutionary perspective. Consequently, culture neither understands nor addresses how dangerously powerful the modern human mind has become, nor how blind it can be as regards the full ramifications of such power. The rapacious human demand for energy to power our modern glut of industries is arguably just one effect of a runaway obsession with the underlying power of abstract thought. If seen as such, the real challenge is surely not just to feed that obsession in less harmful manners.
In overlooking such issues, we only perpetuate a distracting and deceptive externalization of matters. Everything from capitalism to carbon dioxide, or from population growth to propaganda is blamed, whilst people generally accept little or no direct personal responsibility. This position is doomed to hold us back by effectively denying the need to self-examine and recognize that it is ultimately our own real-world actions that create whatever fixable problems we face. Truly meaningful change in all such matters can be seen as logically impossible without personal change, whereas continually externalizing matters is arguably just being disingenuous about this awkward truth.
Addressing the real issues must address the mind’s hitherto failure to understand that abstract knowledge, in terms of our overall evolution, is a frighteningly sharp and double-edged knife. For better or worse, we have developed tremendously lethal powers over many aspects of a world that otherwise sustains us.
Merely preventing ecological disaster alone serves no meaningful long-term purpose if future development continues its predatory mindset of technologically enforced dominion over the less able, the disenfranchised, and the wider environment. How can voracious greed coexist with an ecologically sane outlook? Any pretension that this is possible could surely only exist within some even bigger and more ugly state of the oppressive hypocrisy that already mars so much human history. Absent some real behavior-changing awareness of our own role in creating environmental problems, we seem doomed to perpetuate them until such times as global warfare or some other technological folly makes matters even worse – or leaves us extinct. The huge irony of a species simultaneously imagining it is saving the planet whilst actively destroying it and arming itself for its own global destruction is as comical as it is tragic. One could even believe evolution to have a black sense of humor.
The recent cultural awakening to the ecological damage we wreak is nonetheless a potential turning point. The collapsing biosphere appears an inevitable outcome of a sort of collective techno-industrial madness that must be surpassed if it is not to destroy us in huge numbers. Toxic environments have already started a deleterious process for many species – humans included. Hence, our unique form of environmental exploitation seems likely to prove increasingly self-defeating in the absence of some readjustment regarding how we view ourselves in the overall scheme of things. We can now reason why consuming resources as if there is no tomorrow is exactly the means by which we ensure there will indeed be no tomorrow. But such reasoning is not yet wired up to any generalized cultural realization.
Can any philosophical, social or political doctrines be taken seriously if they ignore that our house is on fire and we are actively fueling the growing inferno? Can faith be put in ideas that fail to address why such logically-obvious madness appears so intractable within human affairs? Oddly, the answer to these questions appears to be yes for the time being – arguably a sign of just how divorced from certain aspects of reality human culture has become. Amidst a near total failure to reflect critically on the evolutionary curiosities underlying human technological development, many continue to align themselves with metaphysical and political doctrines consisting mostly of power-seeking dogmas designed to create a false idea that things are somehow under control – even as they so evidently are not.
The situation seems to be that we either address matters urgently from within new thought paradigms, or we unwittingly demonstrate that the significant evolutionary phenomenon of human technology ultimately amounts to nothing more than a spectacular slow-motion jump off an existential cliff.
If we are effectively a species in denial, this is only to be expected given we barely recognize that which we deny. Arguably, we refuse to even contemplate the obvious – exactly because it is so monstrous. Deployed technology, in spite of all its harmful global fallout, is regarded as so central to some beneficial human trajectory that it is culturally cocooned against any generalized interrogation of its net value – especially its downsides. Hence, ecological problems are framed as being mere side-effects of specific technologies within the supposedly beneficial process of progress. There is no body of thought imagining that just maybe, as the only species actively pushing technological development – and pushing it flat out – we might be doing something far less innocuous than we generally imagine.
Based on crude cause-and-effect thinking, the accepted view seems to be that ecological damage is an effect, and therefore one or more causes need to be identified and addressed such that problems be resolved. The prominent example of this is of course the idea that climate change is at least partly caused by burning fossil fuels, and so not burning fossil fuels should help sort climate change. But on close examination, this turns out to be a rather banal if not stupid approach on a few fronts – regardless of one’s position on so-called greenhouse gases being responsible for climate change.
Fossil fuels do not burn themselves; human intent is required. Therefore, a tacit denial of the role played by human intent in this matter exists in framing the situation as simply the burning of fossil fuels. And this is not mere semantic pedantry; if such human intent can unwittingly create problems believed by many to threaten our very existence, is it not glib in the extreme to gloss over it? Dare we ask just how much havoc human intent unknowingly invites or is already causing, plus what might be involved in properly addressing its reckless lack of foresight? Or are we to continue with an unquestioning faith in the religion of science as our solution-provider? Are we to roll out yet more technology as if merely acknowledging yesterday’s mistakes somehow makes today’s impossible? Logic would in fact say that if human intent caused yesterday’s mistakes and remains unaddressed, more mistakes are only to be expected.
Faith, stupidity and self-interest
Considering science has been heavily involved in many technologies directly responsible for a plethora of environmental problems – many of which were never foreseen by the science involved – is it not a bit rich to be told that, for example, genetically modified organisms are safe and beneficial, before they even have a meaningful track record? Their supposed benefits have nonetheless been heavily promoted, even though they are already associated with significant and unforeseen biological, social and even economic problems.
Is there not a common factor in the cultural promotion of such new technologies and the general down-playing of problems associated with existing ones? Once recognized, the link is perfectly explicable.
Most new technologies embody major commercial opportunities, whilst existing technologies represent well-established money-earners – typically deployed with little or no concern over potentially impoverishing or damaging the natural world. The fact that negative side-effects of new technologies tend to be dismissively brushed aside until they eventually manifest themselves – often in unavoidably problematic ways – reflects an inherent commercial bias against impartial appraisal of such matters. Businesses, after all, are about making money.
Of course, some negative side-effects can manifest themselves in wholly unexpected manners, and others may exist but go wholly undetected for decades – or remain obscure indefinitely. There is in any case nothing surprising about a proliferation of such problems confronting the first species to toy so extensively with technology; logic dictates that messing about with the environment disrupts the biological conditions for which the evolution of existing species is optimized. It is therefore in our best interests that we at least deploy technology with far more caution than has been seen to date.
However, there appears no intellectual acknowledgment that all industrial technology can be so easily reasoned to be more or less environmentally damaging and that more technology therefore equates to more environmental damage. It can even be argued in this respect that the idea of business-as-usual actively cultivates a negative form of human intellect. Such apparent learned stupidity can be seen as a corruption of impartiality – a dishonesty nurtured through self-interest and indifference regarding broader consequences.
As regards the role of human intent within all this, is it not obvious that the relevant parameters for understanding many such situations are in fact the pursuit of profit margins and performance bonuses, the furthering of careers, and other forms of self-interest? The continuing environmental damage of technological industries can in fact be seen as just a symptom of these more selfish goals. Hence, the endless debates over strictly technological issues only detract from a more fundamental debate about greed and human psychology underlying such problems. As ever, it suits certain parties that problems are framed in terms of the external world, rather than risking a close examination of the motives and actions of those directly involved.
A pernicious aspect of modern scientific culture is its stupidity regarding the utterly central role motivation plays in many of humanity’s troublesome activities. This blindness to our inner drives generally hides behind the supposed need to exclusively follow an objective approach, and to be scientific – even within areas such as psychology: a discipline seriously hobbled by its own refusal to fully and directly address the subjective dimension each one of us experiences minute-by-minute. Thus, it is the politicization of thought itself via an insistence on objectivity that prevents us from taking a deeper look at each other and better understanding our collective predicament.
In this sense, science, if not viewed with due circumspection as a modern constraint on certain forms of knowledge, can stupefy the mind into believing the acquisition of knowledge is only possible via the external world – as opposed to being somewhat attainable through lucid subjective reflection. As a consequence, just the mere suggestion that objectivity might be limited or flawed, and that other forms of knowledge acquisition involving more introspective processes do exist, seems incomprehensible to many. And this is so, even when it is obviously our own minds that internally vet all ideas – regardless of whether they are considered objective or subjective.
Such stupefaction further fuels the unquestioning faith in objectivity, thereby empowering its influence even more within the scientific community and culture in general: something ironically revealed by the vehemence with which so many will deny the blanketing effect it already exerts on their minds. The resultant benefits for charlatans seeking to hide their scheming thoughts are obvious: the overall cultural focus generally fails to examine the subjective machinery by which disingenuous humans enact their duplicity, subterfuge, trickery and deceit.
Throughout history, elitist intellectual positions, whatever their nature and however they were propagated, have been tools for enabling power over the gullible – but only for as long as they could carry an air of justification and fend off critical attacks. Science, with its insistence on objectivity, is no different, other than as regards the sheer extent to which it is culturally beyond question.
In making sense of this idea it should be considered that, more than at any point in history, homo sapiens are both animals-with-technology, and globally-dominant – all whilst individually remaining primarily self-interested within a competitive and threatening world. This is a unique mix unseen anywhere else in nature and therefore requires that we look rather exclusively to ourselves for answers. In so doing, the modern idealization of our unique form of knowledge becomes quite understandable.
With our seemingly all-important technology being encoded in abstract knowledge, one way to gain social advantage is to present oneself as a guardian of such knowledge, whilst simultaneously presenting a world-view wherein the individual is basically an empty vessel: a child in need of being brought into the system. This is the model of social reality tacitly pervading all educational institutions; knowledge is something to be had from others in-the-know, as opposed to derived through one’s own experience. The motivations for such a stance are rather obvious: regardless of the content or quality of any supposed knowledge thereby dispensed, those in the education system can further their careers whilst catering to the expectations of those higher up in society’s overall hierarchy.
Of course, stated so simplistically, such an idea appears crude. Career scientists and academics do not waken in the morning plotting how to trick, deceive and exploit those less well versed in their specialist fields. However, like so many in paid employment, they are well aware of their societal situation in which financial remuneration depends on fulfilling the expectations of their roles. And those roles exist within hierarchically arranged social structures in which directives from above often consist of rating the conformity of those below against accepted procedures, standards and ideas. Thus, such structures effectively control and monitor what becomes accepted as knowledge, even if this is heavily veiled by a façade of formal respectability and the resultant intellectual broad consensus: hard evidence of just how successful the controlling mechanism really is.
The survival of academia within the overall social hierarchy is logically linked to its ability to serve those who wield power. This is very arguably why objectivity and science have become so dominant in our modern world: science as a form of pragmatic knowledge proves tangibly superior to the generally speculative metaphysical ideas of most religions, whilst objectivity’s externalization of all issues creates a highly materialistic vision of the world, such that culture becomes conveniently blind or indifferent to the manner in which calculating minds prey on the naïvety and innocence of others. As the most expedient means of manipulating the external world, objectivity, when taken to extremes, also provides opportunities for manipulating the minds of others.
Postulating a global propensity for all hierarchical structures to gently and almost invisibly enforce their preferred form of conformity can help better understand the current situation in manners no simple cause-and-effect thinking ever could. It is in fact arguable that rigid causal objectivity is so vehemently enforced throughout academia – even in subjects where its usefulness is close to zero – largely because it prevents other forms of more expansive thinking from gaining a foothold. And none of this should be viewed as conspiracy-theory thinking as it does not rely on the participants openly colluding; on the contrary, it details just how diffuse and subtle is the practice of stealth coercion within hierarchical structures.
As part of the overall propensity for power to pull the strings, the cultural presentation of science becomes one in which much scientific knowledge is somewhat esoteric, privatized and commodified, at the same time as anything resembling self-discovery or personal awakening is generally portrayed as rather laughable and fanciful. No obvious social power or commercial gain is to be had from promoting the idea that life itself is the real university, and that the individual might therefore choose to stand his own ground in the face of those who would otherwise exploit, belittle or trick his mind. Such an idea is a positive threat to institutional power, whereas the simple cultural absence of such alternative perspectives tempts the mind to unthinkingly assimilate various conventional and well-respected lies.
Surely it is naïve to think differently – to imagine in light of the dramatic extent to which abstract knowledge has allowed humans to exploit their environment that there has not also been a huge temptation and tendency to exploit one another via the same cognitive skills. We may be social animals, but herds generally display forms of internal competition in which gaining advantage over other herd members serves to keep the group organized around strength. However, the cultural distortion of such power games is only to be expected for a species that has extended such competition into the domain of exploitative mind games. The intent to exploit others naturally includes the intent to disguise itself as anything other than what it is, and ideally as something actually beneficial to the party being exploited – given no one would knowingly volunteer for their own exploitation.
Using others for one’s own purposes – via anything from political support to marrying into money – is in fact generally regarded as highly respectable, provided it is done within accepted social norms. And the many institutions and hierarchical structures that embody such normalization are of course often seen as the very fabric of society. Moreover, this ought to be understood within the general view that socially presenting oneself in the best light – even to the point of being highly disingenuous – can not only appear advantageous but is also championed as a key social skill within today’s culture. Successfully branding the self is now a boom industry within so-called developed societies, and the incitements to hypocrisy and deception are as obvious as their realizations are extensive to anyone daring a frank appraisal of modern civilization. But in order to fully see this in terms of how it can marshal large numbers into conformity and obedience, the individual may need to overcome the learned and self-flattering naïvety that often conceals all this behind conservative ideologies and superficially respectable conventions.
More generally, the natural target for all non-violent subliminal exploitation of the individual is the conscious mind – the seat of abstract thought itself. Once the mind is colonized, there are few impediments to fuller forms of exploitation – as demonstrated by the huge numbers brought to heel through nationalist, religious and political dogmas, plus countless other tales of reality, including the overall ethos of science and objectivity.