PART 1
THE BEGINNING OF SIMPLIFICATION
PART 2
THE ORIGIN OF RIGHT AND WRONG
1…EXPLORING ATHEISM
2…ARTICLES OF FAITH
3…IN THE WAKE OF A NATURAL DISASTER
4…TWO RIGHTS MAKE A WRONG
PART 3
CAUSE and EFFECT [SIMPLIFICATION]
1…‘WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF’
2…TRUTH AND LIES
3…FEAR IN TRUTH
PART 4
‘OUR FREEDOM IS IN OUR GRAMMAR’
1…CONSCIOUSNESS
PART 5
PERCEIVING SIMPLIFICATION
1…‘HOW CAN I KNOW WHAT I SAID UNTIL I SEE WHAT I SAY’
2…NATURAL SELECTION IN LANGUAGE
3…NEWSEAK OLD MESSAGES [WAR IS PEACE]
4…CONSUMERIST AMNESIA IN SIMPLIFICANTION
PART 6
SUMMING UP RIGHT AND WRONG
1…WHY THESE SIMPLIFICATIONS EXIST?
GLOSSARY / APPENDIX / BIBILOGRAPHY
To make simple or simpler, as:
a.To reduce in complexity or extent.
b.To reduce to fundamental parts.
c.To make easier to understand.
PART 1
THE BEGINNING OF SIMPLIFICATION
Simplification has been seen as both a positive and a negative in the way that we construct our lives along with its increasing need in life. It is a term that has its advantages when used by the individual, and its dangers when able to affect the masses.
In the growth of population and submergence of land, the concepts man has created (of which there are so many), grows with an intensity that feeds the present. The short term solution today is the most popular solution. As the faiths in the world deal with the long term we don’t have to think; it breeds the illusion of contentment. But we are not content. With the development of news coverage we are able to grasp the uncertainty that the world is going through in the irony of uncertain lives that have no idea as to how to survive. The controlling of their way of life brings an overwhelming discontentment that lashes out like a small child when afraid.
Whilst travelling round Eastern Europe I received an email from a friend who went to Israel to visit her grandparents. The email read; ‘…human nature means that if we aren’t happy then we want to inflict our unhappiness on others…as if some of us have the power over other people. Life isn’t meant to be fair but it’s meant to be ours.’
I was in Sarajevo when I read this email, a place rebuilding itself after four years of blood shed for the right of land and difference in faith. Something that I feel is heard all round the world, from the civilized country to the dictated.
It has appeared to me that the nature of violent acts occurs largely when the lower depths are stirred up out of an inability to bend the higher powers. Where man can make a name for himself and compare himself to a higher calling, that and money.
PART 2
THE ORIGIN OF RIGHT AND WRONG:
1…EXPLORING ATHEISM
I am reading Charles Darwin’s ‘The Origin of Species’ at present, and am approaching chapter ш, ‘STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE’. Having known about the book for a good few years, I have finally found the time to purchase and read.
Another book of key relevance to this discussion titled: ‘Consciousness; How Matter Becomes Imagination’, written by Gerald M.Edelman and Giulio Tononi, attempts to place the construct of a scientific theory to the development of consciousness in order to quantify, for the first time, how matter becomes imagination.
‘Part ш, Mechanisms of Consciousness: The Darwinian Perspective’ argues that ‘Selectionism (chapter seven)’, is in fact evident in the evolution and regulation of the human brain. This selectionism is said to be found in the neural system as part of our internal language. I will expand on Edelman’s exploration and findings on the brain and consciousness in ‘PART 4’ later.
In 1859 when The Origin of Species was first published it came into much criticism. (‘greeted with violent and malicious criticism.’ Informs the Editor, and writer of the introduction [J.W.Burrows] To explain why such a reaction occurred among naturalists Darwin writes:
‘Until recently the great majority of naturalists believed that species were immutable productions, and had been separately created’ (p.53, The Origin of Species, 1985).
Combine this with a large Christian population and you’re not likely to get many invites to Sunday lunch!
This view has been maintained by many authors, particularly religious zealots. Many naturalists, on the other hand, believe that species have undergone modification, that the existing forms of life are a result of phyletic progression over a large expanse of time.
I’m using Darwin as a start point, to outline sentiments that I feel exist in today’s community. Even today you can find people that believe evolutionary theory to be just ‘fantasy’, but to the majority of the scientific community Darwin’s theory of evolution is acknowledged to be near enough fact. With more recent scientific theories, such as Stephen Hawking’s, ‘Big Bang theory’, further substantiating his work, Darwin’s theory of evolution is practically irrefutable. In Hawking’s best seller ‘A Brief History of Time’ where in the first chapter ‘our picture of the universe’, discusses where our ideas of the universe came from and where they are heading. Hawkins uses Darwin’s natural selection as a template for his own theories concerning the end result of humanity’s reason for reasoning:
‘yet if there really is a complete unified theory, it would also presumably determine our actions. And so the theory itself would determine the actions. And so the theory itself would determine the outcome of our search for it! And why should it determine that we come to the right conclusion from the evidence? Might it not equally well determine that we draw the wrong conclusion? Or no conclusion at all?
The only answer that I can give to this problem is based on Darwin’s principle of natural section. The idea is that in any population of self-reproduction organisms, there will be variation in the genetic material and upbringing that different individuals have. These differences will mean that some individuals are better able than others to draw the right conclusions about the world around them and to act accordingly. These individuals will be more likely to survive and reproduce and so their pattern of behaviour and thought will come to dominate. It has certainly been true in the past that what we call intelligence and scientific discovery have conveyed a survival advantage. It is not so clear that this is still the case: our scientific discoveries may well destroy us all, and even if they don’t, a complete unified theory may not make much difference to our chances of survival.’
Stephen Hawing, 1988, p.14
‘A brief history of time’ is as much a book about science as it is a book about the quest for justifying the existence of god, which reassures me of the human need to have faith and to believe in some form of an idea of faith. It may be god or gods, it maybe the belief in the belief itself, what ever it may be it is evident that human nature condemns us to uncertainty. Even in the most ridged of ideas, doubt can be seen as a form of progressing, and a question that walks with age. This desire for a lucid perception of reality is something that I seek as an individual, and a subsequent battle with truth arises. Truth to me is a concept that can be interpreted to whatever the unconscious mind sees fit.
2…ARTICLES OF FAITH
‘Inherited from the Jewish community was the view that there was one god and only one god, who had created the world with expressed purpose of giving his favoured creature the awesome privilege of exercising moral choice.’
(Jonathan miller, a brief history of disbelief, 2004)
Propagated originally by Judeo-Christianity Theism has manifested itself in western culture as the dominant religious persuasion. Islam has developed from an alternative genesis, but is similarly theistic; believing Allah to be the one true God. Belief in ‘One true God’ subsequently falsifies all other religious interpretations. Drastically incompatible paradigms, that both promote belief in the ‘one true God’ will inevitably result in conflict when advocates of both belief systems feel that their views are being compromised by the other’s falsification.
In Britain today the churches continue to empty, and the ‘mind/body/spirit’ shelves in our bookshops bend under the weight of a thousand varieties of bottled spiritualities – “three for the price of two”, as is increasingly the case in more economically advanced societies.
In such societies, that we usually hear termed as the ‘west’, a more liberal attitude is promoted and an understanding of technologies is also widely spread amongst the population on a higher plateau rather than that of a developing community. We can see and understand the decline in religious faith by way of our understanding of other countries and their communities of which many believe in very different philosophy’s on life, bred out of their history in their people and landscape. Scientific theory and its wide justification also bear a large questioning of religious following.
Scientist Richard Dawkins sees religion as a ‘virus’ and he looks forward to the day of its eradication. Many humanists and sceptics take a less hostile view and respect the existence of diverse philosophies and belief systems. But if such faiths do not themselves respect human life or basic rights, then respect for religion is likely to be withdrawn.
The United States on the other hand, a major player in sustaining ‘the west as the best’ through its use of the World Trade Organisation, finds itself in a different circumstance.
The ‘us’ in the United States appears to be active in its world view of a paranoid ‘them’ in its aspiration to be a ‘united’ Christian community protected by its belief in a safer world. There is evidence of this ‘united’, preferred, Christian community in almost every walk of American life from the over zealous use and reproduction of the American flag to the promotion of the ‘American Dream’. This nationalistic attitude in the daily lives of Americans can be equated to that of past and present Chinese administrations which, like the U.S., has a large percentage of its population living under the poverty line. And also in a similar way to the U.S., China is able to suppress information on a large scale (like that of the SAR’s epidemic in 2002).
In studying images of the ‘2004’ election rally in the U.S., where a wealth of nationalism is put on show. There are strong comparisons to the rallies held by the Nazi party in the lead up and fruition of the Second World War. In all their granger and hypnotic ability, which is also visible in evangelical Christian stadium shows in the U.S., it’s not surprising that on the billboards in the U.S. there were such sound-bites as ‘In God We Trust, United We Stand’ standing proud.
Inspired after the days of 9/11, I can understand to an extent the grief of those most tragic events but the military sounding terms, such as ‘Ground Zero’, with an almost seemingly alternative agenda, only heightens my image of a county united in a gun hoe persona rather than a ‘love thy neighbour’ or let alone ‘thou shall not kill’ attitude. This is demonstrated when it illegally started a war in Iraq over the head of the, not so, United Nations with god on there side.
3…IN THE WAKE OF A NATURAL DISASTER
‘If we are to go back to the beginning we shall find ignorance and fear created the gods, that fancy or deceit adorned them.
That weakness worships them preserves them, custom respect and tyranny support them.
In order to make the blindness of men sever their own interests.
If ignorance of nature gave birth to god, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them’
Baron d’holbach, (footnote) author of the acclaim first outright atheist book. Written under the suedernim
This quote has become increasingly poignant since the tsunami of south East Asia. The mounting loss of life and the inconceivable unlikelihood of life returning to any form of normality by the end of the year has left those living in the stricken regions hit by the disaster in a desperate circumstance. I can only hope that the rest of the world can show unity and deliver aid in quick succession.
Three weeks after the disaster, a news report translated a service in a Banda Ache mosque. From one of the worst affected areas the Mullah’s words were as follows:
‘Allah has seen us rob cheat and steal, he has punished us’
We all come to terms with grief in different ways but to say that a higher being ordered this ‘apocalyptic event’ is to deny all empirical evidence available to us, which to me, seems as truthful as death itself.
In Indonesia on its somewhat 14,000 inhabited islands (a number quoted to me by a local of Sulawesi) there is more belief in religion than scientific evidence. The country as a whole is classed by the west as a developing nation, which houses many religions from Muslims, Hindu’s, and Christians. Education is limited and expensive. The main exports are rubber, sugar, rice and apparently illicit deals with other countries in the use of the other 13,000 islands. Known for its corruption in the police force and government, it is a heavily oppressed nation, so it’s not surprising that 90% of people count themselves as believers (new internationalist, issue 370 page 1, In the name of GOD, Useful and dangerous) with most religions possessing the afterlife clause in the practising of the faith.
The Mullahs translation above illustrates the power of language and the power of simplifying the not so much ‘complex’ mixed with ignorance. But the overwhelming emotions one feels when a stark uncertainty is committed to the forefront of ones life.
Something that was pushed to be evident in the days after 9/11 and that could only come from the known tyranny that humanity appeared to be absence in much of the quality of life of the Afghan and Iraq people.
4…TWO RIGHTS MAKE A WRONG, INTERPRETATIONS
Oh God, open all doors for me…God, I lay myself in your hands. I ask with the light of your faith that has lit the whole world and lightened all darkness on this earth, to guide me…’
This was part of a prayer left in the luggage of Mohammed Atta one of pilots that created 9/11.
‘God told me to strike at al-Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did,’
(G.W. BUSH, 2003)
These words of George W Bush, chief delegater of ‘find Bin laden’ and ‘Iraqi freedom’, which sounds good but in Iraq, I hear lots of people have died and the country is in a state of civil war. There are threats of snipers killing anyone who turns up to vote at the elections. Not really the quick, clinical war that was promoted on our Televisions in the beginning stages on this ‘War on Terror’.
These two quotes, the first more subtle in its dogmatic expression than the other blunt delivery, highlight the differences between what is commonly defined as ‘Islamic extremists’ and a ‘Neo conservative extremists’ (fundamentalist Christian). In the two instances given, the first, that of Mohammed Atta’s prayer, there is invested in it, an allowance of ambiguous interpretation. Which can make use of a promise inherent in the pray to an individual by giving that individual an elevated position, by this trust in blindness and intervention. Thus giving the recipient of the pray a purpose to near enough anything. That of good will (and of good will achieved by any means possible) in the name of God.
Juxtapose this with the Bush quote and you can see the same goal but through very different means. As these are very different cultures.
Bush’s individual heroism, in taking on these evil forces, is the key to his conviction and is to be seen as an example of what all who follow him must do. Bush and his team have seen it upon themselves to play the role of God. But why, is it because they see god failing in doing his job? Or are they, as they promote, doing the will of god, to spread peace? Or are they scared…scared of not being the best?
Bush claims that his nation is a strong and independent nation; it is clearly evident in its own actions through its foreign policy that it is not a strong nation as it cannot support itself economy without cheap international import, and preferred governments or leaders in control of those cheap labour exporters. Also, arms seem to be to have a good turn over these days, injecting a large amount of capital into a nation of import rather than export. Much of South American guerrilla activity and South east Asia abuse of human rights in the sweat shops is evidence of this control the U.S. needs to keep trade at an unfair price. More relevant in today’s situations is the Middle East’s wealth of oil. Trade in oil has a fundamental part to play in any economy and when your nation depends on sucking the fumes of such products im sure it’s quite a concern when your own black gold runs dry.
PART 3
CAUSE AND EFFECT [SIMPLIFICATION]:
1… ‘WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF’ F.D.Roosevelt
When people feel under threat they simplify; in a reduced state people cannot bear uncertainty. To simplify, in psychoanalytic terms is to regress, to eliminate the middle ground, to split, dividing the world into safe and threatening, good and evil, life and death.
(Robert M Young psychoanalytic psychotherapist, July 2004)
2…Truth and lies;
In respect to the above findings of Robert M Young the same can be said for what one would perceive to be unquestionable truth while encapsulating a polar extreme to be that of ‘concrete lies’. If you were to believe in something that you could not conceive to be anything other than truth then you would simplify that truth as ‘truth’ and all the cogitations that then go hand in hand with ones interpretations of the word. Such as reality or righteousness what ever the conscious or unconscious mind sees fit, from contextualization. From contextualization an isolated opinion of our justification of ‘truth’ can become rigid and deeply rooted in our own reasoning. This reasoning is often an unconscious act which is formed out of contextualization of ones own experiences.
The outcome of ones interpretations can be questioned by other parties of whom have experienced the same event. The interpretation one has conceived can be considered to be based or believed to be based on misinterpretation.
2…BELIEVED MISINTERPRETATION
Misinterpretation expressed by an ‘other’ or ‘others’ can work towards an understanding of all that has been talked about in Part 2. Not so much, that what I am about to explain is a microcosm of resent, current and foreseeable events, but that recent, current and foreseeable events of the ‘War on Terror’ are a microcosm of what is to be explained by taking two ‘truths’ that Islam and democracy interpret.
As ‘the other’ interprets an event one way the primary interpretation sees that ‘the other’ has misinterpreted that event. And in the cases of the two regimes in question; that of misinterpreting life and their way it is believed, or they would say ‘should’, be lead. This mentality embodies an uncertainty factor through the first principle of ones opinion being seen as truth and the antithetical opinion diluting that truth through the nature of its existence. The ‘other’ is likely to see their truth as ‘the truth’ and the alternative opinion may be described as a misinterpretation.
In a progressive manner one must realise the notion of translation to allow for variables, not a rigid order of how things are supposed to be.
This leads to the exploration of unknowingness as a regressive being such as a Christians ideas of Atheism or and Islamic view of capitalism. Fear that a consumerist society and a fundamentalist Society can manifest its aims into its subjects like a psychological feudalism. The manifestation of fear and ignorance, in these examples, are analogous to walls that protect and preserve authoritarian ideology.
3…FEAR IN TRUTH
With truth on a knife edge it is easy to protect ones own past reasons without the willingness to see what is on the other side of the knife. Where, a more viable, relative truth may lie with compromise and progression.
In this act of progression the truth can be knowingly deconstructed and an uncertainty in truth maintained in ones experience of an event and of experiences in one side of the world while know that ones truth is not concrete.
This hard to swallow view point can cause a reaction of very primal instinct, one of invasion of territory seeks attack.
As demonstrated by the event of 9/11, in the physical world, where ever its deep rooted comeuppances began. To the ongoing wars in Africa, Israel and other un-broadcasted wars in the Middle East.
Simplification is more of a state of mind than it is a fact. Its effectiveness lies in seemingly unconscious interpretation one has been fed.
Creating and controlling fear is integral in the days make up. From the awakening of consciousness in the morning with diagrams on cereal boxes of things that are good, to household products in the form of kitchen cleaning products and health and beauty items anti ageing creams and the like. Then on the streets, seen and documented in, the existence of other material objects, signs and signifiers on the street, in the way of warnings and advertisements.
This is where simplification ‘thinks’ so recipients don’t have to. Like the labour saving device it is.
In the following chapter I am going to exemplify how simplification ‘acts’ in the study of the mind.
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