Or may be it can only be that way with any kind of technology, because of its fundamental nature "where the exploitation of people and nature at large is the rule", starting with the need to dominate, control and force one's way on people and the environment
Yes, and this is Heidegger's point. He writes that technology is not a material object, but rather a mindset, a
techne, or a technique, that sees everything as 'standing reserve'.
What 'standing reserve' means is that a forest becomes a certain number of board feet to be cut down and pulped for toilet paper, and not a zone of life, an entire world in itself, something sacred. Or a human being is not a vast, complex entity, a living story, but a worker with a number, a voter, someone to be manipulated and controlled. A river is only seen as a resource, something to be dammed or used as a transportation corridor, and not a mysterious flow of life itself. A child is not a miracle, but a problem to be solved by statisticians, behaviouralists, pharmaceutical companies, etc. So what does this do to the world? Disenchantment, to borrow a term from Max Weber, who borrowed it from the poet Schiller.
The C's have said that thought is fundamental, and in that sense, I think Heidegger is right in pointing to the question of technology. Is technology just stuff that was invented, tools and machines and processes, that makes our lives better? God, no. It's the result of Western thinking, what some would call 'the endo-colonization of the West'. Indigenous thinkers have noted that in order to perpetuate the horrors of genocide that were unleashed on their populations by Western Europeans, the whites had to succumb to the Wetiko virus themselves first, become fully possessed by it. And there was an esoteric hidden hand that was behind this, be it undergrounders and psychopaths or 4DSTS direct influence. McGilchrist's way of talking about this is that they had let the emotionless, instrumentalizing left hemisphere run amok before they could be come soulless enough to do what they did - and what they continue to do. And as Lobaczewski wrote, it starts with the elites, and the people are more or less caught up in the current, trying to keep their heads above water, focused on their daily concerns.
But there is black and white thinking, and then there is the full spectrum of colour. What is clear to me now is that while there were horrors, and there was violence, and also the condemnation of so many humans to a despicable, hollowed-out and disenchanted life, or even a life trapped in bizarre bureaucratic nightmares as described in Kafka's novels, there also were improvements and incredible discoveries revealed via this
techne mindset. That would be the result of a technology focused on what could be called 'true science', which appears alongside the ponerized version in our recent history. In that sense, I can appreciate Heidegger, who says all technology is fundamentally exploitative, but I'm also tempted to leave his hut in the black forest, because the earth is also our Mother and gives to us of her resources freely, being the matriarch of the school we're living in. And there is a chance for us to choose to see these resources as gifts from a vast living being, and in so doing make good use of them, not take them for granted, and turn the
techne mindset towards good aims.
Laura is writing a great series right now, and she discusses the way in which a non-ponerized science could in fact solve all the world's problems.
Arkadiusz Jadczyk
ark-jadczyk.blogspot.com
I would like to invite you to stop and try to imagine what life on Earth might be like if science had actually fulfilled its mandate of explaining our reality, solving the problems of humanity, and teaching us how to best interact with our world and each other. If science was – today – actually a free exploration of nature and drawing accurate conclusions, creating theories, testing those theories with no hidden agendas, what might it have accomplished up to now? Can you do it? Can you think of any area of life that could not be improved by having a truly scientific understanding and clearly described response that was supported and implemented by the social/power structure to the benefit of all of humanity, not just the enrichment of a few?
Oh, you think it has been done? Think again. Read the history of science and human social development. When you see how repeatedly the few individuals who had the right idea were marginalized and/or destroyed, if you have any firing neurons after being born into a humanity which has been genetically manipulated to lower intelligence, you will immediately realize that the same conditions – only worse – prevail today: what the mainstream follows is almost always what is politically expedient to those in power, with only enough truth involved to patch over the obvious tears in the now disintegrating fabric of the mask of science.
If a true, free, intelligent science, supported and encouraged by all of society, had actually been the norm since its inception, not the exception, we would live in a world where our very existence was not a shame to the planet that gave us birth. We would have free, clean energy. We would not have vast numbers of human beings living in poverty or starving. We would have no over-population problems. Health issues that dominate Western society and are bringing it to its knees would not be a problem because there would be plenty of nourishing food for all. There would be no wars because scientific anthropology and social psychology would have figured out what is the best of all possible forms of social structure that allows for the widest expression of human types to flourish in harmony. Children would not be medicated at ever younger ages because cognitive science would have established the best way to rear and educate them, and couples would be able to attend classes on infant care and parenting that were actually effective. The best forms of education would be known so that the widest variety of options would be available to the varied human types and levels of intelligence and skill so that each individual would progress into a life of satisfaction doing what they really enjoy and are best at doing, and society would benefit by not wasting its most precious resource: human beings.
Consciousness – and non-material spirit – would be understood and the proper reverence for Nature and the Cosmos would be a natural part of the lives of all, and the well-known religious feelings in human beings would be directed toward compassion and empathy, not used by manipulative leaders to incite anger, aggression and death. Free will, rather than being outright denied in science and philosophy as well as in very real terms politically, would be respected as the sacred principle that it is. In short, humankind would know how to live in harmony not only with each other, but with the world in which they are born.
All of these COULD be the conditions of a world where true science is a valued part of society. It could have been our world.
But that isn't what we have today. What we have today is the chaos produced by pathological individuals that induces consent from the authoritarian followers. As I noted above, science took a wrong turn when it was co-opted by power and diverted to the purposes of imperialism and materialistic greed.
This is the perspective of science freed from the Wetiko virus, freed from greed and psychopathy, a science that is based on the pursuit of Goodness, Beauty and Truth. In McGilchrist's terms, he would say it would be indicative of the proper balance of the hemispheres. The left hemisphere takes things apart. The right hemisphere puts them back together. I see Laura's writing as opening up a very important window that shows the possibility of this reintegration of science into cherishing life itself. It's a very important thought in our historical period, where it seems that there is no alternative to what we humans have been living through, and things only seem to be getting worse. McGilchrist:
...built into the relationship between the hemispheres is that they have a different take on everything – including on their own relationship. Neurological research reveals a consistent picture of how the two hemispheres contribute to the richness of experience. Essentially this is that the right hemisphere tends to ground experience; the left hemisphere then works on it to clarify, ‘unpack’ and generally render the implicit explicit; and the right hemisphere finally reintegrates what the left hemisphere has produced with its own understanding, the explicit once more receding, to produce a new, now enriched, whole.
So the West has been unpacking like crazy, but without the necessary reintegration of the various pieces that have been taken apart. I think that's what Laura is getting at above with her phrase true science (which implies a true technology). McGillchrist uses as wonderful muscial metaphor to describe how this reintegration might work. I really like it because the C's have said 3D is a frequency envelope, a sort of orchestra, and so we can also imagine him talking about our own 3D experience on this planet in the following:
Note that the two ways of attending are both necessary and, strictly speaking, incompatible, at least at the same level and at the same time.
This could be thought of as similar to the way a performer learns a piece of music. First, he or she is attracted to the piece as a whole and has a sense of how it works overall; then the piece is taken apart, its harmonic structure analysed, certain passages of notes practised repeatedly, and so on; but, finally, all that must be banished from the performer’s mind if the performance is not to be hobbled and stilted.
This is not to deny the importance of the left hemisphere’s contribution, just to make clear that it works its necessary effects at an intermediate stage. Problems arise when this is treated as the end stage. In terms of the metaphor of the Master [right brain] and his emissary [left brain], the Master realises the need for an emissary to do certain work on his behalf (which he, the Master, must not involve himself with) and report back to him. That is why he appoints the emissary in the first place.
The emissary, however, knowing less than the Master, thinks he knows everything and considers himself the real Master, thus failing to carry out his duty to report back. The right hemisphere’s view is inclusive, ‘both/and’, synthetic, integrative; it realises the need for both. The left hemisphere’s view is exclusive, ‘either/or’, analytic and fragmentary – but, crucially, unaware of what it is missing. It therefore thinks it can go it alone.
This all echoes what Gurdjieff said - the power of the West needs to be balanced by the wisdom of the East, lest the world be destroyed. But even then, destruction is already here and now. And it's part of a natural cycle. And I think the great historical problems will always persist. I don't think they'll ever be solved, resulting in utopia, but rather it's more like they'll shed their skin and transform, and present new lessons. At any rate, a balance of East and West, or Left and Right, will help us navigate the troubling times ahead.
There's no advertisement for it, no big emphasis on it, even locally. Obviously it doesn't process ALL of the city's waste, but its the only plant for that particular portion of the city's waste. Is this technology beneficial to us, to the universe?