“Starmaker” and Other Thoughts
(Quick note: I wrote this back in 2008, and soon after relaxed [a story in itself] on the especially paranoid political thoughts, particularly those of the “Infowars” sort, though I was a rapt listener for some time. It was necessary.)
Now in Italy, been reading, first time writing. This is the first time I’ve sat down to write. I’m at the University of Modena, she’s at class and I’m at, or on, that is, a bench in a park, surrounded by a parking lot. It’s a nice little area, with plenty of grass and trees, people walking with kids in strollers, students walking to class and such. There’s a guy sleeping on a bench behind me. He looks to be comfortable, he does not appear to be a bum of any sort, just a tired student that does not want to walk, nor ride, nor go anywhere between or before class. That’s the impression that I get anyway.
I just finished reading Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker, a beautiful book that predicts an incredible amount of the things both technological and social that currently affect our society at large. Some of them: virtual reality, based on the premise of radio that occurred during his time, anywhere from 1890 to 1937, and the hazardous effect that it does or will have on the social life of humanoid creatures. He posits that intelligence itself breeds the sort of historical progress that we have seen throughout our own history, that the path that we have taken as a species when it comes to social structure and technology is not something unique to us but merely a symptom of normality that has spawned from a consequence of us reaching a level of intelligence. This is compounded with the idea of a spirit of progress and a will to know the truth about the world and universe in general; also a spirit of community, the spirit that leads us to live in harmony with the people around us. In every society, according to Stapledon, that sense of community becomes warped at some point to become intensely large groups, bound together not by a mutual understanding of each other, not through mutual respect and personalization, but a herd mentality that kicks in when confronted with symbols. Either nations, states, or classes. The people group together when they are confronted with any of these symbols, and their logical processes quit, the weight of the super-group’s thoughts force the brain to accept its premises, irrespective of consistency or a true want to better one’s world in terms of cultural advancement, art, originality, insight, intelligence, and spirit.
The main crux of the advancement of intelligence is the cohesion of smaller organisms into large ‘spirits’, capable of independent thought. However, Stapledon’s idea hinges on the possibility of telepathy, telepathy in the sense of literal mind-reading. Now he may have predicted a sort of virtual reality, but he did not predict the internet as we know it, and if there were to be some sort of telepathy, I believe it would be a product of the information age and the communication technologies that we currently have available to us. Simply one more step is necessary: brain to brain contact without the use of our ponderous language. This is a bit scary to many people, certainly, because I don’t believe our lives were meant to be lived as mere communication devices for a larger over-brain. But perhaps that is what our spirit cries for, and it would certainly mean the end of a lot of problems, the biggest ones, which are the most important.
I have been doing a lot of thinking since reading the book, in conjunction as well, with an interview given by Naomi Wolf on the subject of an American police state. She mentioned in the interview, after a mention of Rumsfeld changing the oath of the military to exclude the constitution, that we need to stop thinking of ourselves as living in a democracy. Now that’s some scary shit. This tells me, if I have not already heard many times, that it is not enough to simply tell people of the signs of losing our democracy. That is because we have already lost it. It is wholly in the hands of it’s group of controllers. And this also tells me that exposing elements of the growing problem is a wasteful endeavor. It is the time for solutions.
But still, I am not apt to do as such. Or that is, I have not been. Possibly because I did not see it as necessary. I believed, perhaps naively, that someone out there would recognize the problem and take the necessary steps to fix it, someone in a position of power. Perhaps that is what I thought. But more likely, I did not offer solutions because I do not have any. And perhaps that is why none in a position of power has taken those necessary steps, because they don’t know what those steps are. And they are scared. As am I.
So why am I scared? And why do I see that everyone else is? John F. Kennedy. Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm X. John Lennon. Hunter S. Thompson. Aaron Russo. Ruby Ridge. Paul Wellstone. The whole damn Kennedy family. Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin. Buddy Holly. Heath Ledger. Lenny Bruce. John Belushi. Chris Farley. Abe Lincoln. James Garfield. Accidents many of them, coincidental tragedies at worst, surely. But the fact remains that when someone is in the spotlight who does good things, whether it’s entertainment or fighting for social rights or leading a country, they seem to meet an early and terrible end. Now for each one of these tragedies there are as many good people in the spotlight who led long and fruitful lives. But the survival ratio is not good, not good at all.
Hitler and Mussolini died before their time but not before they led Europe into the most terrible war the world had ever seen, and after killing millions upon millions. And even beyond the deaths of individuals, there are many reasons to be scared, namely the possibility of jail and disgrace that comes with anyone protesting anything. Anything worthy of protesting, that is. There are too many incidents of this sort to list. Suffice to say that we have been and most certainly are being intimidated. Intimidated into submission.
I used to think that every person is good at heart. I still believe that, but I never knew the effect that psychological tactics can have on a person’s true being. That’s another scary thing, that we can be manipulated so easily. Add to the fact that every day that goes by adds more information on how we can be controlled, and guess what? The people in power are the ones that have this information and the greatest minds in the world at their disposal. How’s that for a turnaround? One the one hand, keep your core beliefs intact and you might just live out the day, worse for wear, of course. Or forget them and find yourself in an orgy of luxury. You’ll get to rub shoulders with the other people that have done the same thing, resulting in you eating at any restaurant you want, and impress everyone that does not know you with your fancy clothes. You’ll get to travel the world, lay the most beautiful women, or men, if that’s your thing. Little boys or little girls, your most deviant, decadent desires could very well be fulfilled. 120 Days (or more) in Sodom with no consequences.
How about solutions? They begin with speaking, communicating, face to face. I’m talking about like real old-school type shit, like Teddy Roosevelt talking in Wisconsin, 500 pages of speech, talking til the people are tired. Changing their minds in that amount of time, then letting them think critically, independently about the shit you said and the shit they hear spewed all over the media channels, besides. But again, this type of shit is scary. Real fuckin’ scary. That’s the reason why people don’t do it, the combination of ideas that it’s simply difficult for most people to speak in public, and the potential for death. Putting yourself in a vulnerable position. That’s the scariest thing. In this case, the stakes are high, very high. But the risk of doing nothing eclipses this.
Fortunately, writing is a sort of stage. That is why it is so important, why books and reading is so important. It allows the words to speak for themselves. And it’s carefully put together. The words are put together as well as one can, planned and thoroughly thought out, ideally. And, for the icing on the cake, when people read, they are in a quiet and contemplative mood and setting, allowing them to independently think about the ideas and themes. Not everyone, of course, does this, but most often, difficult ideas can be understood better in a quiet setting than with the cacophony of random input that comes with other media. But still, this is trumped by public speaking. And that is the solution, my friends. Public speaking. It’s not in the rulebook currently for a reason, because the people in power can’t really do it extemporaneously.
They get flustered, they have problems making their ideas make sense, and they can’t stand up to questioning. The debate can become unframed, and that’s unacceptable. The debate must ALWAYS be framed; it must be set inside a box. And there are rules besides this, spoken or unspoken, none can be sure. The fullest question, the most basic of questions, the questions that put our entire system into question are unacceptable.
So the solution is public speaking, at the least. Then restructuring our system, once people have gotten on board. Now it seems that people are scared of this, even those with the wherewithal and the ideas to communicate it. (It’s heartening to know that there are indeed people out there who see this shit for what it is, but still they have not gotten done what needs to be done.) Though it almost appears as though the system will fall on it’s own.
No one wants that though. This fall would not replace the system, that is to say, it may fall but in the worst way possible for humanity. The economic system could collapse, people could lose their jobs, they may be starving in the streets, many ejected from their homes, families broken apart, widespread disease and depravity. Now this would suck big time, but humanity would rebuild something better, much better in the wake of it. But unfortunately, these things could and might happen but the system will still be in place. Military dictatorship. That is the worst of the worst and it could happen, the straight up full nasty of it, if we don’t nip it in the bud soon. And it’s gonna come sooner rather than later.
Stands back from the keyboard in amnmezeat! Thanks!