(long, philosophical)
Kent wrote:
>
> BTW, did you happen to read any of the "Ishamel" books yet?
>
In fact, I have. Finished Ishmael. Now working on My Ishmael.
Very thought-provoking, and very interesting. However, it also
seems belittle some of the real problems with the hunter/
gatherer lifestyle.
It does make good points that synchronize well with the
"Caveman diet" proposition, however. It was either Ishmael or
the beyondVegetarianism.com web site that made some excellent
points regarding the suitability of available land for
agriculture -- to the effect that 2/3 of all available land is
*not* suited for agriculture, making herding the only reasonable
use of the land. Not to mention the damage done by plowing, etc.,
which would seem to make a herding-based culture much more
sustainable. The fact that the "Caveman diet" produced by
eliminating grains produces such extraordinary health and
energy is, of course, an additional benefit.
Again, though, there is the issue of the problems with the
hunter/gatherer lifestyle -- mainly the fact that one can
find oneself cold, wet, and hungry -- and generally miserable
a fair amount of the time.
Now, from reading Ishmael, the solution seems to be to turn
off the minds that *think* they know the difference between
good and evil, and willingly submit to the culling of the
tribe that accompanies hard times. However, that just ain't
going to happen. So what is the alternative?
The really desirable alternative, I'm afraid, is climatically
impossible. In general, I'm a big believer in Garden of Eden/
Atlantis legends. Somewhere back in remote times, I suspect
there was a time when the climate was really temperate, food
readily available, and there was little need for intelligence
to develop.
[Side note: I suspect that human aggressiveness developed
side by side with intelligence, btw. I was watching a nature
show where the lions rush in and take a zebra. The other
zebra are all agitated, then they settle down and go back
to grazing while the lions feast on their kill. I was
outraged! How can you stand there and take that! Then it
occurred to me that the rage I felt had a lot of explanatory
power -- our ancestors felt the same thing. They not only
banded together, wielding their clubs to beat off the lions,
but if one was successful, they pursued that critter to the
ends of the earth to finish it off -- and buried the carcass
just for spite! "He may have killed one of us before we could
get there, but he is by god not going to derive one damn
morsel from it. That aggressiveness -- and the memory capacity
to hold a grudge -- explains both our burial rituals and the
fact that there is no animal left on earth that considers
man as reasonable prey, because we exterminate(d) any animal
with the genes to think we are... That, too, is an aspect of
the human condition that Ishmael seems to overlook.]
Anyway, to get back to the Garden of Eden... I've thought for
a very long time that if (a) It were warm and (b) food were
readily available, then there would be very little need for
the massive civilization we have built. However...
The climate is *not* warm. That produces the need for housing,
heating, available water, and plumbing. Personally, I think a
comet came by and swiped us, and we are still seeing the
perturbations millions of years later -- including shifting
continents, weather patterns produced by the rising of the
Himalayas, the wobble in our orbit, droughts and deserts,
hurricanes, and all the rest. (I'm thinking that if you smashed
a billiard ball into a fluid-filled tennis ball, and then slowed
down the time scale a million times, you would have very similar
effects. Similarly, if you could speed up the earth's changes
a million times or so, we would probably recognize the changes
as continuations of an initial collision.
Now, the need for housing, plumbing, and all the rest leads to
the division of labor that produces our civilization. Meanwhile,
the shifting seasons present the need for food storage, since
one can starve to death over the course of a long winter.
Now admittedly, mankind is utterly failing to do it's part to
*create* a Garden of Eden -- a situation I find utterly
deplorable. With all the advances in genetic engineering, I have
not seen so much as *one* project devoted to crossing wild strains
with domestic strains, in order to produce full, fleshy fruits
that will thrive virtually anywhere without cultivation. Instead,
I have seen project after project aimed at producing a tomato
that can withstand stronger pesticides -- so we can sell more
poisons and trash our environment even more, while making a better
profit.
Given that we *can't* control the environment, I think it behooves
us to do as much as we can with what we have. That means coming as
close to a garden of eden as we can, within extant constraints.
But we are not doing that. Why? We have the technology to begin
moving in that direction -- but *all* of our efforts are governed
by the profit motive. And that motive is very likely to damn us
all to oblivion, because the quest for profit tends towards short-
term decision making that can have potentially deadly long term
consequences. (Example: Ford "gets it" that SUVs are a danger to
other drivers, to the environment, and to oil supplies. And more
than most they try to limit the damage. But if they stopped making
them, they wouldn't be profitable -- someone *else* would make
them, and their profits would disappear. Now, is that sad, or what?)
These are areas where government activity seems to me to be the
only effective vehicle. Governments should be strenuously funding
truly beneficial genetic engineering. Business just isn't going
to do it. Governments should be aggressively funding studies of
herbal remedies, nutritional cures, and disease-prevention through
nutrition. Business isn't going to do it.
But guess what? Government programs are *so* widely influenced by
business, that government isn't doing it either! This leads to my
basic proposition: The one weak link in our entire civilization,
the one problem that prevents all the *other* problems from being
solved, is the lack of separation between business and state.
The framers of our constitution saw the need to separate church
and state. In one stroke, they prevented the excessive and abusive
exercises of power that characterized other nations, and they
prevented religions from exerting a stranglehold on government
action. However, they could not have foreseen the rise of the
industrial civilization that is now exercising a new kind of power,
frequently in ways that ultimately harmful. (On television last
night, there were drugs to make you go to sleep, drugs to fix
your upset stomach, drugs to solve you "social anxiety" problems,
and drugs for a variety of other conditions. There were also ads
for cereals, soft drinks, beer, and dozens of other fun but
so essentially-unhealthy substances that they should be treated
like cigarettes -- you can sell them, but you can't advertise
them. When you add up all the harmful things that are being sold
over the airwaves, it's pretty sickening, really.)
So how, HOW, does one achieve a separation of business and state?
What does that mean? What does it translate to in terms of things
that the government can and cannot do? The question is important,
because I'm not sure there is any way for culture to begin
approaching a garden of eden, unless we answer it.
[Final note: The "back to nature" movement, as appealing as it
is in some respects, needs some controls, too. I mean, it's nice
to travel to Ireland. Who on earth would stand behind the ticket
window and make that possible, were it not for the wage they
earn in the process? Who would make the guitars I enjoy playing,
and how would I get to those sessions where I can play them?
True, we have a lost a lot. But we have also gained a lot. How
can two such fundamentally different approaches to life ever be
reconciled, if at all?]
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