In a comment on my recent post The Left Blogosphere. Or: Bebop Redux. As Above, So Below, BostonJoe wrote:
I wrote a reply that got pretty long.
I am posting it now as a stand-alone diary.
Read on if you are interested.
I am optimistic.
On the evidence.
On the evidence of the continued evolution of mankind over its entire history.
And by extension…on the evidence of the continued evolution of life itself on this planet.
A planet which is just a little backwater of the whole universe.
But if the Sufi concept of “As above, so below” holds true even on the highest of levels…a concept that has been sufficiently proven to me by the evidence of my own senses and observations on this plane upon which we all share our own existences… if it applies far above and far below us, then it is a universal law.
Literally the law of the universe.
Life evolves.
That which evolves is alive.
Universally. (As far as we can see, at the very least.)
Thus the universe is alive.
This living universe is evolving.
LIFE is alive.
The life of Life.
Praise be its unknowable names.
Now back to the mundane.
The here and now.
Blogs.
The internet and human society in general.
The United States in particular.
You write:
I KNOW that evolution continues.
I know that “evolution” is not a straight line.
On the evidence.
There are failures.
There are regressions.
There are periods of little or no change.
There are periods of steady small change.
And there are quantum leaps.
In the United States, I see only ONE real, presently functioning agent of change at present.
The internet.
Not the government, not the political parties, not the churches, not the educational, scientific or so-called “intellectual” elites…they have ALL been co-opted, bought and sold by short term profit-driven entities called corporations. And evolution is NOT about short-term profit. It is about long-term progression brought about through the taking of huge risks.
A large system cannot do this. It cannot AFFORD to this. Large systems are about the conservation of their own power. About stasis.
So…where IS this evolution occurring?
Look around.
It used to be in America that social evolution occurred mainly through the efforts of minorities.
New blood.
Remember the convection current experiment through which we all had to suffer in school? The one in which the heated water at the bottom of the flask rose and displaced the cooler water at the top, whereupon the same process repeated itself until the heat was turned off?
Again…as above, so below.
The poor at the bottom of the social convection system kept things moving.
The history of jazz in America is one of the clearest examples of that process. (See the other post that is linked at the beginning of this one for more on that.)
Well, with the exception of the Spanish-speaking population of the U.S. that cannot be easily co-opted by the system as it stands because of language barriers that are not being effectively surmounted…and HOORAY for multiculturalism as far as I am concerned…that system is no longer functioning. The English speaking poor…which basically means the black population here…still burn, but their fire is either almost immediately co-opted by the Corps (Witness rap) or it is turned back upon them in the form of institutionalized poverty, drugs, crime and the so-called justice system.
So the question remains…where is this evolution happening?
The OTHER truly evolutionary forces that have occurred here within living memory were:
1-The Depression…where “the poor” were nearly EVERYBODY to one degree or another.
2-W.W. II…a fight for survival is always “evolutionary” if it is successful.
and
3-The youth movement of the ’60s and ’70s. Where the tactic of co-option was first perfected by the Corps.
Where now?
As a sort of mass movement?
Here.
On the internet.
An Information Revolution as befits an Information Age.
If you wanted to know about the CIA’s nefarious activities in 1973 or 1989 you had to haul yourself down to the best library you could find and spend DAYS tracking down scattered bits of information.
Today?
Google say <CIA +”Operation Mockingbird”>.
20,800 hits.
Have fun.
And go get educated.
Remember Timothy Leary’s “Turn on, tune in, and drop out” meme?
Didn’t work…nice try, though. Got somewhere…just not quite far enough. Drugs will do that.
Today?
Sign on, tune in and drop UP.
Yes, I am optimistic.
Instead of being an (at least recently fashionable) minimalist, I am an optimalist.
I am optimalistic.
Because I believe in evolution.
On the evidence.
When will I STOP being an optimist?
An optimalist?
When I hear the Big Boom.
(A piddling echo of the Big Bang.)
And not until.
And even then…my last thought will be something on the order of…”One small misstep for mankind. The Universe continues unabated.”
“The-th-th-th-th-th-That’s all, folks!!!”
Yup.
And “So it goes” if I have the time for a second thought.
So it goes.
Thus, in the full confidence that there will indeed BE a “later” (Talk about optimism!!!) I bid you farewell now.
And
Later…
AG