i have been taking notes for days, in a small
ring bound notepad with the remaining pages of
graph paper falling out of it. i am going to
just riff off of what exists in there, instead
of trying to make it all make sense, linearly.
one thing i have been wanting to say is: what
are we going to do as a world when the aliens
invade earth? really. i mean, it is a joke yet
eventually there will be bigger problems, and
everyone will need to work together to defeat
it. if it is global warming or who knows what.
how is this 'War of Terror' going to resolve
itself at the level and scale of the world?
how can a future for the planet be secured
in an era of nuclear-armed nation-states? is
it inevitable that war will just grind on,
with nuclear weapons? most definitely not.
and yet will it take a nuclear blast, or
several, unending nuclear blasts, to make
it clearer and clearer, and more and more
unlikely that a compromise will be found?
that is, sustainable diverse culture which
share a certain relation as a civilization,
at some constitution beyond the nation-state
and into a global relation as being of one
world, of one people, of a shared public?
the thing that interested me about reading
about the origins of science and philosophy
have to do with how they are realized today
in the ideologies that are now running amok.
basically, what amounts to 'science' today
is what 'modernism' is, or purports to be.
it is supposedly objective, supposedly public,
supposedly rational, supposedly enlightened,
and supposedly a guiding principle for action,
the overriding ideas to base value, worth, etc.
this is not contestable - it is the core logic,
it is core conceit, and it is the core deception
that things are really this clear, clean, pure,
and simple. it is a distortion of actual truth:
where what is considered true may not be real...
the principles of early philosophy and science
are said to be made possible by way of open
debate, critical thinking, protected freedom
by way of law, and a method for understanding
the word that functions in common with others'
observations: that is, there is a world that
is shared and in an empirical review of what
is shared by way of investigative reason is
documented and open to change upon evidence
which can challenge points of conclusion by
way of facts, and ultimately by mathematics.
physics. understanding nature by way of an
approach that became a way of understanding
the world, of interacting with the world, of
building the world, valuing the world even.
that issues of 'democracy', 'free speech',
'law', and modernity all relate to issues
involving the goals of the Iraq rebuilding,
it makes one wonder to what degree there is
correspondence between what happened nearby
there more than two millennia ago, and what
is trying to be made to happen there today.
could it be that, as the .US has developed
in the last few hundred years, as extension
of the Greek developments of a certain kind
of philosophy, worldview, based in a certain
type of approach to governance, with respect
to issues of science, of how ideas are to be
mediated with respect to cultural issues of
religion, myth, identity, psychology, logic,
that issues of democracy and a secular public
are at their base tied into philosophy and
issues of science? i contend this is the case,
and is at the core of problems in the .US with
respect to these same, unresolved issues and
paradoxes, and also the case in trying to
export these same, what amounts to ideas,
to an altogether different cultural context
in which they are transplanted rather than
grown of their own soil and understanding.
can you have democracy, free thought, if you
do not have 'science' and law to sustain it?
philosophy, logic, a reason for it to exist.
that is, science which is not subservient to
lesser worldviews in some way, or politicized
to the point where it becomes neutralized in
its potential for a greater development of
freedoms, of accurate representation of the
events of nature beyond cultural biases?
to be clear: science is not everything, it
is not god, it is not to replace religion,
but what it is is a way of thinking about
how things work, to imagine what they can
do, as a way of understanding things and
making things, building, developing ideas.
it is a way of relating to the world that
is a type of philosophy. and not the only
one: religion is another type of philosophy.
...
what has happened in the .US is an outcome
of what originated in Greece long ago, an
effect of assumptions wreaking havoc in the
culture, daily, because what once were to
be considered questions have become, instead
truisms believed to be reality itself beyond
questioning, when in fact they are wrong,
false, and distorted if logically considered.
and there is no place, except online, to make
the case for such things as in the university
you will be censored, and basically denied
the rights (freedom of thought/speech) to
even question the ideology running things:
it no longer has any checks and balances,
there are no questions and only answers.
the assumptions then function that 'science'
as a myth is to be accepted as the shared
'public', what is held in common, and true
beyond belief, in its universality. anyone
with any degree of understanding in these
areas can quickly find holes in this view,
postmodernism exists as a counterpoint to
this conceit of infallibility, malleability
of assumed universal 'truth', the plague of
relativism, centered around cultural issues:
paradoxes of language, paradoxes of logics,
paradoxes of identities. each of these can
discredit grander claims said to be 'science'
by what scientists, as individuals, leave
out of their analyses. science is political.
science is public politics. religion, private.
cultural identities, language, logic all are
parts which compose the context of these events.
as different as they are internally in the .US,
they are also seen in all around the world, too.
ultimately how state & church/mosque/temple relate.
a way of governing, balancing ideation, possibly.
if one adds the anthropological dimension to
issues of cultural identity, that is, the tribe
one belongs to which informs these questions,
which shapes them, which is the context for what
is possible, real, good, true, of value, worth-
it obviously differs where one is placed in the
world, especially if what is considered to be
the one common worldview is nothing of the sort.
reasonably so, too. that is, in the context of
biases inherent in language, in culture as a
unique development based in geography, customs,
rituals, traditions, that someone else's view
of 'science' may have an actual degree of bias
in the sense of its values, beliefs, origins.
it may not be as modern, universal as claimed.
the politics of science is socially constructed,
how it operates, what it masks, what it denies.
modernism is the ultimate example of this fact.
the utopian claims of the modern way of proceeding
has been proven false by the wasteland it creates.
and yet, as science, it is beyond question to be
considering changing this (modern) way of living.
because the variables that are measured need not
include extraneous facts that cannot fit a very
specific model of events, the mathematization
of events and their categorization and discrete
placement and understanding. the logic breaks.
the truth leaks out of it. it becomes religion,
as an act of faith in numbers beyond criticism.
not in their correspondence to real environments
but fictional portrayals of cultural perceptions.
the ultimate proof of this is in language itself.
a bias inherent in the world as it was inherited.
science did not arise from a neutral, bias-free
context - it was a time of slaves, of patriarchy.
it can be seen in the .US constitution, thousands
of years later, a result of the 'enlightenment'
and the 'age of reason' -- whose reason, really?
man's reason. what today would be considered a
_private point of view, is enshrined in law, in
the basis for freedom of thought, in conception
of science, as to what is considered a universal,
_public point of view. "all men are created equal"
is a much different concept than "all humans are
created equal." make no mistake, this is at its
core a key paradigm shift that is not able to be
transcended by older ways of perceiving events,
science even. look at the 'global warming debate'
or the issues related to abortion, the value of
"life", contraception, aids, and death penalties.
is there some great clarity of science that is,
just like architectural theorists, being held
back from delivering its pure genius because it
is not just left alone and simply - believed?
how can it be science (and not language, and
scientist's as private individuals with biased
points of view) that is too weak to be able to
debate 'intelligent design' and issues of religion
in its pure claims for total universal truth of
a situation, as measurement for cultural values,
for decision making large and small ... if it
cannot even defend its hypotheses against views
which contradict its overriding statements of
universality, modernity, as a way of life, as
an ideological belief about its goals, ideals
which are based in culture and not in nature?
this is to say: there is more than one truth
in these systems, and yet the logics deployed
rely on only one truth, one view, the modern
conquering of space, time, place, while old,
ancient questions that are unanswerable still
pick at the curious and moral minds about the
truth of such statements- their value, worth.
that maybe this machination of thought is,
at times, wrong, and may even need to be
accountable for refining its overarching
claims of understanding - to refine what are
always hypotheses, which if science, can be
always further refined, if thought is freed.
that is, the claims of mathematical legitimacy
do not stand as limitations upon science to
define itself today- there is much excess if
points of view, an entire post-1960s generation
of seers, and fools, who have become one with
the cultural confusion- becoming religionists
of science, serial fictionalists of the real,
and without any basis in morality and ethics.
it is considered arcane and archaic for those
who believe otherwise to even challenge such
a predisposed, unquestionable truth as this.
they are considered and treated as fools who
exist beyond the appreciation, the faith of
mathematics, numbers, words not real enough.
so, institutions which do not allow review,
and a cultural establishment which exists as
an empire of a misguided empiricism, a flawed
science, a retrograde modernity, a science-
fiction fantasy by and for adult children, is
then to be represented by peoples who are in
some way reflective of everyone on the earth?
so in a country constituted by its commonality
being private 'mankind', this development is
headed by those who are most able to believe
in the distortion and blindly to defend and
extend it as if it is an idea, as if it is
an actual questioning - when instead all it
requires is to repeat the past without any
significant thinking involved at the level
of science, logic, language, philosophy, at
the level of origins, and their assumptions.
science, what is 'public', is a belief system
that is represented by the modern ideology.
it is private, it is unscientific, and unreal.
the surreality of today is as close as it gets.
instead of a 'human' public, representative
public, republic from Plato's era, today we
get the epic falseness of superheroism, the
superman of Nietszche, what has been written
decade past on this list as s-man or semantic
man, defined by the context of language which
informs its identity, what is private becomes
said to be public, a misrepresentation of the
facts, of the real, and the logic used is that
of man and his kind, a privatization of issues,
of views, of worlds, competing by default to
dominate and represent 'men' as humanity, as
it is still defined in recent dictionaries.
the meaning that revolves out of this evolution
of ideas is in fact a devolution of the ideas
said to be represented: science, philosophy,
the public, modernity, governance, democracy,
freedom, representation, logic, and culture.
the empiricism of today is that of man and
his kind. particular. not general of the world,
but of many worlds competing for dominance of
'the world' as conceived by this mankind. the
only outcome of this is war, history is proof.
the human story, always along the trajectory
of these times, always emergent, has yet to
supplant these outdated perspectives which
limit the world and its potentials for self-
understanding and expression, with the goals,
ideals, aims of particular ideas which are
not held in question and are simply believed
to be representative of a shared and common
cultural understanding, value system, belief.
man cannot be a basis for peace, humanity is.
men are not created equal, human beings are.
men fight in the name of their gods, humanity.
what if human beings became the measurement of
what is real, of value, true, about our nature?
why isn't it happening? might it be possible
that the entire systems of thought which are
at war today are insufficient in their vantage
of the questions and thus cannot be related at
the scale necessary by ideologies represented,
as they are incapable of a universal relation?
is it possible that, in some way, everyone is
both partly right, partly wrong, partly true,
partly false, existing in this 'existential'
condition or situation which will repeat it-
self ad naseum throughout time until we are
able to transcend it through a change in our
relation to the events themselves- through a
revolution of ideas and an evolution of ideas?
by in a change in perception, thus in reality?
by the logic used, the identity we share, and
the language by which we are to communicate?
this was the questions of ancient Greece in
governance, in science, and in philosophy,
exactly the same thing... 2,5000 years ago.
that is, events today are effects of this.
and also the symptoms of such an approach
that has gone uncorrected in its ideas and
how it has proceeded as an corrupt ideology.
corrupted ideas. not people, ignorant people.
we don't know better. how could we know, un-
less we start to learn that our hypotheses
are not all that we think, as we look at the
world and see our models are not working as
we believe, and we are stuck within limits
of our own perceptions, our cultural context,
we cannot conceive of alternatives because
the questions once asked no longer exist,
they function as a statis pseudo-reality,
beyond questions, they are hallucinations,
delusions, illusions, phantoms, demons,
ghosts. this subjectivity is embedded in
conceptions of science by way of language,
identity, psychology, logic, philosophy,
and it is distorting 'facts' with biases.
psychiatry is the height of such conceit,
the function of which is to integrate a
mind into a mindless rote functionalism
of a state which does not represent an
actual nature but a consensual delusion,
legitimated by such pseudo-science it is
equivalent to post-modern philosophy, the
avant-garde of the modernist bureaucracy.
just like buildings, people... ideology.
hierarchy, judgment, experience are all
contextualized in such a distorted realm.
effectively the populace is religionized
by a system of beliefs protected by the
state, whose constitution is illegal in
that it is not capable of representing
and protecting the freedoms of those it
claims to exist for: it is protecting a
private view and value over that of the
larger human questions and as such this
has become an upper-limit to human action
to improve upon earlier conceptions as it
requires a churning of potentials into a
dilemma between individuals & institutions,
whereby the law only protects those who
share the values, beliefs, and freedoms
that can be based on private man and his
kind, rather than on a larger human basis.
those who work for checks and balances in
such a system, asking to openly question
the (science of) ideology, are held in
contempt of their loyalty to the goals,
ideals, beliefs of the constitution of
the shared state, of a shared reality,
of a culture defined by 'human' values,
which can be the basis for judgement of
issues related to their representation
in governance, in law, and in reality.
that is, global warming exists in the
context of mankind. abortion, aids, in
the context of private value systems
and beliefs competing about what this
means. this relativism of man is not
the same if 'the question of life' is
framed within a human context- which
today it is not. it is not in actual
words: it has to be translated from
its private origin, viewpoint, logic,
into a humanized pseudo-point of view
which cannot function to represent a
human view, only a particular view of
men and their kind, whoever happens to
be the biggest baddest superman who is
able to get things his way, his story.
this is not the true America, this is
the manifestation of a limited view of
reality from the age of enlightenment
enshrined in the .US constitution as
being based on the realities of private
men, founding fathers, and their views.
these same beliefs, limited in ability
to approach a human view, are creating
cultural problems that can only become
resolved through an evolution of ideas
which revolutionizes the perspective of
what is considered a citizen, a public
citizen as a human being, and a private
citizen as a man, woman, adult or child,
or in-between (note: philosophy of Plato
includes this dimension in the Republic
as the hermaphrodite exists beyond 'man'
and thus becomes a conceptual bridging
of what range is considered represented).
if science were held accountable in its
ideas, as science, based on an accurate
representation of facts, beyond cultural
bias, it would perform its function well.
if religion were able to openly debate
universal ideas, yet be held accountable
for its language, logic, and facts as they
are related to what is considered to be real.
such that what science is unable to define
religion may better be able to understand,
and what science is capable of, religion is
not able to function as in terms of ideas:
as one is physics, the other metaphysics.
one is most real in the realm of the public,
one is most real in the realm of the private.
this is the what a state mediates, represents.
as with individuals, as groups, and as a world.
the true claims of science are for it to
be the most accurate representation of the
what is understood to be the public reality.
the shared empirical view of nature itself.
as a way of thinking science cannot replace god,
it ignores everything that cannot be translated
into mathematics, and yet ideologically it is
believed by some of the more ignorant to have
superseded questions of god and of existence
by a fixed belief systems with modern values.
this is the cultural dilemma that can be seen
in the conceit of scientists beyond question,
who cannot lower themselves to the realms of
common language to defend their universal ideas,
because they have become metaphysicians and are
functioning as equivalent to state religionists.
science becomes the public ideology of modernism.
the supposed objectivity, reality, truth that are
believed by adherents to be beyond dispute, beyond
contention, can function in ways beyond democracy,
beyond, beyond morals, becoming fascist, machine-
like, automated, beyond questioning, at ways evil.
human experimentation, poverty, genocide, eugenics.
damn right that evolution should be debate if this
is legimated as business-as-usual in the worldview
as it exists- as it is functions beyond the truth,
it is a political force, it is the facade of inner-
workings of a bureaucratic machinery based on and
legitimated by this same ideology, that is said to
represent humans while representing man, if that,
more likely machinery, ways of living, doing things
that keep things exactly as they are... unchanged.
culture that does not change, dies. it does not
evolve, it devolves, it crashes and burns. people
get stupid, they become more like animals than
like an enlightened humanity which serves greater
ideas than its least common denominators, power
which serves people, not itself and its unthinking
ideology. it may be a question of moral philosophy
which neither the science nor religion of mankind
has been capable of effectively answering for all
of humanity, and wars await until it can do so.
what is the common basis for what good, true, and
real for those living on the planet today? is it,
as constituted in governments around the world, a
measurement of man and his designs upon the world,
and whichever man, and his nation-state, should be
victorious that that is the best competitive model
by which to rearrange and hierarchically relate a
man to himself (god) at the scale of earth, i.e.
designing himself (the earth) in his own image?
might it be possible that, empirically, what is
true, real, good, and of value is overwhelming
evident in that which is shared by humanity in
its basic needs for food, clothing, shelter,
health, work, peace? how can the world judge
itself based on the private values of mankind,
enshrined in 'words' in constitutions, and be
able to guarantee the rights of human beings
to co-exist, to be protected, to be equal if
this is not the measurement of laws themselves?
of ideas themselves? of logic used to reason
why this is so? of the ability to ask, debate,
criticize, hold accountable by checks, balances,
what is claimed versus what is actually true
and real about physical manifestations of ideas?
foreign policy functions as a matter of faith.
domestic policy functions as a matter of faith.
science, modernism, legitimates this approach: a
too subjective science, a too private modernism.
government is taking, ideologically, on faith-
that is, belief holds more power than truth and
functions identically as a religious perception,
a private perspective of issues related to that
of values, goals, aims, to a very finite group.
that is what develops as a difference 2,500 BP
(before present) that remains today in existing
clashing worldviews that are based in ideation.
that originate ideologies that have become fixed.
the assumptions that perpetuate these problems.
what if 'science' is more accurately understood
and modeled outside of culture, in relation to
the state, in relation to modernity, and then
in relation to the present questions of freedom
of thought, democracy, the shared public-- might
it be possible that it is not a profanity to be
desiring such altruistic goals and aims as a way
of sharing gifts of discovery, without the plague
of ideology which threatens and insults what is
a core difference in cultures by replacing it,
the values, goals, ideals, with another man's
worldview of what these are said to be - to
challenge the heritage and tradition for ideas
which are alien to their context and developed
outside common conceptions that cannot simply
be plugged in but must be constituted within a
way of governing, balancing the questions with
their responses in a way that protects all of
those involved- citizens, rights, and ideas.
i.e., as it currently exists Western science may
function differently than, say, an Arab science
if it is to include how it integrates within a
culture and how it relates to questions of the
state, how things are developed in relation to
the new, the modern, what is considered 'public'
if religion and-or science, and where freedoms
may begin and end for open questioning of ideas,
protection by law of encountering cosmic unknowns.
if there is terrorism today based in the dynamics
of western developments, in modernization and in
development, between public and private, between
the state, and internationally - between religion
and effectively, 'science' as an ideology that is
not representing tradition in a significant way--
that is, that at a level of values, beliefs, ideas
that the 'western' logic, language, identity is
not translating as well as it possibly needs to,
that in some way it may have to do with issues
of open inquiry and debate, criticism of ideas,
empirical knowledge sharing, information access,
and a differentiation between what is valued as
public physics and private metaphysics in terms
of legal and state/government representation.
that is, that the state exists so to be real,
and to represent its people in a shared reality.
so that it can protect, sustain, grow, prosper.
if a state cannot accurately represent itself,
instead of evolving it could start to devolve.
it could become stuck in repeating patterns of
culture which strip away the ideas which make
a place and become trapped into a worldview
that is no longer related to what is the real.
maybe all states have this distortion in some
degree or another based on cultural perceptions.
the .US' involvement in Iraq was against the
received wisdom of everyone involved, even its
own human military planners, yet it went ahead
as if an automated machine, unconscious, able
only to believe its own model of the events
and their effects. the empirical data skewed
by politics served by language and mathematics.
the result of claims made, a new utopia, are
now its opposite, a kakotopia exists instead.
it is not the end of the questions, yet the way
or approach was unable to secure the truth as
it was perceived and believed and now a change
in approach is necessary to make adjustments so
that the situation has a chance of improving,
whereas not changing would guarantee repeating
effects of making the same wrong choices again.
the existential thing. the looping of decision-
making until the cybernetic feedback mechanism
informs of some necessary other action to make
headway and maybe even to question assumptions,
the ideas which are the basis for such choices.
if ideological, this cannot happen until it is
a conscious decision to reopen the questioning...
thus, a kind of science, religion, and the state.
if looking to the Middle-east in these terms one
thing stands out that is fundamentally different
in these same realms of ideas and ideologies. it
may be true that the 'western' view is unhelpful
in significant ways to improving the situation,
and it is a heartfelt connection that a generous
people exist in the middle-east that can separate
policy from peoples desires, maybe it is a shared
human dilemma, learned only from such experience.
though while there are some ideas that function
beyond science, some may be considered beliefs,
it would seem that in the Middle-East one could
be taking a unique and tragic toll by becoming
a limitation to how to represent shared reality.
meaning: when something does not represent what
is actually going on, it may limit the ability
to progress beyond a given view of things if it
limits other possibilities, to learn, adapt, to
change, to relate a question with a situation.
that key cultural difference would seem to be
part of the long story of human development and
tied into tribes and villages and peoples, the
extended human family and, in particular, what
amounts to a 'Hatfield's and McCoy's' feud of
the millennia between peoples of the region.
that American reference is to two families that
live near, and eternally are fighting eachother.
that's probably normal up to some point, yet
in a world of different measurements based on
'man' as constituted by nation-states, it is
a recipe for disaster in terms of sharing a
view of the world in which people can co-exist.
tribes may not be equal: the human tribe must be.
in the 'west', the science and industrialization
that led up to developments of the 20th century,
also led to a horrific fact of what unrestrained
hatred results in: holocausts. instead of money,
ideas, whatever, hatred becomes the commodity to
be exchanged, a currency with power to influence
events, to see things happen, a natural force to
be harnessed. for the 'west' this resulted in an
incineration of 6 million+ people, beyond doubt.
any responsible person knows that hatred indeed
leads to such atrocities. that hatred is power.
and maybe it is even real, people truly hate a
thing that becomes a basis, cause, for actions.
in the 'west' this hatred, in a scientific context
had some tangible effect. it was hideously wrong,
morally corrupt, ideologically inhuman, and evil.
yet people still believed. and did the unthinkable.
some could say sharing such a hatred as that which
could produce such an effect could only be a type
of unthinking, mindless reaction based in a his-
storical situation where it is very different in
tone- that these are brothers and sisters in the
long scheme of things, for instance, and it is
more of a matter of contention than annihilation
of the other's reality, point of view, existence.
there is no ambiguity where the 'west' stands in
its relation to these facts, to the effects of
harboring and supporting such a view in common.
the reason is, the hatred was based on lies, on
distortions, and it was not true. it was an outcome
of an ideology which tapped into an emotional need
to make sense of chaos, to give people a greater
sense of power by taking away their responsibility
to ask questions- and instead it answered all of
the questions so people could be sure in knowing
they were right, even though they were wrong,
that they were powerful, even though weak, that
they sought heaven, while creating what was hell.
that is a line-in-the-sand, on the planet Mars,
as far as the reality of such a view of the world
in a scientific, modern, realistic representation
of shared facts and physical law and nature that
is proven unable to be the universal cause of all
problems of an immense geography of immense talent,
capacity, and capability, on the very of exciting
growth, discovery, development- which in now going
to start developing in ways equivalent to high-
speed 20th century American yet in another way,
context-- though with similar perils and pitfalls
if held in relation to such inhumane and dangerous
perceptions which are not accurate to situations,
and threaten greater stability and sustainability
by increasing threats, should such views become
actions at a level of scale of developing states.
that would appear to be a major difference and a
major threat between what amounts to a 'human'
worldview in relation to that of men. it is not
out of disrespect that this is shared as a view,
it is out of experience for having failed to be
responsible enough to prevent ideas from being
taken over by ideologies which result in putting
the machinery of state, at work, to extinguish
alternative human views, of equal right to exist,
and to place the power of industrial development
to negative ends that enslaves minds, and in the
era of nuclear weapons could extinguish peoples
who pursue and threaten such actions. that is
the worry with the nuclear developments, it
would seem, in relation to hatred, to checks-
and-balance which effectively amounts to a
democratic and open questioning based in fact
not myth, with regard to harnessing the most
powerful forces unveiled to humans on earth,
and how they are perceived and put to use.
if a hatred is not truthful to the situation,
and yet is used to represent all the ills of
a culture undergoing exciting transformations,
where it is the cause of all the negatives, of
all the effects of what is not right, good, etc.
it may become a distortion which holds back the
ideas which need to supplant this personal view
which may be culturally embedded as competition
between tribes, or in a region, though always
still neighbors, that it may become a self-
fulfilling prophesy that is based on something
that is not accurate yet it carries with it an
inability to model the situation realistically
so that things do not happen as a result of an
inaccurate belief or portrayal to the point
that what does not happen, legitimizes the
belief that the hatred is justified as a cause,
because the effect is the same as if it were
actually true-- if there is no scientific need
to look at the issues beyond that of biases,
myths, beliefs that are not empirically true.
there may be some partial cultural truth, in
that there are different self-interests of
people and people compete. but to hold an-
other entirely responsible for the fate of
another people, this is the same issues that
the .us dealt with when it was undergoing
the massive technological and scientific
development of early and mid-20th century.
the industrialization that Hitler and Nazis
chose to turn into a global war machine, in
other places was harnessed for freeing the
imagination to do new things, and to dream.
to be freed of those shackles of the past
which held back 'progress', in the sense of
ideals, ideas which broke with a historical
ideology of what was traditionally possible.
the impossible became real. emancipation of
limitations advanced. values, beliefs drove
new innovations, inventions, transforming
everything with the electrification of the
society. it is an essay i've wanted to write
because it parallels developments going on
everywhere else in the world right now, a
potential that exists for such times when
considering the tools that are available,
and how they could help mediate current
paradoxes. for instance, industrialization
of the northern .US had some effect in the
transformation of slavery from using human
beings as machines to using machines to do
work which humans could control instead.
the victory of the north in the civil war
was likely the key to .US developments in
that it led to greater freedoms for humans.
so too, during the world wars, because of
the needs for production of certain goals
required for sustaining through wartime,
women and minorities were given jobs in
electrical factories in which they could
learn new skills and participate, and as
such further open up the society by way
of design. this not only led to winning
of wars but developing of society, the
advance of equality, greater liberties
and constitutional rights, to redefine
the reasoning of the enlightenment to
more effectively represent those of the
present who it is designed to protect
and to serve. even within segregation,
for example, a black inventor was able
to practice dreaming of new ideas and
to participate - opportunities started
to exist and potentials were unleashed
that were fundamental and foundational,
and still impacting the growth of the
culture, and also its limitations and
unforeseen consequences of such change.
this can best be symbolized as a whole
by architecture, as it represents the
economic, social, and political culture
in built form. it manifests the ideas
that originate to mediate the physical
world. and 'modernism' is, as an icon,
believed to have developed this way,
until its later years when negative
effects of such practices were reviewed,
and they became meaningless and detached
from the physical truth, it became a
machine, to be questioned by way of
post-modernity, in all of its chaos.
which is basically, a giant looping
of the story of the last 2,500 years
where what is said to be science is,
today, less physics than metaphysics.
that it functions not as ideas but as
ideologies: and so, no wonder that it
causes cultural problems, rightly so
it should if it is not a real experience,
that the rhetoric does not match reality.
how could it if the cultural assumptions
are completely different? how can there
be trust if there is no shared public?
how can we be working to build for the
same goals and tribe if we cannot even
be represented as such, by words, by
ideas, by science, by historical flaw?
what about all the dreams and possibilities
that are just sitting here waiting for us
to figure out a way to upgrade our way of
living, together, as a world, that what is
possible is also the beautiful, cherished,
valued beliefs and truths and ideas that
hope can defeat fear, that dreams are worth
suffering for, that children deserve to live
in a better world that is our duty to create.
beyond our biases, our hatred, our limitations.
together we can do it, as human beings on the
planet earth. alone, we are no better than a
planet of apes who seek to dominate eachother.
we are a civilization of different cultures,
we have established civilized relations yet
which have differences, and now we have to
figure out how to design a better world with
many designers who can work tother, respect
one another, and learn from one another so
as to not repeat mistakes by lessons that
are already learned throughout our family.
with the rise of classes of engineers in
the middle-east and developing countries
who are ramping up their science-based
systems, there is a critical aspect that
is unmistakable in the shared story: the
outcome is going to be a result of the
ideas that are guiding the development.
or, the ideology that misguides it. and
the difference between the choices made
is between the better aspects of the .US
and the vanquished ideology of the Nazis.
one is based on hope, the other, fear and
of something so untrue it was extinguished,
instead of ideas and people it sought to.
as a 'human' family, as observers who have
observations and share these ideas freely,
the dream is shared by all people who are
willing and able to transcend ideology to
work on representing and designing reality
that reward our shared values, goals, aims.
the dream of live and let live, the dream
of seeing change in our lifetime, the dream
of gathering our minds and bodies to build
ideas together that only we are able to do.
to develop the world into a better place.
to work on solutions, together, to think
about questions in a common framework, to
consider various views and so to benefit.
the reason for writing this amount of
background, which is very fuzzy in that
it is a bunch of ideas that are washing
around in the text, is because this is an
alternative view of the world in which to
consider the issues of architecture which
places itself as the utmost manifestation
of development, of ideology, of modernism,
and it can mediate these issues in relation
to cultural differences beyond ideologies,
beyond biases, beyond cultural paradoxes.
there is a commonality that arose within
modernism and science, around the world;
it is not represented by western celebrity
architects. it is represented by engineers,
architectural-engineering, and it is the
cultural representation of what is held
in common in built form: infrastructure.
energy, communications, transportation.
the engineering and engineering society's
are the basis for modern architecture's
commonality beyond architect's worldviews.
it is a place where art, archaeology, and
architecture can be related, as the Middle-
east looks ahead, the .US and west could
begin to look back from the future and to
relate to to this shared present; shared
aesthetics, where dirt is dirt, bobcats
are bobcasts, scaffolding is scaffolding,
computers are computers, and the potential
for these exists in ideas, not ideologies.
this is a more truly modern worldview, if
science, physical law, and other aspects
such as philosophy are taken into account
as to the worth and value of architecture.
and it is where architects could have a
role in bridging differences, cultural
understanding, and world views by how
they choose to relate to this new order.
i contend that it is electromagnetism, and
that the electrical distribution poles and
towers are a potential area where aesthetics
could both share and differentiate approaches,
such that, as with an American infrastructure,
the Arab infrastructure and its poles and towers
may be designed to reflect certain realities and
to shape these very large systems to serve people
in way they are not effectively doing today. the
architecture to do this needs to be invented...
[cont.]