So much is happening lately that I don't even know where to begin. And can I even begin to address any of this? I think not. In fact, it's so worrisome that it's hard to even worry about it. Why? Because I have a typical human ability that many of us fail to utilize: foresight.
It's nothing psychic or magical. It's just the frontal lobe doing it's job. The frontal lobe is a very unique part of the brain that allows us, and any animal, to synthesize experience with new stimuli, and allows us to determine whether or not something might taste good (liver and onion ice cream will more than likely taste bad, but we don't have to try it to find out), or what might occur if I throw this rock at that mama bear (likely getting mauled). There are patterns to events and outcomes, which our frontal lobes give us the power to predict.
I have talked considerably with my mentor Scott Sworts about Nostradamus, and I have written elsewhere about him, not about him being a prophet, but as a historian of Jungian historical archetypes. Jung established archetypes for psychic entities, projections, and processes (operations). Nostradamus established archetypes for historical events and outcomes. Essentially, if Event A occurs to Society B, then the outcome will be Ramification C. A + B = C. The only difference is Nostradamus coded his work, probably to protect himself from repercussions that may arise from religious organizations and governmental authorities.
Nostradamus, if I may use Scott's words, isn't prophesizing the future, but telling us who we are. If Nostradamus' work is in fact historical archetypes, then clearly history repeats itself. And all we have to do is look at events in history to see where things might go from here.
One common archetype in history is that mass artificial control, usually in the form of oppression, will always be overcome. Maybe not in the short term, but always in the long term. We may be regressing in our progress as a society, but that bubble of oppression cannot be maintained. If women lose their rights, homosexuals executed, and religious persecution of non-Christians does prevail, it is an artificial Promise Land. A utopia, if you get my drift.
But if they weed out all the infidels, all who are different, how will equality and peace arise out of such oppression? one might ask. The oppression is a bubble, an artifice of control that is maintained only by power, wealth, and little else. But it's a bubble, and all bubbles pop eventually. No matter how long the oppression is maintained, difference will arise in the system, and that difference will gain enough momentum to pop that bubble.
They may burn all the libraries, but eventually someone will find a book in a treasury and revive a better tradition. I think this is what those old myths of the hero, who is supposed to be euthanize, but somehow evades death, are all about. Zeus was replaced by a rock, Moses in a basket, Krishna in a basket as well, Jesus was born out of Galilee and into Egypt, and so forth. In the end, the oppression was carried out, but what can pop the bubble evaded euthanization, because eventually the artificial system will fail to weed out all who are different. Difference is inevitable; even in nature, evolution, deformations, defects, and mutations occur, and sometimes they win over the established system.
A more current myth I think is fantastic example is the film Dark City. Aliens, known as the Strangers, have an illusion of absolute control over an artificial city they built to house a human zoo for experimentation. Every day they "tune" to put everyone in the city to sleep while they change the city, and even switch people's memories. Every once in a while people wake up while these changes occur. "It's not supposed to happen, but it does," as one character says; exactly the point. The Strangers usually do away with these people who wake up, but finally one of them gains the power to defeat these aliens, and sets everyone free. Just as Moses set his people free.
These puritanical ideals of women being little more than house slaves and baby-producing machines, homosexuals having the gay prayed away (usually a Clockwork Orange kind of aversion therapy), intolerance and persecution of other religions (currently Muslims), et cetera... this 13th Century puritania pursuit will eventually fall apart. If the world falls to shit, I know that maybe a century or three later Enlightenment will come again. Everything we have worked so hard to achieve will be revived. It is inevitable.
I regret that I never lived to see America in its golden years (if there ever was such a thing), and I am saddened that I will never see the true ideals of what it meant to be American fully lived out. We may be on the verge of a Dark Age, but I don't worry about it anymore, because I know that that bubble will pop. What saddens me the most is that when Enlightenment comes again, it too will wane and pass back into an age of darkness again. Such is the cycles of history. I can only hope we leave enough of a world left (nuclear war, toxic wastes, the throw-way society, climate change) for future generations to have another Enlightenment.
I am saddened that much of the discoveries that are being made in science today (M-theory, quantum computing, Relativity, nuclear physics, genetic processing, etc) are being discarded by the anti-science movement, and will probably be lost for centuries. But I delight myself with knowing that one day someone will find hidden in the ruins of some university a copy of Einstein's Relativity that evaded getting burned, and suddenly become filled with wonder as to how much we knew. Or that someone might find in a dilapidated house a copy of Wealth of Nations, or Godel, Escher, Bach and find a world of wonder from the minds of the past.
I can't worry if the religious right reigns supreme with an iron fist over all who are not white, conservative Christians. Why should I worry? What am I supposed to do about it? I'm just one man, and there are thousands of Americans striving to keep their rights, and they don't seem to be doing much good.
Know this: these glory years of America and of the world will come to an end. But some day, if we leave enough of a world left, that oppression will end and be replaced by a better world. Which, in turn, will eventually give way to another dark age. Such is the order of things until the final demise of humans altogether.
"Why should I lament the disappearance of my people? All things die; white race will find this out too."
~Chief Seattle.
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