a video on
A
friend asked what I as an ethnographer, a student of Humankind, make of the
cult reported on in the above video. My answer: “Batshittery americana domesticus, anthropologically speaking.”
This
genus, species and subspecies belongs to the taxonomic family of religious
cults and other beliefs and practices that have failed to find a place in mainstream
American life. Such cults and their beliefs are not in a dustbin with similar
nonsense the likes of which are never to be seen again. This one and its sundry
mutant variants await us in a holding pattern in the Ethnosphere.
Awaiting what? Awaiting their chance to rejoin us and hopefully get into the
mainstream of American thinking. That is, as a new and improved human-made supernatural
myth to propel us further toward our place in Abrahamic heaven.
But,
shockingly (well, not too shockingly), such bizarre approaches, in all spheres
of human life, have become more highly feasible options for Americans in recent
years. That is, as we careen toward full national batshittery under the
pastoral presidential leadership of God’s current anointed one, Junior Jesus
Golden Hair.
The
full-open, genius and idiocy spewing font of human creativity is bountiful.
With liberté, égalité and fraternité must inevitably come some,
perhaps an equal measure of, utter cockamamie nonsense, individual and
collective. That is a good thing. No font, no diversity of ideas and behaviors,
no ever-fresh material for cultural evolution to chew on. No-one knows what
oddball notions will be adaptive given the right context.
It’s
not so much what kinds of ideas the creativity font provides as long as there’s
a great variety in what it produces. What’s really important is the wellbeing
of the selective mechanism working on that stuff. Mind you, the selection
process has no direction or goal despite the protestations of Protestants, caterwauling
of Catholics, or the murmuring of Muslims. Cultural evolution selects ideas that
are provisionally adaptive in whatever context happens to exist at the time.
A
variety of ideas put in the selection mechanism at a time populated by ignorant,
gullible, uncritical, tribalistic people, you get crap out. A variety of ideas
put into the mechanism at a better time of a more enlightened population, then
you get less crap out. The crap will never be totally eliminated. We’re human.
We don’t produce perfection. We muddle through on a few, occasional quirks of
genius along the way.
Although
it is showing serious signs of declining efficiency in terms of favoring Humankind,
which it does not do so intentionally, the winnowing mechanism of our species’
cultural evolution selection process still works, for now.
That
is despite the efforts of Ayn Rand, Richard Nixon, Michelle Bachman, Alan
Greenspan, just to name a few of my favorites that happen to come to mind; and many
other moderns, including that cast of evangelicals and charismatics that have
found their way into the White House and are fawning over JJGH. That is, it’s
still working well enough for us to have so far avoided extinction and not completely
destroyed the biosphere. But, who knows, give us enough time, enough bad ideas
in bad contexts and we just might succeed at exterminating ourselves and ending
all other life on the planet!
Yes,
Jim, thank you for those words of encouragement and hope.
But
really, you ask, what about the possibility of a good future where our
sub-species, Homo sapiens sapiens, stays
the course toward a greater realization of the truly best (that is, humane) Enlightenment
political and economic ideals, and continues to flourish on a scientific and
technological journey of progress that does not kill everything? Well, I say the chance of that happening is a crap shoot.
Personally,
I took my chips off the primate evolution betting table on U.S. presidential
election day, November 8, 2016. I no longer have them on us, the relatively
weak-muscled, small canine-toothed, wordy, ever-tinkering, sometimes
treacherous, sometimes wise primate. Oh, by the way, never turn your back on or
otherwise trust a monkey or ape, especially not their evolutionary cousins
wearing suits. They’re capable of anything. I know from my personal experience
of indignities given and received. But that’s another story for another time.
I’m
looking for a better earthly critter to place my money on. How about a total
Life on Earth reset starting from one of the Xenophyophora, hydrothermal vent creatures at the bottom of the
Mariana Trench?
But,
then again, we can’t be certain that the eventual outcome of such a restart
would be any better, can we? It might be a worse, shorter, scarier evolutionary run
than we’re currently having. Then again, it might stumble toward universal and
sustainable peace, love and brother/sisterhood in a paradise on earth. Surely
something like that is in the current font of human creativity.
