Two Boys and a Girl: and the new sub-human reality

Illustration by Tony Grogan

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist” - Hannah Arendt, philosopher 

Author note:  I wrote this piece out of my direct experience and the responses of others to the ongoing Covid-19 process. Not from a position of being anti-authority, anti-technology nor anti-democracy, but rather anti - deception, over-control, and anti power that corrupts. 
And pro civility, acceptance of all as equals, and compassion. (Specific disenchantment with the South African Government 's atrocious handling of the pandemic is the subject of another article).

OUR NEW TECHNOLOGICAL AND SUB-HUMAN REALITIES

Current wisdom is that things will never be the same again for business, that certain Covid-19 regulations and restrictions will be with us for the foreseeable future – in particular social distancing and work-from-home. Zoom presentations and meetings (small and large) are a big part of the new norm.  Earlier today I came across an article heralding: "The future of work is cause based collaboration at scale in the Social Room". An on-line workshop to define the future of work in South Africa, that would explore the “power of Exponential Technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, Block-chain, Big Data, Internet of Things or 3D Printing, to use humanity's latest progress for our own benefit”. A call to use automation to transform human resource processes (!). And many others in similar vein. 

High-tech is being ushered in. High-touch is on the way out. 

If we take the current situation of severe economic and social hardship for many, and throw 5G networking, cyber technologies, artificial intelligence and robotics into the mix as businesses chase survival and competitive positioning, we can expect an acceleration of the move to high-tech, even its exponential ‘growth’. Add a dash of genetic modification and militarisation (drones firing missiles and killer robots are already a reality notwithstanding ethical opposition to developments like this) -  and the advent of transhumanism is hastened. 

Prior to Covid-19, Ilia Delio, who works at the intersection of science and religion, reported that “Artificial Intelligence is spawning a philosophical shift today, from reality constructed of matter and energy to reality constructed on information”. Citing Mitcham, she comments on transhumanism: “Up to the 20th century the philosophical challenge was to think nature – and ourselves in the presence of nature. Today the philosophical challenge is to think technology – and ourselves in the presence of technology”.  (Delio, I. 2013)

Transhumanism flirts dangerously with dehumanisation, and brings us ever closer to the AI/ Human crossover point, termed ‘singularity’. Becoming trans-human is an ego-driven goal. It aims at overcoming our physical and biological 'limitations' in order to ‘evolve’ into being ‘super-human’.  Closer to perfection. Or closer to dysfunctionality? 

Enter governments around the world, politicians bent on patting themselves on the back, claiming to be saving our lives using “scientific evidence”, “expert modelling”, “risk-adjusted approaches”, and well-designed and necessary strategies, actions and regulations to “flatten the coronavirus curve”. 

In South Africa, we are asked to trust a government that has succeeded in destroying the economy and failed to weave the fabric of our high-potential society into a cohesive whole. Their draconian, constitution-threatening and often irrational strategic control and compliance, lock-down restrictions, empowered by the Disaster Management Act, are being led and driven by Jacob Zuma’s ex-wife, who aspires to be President and who is the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.  

Her focus appears to be on political matters quite far removed from managing the response to the pandemic. At a press conference on 25th April, she stated that the coronavirus pandemic “… also offers us an opportunity to accelerate the implementation of some long agreed upon structural changes … These opportunities call for more sacrifice and – if needs be – what Amilcar Cabral called “class suicide” ….’. 

(Marxist Cabral led the revolutionary guerrilla war for independence against Portuguese Guinea, West Africa. His solution requires doing away with capitalism and adopting the non-colonial values of the masses.  An analysis of the threatened sustainability of our constitution and our “unalienable human rights’ is the topic of another article. President Ramaphosa’s standpoint may or may not be aligned. Sadly, we don’t know).

For now it is sufficient for us to note that famous 19th century French historian and social commentator, Alexis de Tocqeville, who saw value in democracy, and was also “… frank about the shortcomings, some of which are still evident today:

• the costliness and inefficiency of government
• the venality and ignorance of many public officials
• the high level of political bombast
• the tendency for conformism to counterbalance individualism
• the peril of the “tyranny of the majority”
• the tension between crass materialism and religious enthusiasm
• the threat from a rising plutocracy that would gain control of the state” 

(Fernández - Armesto, F. 2003)

By and large, politicians in South Africa are unlikely to look after any interests other than their own, and in their handling of this pandemic are demonstrating a total lack of rationality and care and compassion for our society, our junk-status economy, or for the poorest of our poor…    In tandem with the stampede to high tech, we can expect government control and compliance leadership to continue, a (probably covert) pursuit of the sinister ANC agenda, blatant lies and false news that far too many citizens accept, and the arrival of an era where dehumanisation rules and we lurch from one crisis to another. 

Business organisations, because of the losses suffered during the pandemic lock-downs and restrictions, are likely to adopt the “new norms” of work-from-home with enabling technologies, and reduce their staff complements, and limit investment in corporate social and environmental responsibility programmes - in order to further reduce their operating costs. Few are thinking about the huge impact on many areas of our well being, including our mental health -  anxiety and depression is occurring at unprecedented rates. 

Rees gives a clear perspective: “…. environmental degradation, unchecked climate change and unintended consequences of advanced technology could trigger serious, even catastrophic, setbacks to society”.  On necessary wealth distribution and closing the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’: “Failure to respond to this (feasible) humanitarian imperative, which nations have the power to remedy, surely casts doubt on any claims of institutional moral progress”. (Rees, M. 2018) 

IS THERE ANY CHANCE OF A BETTER WAY?

Whatever else changes, we humans remain constant in respect of our overriding needs, aspirations and desires. We have basic, primary cravings for connection (of the non-artificial kind!), sharing, belonging and love.

The crux of the matter is that we must resist being forced into a way of life characterised by social distancing, isolation and alienation; authoritarian and ego-driven compliance, control and manipulation; and rampant technology that dehumanises as it enables us being apart.

Once there was a boy who had no immunity against disease and lived inside a plastic bubble. 

Totally isolated. Quarantined. Alone.

Everything that he consumed or read or played with were given to him through a specially sealed opening, by people who wore gloves and had first sanitized what they passed to him.

Otherwise he would be contaminated and die instantly.

As he deteriorated and it became clear that he was in fact dying, he asked if he could reach for and touch his father outside of the plastic bubble. He knew that this would mean instant death.

But he reached outside of his bubble and touched his father’s hand …. 

(A 1976 movie starring John Travolta: The Boy in the Plastic Bubble)

Is a more sustainable, safer, more secure, compassionate world in which we can thrive, possible?

WE HAVE, EACH OF US, THREE EMERGING PERSONAL CHOICES 

Perhaps successfully living with meaning, being connected, purposeful and content and avoiding the looming danger of gradual (?) trans-humanisation requires a value system and worldview based on three critical choices:

• Accepting imperfection

Not being ego-driven and striving after position, power, possessions, hedonistic pleasure and the illusion of perfection – extrinsic drives that might seduce us into blindly embracing what is fed to us as artificial intelligence, remote working, slanted media … Accepting imperfection rather than building our self-concept on these extrinsic drivers (largely supported by Western society as a whole) is key. We are vulnerable, inadequate, dogged by mistakes, fears, fallacies, foibles, flaws…  This doesn’t mean that we cannot think and behave in ‘possibilist’ terms, achieve great things. We are good enough and what we decide is ‘great’ and how we measure this becomes different, based on noble intrinsic drivers like having a higher purpose, caring for the planet and other people, becoming present and developing our personhood (not as an upward progression, but reaching true actualisation by descending via self-emptying and serving).

Accepting our imperfection is our start-point, so well proven by the principles on which Alcoholics Anonymous has carried out its sacred work. Without recognition of our own imperfection we are unable to be truly compassionate to others. (Kurtz, E and Ketcham, K. 1994)

Shakespeare’s King Lear was an ego-driven, into the extrinsic drivers and a manipulative ‘taker’ not a ‘giver’. His decree that whoever of his three daughters loved him most would inherit most, backfires when his favourite daughter (Cordelia) refuses to play his game, speaks truth, and is disinherited.

His rational, trusted and true adviser (the Earl of Kent) is brutally sacked when he too speaks truth to Lear. Kent remains loyal and returns disguised as a servant. Lear’s fragmenting, alienating, naming, blaming, demanding and punishing behaviour is also applied to his court jester. 

The turning point in Lear’s life is when he finds himself in the wild countryside outside of his castle. Forlorn and in despair. No longer ‘mighty’. In the cold and wet, shivering alongside a boy he comes across, King Lear finds the capacity to look outside of himself, and show compassion to one of his servants, a boy.  The first step to obtaining contentment.

He asks, “How dost, my boy? Art cold?”

• Redefining our potential and what success means

After accepting our imperfection (which may require a fair measure of unconscious shadow work) and which directly or indirectly requires us to address the important existential questions of Who am I? Why am I here? What difference can I make? we will more easily assess what we need to master in order to be ‘successful’.  

Entelechy is a trial and error realising of who we are meant to be. It derives from entelechia which is that which makes actual what is otherwise merely ‘potential’.

We are on never-ending journeys where our destination may change. From “I have to achieve something worthwhile”, “I am determined to overcome my past upbringing, conditions, lacks, mistakes”, “I must get to be someone important”, “What legacy can I leave?”, “Will people recognise what I do and have done?”   

As we journey we learn, slip, bounce back, overcome limiting beliefs, grow in confidence, unearth a higher purpose, deal with unconscious biases, learn to be prosocial and serve something higher than ourselves, discover how to connect, share, belong and love. In Jungian parlance, we ‘individuate’. (Ferucci, P. 2004)         

We begin to live more in the present and avoid, as Eckhart Tolle puts it, too much future and too much past. (Tolle, E. 2001)  We live less regretfully, resentfully, anxiously, and expectantly.  We wake up, grow up, clean up and show up. Leave behind the era of the “triumph” of individualism, and enter an era where we are able to develop and satisfy a thirst for community.  

• Invoking mind-brain and heart

Once we have chosen and worked at accepting our imperfection, discovering a potential that gives us a higher purpose and meaning by serving, we can ready ourselves to wholeheartedly invoke and add ‘heart’ to our rational mind-brain.  And choose to admit joy, wonder, beauty, curiosity, mindfulness, soul into our home, social and work lives. Build bridges not walls. Love.

Fynn came across Anna in the London docklands, a dirty, abused, bruised, five-year old urchin who had run away from ‘home’. Anna never reached the age of 8. She was in constant communion with Mister God and taught Fynn about insatiable curiosity, wonder, joy, honesty, belly-laughing and love. She walked like a prostitute, copying her friend Millie who lived on her street. “She died with a grin on her beautiful face”.

Three ways in which Anna invoked “heart”:

o Non-dualistic thinking and behaving. Not either/ or but and/ both. “Fynn, that’s the difference. You see, everybody has got a point of view, but Mister God hasn’t”. It turned out that god has an infinite number of points of view or what Anna called ‘viewing points’ because he is everywhere. When, like Mister God, you measure from the inside of you, you see that ’Arry (who was Jewish) and Ali (Sikh) are as much loved as all those who go to church.  

o Mindfulness. She really observed, smelled, tasted, heard and felt. And was sad that others missed the mark. “…a broken-off stump of an iron railing” in which others failed to see “the colours, the crystalline shapes …. The possibilities ….”. Anna could explore and imagine how “this jagged fracture could become a world of iron mountains, of iron plains with crystal trees”. ‘Some people don’t see nuffink and – and – ’ She threw herself in my arms and sobbed”.  

o Being above doing. “The instructions weren’t to be good and kind and loving, etc., and it therefore followed that you would be more like Mister God. No! The whole point of being alive was to BE like Mister God and then you couldn’t help but be good and kind and loving, could you?” And this being heart-driven, was naturally emptied of ego. ‘If you get like Mister God, you don’t know you are, do you?’   ‘Are what?’ I questioned. ‘Good and Kind and Loving’”.

“The diffrense from a person and an angel is easy. Most of an angel is in the inside and most of a person is on the outside”.  Anna’s worldview incorporated being fully human, being in community, accepting, belonging, sharing, loving, perceiving others with the heart.  Seeing not their flaws but their potential, seeing Mister God in everything.  In conversation around an old tin-can brazier, one of the 'night people’, Old Woody, shared with her a Shakespearian sonnet:

In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,

For they in thee a thousand curses note;

But ‘tis my heart that loves what they despise. 

(Fyn.1977)

Accepting that we are imperfect, redefining success and aligning our potential with that new notion of non-material success, and being heart-driven allows us to play our part in bringing about what really matters in our lives and the lives of others. And we are able to formulate and articulate a worldview far preferable to a view that is defined by wealth, status, and succumbs to transhumanism. Moore points out that the soul “needs an articulated worldview, a carefully worked out scheme of values and a sense of relatedness to the whole”. (Moore, T. 1992)  

We have an opportunity to take stock, decide, choose. To choose not to be manipulated puppets, dancing to the strings pulled by what Scott Peck has named “People of the Lie”.  We can be a part of applying a strong brake on the abuses of power and on the misuse of technology – in particular when it is militarised or used to dehumanise.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Honda_prototype_robots_Honda_Collection_Hall.jpg

We can elect to live our lives based on higher values, and on being fully human.

Futurist John Naisbitt who has laid down and advocates the balancing principle that more high-tech demands more high-touch, puts it this way: “The most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st century will not occur because of technology but because of our expanding concept of what it means to be human”, (Naisbitt, J. 1984) and thus the imperative of “learning how to live as compassionate human beings in a technologically dominating time”. (Naisbitt, J. with Naisbitt, N. and Philips, D. 2001)

What happens after the coronavirus is not up to any Government. Not up to technology-dominated businesses that in the process deprive people of their humanity. There is a better way. And that way is up to us. 

Anaïs Nin, “I believe the lasting revolution comes from deep changes in ourselves which influence our collective life”.

  

REFERENCES

Delio, Ilia (2013) The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, evolution and the power of love Orbis Books

Fernández-Armesto, Felipe (2003) Ideas that Changed the World Dorling Kindersley Ltd. Great Britain

Ferucci, Piero (2004) What we May Be: techniques for psychological and spiritual growth through psychosynthesis Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin 

Fynn (1977) Mister God this is Anna Fountain/Collins

Gilbert, Paul (2013) The Compassionate Mind: a new approach to life’s challenges Constable, London 

Johnson, Robert A. and Ruhl, Jerry M. (1999) Contentment: a way to true happiness Harper Collins Sanfrancisco

Kurtz, Ernest and Ketcham, Katherine (1994) The Spirituality of Imperfection: storytelling and the journey to wholeness Bantam Books 

Mitcham, Carl (1996) The Philosophical Challenge of Technology American Philosophical Association Proceedings 40 (1996), 4, 5 (Cited by Delio)  

Moore, Thomas (1992) Care of the Soul: how to add depth and meaning to your everyday life Piatkus

Naisbitt, John (1984) Megatrends: 10 new directions transforming our lives Warner Books

Naisbitt, John with Naisbitt, Nana and Philips, Douglas (2001) High Tech High Touch: technology and our accelerated search for meaning Nicholas Brealey Ltd. UK

Rees, Martin (2018) On the Future: prospects for humanity Princeton University Press

Tolle, Eckhart (2001) The Power of Now: a guide to spiritual enlightenment Hodder and Stoughton, Great Britain