Accidental design

How marvelously well-adapted we are to this planet! The balance of temperature and humidity is, on average, such that one would think it had been designed specifically for us. How much we are a part of this planet, and not just beings that happened to find themselves here, and could get up and leave if they wished! The balance is disturbed as soon as we try, for example, to heat our environment -- sickening dryness results. Indeed, the origin of our need for artificial heating may be the fact that we invented clothes, and gradually lost our natural covering. The original function of clothes may have been to indicate one's physical power, since the possession of a bearskin, for instance, showed others that the man wearing it deserved respect, or at least fear, since he was capable of doing away with a bear, let alone a man. In this respect, we would have come full circle, since the almost purely utilitarian value of clothes after we lost our own fur, has again been supplemented, and in many cases supplanted, by the use of clothes as luxury items and status symbols indicative of one's taste or wealth. In this connection, it may be relevant to consider the problems astronauts have had in trying to adjust to life in outer space, and the recent conclusions that we may not be built for spacefare. The new, human-oriented view of science may also be relevant, where science is considered as a product of the human mind; the latter is relevant because it may free us from the illusion that the universe has been custom-made for us; in other words, that everything makes so much sense not because the universe was designed for us, but rather because (1) we look at the world from the perspective of a particular kind of rational creature , and (2) are an integral part of this planet. If we went to another planet, the laws of science would still hold, since we would still be the same kind of beings that we are, but we would forever be aliens in that environment, no matter how much we tried to adjust it to suit us.

What is civilization?

I had wondered from time to time how it was that writing was not invented in the New World ; the only answer I had come up with was that somehow the need for writing had never arisen -- that may be true, of course, from the Old World point of view; we Old Worlders tend to think that "necessity is the mother of invention." but this is not necessarily true, and also writing seems to be something more than just an invention -- great works of literature, for example, seem to be much more than, or have much more reality than, just a collection of various alphabetical symbols formed and arranged according to rules invented by a group of inventors, as works of art have a reality external to their material , and so on. But to get down to the main point : the problem with the question may be that it is based on wrong presuppositions about what civilization is and how it comes into being and how it grows; it may be that the invention of writing is not a necessary part of the growth of a civilization. More importantly, the main points and last! , current Old World civilization's history is a very small fraction of the period of the homo sapiens' life on earth. But since we only happen to know the historical part of that period in any real detail, we tend to overemphasize the events of the historical period. And if someone objects that real culture and real human existence begins with settled city life -- we will not quarrel with him, since so far the above is simply an arbitrary or semi-arbitrary definition. But if he goes on to say that civilization in the sense of city life necessarily leads to the invention of writing, he would be contradicting the evidence of New world civilizations -- and no one could reasonably deny that the great Aztec, Inca, and Maya societies and so on were in any way anything less than civilizations.

What poetry is

I have been reading some poetry the past few days, or more exactly a chronological anthology of English-language poetry. I had always simply assumed that poetry is an expression of some kind of sublime experience, that poets are transcendental visionaries. Beyond this assumption, however, I had never, it seems, given the subject any serious thought. The majority of the poems I have been reading have been love poems of one sort or another. I am beginning to believe that love poetry is nothing but a means for the poet to persuade his female acquaintances into his bed. The reason I am coming to believe this, seems to be that what poets in general, though there are perhaps a few exceptions, say about their "beloved" seems to be just general compliments that seem only meant to please the other person -- as opposed to the expressions of the poet's feelings about the other person as a unique individual.

Misty Guerrillas

Thoughts on the massacre of Palestinians in Lebanon [in 1982]. I used to think I had the situation in Lebanon all figured out. The PLO was getting what was coming to it; it should have stuck to being a guerrilla organization (like the French Resistance in WWII) and avoided terrorist tactics – the label of freedom fighters would have given it a far higher stature in world opinion (although, on second thought, Afghanistan’s freedom fighters have become known as rebels, notwithstanding the fact that they have been getting extensive material support from the West). I could blame the PLO for their tactics and their apparent inefficient use of their resources (what does a resistance organization need tanks for – unless they are needed for the protection of refugee camps – which is doubtful). However, the massacre alters and confuses the whole picture. I can’t really blame the refugees for it; and I’m beginning to wonder whether it may be that the PLO’s mode of operation is the only one that works in that region; in other words, that they must fight everyone, and not just the Israeli military, just to stay alive – more or less.

No Gods need apply

I was wondering why it is that I believe everything that happens, happens for a good reason. At first, I thought it was a belief in a sort of impersonal God. But then if I believe everything in every individual’s life is meaningful, then this impersonal God cannot be that impersonal. However, a personal God is not the only choice left. My belief may just as well be interpreted as a faith in the universe – that with all its marvelous beauty, it cannot be capricious.

Ethics forced on politicians

In a news item about the coming municipal elections (the item was about Toronto) it was said that people are trying to bring provincial issues to the municipal level. As one spokesperson put it, people are trying to force municipal governments to assume ethical leadership. That reminded me of how people seem to have come to care less than ever, in recent memory, about political world events; the perception has grown that politicians will play their games and wage their wars, and so it doesn’t make much difference who the particular politician happens to be; what is important, according to this view, is that politicians be forced to do things and pass legislation that people want. Political organization seems more and more aimed at lobbying than at the support of representative democracy. People care less than before about “what is happening in the world?” and more about “what can I do about what is happening in the world?”; but they realize that individuals or small groups or even million-strong demonstrations cannot affect world politics significantly, so they get involved in local, tangible policymaking, where small groups can make a difference. The word “ethical” in the spokesperson’s comments may be just the right word; people may at last have come to realize that to be a politician is synonymous with being entirely free of ethics; hence their efforts to impose ethics from below.

Old Suburbia

I was reading an article in the Globe about Don Mills, an area of Toronto that was developed in the 1960s for the newly upwardly mobile. It talked about how sterile and contrived the place seems; it talked about the high-achievers who had lived there and then moved away without realizing how their lives had been shaped by the sterility of Don Mills. The article talked about a woman who, having just moved to Don Mills, invited 22 women to her house; only 8 showed up; it also talked about how privacy was a paramount consideration at Don Mills.

That got me thinking about the idea of privacy; about little groups of people hiding in their little houses, longing for the company of others though terrified of the unknown; passing their lives -- bearing their lives -- with the help of various narcotics and opiates -- physical or psychological. I thought of our blindness to the complete artificiality -- in the bad sense -- of the environment we have created; and we don't even realize that life need not be lived this way.

Artistic depiction of the human body

I had been wondering why artists are so interested in depicting the human body. After all, the human body is nothing more than an accidental product of evolutionary history; so there doesn't seem to be any special meaning in it. Everything it is everything it does is a result of some circumstance our semi-human ancestors happened to encounter. Later on in the day – or rather after midnight – I was looking through a book on drawing. It occurred to me that maybe artists have a special insight into the matter; that is to say, they see the object in a way that precludes the above analysis. To go a step further, perhaps the artistic vision of the human body is related to the human-centered sort of scientific analysis referred to as the antropic theory, rather than the above sort of objective science.

Ancestor Worship

I think I have figured out a part of the rationale for ancestor worship. I was feeling very restless this morning; more exactly, I seemed to be unwilling to get down to any serious work. Then I started, for some reason, to think about the fact that although various cultures have been civilized and/or kept records for different lengths of time, all cultures have basically been around for identical lengths of time. This led me to think of the many tens of thousands of generations that have preceded us. I suppose I felt that enormous crowd of ancestors was somehow watching out for me and rooting for me (which can perhaps be translated into primitive terminology as saying that they were protecting me). In any case, the sense of being a part of this enormous crowd of guardians seemed to dispel the sense of apathy and loneliness that had taken hold of me.