The Wrong Reality. VIII:51b Contrary Concepts continued

He says each of us has a calling whose exercise is high delight, though it demands sweat and suffering, and gives a real and useful place in the world. I know exactly what he means, but this is the call of emotion and we live in the Machine, and so we are called to an existing occupation which must be acceptable to the Machine but may well not be in the interests of humanity. In determining what we must do we should be led by supraconscious intellect, recognising that emotion will naturally fall in behind that determination in due course, to support it.

Though highly critical of present employment practice, Roszak does not understand that the 'evil' of modern industrial exploitation or neglect of humans is the inescapable product of an authoritative hierarchy and a competitive money-economy, a system which is impossible to humanise. Such an economy is bound to result in many different levels of workers, most of whose tasks and personal interests are remote from the purpose and value of the product. The activities of a humantrue society, pleasant or not, would be necessary, and would be shared between all members.

Roszak says it is people, not machines, who cause things to happen in history. In my view the reverse is true. The automaton, founded on the principles of government and competition, formed the Machine which founded the institutions which fundamentally dictate human actions.

He believes it to be science fiction fantasy that machines will ever be able to do without us. On the contrary, if we remain confined to the conscious arena, the thinking machines willbe able to do without us because, in that arena of limited mental capacity, without the promptings or doubts (intuition, conscience) of the much more vast postconscious (which will not be built into the machines, otherwise they too would have our true potential, which weignore), they can be much more definite, decisive and effective servants of the Machine than we.

He maintains that the needs of the person vibrate sympathetically to the needs of the planet. I am sure that whilst we might feel so we do not actually do so, but struggle to wrest our needs from an indifferent planet like the rest of nature. The planet is a working system, to which we and all life have adapted, but it has no needs or feelings. Gaia does not purposely support us but is simply a response to all life's sheer will to go on living. Life itself is full of torment, as well as joy, and would strip Earth bare if it were free, but each species has its own logic and love. We also have a human logic and love and it is this, and the long experience of it from its ancient Earth origins, that we feel in sympathy with. What normally persuades us to try to disaffiliate from the Machine is that our life, even though gifted with our unique intellect (by which we could make a perfectly harmonious relationship with Earth), no longer has that natural logic and love.

Referring to the relationship between employers and workers, Roszak later envisages a new economics which is based on labour value rather than commodity price. He is clearly imagining the same basic economic system that presently exists but with different degrees of value. But however you superficially tinker with the competitive money-economy, without changing its basic self-interest motive you will not humanise it. I am amazed at the ease with which we are hoodwinked by this patently inhuman system so that everybody seems unwilling or afraid to condemn it as a whole.

In his critical analysis of the city, Roszak says that city dwellers are isolated from the basic ecological facts of life so that they cannot distinguish between real and artificial needs - that they are so cut off from Earth-nature as to be unaware of their vital inter-dependence. I don't think anybody would argue with this, up to a point. However, it is necessary to remember that the cities grew outof the countryside. It is the Machine which is leading us to human and ecological ruination, and the concept of the city serves it best. With accelerating autoprogression, television, and now internet communication is fast spreading automatic values - the city concept - over the whole globe, so that even country-dwellers are becoming isolated from the ecological facts of life. This is further reason why we must eliminate the Machine root and branch, to destroy the cancerous drives whose accumulating growth, which causes cities to be built and is spreading everywhere, is utterly contrary to humantrue interests.

We are presently in trouble because we have failed to take humantruth as our sole guide, and we shall be truly human only when we observe and realise it in the world. Roszak maintains that the city will remain a cultural and economic necessity, but only in small doses. I do not agree, because it makes for inequality. We must rid ourselves of the ideas of externalartificial riches, either economic or cultural, and let human richness accumulate purely in the heads of individuals. Of course the city's decline will not be successfully accomplished by mandatory removal of its people into the country, as Roszak would be the first to agree. It will have to be a voluntary happening, with humantrue awareness providing the motivation and preparing the way. If we do not embrace humantruth we shall not survive as an intellectual race, nor shall we deserve to.

Roszak now comes to the question of critical opposition to his theories, surely rightly pointing out that it comes not only from the political and commercial interests but also from the intellectual (by which he means academic) community to which he belongs and from which, he thinks, his readers must come. Still identifying the city as his enemy, he sees it as serving the interests of that opposition who will not, therefore, allow his theories to gain the recognition they deserve or to percolate to public awareness. He sees the intellectuals as the aboriginal urban class, the creators of the city, who have caused its dominant role to be accepted as conventional wisdom.

I hope and incline to the belief that there are at least as many intellectuals outside as within the academic community, and would not credit academic intellectuals with wielding such power and influence, nor do I see this as a question of the power of the city or the influence of the intellectual, political or commercial elites. It is a matter of the Machine's worldwide dominance - dominance of the great majority of individuals (most of whom live in cities, which they may dislike at the same time as they believe in the Machine), and of the great majority of institutions (served by humans, from manual workers to governing and intellectual elites). But it is chiefly a matter of the fact that the whole Machine, the vast majority of human minds and their accepted concept of reality, is contained within the limits of the conscious arena to the exclusion of their higher potential of true supraconscious awareness. Conscious minds have not the capacity to escape existing reality, and they produce a welter of contradictory evidence and argument. The inability of conscious thinking to gravitate to truth is shown by the fact that the pioneering work of minds who have attained a higher level (like Roszak himself and a handful of others, four of whom he mentions - Kropotkin, Tolstoi, Ghandi, and Danilo Dolci) have not immediately affected the thinking of all humanity to the extent of significantly raising its level of awareness. This is not only the fault of the establishment and its resistance to dissmination of radical thinking, for ideas which really catch the public imagination will find a way of spreading whatever the opposition. The failure of radical thinking to get across to a wide public is due to the fact that the majority attitude is at present tilted strongly towards automatic conformity. If human minds in general are to venture beyond the bounds of consciousness and to press for the true guidance of their postconscious faculties, that attitude of mind needs to be tilted the other way by the revelation that this new direction is the road to fulfilling our true human potential.

The concluding part of 'Person/Planet' continues for thirty pages. I would be happy to end my comments on Roszak's work with the preceding crucial paragraph, but must remark on his references to monastries as possible examples of the kind of community we should live in. Overlooking the fact that monastries were often richly endowed, hierarchical, secluded and built on a grand scale in favoured situations; that they were all-male, without the problems that go with marriage and children (though also without the blessings); that the monks were usually endowed with respected status and were intellectually and institutionally, if not materially, privileged, he gives this beautiful description - ..."their economics was left to take shape from the prerequisites of personal growth.(I would prefer prerequisites of steady, satisfactory management according to little-changing reciprocal needs of the world). This clearly did not preclude....technical innovation....to relieve drudgery(I would say that this needed to be fixed at an agreed and little changing level). But the economics of the monastries was kept 'labour-intensive' because it was clearly understood that work is a necessary attribute of the personality, while limitless affluence is not."

My approach to this last extract from Roszak's work is typical of the problem one faces in reading a book of this kind. On one hand we wish to appreciate that which is beautiful, agreeable or good in it. On the other hand (the important one) we should not slide over that which is doubtful. We will never fulfil our true humanity if we do not stretch our minds, resolve our differences, and reach humantrue agreement. This is why, rather than praise Theodore Roszak for the qualities of his book, I have concentrated upon our differences. Even his pleasant picture of worthy monastries is spoiled by these disagreements. I even now feel compelled to question the assertion that 'work is a necessary attribute of the personality', preferring to assert that 'manual labour is a necessary part of human fulfilment'. This may seem carping, but, as I am sure Roszak would agree, if we are to achieve a humantrue world we must honestly and utterly strive for it, leaving no stone unturned.

All the books I have appraised so far in this chapter purport to tackle the whole human problem, which makes them worth reading. Another thing they have in common is that all have hinted at a systems solution to the world's difficulties, implying that this solution would somehow spring from a melding of the human mind with a phenomenon (which I believe to be imaginary or misrepresented) known as 'cosmic consciousness'. The next book suggests to me the kind of world which would result from the systems principle being actually applied to human society. I think it demonstrates that the universe contains no benign, sensitive and thoughtful cosmic consciousness, but is governed by the hard logic of a cause-and-effect system in which the positive and negative extremes of instinctive behaviour have a natural place, but which is anathema to supraconscious awareness.

The book I refer to is entitled The Cultural Science of Man : A New Synthesis, by Bernice Cohen (published by Codek Publications Ltd.) and is in three volumes : 1. The Seamless Web, 2. The Origin of Civilisation, and 3. Global Perspectives - The Total Culture System in the Modern World. Once more, although Cohen's purpose is to bring about a better world, I find myself in almost total disagreement with her analysis of the human problem and with her solutions to it. Therefore, while admiring her tremendous effort of research and coordination, I must concentrate upon vital critical appraisal.

The fundamental premises of this 1100-page book are that there are coordinating universal laws, as yet unknown, which govern human cultures; that human behaviour can be classified in the same way as that of nature, since man is part of nature; that human history is a culture continuum, governed by the overriding fact that it is a systematic phenomenon. Cohen claims that her conclusions are supported by four knowledge bases; knowledge gained from a long grounding in systems architecture; by the concepts known to characterise open systems; by taking account of population dynamics in biology; and by applying the existing laws of physics to her dynamic culture change theory. This reveals the fatal flaw in her thinking, that it is restricted to the conscious mind confined to the conscious arena, and therefore excludes an all-important factor - the overriding significance of humanity's possession (as yet unfulfilled) of the ultimate intellectual faculty.

Ms.Cohen's basic premises are that humans as they presently exist, living in a variety of cultures, their actions determined by a wide variety of conflicting factors, are unpredictable; that our world affairs are in a dangerous state of chaos because they are entrusted to a number of national governments that do not understand the pressures involved, whose interests differ and who are in competitive conflict; that by the systems classification of culture the overall behaviour of society as a whole couldbe predicted; therefore that a world government, informed by systems analysis of all the factors bearing upon the world situation, could adopt such policies as would bring to bear other powerful factors of such influence as to steer world affairs onto a humane, peaceable, and environmentally friendly road.

Whilst I cannot question the evidence that supports the systems analysis of human cultural history, ours is the history of a yet largely instinctive species, a race of creatures who have not yet achieved their potential. The universe, the planet, nature - these are dynamically progressive systems that have an objective, to achieve which they must not only survive but continue this dynamic progress. Their objective is the achievement of fulfilled intellect, but, since that objective has never yet been properly achieved, the lessons of the past cannot truly teach us, a potentially intellectual species, how to proceed in the future. Systems theory can be applied to explain nature as the random and potentially unpredictable behaviour of thousands of competing species, and of individual creatures competing within species, brought to balance and relative predictability by the government of instinct. It could, as a theory, be applied to a human society of hundreds of competing nations, and of millions of individual humans in mutual competition within nations, brought to integrative balance by one world government. But I utterly disagree with the application of systems theory to humanity for the following reasons.

Most importantly, though still confined to the conscious arena, we arean intellectual species. We represent the achievement of Earth's primary objective - intellect - which gives us a new and different objective - the ultimate objective of the universe - to fulfil the function of intellect which is truth. Of course, if we are to represent truth and add to its influence in the universe, we too must survive, and that means we must care for the Earth on whose bounty we depend. As intellectual creatures, although we have not yet achieved our full potential, we will not wholly submit to external control, neither by instinct, nor by any government whether on a world, national or local scale. This is because we have conscious minds of such capacity that they can stand back just far enough to look at our present selves and our apparent actual circumstances. In order wilfully to join the self and the conscious mind in a common identity we amalgamate our temperament with our adopted construction of thought and its perceived opinions and beliefs. The fact that individual conscious identities can almost infinitely disagree is the reason why, as a society, we do not extricate ourselves from our present horrific predicament, and why we cannot really be controlled by external authority. We would have to agree first, and the only possible ground for agreement amongst an intellectual race is truth, the ultimate function of intellect. To recognise and then to realise truth we have to become collectively supraconscious. When we become supraconscious we will perceive that the only social system appropriate to us is an agreed and simple humantrue world constitution sustained, without overall active government of any sort, by individual responsibility.

Ever since we acquired the faculty of intellect, we have applied part of it to continuing dynamic autoprogression at the same time as the unconscious part has made us morally aware of the wrong we were doing. That is the reason for the present chaotic and dangerous state of the world and our awakening awareness of this situation and horrified reaction to it. The authors of the books so far appraised have reacted to the situation by exposing the actual dangers facing us - by showing what is wrong and what would, in general terms, be right, but not showing how to make the desirable transition.

Bernice Cohen does put forward the basis of a strategy. Believing that our present nature (self-orientated, unpredictable) and state (competitive money-economy and authoritative government) is inevitable, she recognises that to continue our present random progress means disaster, but also believes that if our present society lost its dynamic energy (that which dictates its pattern) it would, according to the physical laws, die out. Her solution is to maintain energetic dynamism in a controlledway, using systems theory. Broadly, this theory simply states that every course of action is the result of numerous influences, in fluctuating series, accumulating to produce that course of action. At present our actions, as a world society, are often harmful and generally in conflict because they are random and uncoordinated. She suggests that by analysing the evidence of archaeology and history and applying that knowledge to current affairs we can predict the outcome of those affairs. Through world government we can then introduce, by means of laws, taxes and incentives, additional influences in the right places to affect the outcome of affairs to the benefit of ourselves and Earth.

In making her proposals, Cohen negates the whole object of evolution - the achievement of fulfilled intellect. She would have us subjected to the Machine, albeit a newly controlled version of it with the will and the means to survive built in. She does not make a distinction between us and instinctive nature. She takes no account of the truth, to fulfil which is the ultimate nature of an intellectual species. She does not recognise that the way of intellect is to determine its course by intention, according to moral truth, which has care and compassion for all life at its heart, and to make it work despite any contrary influence or pressure.

Although I had immediately to dismiss systems theory as being inapplicable to humanity, I persevered with The Cultural Science of Man, hoping that it might make proposals of such merit that even so they might answer our needs. In this I was disappointed, for Cohen contends that a great deal more research is needed before such proposals can be made (she mentions several decades). I suggest that she failed to reach such conclusions because the problems are insuperable. Even with a supraconscious understanding of humantruth and its vital concepts and principles, it is not easy, or right, for one mind to lay down in detail the complex practical constitution of a humantrue society. To attempt, within the mental chaos of the conscious arena, to define the terms of a supreme government, staffed by fallible human beings, such as would control a whole world of widely differently constituted and conditioned human individuals, within the competitive, free-enterprise, self-oriented framework of the Machine, at the same time ensuring that it is benignly humane, is an utter impossibility.

Were it really the case that the Machine is inescapable, then the running of human society as an open, dynamically changing system, but under central control, might well secure its survival. A world government, with the aid of systems analysis, could conceivably steer the Machine in such a way that Earth would escape environmental disaster. But this would not be true human survival, for such a government under the Machine would require an automated public, controllable by economic incentives and disincentives or by punitive laws. It would not be unlike the present situation but with the gloves off - taken to the extreme. At present we are semi-automated, semi-moral; we consciously run with the Machine but retain a conscience, the still small voice of our supraconscious potential which goes against the Machine. Under a world government, if it were to succeed in solving the physical problems in itsway, we must lose the freedom to explore our full and true intellectual potential, giving up the right to question and disagree. We would be forced to submit to this new dictatorship, with little hope of relief because it would hold absolutely supreme power.

To me, this presents an awful prospect. There can be little doubt of its being a realistic possibility. We have so many examples, right up to the present, of what happens when the power of authority, over people who have not risen above the conscious/instinctive state of awareness, is given to a minority or a single individual in the same state, however good their initial intentions. We also have very recent examples of the ease with which peoples can sometimes topple unpopular governments and ideologies, and I cannot imagine permanent world systems government attracting popular support. Cohen's proposed supreme world authority, presiding over similar but even more complex circumstances, must sound the death-knell for supraconsciousness, for, if the system were to survive, that authority would have to exercise such ruthlessly precise artificial (not truly reasoned) control as to require our total subservience to it and the Machine and make overthrow impossible. I would sooner have humanity die out than sink to these depths.

Cohen sees the world as the product of an imperfect humanity, and the study of human behaviour in an abstract void as therefore meaningless. This view returns us once more to the theory that people will not do the right thing if not to their personal advantage. I see existing human nature as the product of an imperfect world, with both confined to the conscious/instinctive arena. Our true nature is to be supraconscious, but since we nowhere exist in this state it hasto be studied in the abstract. This is the fundamental difference between Cohen and myself. She takes the actual realistic view, the basis of which is to accept the facts and concepts of reality as they exist but to manipulate them to our benefit according to the many (and contradictory) values we presently uphold. I take the potentialsupraconsciously realistic view, the basis of which is to reject the existing facts and concepts of reality - the entire Machine - and to replace it with an alternative humantrue reality the constitution of which is to be found, by intellation, in the common postconscious.

Clearly, a humantrue society would work to a simple system, but not one which conformed to nature. This is the last thing we want, for the power of human intellect is beyond instinct to control. I understand Cohen's contention that the instinctive drives are needed to sustain the dynamism of human society which depends on them to "prosper" as an open system, and that they could be kept under control by world government, but such a prosperous system does not serve humanity - humanity serves it. In any case, the members of a world government would not be an effective counter-balance to the Machine, for reasons already given. Its members, too, would be limited, competitive, egotistical humans who, assuming the separate identity conferred by their governing position, could not be relied upon to follow systems analysis, mush less to act in the true interests of humanity. Lacking supraconscious awareness they are as likely as not to capitalise on their powers in their own interests. In the eyes of the consciously automated this would be logical. Members of a world government who consistently behaved otherwise, faithfully serving humanity according to humantruth, would soon realise that the true interests of humanity could not be served by world government.

I repeat, the possession of the faculty of intellect changes the whole picture. When fulfilled, this faculty will enable us to perceive humantruth and to responsibly realise it in the world. There is no reason why an intellectual race should conform to rules that apply to open systems. The second law of thermodynamics applies to physics, and to instinct, but notto intellect. The supraconscious humantrue system would be new and different, physically dependent on making its own lasting relationship with nature, on its own terms, but otherwise sustained by its own intellectual dynamism under the supraconscious control of responsible individuals tuned in to the common humantruth.

As before I find myself in agreement with Cohen's overall aim but critical of her conclusions. For example, she states that the main transitions (of human society) appear to be irreversible, just as they are in other open systems. Taking the UK's passage from the agricultural to the industrial age as an instance, this transition ispresently irreversible because autoprogression does not doubt itself, and the Machine isan open system - it needs to be, according to systems theory, in order to survive. That closed systems have never survived does not mean that they cannot do so. We are a departure from the universal norm, a spearhead of a new norm in which transitions canbe reversed.

Cohen states that change (ie progress) seems to be the essence of the human state. On the contrary, it is the essence of the natural state of which potentially true humanity would be the non-conformist end-product.

She asserts that modern man may be a transitional species, living in chaos and not understanding that unless he himself imposes crucial controls his 'culture system' cannot survive. Yes, but man as he stands is false and incapable. When we see that this is so we shall also see the humantruth, and that the vital human transition is from instinct to intellect, from the Machine to humantrue society.

Cohen says that currently there is no global self-controlling mechanism for man's culture-system. But there is - global, universal truth and human postconsciousness of truth. This is the answer to all her insecure, consciously-grounded reasoning in support of systems-culture. If we behave like subsystems according to the individually unpredictable but overall probabilities of a culture-system, it is because we are controlled by that system. Rather than ourselves taking control of a bad system, we should create a good one.

She states that there can be no independent variables - every human act has to be a simultaneous causal result of all others. She goes on to say that this is typical of systems driven by feedback, where the results are influenced by interactions to the extent that it might be possible to unravel such cause-and-effect relationships. This is a view confined to the physical plane, hardly rising even to the conscious. Intellect replaces the function of feedback and truth simplifies relationships because all refer to one and the same body of truth. Supraconsciousness is the means by which we can, and must, diverge from the norm and adopt our own independent variety of motives derived from humantrue principles.

Cohen maintains that throughout history our cultures have been poor because we have failed in awareness of their causal mechanisms - that our dynamic culture system can not be understood except in the context of its own structure and environment. In my view our cultures have failed because they follow instinct, whereas we all sense our intellectual morality which makes us awareof their poverty. Her view of human understanding is similar to the presently normal opinion that the here and now, not abstract theory, should be our concern. To continue click here