We started chatting about making cottage plans this week. Believe me- it’s a matter of maintaining sanity in the face of the insane cold we’ve been subjected to over the past little bit.
I started dreaming of lakes and docks and summer-y cocktails with a great book or 12, and remembered this post.
It’s in keeping, subject-wise, with some of the stuff I’ve been harping about lately, yet it is allowing me to recall last summer and permitting me to hope that the sun and warmth will return.
Have a great weekend! If you’re anywhere near this neck o’ the woods make sure to bundle up!
Every once in awhile I find myself missing university teaching. I miss the students- wide-eyed and eager to learn, and the colleagues with whom I shared common interests and background. I miss the discussions we had, and the ideas that they would bring to the table that would enhance and develop my own perceptions of our world.
But one of the things I miss most is the opportunity I had- every four months or so- to create a syllabus outlining the assignments and readings for the course. In doing so, I got to share some of my favourite stories and concepts with my audience- and they actually HAD to read them (at least if they hoped to pass the course, they did).
I miss it partly because I genuinely LOVE sharing the wonderful contributions that have been made in understanding our humanity with my fellow humans, but also because sometimes…
Every once in awhile I find myself missing university teaching. I miss the students- wide-eyed and eager to learn, and the colleagues with whom I shared common interests and background. I miss the discussions we had, and the ideas that they would bring to the table that would enhance and develop my own perceptions of our world.
But one of the things I miss most is the opportunity I had- every four months or so- to create a syllabus outlining the assignments and readings for the course. In doing so, I got to share some of my favourite stories and concepts with my audience- and they actually HAD to read them (at least if they hoped to pass the course, they did).
I miss it partly because I genuinely LOVE sharing the wonderful contributions that have been made in understanding our humanity with my fellow humans, but also because sometimes I reallyreally wish that I could MAKE some people do things I want them to do. For their own good, of course. For their good and for the good of us all.
There are some vital things out there to which we all NEED to be exposed.
I’ve spoken before about how much I love the reboot of Cosmos. Dr. Tyson has done an incredible job of revivifying the message that Dr. Sagan left with us when he passed away almost 20 years ago. Inspired by the show (there IS good stuff on t.v, now and again), I decided that it was past time for me to revisit Dr. Sagan a little more fully.
With a cottage weekend on the horizon (T-minus 2 days!), I picked up some books to accompany me as I sit on the dock, cocktail in hand, and fully and formally welcome back our Canadian cottage season.
And, because sometimes I’m not-so-good with the waiting, I have to admit that I cracked the books a little prematurely.
One of them is The Demon-Haunted World- Science as a Candle in the Dark, Dr. Sagan’s penultimate work of wonder and genius. His next-to-last published offering to the world of his eloquent view of the Cosmos and our humanity- and a warning that we haven’t managed to heed.
I read the book for the first time as a student, many years ago, but not as part of my course-dictated required readings. As a student of the Scientific Study of Religion, I was interested in the interplay between what we have learned, through generations of scientific observation and experimentation in the natural world (both the provable and theoretical outcomes), and the stories of the supernatural that we have created and to which we continue to cling, in spite of lack of evidence and with an extremity of the beggaring of common sense.
The disconnect disturbed me then, as it does now (to an ever-growing degree). I can no more understand today, even after more than a decade of researching how and why we construct religious beliefs and the institutions that support and further those beliefs, why people choose to remain willfully ignorant and in the thrall of superstition and fairy tales.
I understand that there is collected wisdom to be found in the stories- wisdom that stands the test of time, since it is human in origin.
Re-reading the book, I was struck- seemingly on each and every page- by how prescient Dr. Sagan truly was. And not in any pseudo-scientific ‘psychic’ way.
On pages 25-26 he wrote (in 1995):
“The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations of pseudo-science and superstition, but especially a celebration of a kind of ignorance… The plain lesson is that study- not just of science, but of anything- are avoidable, even desirable.”
Jebus.
That particular quote- and the one that accompanies his picture up there ^^^^- are shaking me to my very core.
The guy, through his observation of the world that he loved, knew. He knew, back then, that we are on a slippery slope to our own destruction- one that is being expedited by our stubborn unwillingness to think for ourselves and set aside the beliefs and willful ignorance that keep us yoked to the agendas of those in power- whether the powers are religious or secular.
We believe the fairy tales because doing so is easier than thinking for ourselves. We have an entire world of wisdom and knowledge and evidential experience to tap into- with new discoveries being made daily- and yet we persist in holding onto Bronze-Age ideas regarding the structure of the world/universe in which we live.
Re-reading his words left me intellectually and emotionally exhausted with the inspiration they still provide. But it also left me mad as Hell (there’s that word again).
As his synopsis of his life-long love affair with science and the natural world unfolds, he speaks about the need to continually educate ourselves and question and test our conclusions- the way scientists do as they seek to explain and understand our universe. The continuous testing of hypotheses to shape an approach to the truth is required methodology in the sciences.
In religion? Not so much (pages 34-35).
“Which leaders of the major faiths acknowledge that their beliefs might be incomplete or erroneous and establish institutes to uncover possible doctrinal deficiencies? Beyond the test of everyday living, who is systematically testing the circumstances in which traditional religious teachings may not longer apply? (It is certainly conceivable that doctrines and ethics that might have worked fairly well in patriarchal or patristic or medieval times might be thoroughly invalid in the very different world we inhabit today)… Scripture is said to be divinely inspired- a phrase with many meanings. But what is it’s simply made up by fallible humans? Miracles are attested, but what they’re instead some mix of charlantanry, unfamiliar states of consciousness, misapprehensions of natural phenomena, and mental illness? No contemporary religion and no New Age belief seem to me to take sufficient account of the grandeur, magnificence, subtlety and intricacy of the Universe revealed by science. The fact that so little of the findings of modern science is prefigured in Scripture to my mind casts further doubt on its divine inspiration.
But of course I might be wrong.”
That last line is so Sagan. Always the scientist. Always the awareness that his hypothesis might not prove accurate and therefore have to be consigned to the dust-heap of failed attempts at understanding.
The last chapter of the book resonates these days in ways that would be spooky- if he wasn’t who he was, and if I was inclined to believe in things that are ‘spooky’. In ‘Real Patriots Ask Questions’ he outlines why it is our responsibility, as participants in democracy, to keep ourselves informed about the world in general and the actions of our elected leaders in particular.
Since our federal government, just today, made public their intention to proceed with a staggeringly ill-conceived decision that flies in the face of majority (and scientific) opinion and is demonstrative of their typical arrogance and self-preserving agenda, that chapter hit home pretty freakin hard.
Again with the wisdom (page 434):
“If we can’t think for ourselves, if we’re unwilling to question authority, then we’re just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.”
I powered through the book. The impact of his observations and the articulation of our current issues in a work written almost 20 years ago left me feeling like I needed to finish it quickly. Impending danger and dark foreboding, folks. He started warning us about it decades ago. And not only did we not listen, we are rushing headlong- willingly blind- into the idiocy that will bring about our destruction.
This weekend, on the dock, I will savour it again- more slowly this time- to appreciate the fullness of his thoughts and the beauty and power of his words. It will be my required (re-)reading- in amongst the literary creativity of a couple of my favourite authors of fiction.
The finale of Cosmos, a couple of weeks ago, started with Dr. Tyson ‘in’ the Library of Alexandria. My dream palace. Seriously. Of all the great human constructs that have been needlessly destroyed, THAT one hurts me most of all.
It was, as Neil noted, the storehouse of the wisdom of the Classical period. The math, the science, the philosophy, the theology. Our stories and our discoveries about the world we live in and the universe around us.
At that time such wisdom was available only to the elite, and so, when the mob came to destroy the Library and its wonders, there weren’t many to stand against the hoard.
Intelligence and critical thinking and rationality and engagement with the realities of our world are characteristics and attributes that are actively being discouraged in our popular media and by our leaders- those in the business world, in the arena of religious belief, and those we elect to political power. We celebrate the pedestrian, the ‘common’, the ‘creators’ of amusing 140-character soundbites. Credulity is not only acceptable, it’s laudable.
In 1996, Carl Sagan offered another example of his great and awesome voice crying out against the wilderness of ignorance and complete lack of healthy and needful skepticism. He shouted, but not enough of us seemed to hear.
If we don’t start hitting the books and completing our assigned readings, we students of the world are going to fail this class. Bigtime. And that failure will lead us, inexorably, “back into superstition and darkness.”
And when that happens, who among us will stand against the mob?
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon, and if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings, too, I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.
Brain damage, indeed.
PS- For a few days, come Friday morning, I will be shutting down the connectivity to all things technological in favour of my lakeside dock and the company of good friends. Have a fantastic weekend, WPPeeps. And if you’re looking for something to read… Just a suggestion. A strong and pleading suggestion, but just a suggestion nonetheless.
I have such a love/exasperated (can’t say ‘hate’- I ‘d never hate them) relationship with U2. They have made some of my favourite music. Seriously. So many of their songs figure prominently in the continually developing soundtrack that is my life. But man, some of the stuff that comes out of Bono’s mouth these days…
The other day Pete Yorn- a fabulous singer-songwriter who I follow on the Facebook (seriously, check him out. Great stuff)- was asking people to name their fave U2 song. It got me thinking. There are a whole lot of great ones to choose from. As I say, they are a formative/foundational band in the development of my youthful love of music.
This one is near the top:
‘Don’t believe the Devil, I don’t believe his book’
Sure, the song is (at least partly) about the unauthorized biography/biographer of John Lennon, but the imagery of the devil and ‘his’ book is just tootoo apt, in my humble opinion. The creators/recorders/redactors of the mythology, theodicy, rules and rituals of diverse and often-disparate biblical literature assigned a whole load of culpability to one figure- and those minions who chose to follow him in rebellion.
‘But the truth is not the same without the lies he made up.’
We use the devil to illustrate the opposite of what is ‘right’ and proper. Without him- and the many ‘wrongs’ he manages to consistently and continually tempt us to execute- we have a great deal of difficulty determining proper course.
It isn’t enough that we have long lists of things we are supposed to be doing- whether those things are mandated by religious command or communal laws and consensus- we are, apparently, so easilyinfluenced that we require constant and ever-changing (these things are culturally relative, after all) examples of ways not to behave.
These bad things are fluid to a ridiculous degree. Unlike the larger prohibitions that are written into our legal systems- the big stuff like murder, theft, property damage (although even these things can be ‘condoned’ in specific- generally politicized- circumstances)- elements of our morality are subject to change according to the times and the ideology that holds the most power at any given time.
These actions are most often associated with that Devil Dude. If a particular group of people decides that, say, a type of music is the result of the persuasive intervention of an external entity messing with the ‘proper’ order of things, and if that group has money and power and the means to communicate this message of ‘evil’ to a community of followers… the Devil receives all credit for culpability of origin. The behaviour comes to be associated with him- and as something that is directly in opposition to his ‘good’ counterpart.
And if that type of music can also be associated with a marginalized group of people, then those people are also lumped in with the horned one and his disruption of all things good and ‘godly’. As mores and tastes change and evolve, the music might eventually come to be regarded as ‘mainstream’- and acceptable to those who hold true to ‘strong values’- yet the stigma of association with the Big Baddy remains.
Labeling something as ‘evil’ or ‘against god’ gives its negative association an unreasonably long shelf life. Those things that his detractors claim belong to the Devil are incredibly tenacious in their resonance across time and generations.
U2’s God Part 2 is an appreciative echo of John Lennon’s God. In it, John deconstructed a whole passel of beliefs and constructs that he saw no need to hold onto as he remade himself as ‘John’- no longer the Dreamweaver, or the Walrus, or 1/4 of the Beatles. Just John. With Yoko. Believing in the two of them- but not in the idols (religious and secular) he listed after declaring that ‘god is a concept by which we measure our pain’.
‘I don’t believe in magic I don’t believe in I Ching I don’t believe in Bible I don’t believe in Tarot I don’t believe in Hitler I don’t believe in Jesus I don’t believe in Kennedy I don’t believe in Buddha I don’t believe in Mantra I don’t believe in Gita I don’t believe in Yoga I don’t believe in Kings I don’t believe in Elvis I don’t believe in Zimmerman I don’t believe in Beatles‘
The song marked his new beginning as he let go of the trappings of the past to move in a new direction- one that would eventually lead to Imagine– and its beautiful vision of a world without religion, heaven or hell. A world focused on this life- that we spend here together on this big ol’ rock in that we call ‘Earth’ for the duration of our lifetimes. The song remains timeless in its simple beauty- both for its music and its message.
That guy knew.
(Short aside here- again with the links and connections that I keep harping on… As I write I have Forrest Gump on in the background- 20th anniversary of that movie. How did THAT happen? Where has the time gone?- and it’s just at the scene where Forrest is on Dick Cavett’s show with John- ‘inspiring’ him to write Imagine. Weird).
And then there’s this:
‘I believe we’re not alone I believe in Beatles I believe my little soul has grown And I’m still so afraid…
What made my life so wonderful? What made me feel so bad? I used to wake up the ocean I used to walk on clouds If I put faith in medication If I can smile a crooked smile If I can talk on television If I can walk an empty mile Then I won’t feel afraid No, I won’t feel afraid I won’t be Be afraid Anymore’
Bowie recorded that song for his 2002 album, Heathens. Since much of it was written and produced after the attacks of September 11, 2001, most of the album illustrates the pervasive anxiety felt across the country and around the world in the immediacy of the aftermath of the terror.
He has said that the album in its entirety is one of deep questioning- hence its title and the subject matter of many of its songs. He stated in interviews that it was reflective of our collective trauma but that he wasn’t seeking to resolve the trauma.
Great songwriters do that- as they play the Devil’s Music. They reflect and comment upon our experiences and sometimes even posit new directions that might make a difference to our overarching existence as human beings.
Gods and devils are both concepts which we use to measure our pain. As metaphorical markers they have value. Our earliest attempts to understand our world use story and metaphor. We learn- and teach- using universal concepts that resonate with us because of their apparent immutability and simplicity.
‘Good’ is better than ‘Evil’.
Pretty easy, right?
Too bad the simplicity is always complicated by greed and politics and power plays. This inevitability is part and parcel of our human nature.
So. If John Lennon, David Bowie and U2- and all those who came before and after them- are playing the Devil’s Music there’s even more reason to appreciate the Horned One, if you ask me. He obviously wields some mighty influence leading to incredible songs that are also expressions of our human nature.
Sometimes you have to take the bad with the good. Unfortunately just what fits into which designation isn’t always all that easy to discern.
Musicians contribute their voicesto the battle for the maintenance of the goodness and rightness of our humanity, often speaking out against governmental and other power-based inequities and wrong-doing.
Music. And Science. Both associated with the Devil. Both often running counter to the accepted traditions/norms that fight change in favour of clinging to obsolete ways of viewing our world.
Yes. Another reblog. As I eagerly follow along with Cosmos- and reflect on the opposition to science and rational discovery and discourse that seems to be EVERYWHERE lately (politics, religion, anti-vaccers… to name but a bare few examples), it pains me to note that the equation of ‘evil’ and ‘science’ that we have inherited through the dispensation of our mythological traditions YET persists and is rearing its ugly head in extreme ways lately.
As I think on the origins of the personification(s) of evil that we have created- and the fact that too many among us still employ ‘the devil’ as a means of laying blame without assuming any communal/social culpability- I’m feeling a little ‘contrary’ today. It can be exhausting- standing in constant opposition to the views of the vocal power-players and/or just-plain-ignorant (who seem to be granted an INORDINATE amount of media exposure) and in defence of advancement rather than the obscene need to hold on to obsolete metaphorical constructs. But this necessity is something in which I believe. Strongly.
So, call me contrary. I’m okay with that. And I’m okay with reiterating and reinforcing my belief that we need to take a hard look at how we are being manipulated by our myths- and those who are using/misusing them.
It seems as though EVERYone I encountered today has been all about the argument. (Interestingly this phenomenon of contrariness is confined to the real world. The interworld has been a kinder, gentler place today- LOVING my interworld peeps extra-specially hard today).
If I say ‘up’ it is, in all actuality, ‘down’- or so I’ve been told. Black? Nope. Gotta be white. Happy becomes miserable. The good is really the bad.
So let’s go with that last one shall we? If I’m to be contrary, let’s go all out.
In my continuing defence of all things Devil-ish, let’s flip that dichotomy on its head and view that contrary-ist of all contrary creatures from a slightly different mythological perspective.
If you’ve seen television shows set in NYC or holiday photos on Instagram, chances are you’re familiar with this sculpture that graces Rockefeller Centre:
... au gré des trouvailles, au fil de l'inspiration. Ma devise : rester humble, devant l'infiniment petit, tout comme face au très grand... angle :) Merci à toi visiteur furtif ou ami de longue date...
colemining 