the merit of strangeness

Discussion in 'The Future' started by themnax, Oct 16, 2013.

  1. themnax

    themnax Senior Member

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    strangeness isn't the abscence of civilization. the abscence of strangeness is.

    because strangeness reflects two things, the diversity of natural reality, and the creativity which is the very thing that makes us human.

    do we dominate by some natural, or even unnatural, "superiority"?
    not in the least. it is our artifacts which dominate for us.

    and THEY exists, only because the one true uniqueness among the species of earth, of our own human species, is that compulsion to be creative. that is the one observable thing, that truly defines sapience and separates it from mere sentience, which is also as curious and driven to explore as ourselves. (and every bit as individually diverse as well)

    so when christianity, and before it rome, called diversity uncivilized, it is they, who were getting it completely backwards. (as many today inspired by them, continue to)

    some sects of christianity, have attempt to make a concilatory gesture, by acknowledging after all, that if we are created by and in the image of a creative god, we must therefor be created in the image of a creator. but then they go on to mess this up, by casting as negative that for humans to be diverse as a temptation from the dark side, presumably by being an inconvenience to the dominance of hierarchy. another fondness of roman and christian methods of social organization.

    with less parallel in nature, then the seduction of novelty. so by repressing natural creativity, and replacing it with the seduction of only allowing orthodox channels for its expression, their completely artificial stranglehold of hierarchy, is maintained.

    nothing has to have come from somewhere else. people in every place, have always, been capable of, and engaged in, independent, and often parallel, invention. hence the diversity, that once made our world such a wonderful place to explore.

    the backwardness that plagues so much of our world today, is thus the result of empire and colonization and the repression of local uniqueness that came with it.

    romans, christians, and extra terrestrial, are thus highly exaggerated as to the credit they've been given for innovation.

    so this idea, that you can't have a technologically advanced civilization that revers, respects and honors nature, is utter and absolute nonsense. engineering infrastructure and the technology of infrastructure, to simultaneously maximize both its usefulness AND harmony with wild nature, is only an engineering problem, like any other engineering problem, and it is only ideological prejudice and the romanticizing aggressiveness, and the form of aggressiveness called greed, that resist and obstruct doing so.

    time and nature will force us all to realize this at some point. possibly even the very results of our ignorance and indifference will force us to.
     

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