Eon Pt. 2

The picture from the previously mentioned article - on geological time and human agency - appears to be that of some sort of badlands. I'm not clear on which region that may be, but the Petrified National Forest has similar formations, and is a good place to start for the discussion. A badlands region is a very heady place to visit for many reasons besides the region's striking landscape and geological features.

In terms of the Painted Desert region's history, one begins to understand the eerie significance of the bright, layered hills and the psychedelic petrified tree trunk fragments strewn about the land. The star of the Petrified National Forest, the petrified wood, was created through the burial of fallen prehistoric trees, which accumulated in river channels and were eventually covered by sediments containing volcanic ash, as the Wikipedia article explains. 

The bright colors in the petrified wood indicated the presence of an incredibly rich array of iron oxides and other substances, which combined with silicas set free from the volcanic ash by groundwater, gradually replacing the organic material in the logs, forming colorful crystals within them. The vibrant layers in the crumbling hillsides betray an eons-old process of distinct, stable geological periods physically buried by their successors, a burial that is often rapid, preserving various geological layers in time. 

It took a prehistoric rainforest, one of nature's mega cities, to form a landscape such as this through its utter and complete ruin, and the depositing of its many constituent parts into various geological features after the forest's disintegration. It is a landscape that is completely transformed and wholly alien to its prehistoric origins. Behind this strange landscape was a complete wiping out of complex ecosystems, which casts the national park service that maintains the park into a curious light.

Like many national parks such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Glacier, the Petrified National Forest can be viewed as a site of nature worship, its sprawling fields of petrified artifacts and layered landscapes meticulously managed and preserved for the pleasure of researchers, outdoors people, and the general public. Here was the evidence of a great and calamitous Event, which our sensibilities, our imagination, and our curiosity regard with awe and reverence, and the public instinct in the face of such a phenomenon was to preserve it in its present form, and buttress it against the very forces of transformation that produced the witnessing public in the first place.    

To be fair, there is a constant tension of internal and external opposing interests and instincts within the national park system. There were older, conservative ideas of careful management and preservation that predominated, which have given way to conceptions of a dynamic nature whose morphing forces should be minimally interfered with by its stewards, but which is nevertheless protected as an entity separate from and contrasted to the human realm, with its expansionary and transformative forces of business and capital, forces which disintegrate or augment the natural worlds they come into contact with, depending on whom you ask.

And indeed, business is always seeking to penetrate the park system, and encourage material growth and commerce within its bounds. Such an interest is not without its sympathizers within the park system itself, and within the greater government which funds the park system. So we see the constant drive to “develop” parks with wider roads, scenic loops, showers, bathrooms, shopping centers, hotels, and eventually wifi. 

These trends stand next to the drives for resource exploitation in these parks as well. Such interests tend to be lumped together in political organization and propaganda, so we get the reasonable impulse to expand accessibility and comfort combined with the hunger for greater traffic volumes, expanded markets, and resource exploitation, which naturally muddies the debates surrounding these systems.  

Now the park system stands as a bastion of public feeling and awe, stood against the disintegrative forces of business, but which include opposing instincts even within those opposing categories. Within the material forces of business, a drive to preserve the enjoyment of nature by humans, and within the preservative forces of the park system, a drive to let the chaotic forces of nature disintegrate what they will. And in general, we wrap our arms around the national monuments in a protective embrace, simultaneously as we destroy all of the earth around them. 

As resource desperation grows, this state of affairs is quickly changing. Of course the political right has wanted to crack the parks open and subject them to exploitation for some time. 

The more basic opposition is curious, and pertinent to our discussion. From where does this drive spring, this impulse to preserve a temporary state of affairs, a natural landscape that frozen, provides us with a picture perfect account of an incomprehensibly dynamic and destructive natural process stretching back eons? 

I'm being coy of course, as I too have a great love for these parks in their present form. But given their nature, and this worship of the grandiose forces of transformation in temporary stasis, why not simply welcome on the complete development of and destruction of the landscape by capital, as it has done throughout the modern world?

How is it that the formation of these great glass and steel canyons, these cities of skyscraper and the bursting out of plastic and concrete across the land, has suddenly become distasteful to the worshippers of nature's powers of transformation?

Indeed, our recent powers of self-reflection have produced some curious reactions to unlimited expansion, as if the expansion was reaching some sort of unseen boundary and curling back onto itself, before, presumably, buckling under its own weight.

Of course, the human subjectivity that has emerged out of this cauldron of chaotic natural forces seeks also to preserve itself, its continuity in time and space. By gazing upon the national park, the human subjectivity wishes to preserve its own experience. Perhaps it is this instinct of preservation that is responsible for the logic behind the park system, and its antagonism to the forces of capital, which appear to be carrying out the old process of expansion and domination.

After having emerged from the earth and exploding into the sky, like a great volcano, a regulative instinct, an instinct for self-preservation, is now set against a runaway instinct of raw expansion, and the two are bound together, confounding each other and irritating each other. 

Right, heady stuff. Before things get out of control here, let's just say that such an ideological landscape makes for a difficult reckoning with the future. After all, one's understanding of the past and present is bound up with such a project. Nevertheless, how does one come to terms spiritually with this state of affairs now? 

This is one of the things that spiritual thought is good at after all. It is spiritual thought that can cut through the confusion of a universe of movements, of creation and destruction, stasis and flux, and establish a reckoning with the present. Let's get to that next. 

Eon Pt. 1

In a previous post - which seems ages ago - I made the fantastical claim that one of the chief spiritual tasks of this age is to come to terms with the possibility that everything will suddenly be swept away. Possibility is an important word here, but nonetheless, I'm aware it is quite a claim. Let's take a look at that now.

Where the hell to start?  Perhaps it would help to establish the terms of the argument. What are we doing here? What does it mean for something to end, and be swept away, or to begin and flourish? Why even frame the argument like this? Let's start with an example. 

There are some pretty fantastical imaginings in this article, and I really can't share the author's optimism. But it is always a good exercise to take the long view, whether or not that view is through rose tinted lens.

The article makes its case by referring to eons, or certain longer delineated periods in geological time, and by suggesting that we may be on the verge of a new eon entirely, one that is characterized by the peaceful stabilization of earth's destructive forces, thanks to our own conscious self-awareness and technological powers of transformation.

In the case of the article, the hope is that though human beings have achieved an unprecedented degree of expansion and material efficacy - oftentimes to destructive effect - perhaps we can evolve concurrently a certain level of self-conscious development, which will regulate the chaotic material forces that we embody, and eventually stabilize the planet for the long haul, ostensibly to bring about the uninterrupted domination - or perhaps stewardship, a nicer word - of the planet by our species in its present form. Which isn't a completely ridiculous idea, seeing as how we ourselves emerged from the earth as well - it is responsible for our environmental chaos. 

Whether we are talking about eons, eras, epochs, or any other tiers of geological time, we usually define these units as delineated periods of distinct patterns - sometimes self-reinforcing to a point - which cohere, which are bounded, and then eventually end with changing climates, natural calamities, and die-off, among other end results. In the case of our current subjective experience as a species, and the empirical evidence that backs that experience up, the signs point overwhelmingly to an end.

Yet, there is a countervailing feeling, in constant tension with contrary evidence and experience, that what we have and what currently exists is here to stay for some time. This is a strange sense of continuity we have, at the edge of a precipice.

This is complicated by the fact that ends are beginnings, and eons, eras, and epochs bleed into one another. Further complicating our inquiry is the basic fact of ideological space, in which the subject doing the inquiring wishes to extend itself in accordance with its basic nature. One emotionally committed to the basic project of technological extension and scientific application is probably going to have some sort of utopic or dystopic vision stretching far into the future.

One with differing emotional commitments - me for example - is going to have differing visions that contradict or otherwise embark from the previous vision. 

When talking about a time scale this long, one can't really make heads or tails of what will happen, unless one constructs some sort of speculative future, in accordance with one's nature and one's knowledge. A worthwhile project! But I want to elaborate on an argument a little more basic. To repeat, how does one spiritually come to terms with what can only be anticipated as profound change, whatever its direction? 

In the next post, I'll elaborate on our strange ideological wilderness, and our tangled emotional commitments, with a brief discussion on the national park system.

Go With What You Know

One thing one notices about driving through the country (in the United States) is the relentless expansion of local highway systems. There is a constant widening of lanes, addition of lanes, construction of new ramps and overpasses, and a variety of other structural features catering to the car. One sees the construction everywhere.

This is accompanied by the proliferation of work zones and their accompanying reduced speed limits, along with menacing signs that have penalties posted for speeding in these zones. The issue seemed especially acute in a state like Illinois, which had penalties like a $10,000 fine and up to 14 years in jail for injuring or killing a worker. However, penalties like these are popping up everywhere.

The urgency and harshness of these punishments were not entirely surprising, given that anecdotally nearly everyone on the road was driving aggressively, oftentimes well over 20 mph over the speed limit, even in the work zones. Police were everywhere, lying in wait to issue their tickets, yet the velocity of the highway was greater than ever.

It is true that there are various cities experimenting with alternative transportation ideas, investing further in their public transit, and encouraging biking and walking, as opposed to doubling down on car-centric transportation layouts. However it is apparent that this experimentation is not enough to affect a quality change, and that in many regions, on the local and federal level, the instinct is to double down upon and speed up what has already failed, and to punish vulnerable or glaring offenders which burst free under the mounting pressure. A vast majority of localities, caught within this dynamic, and lacking the will or means to escape it, have fallen in with it. 

Policing in this environment is a society's own constant self-provocation, and a constant infliction of violence on itself, generating ever greater resent and trauma, all of which is backed by reactionary segments of the population that believe otherwise.

Switching Tracks

Intense physical labor causes parts of the mind to go dormant; there simply is not enough energy available to maintain them. So one experiences a sort of fog when one's mind drifts in a certain direction. But the senses and thoughts attending to the labor itself become ever more illuminated and vivid.

Like the intensity of a light source, which reveals its surroundings with the spread of its emitted light, the intensity of one's activity in a given sphere reveals and advances the development of that activity.

At It Again

I've touched down from a flurry of travels, and have plenty of waiting pieces to put together as they come. Good to be back! Though the information flooding in thanks to a renewed access to wifi has served as a sort of shock to the nervous system. More to come as I get back into another rhythm.

Nuremberg

One effect of the Nuremberg Trials was to establish moral authority for the victor empires participating in the great wars, a series of catastrophic human events that sullied all participants involved, though not evenly. Certainly the Nazi war crimes had to be illuminated and then dealt with for the sake of humanity in general. 

But then on whose authority were the war criminals punished? They were punished by a collection of empires presiding over a litany of economic and war crimes themselves - with various genocidal processes logged away in the history books no less. It took the gradual and violent stabilization of the larger and more powerful world empires to mete out some semblance of collective justice, however imperfect.   

After such traumatic events, the modern world had to be reconstituted through the crystallization of various collective traumas, and the resting of those crystallized traumas against one another, their explosive forces dormant but still possessing potentials.  

And that set of legal principles that was established in the wake of the trials is not even followed by the empires riding on that legacy today. The Nazis - or at least their animating spirit - are re-emerging. We've collectively abdicated the maintenance of the conditions required for their eternal banishment.

Speeding Up

One of the many products of poverty in a technologically complex and stratified society is the constant movement that is required to maintain one’s life on limited resources. In an environment that requires so much intentional human attention to maintain, one has to move faster, and attend to more elements in perpetuity to keep afloat. Because one receives so little amount of social resources from a given activity, one has to do more to sustain one's own self and immediate community, which in the aggregate, serves to sustain an increasingly topheavy and functionally useless ruling elite, which has emerged out of the abundant surplus that generations of intense work have produced. 

This causes a structural peculiarity in the impoverished self that is responsible for a whole galaxy of behaviors and materializations throughout one’s lifespan. One enters a state of constant motion, accompanied by an anxiety of rest and idleness, which can be both productive and destructive in different contexts. 

Indeed, this basic instinct accompanies the protestant work ethic in its many forms, with its emphasis on the simple virtue of work itself. Left to itself, the ethic produces a material abundance that reproduces its original founding instinct, as there is simply so much material volume to attend to in order to reproduce society.