Orlov revisited

In my last review, I didn't include some salient points about the Orlov book that should at least be mentioned as they pertain to how his thesis holds together.

I skipped over chapter four, but it is crucial in understanding what he refers to in the harm/benefit analysis. If the power and control of the technosphere is to be diminished, he suggests that we need to hold as our standard the health of the BIOSPHERE.

But allow me to digress here a bit. Back on page 67, or there about, I read some passages that I can't get out of my mind. It is not that I remember them verbatim, but that I remember the essence of their meaning, and that is what has left a lasting chill.

Part of the control that the technosphere wields in getting people to adhere to certain beliefs, and thus behaviors, is the idea that we are becoming (or have already become) a global culture. This implies that as we think and act we follow along ever more converging paths of socially accepted behavior. Social media, for example, nearly demands it. If you have the courage to speak your mind, are you waiting to be struck by someone else's observation that you have not followed in line with the accepted world view that is now part of the popular meme? (I have often found this to be true, and as such deleted my Facebook account, for all the good it will do me!)

We have left behind centuries of previous forms of social organization that gave our lives definition and meaning. We understood our place in society through the boundaries of family, tribe, folklore, geographical location, city-state, nation-state, etc. Now, it seems we are swimming in a soup of humanity that is held together with the perfidy of imposed ideas. This is most evident when examining the vitriol that comes in response to political correctness.

In order to be inclusive of others our language use and behavior needs to conform to ever morphing sets of criteria. The intention is to acknowledge and correct a previous expression of prejudice or dismissiveness of individuals defined by the groups to which they belong. But by trying to erase the boundaries of these groups, regardless of how they are named, we are effectively asking others to join in where they may not want to go.

Not everyone wants to be identified with humanity as a whole. And so what you get is an ocean of identity politics and all the folks are clamoring to stake their claim in the please-acknowledge-me-I-matter territory.

I do not place myself on the political spectrum anywhere near the right end, and yet, I despise political correctness as much as any of those torch-bearers. And that is where the chill sets in.

If you have that many people in your society feeling dispossessed, underappreciated, unrecognized, and thwarted in their attempts at self-actualization, stirring the soup with platitudes of inclusion is not going to achieve your aims.

If we want to create a society that values the lives of all its participants, we cannot afford to ignore the fears and insecurities of those who bellow and scream obscenities. This is a horrifying realization. We are all guilty of writing off those who we are convinced will never listen to us, and that brings us up to NOW.

If we don't start bringing down the walls between us, the technosphere will continue to perpetrate its memes in order to conglomerate us and denigrate self-definition by any other means than the perceived, acceptable one. What we have lost in the meantime is any definition of basic, essential humanity--the idea that love confers value on all. That's it. Not language, not policy, not coercion. We need a vision of what love is, so we can know what it is like to extend it for ourselves as well as others. Our society, through capitalism, and other features, blinds us to the possibilities that matter most. Can we ever believe that the only possibility that matters is love??

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