It's fun to see what passes as "metaphysics" at book stores. It ranges from handwriting analysis to communicating with the dead to astrology to reading tarot cards to all kinds of other cutting-edge new age stuff. But nothing sums it up like the covers to the following two books I saw tonight at a Borders in Chicago:
Dale McGowan of the Meming of Life and other literary outlets has a new video out. In his latest, he questions the title question in detail before addressing the answer. Mainly he takes on "become" and "religious", before addressing "What if". Very reasonable and persuasive. I met the man earlier this year, and identify with his position on dealing with an over-religious culture from an a-religious world view.
When I was a teenager, I sometimes got annoyed hearing people getting all excited when they talked with their children about the Disney characters Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck. I thought this was strange, because very few people could tell me anything at all about the personalities of these cartoon characters, other than what they looked like. In fact, I had seen a few old cartoons involving Donald and Mickey, and many of them left me unimpressed, bored or disturbed. Donald often flew off in a fit of anger. Not always, but often enough. Mickey didn't have the anger problem of Donald, but people who "loved" him usually couldn't tell me anything about him other than that he appeared in some cartoons, including "Steamboat Willie." Is he an exemplary character? Very few of the people who love him seem to care. I see the same phenomenon today. Tonight, I ran across this especially disturbing cartoon of Donald Duck, probably not one that you'll see featured at Disneyland. I can hear it now . . . "Hey, kids, look! There's a funny cartoon where Donald Duck commits MURDER!" I'm sure that most people don't care that Donald committed murder. They "love" him no matter what he has done. This cartoon goes to show you that people can think that they love a character without knowing anything at all about that character. We are really good at projecting, filling a knowledge void with good things (or bad things) about a character, a movie star or even a God. Case in point is Jesus, whom many people claim to know or love yet they know so very little about him. Or think of the people who insist that God loves us, yet they aren't interested in knowing about the many genocides committed by the God of the OT. Or consider a more modern example of a person who many people "love" or "admire" without knowing anything about her: Sarah Palin, who I've previously compared to "Helly Kitty." It turns out that many modern corporate characters are intentionally left empty, allowing the public to drum up their personalities in their imagination.
I watched Rachel Maddow last night, and one of her segments focused on the disruption of recent Democratic Town Halls by 'grass roots activists'. Her piece exposed the activists as following an agenda designed by a DC lobbying firm. In many ways this is worse that the Tea Party fiasco, since that was unfocused and generally laughable kookery. This, however, is targeted directly at health-care reform, and appears to be heavily funded by lobbyists for that industry (indeed, Rachel mentioned that some firms were sending 'representatives' to every state). I also happened to see many of the same clips on Fox & Friends this morning (forced upon me in the hotel gym). F&F 'reported' the 'protests' as legitimate outpourings of anger against the 'government's plans for healthcare reform'. I was surprised. Not! Think Progress has more on the Lobbyist memo.
Writer and evolutionary theorist Elaine Morgan starts her TED talk by describing the ongoing paradigm: Chimps stayed in the trees and humans hit the savannas. She argues that humans are just too different than the chimps to justify the ongoing paradigm--for instance, look at our naked (hairless) skin and bipedality. We didn't evolve on savanna. Something else must of happened. She explains that there is a close connection between all of the naked animal species and water. Water life could also explain bipedality. Consider our distinctive layer of fat, which can't be found in other primate species. Again, life in water would explain that layer in us (just like it explains that fat layer in whales). Consider also our speech. How is it that we can speak so well? Only the diving animals and diving birds have such incredible control of their breathing. Morgan argues that it's time to destroy the ongoing paradigm and declare that humans evolved in the water. According to Morgan, almost everybody likes the aquatic theory but almost everyone officially declares that it's "rubbish." But this is one of those cases where everyone could be wrong. She mentions David Attenborough and Daniel Dennett as recent converts to the aquatic ape theory. [Note: some scholars have given detailed criticism of the aquatic ape hypothesis. For instance, see this entry at Wikipedia].
