We are the archangels pain of a world that collapses,
we are the children of a new breed unborn,
but he lives through us
as a wind load of new threats and pollen.
We do not know what we mean,
our oracle is sealed
our darkest dreams, our contradictory signs.
We do not have the key,
but we are still faced with a new threshold,
to knock at the door,
to beat as it had in the forest
the first ape, who wanted to be a man.
But we get lost in the revolt,
we get lost in the pride of the rich
or appeal the refusal.
We get lost in the seduction of the government or dreams.
But our sense is not to be victims nor escape
our sense is beyond rebellion.
Our sense is knocking on this door,
cry like children in the night until the door opens.
Sri Aurobindo
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| Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. |
That which goes against the way will come to an early end.
Tao Teh Ching, LV
In the reality envisaged in this century the situation seems much more prosaic and mundane. Certainly the four horsemen of disease, hunger, war and death will have - as always - a key role, but there is nothing great in destroying an entire ecosystem. It would appear that the majesty of these myths reflects the human ego more than trying to describe a reality; after all, if the human race has to disappear, that it will do better with a great event.
In the reality of the irreversible processes that will reach the turning point within this century will be crucial items of absolute banality, if not ridiculous:
Tao Teh Ching, LV
There's big crisis
here we no longer know where we are going on earth
you wonder "why? how where in the world? where who? why when?"
and who knows the answers?
You ask nearly nearly
and you meow in the dark.
You ask nearly nearly
and you meow in the dark.
But the answer does not to be seeked outside
the answer is within you.
But it is WRONG!
Corrado Guzzanti, Quelo (That)
Adriano Sofri: ... So this makes me think that the world is ugly, and the I don't know if the discussion makes sense if not from starting from the fact that the world is doomed...
Giorgio Gaber: Certainly, we agree on this...
Giorgio Gaber: Certainly, we agree on this...
Adriano Sofri: Sure, and the difference is not between optimists and pessimists, in my opinion, but among those who, thinking that the world is doomed, continues to wash their face, cut their nails, as one does with terminally ill people when one cares for them, and who immediately letting go to and become tramp, accelerates the agony. We're talking among people who know that the world is dying and still cut their nails.
meeting in Pisa jail, 2000
But the world is in an extremely dangerous situation, and serious diseases often require the risk of a dangerous cure — like the Pasteur serum for rabies. It is not that we may simply blow up the planet with nuclear bombs, strangle ourselves with overpopulation, destroy our natural resources through poor conservation, or ruin the soil and its products with improperly understood chemicals and pesticides. Beyond all these is the possibility that civilization may be a huge technological success, but through methods that most people will find baffling, frightening, and disorienting — because, for one reason alone, the methods will keep changing. It may be like playing a game in which the rules are constantly changed without ever being made clear — a game from which one cannot withdraw without suicide, and in which one can never return to an older form of the game.
But the problem of man and technics is almost always stated in the wrong way. It is said that humanity has evolved one-sidedly, growing in technical power without any comparable growth in moral integrity, or, as some would prefer to say, without comparable progress in education and rational thinking. Yet the problem is more basic. The root of the matter is the way in which we feel and conceive ourselves as human beings, our sensation of being alive, of individual existence and identity. We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that "I myself" is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body—a center which "confronts" an "external" world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange. Everyday figures of speech reflect this illusion. "I came into this world." "You must face reality." "The conquest of nature."
Alan Watts, THE BOOK, 1966
But the problem of man and technics is almost always stated in the wrong way. It is said that humanity has evolved one-sidedly, growing in technical power without any comparable growth in moral integrity, or, as some would prefer to say, without comparable progress in education and rational thinking. Yet the problem is more basic. The root of the matter is the way in which we feel and conceive ourselves as human beings, our sensation of being alive, of individual existence and identity. We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that "I myself" is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body—a center which "confronts" an "external" world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange. Everyday figures of speech reflect this illusion. "I came into this world." "You must face reality." "The conquest of nature."
Alan Watts, THE BOOK, 1966
"For every complex problem there is a simple solution that is wrong."
G. B. Shaw
Cette vie est un hôpital où chaque malade est possédé du désir de changer de lit.
Charles Baudelaire
Cette vie est un hôpital où chaque malade est possédé du désir de changer de lit.
Charles Baudelaire
"God places the elbows on the table, joins hands and bends to the allsaints gathered: «What the fuck is this happening on Earth?»"
John Niven, The Second Coming
KalYug (Devanāgarī: कलियुग, lit. "age of (the male demon) Kali", or "age of vice") is the last of the four stages that the world goes through as part of the cycle of yugas described in the Indian scriptures. The other ages are Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga and Dvapara Yuga. According to the Surya Siddhanta, an astronomical treatise that forms the basis of all Hindu and Buddhist calendars, Kali Yuga began at midnight (00:00) on 18 February 3102 BCE in the Julian calendar, or 23 January 3102 BC in the Gregorian calendar. This date is also considered by many Hindus to be the day that Krishna died after being mortally wounded by an arrow. Most interpreters of Hindu scriptures believe that earth is currently in Kali Yuga. The Kali Yuga is traditionally thought to last 432,000 years.
Hindus believe that human civilization degenerates spiritually during the Kali Yuga, which is referred to as the Dark Age because in it people are as far removed as possible from God. Hinduism often symbolically represents morality (dharma) as a bull. In Satya Yuga, the first stage of development, the bull has four legs, but in each age morality is reduced by one quarter. By the age of Kali, morality is reduced to only a quarter of that of the golden age, so that the bull of Dharma has only one leg.
Kali Yuga is associated with the apocalypse demon Kali, not to be confused with the goddess Kālī (these are unrelated words in the Sanskrit language). The "Kali" of Kali Yuga means "strife, discord, quarrel, or contention."
Hindus believe that human civilization degenerates spiritually during the Kali Yuga, which is referred to as the Dark Age because in it people are as far removed as possible from God. Hinduism often symbolically represents morality (dharma) as a bull. In Satya Yuga, the first stage of development, the bull has four legs, but in each age morality is reduced by one quarter. By the age of Kali, morality is reduced to only a quarter of that of the golden age, so that the bull of Dharma has only one leg.
Kali Yuga is associated with the apocalypse demon Kali, not to be confused with the goddess Kālī (these are unrelated words in the Sanskrit language). The "Kali" of Kali Yuga means "strife, discord, quarrel, or contention."
The sources of the Kaliyuga here are those that are called Global Dynamics Processes (GDPs), processes at many different levels of complexity that affect the entire planet. They have had as a precondition the social and scientific revolutions of 600s and 700s, began with the Industrial Revolution of 800s, had an exponential growth during the 900s and will become irreversible within this century.
The three largest GDPs in the Kaliyuga, linked together, are the growth and global overpopulation, resource depletion and the environmental destruction in the terrestrial ecosystem.
The global dynamic processes that will reach the point of no-return within this century are the effects, the cause was indicated long ago by two scholars and epistemologists of cybernetics and complexity:
(G. Bateson)
(E. Morin)
The three largest GDPs in the Kaliyuga, linked together, are the growth and global overpopulation, resource depletion and the environmental destruction in the terrestrial ecosystem.
The global dynamic processes that will reach the point of no-return within this century are the effects, the cause was indicated long ago by two scholars and epistemologists of cybernetics and complexity:
"When you separate the mind from the structure where it is immanent - as a human relationship, human society or the ecosystem - is committed, I believe, a fundamental error, which will surely suffer in the long run."
(G. Bateson)
"... I want to add, in conclusion, I am convinced that one of the aspects of the crisis of our century is the state of barbarism in which they are our ideas, the state of prehistory of the human spirit that is still dominated by concepts, theories, and doctrines it produces, just as we thought that the ancients were dominated by their myths and their magic. Our ancestors had myths more concrete, while we are under control of abstract powers.
Therefore, to address the dramatic problems of the end of this millennium is a need to establish a dialogue between our minds and what they produced in the form of ideas and systems of ideas. Our need for civilization implies the need for a civilization of our minds.
If we still have hope that there will be improvements and changes in relationships between human beings ... then this great leap of civilization and history will need also a jump toward the thought of complexity "
Therefore, to address the dramatic problems of the end of this millennium is a need to establish a dialogue between our minds and what they produced in the form of ideas and systems of ideas. Our need for civilization implies the need for a civilization of our minds.
If we still have hope that there will be improvements and changes in relationships between human beings ... then this great leap of civilization and history will need also a jump toward the thought of complexity "
(E. Morin)
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| The roots of ecological crisis: That all of the many current threats to man's survival are traceable to three root causes:a) technological progress b) population increase c) certain errors in the thinking and attitudes of Occidental culture. Our "values" are wrong. We believe that all three of these fundamental factors are necessary conditions for the destruction of our world. In other words, we optimistically believe that the correction of any one of them would save us. That these fundamental factors certainly interact. The increase of population spurs technological progress and creates that anxiety which sets us against our environment as an enemy; while technology both facilitates increase of population and reinforces our arrogance, or "hybris," vis-à-vis the natural environment. The attached diagram illustrates the interconnections. It will be noted that in this diagram each corner is clockwise, denoting that each is by itself a self-promoting ("autocatalytic") phenomenon: the bigger the population, the faster it grows; the more technology we have, the faster the rate of new invention; and the more we believe in our "power" over an enemy environment, the more "power" we seem to have and the more spiteful the environment seems to be. Similarly the pairs of corners are clockwise connected to make three self-promoting subsystems. (G. Bateson,The roots of ecological crisis, 1970) |
In all cultures and traditions the myth of the end of the world, as well as that of its genesis, is a great event.
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A. Dürer, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse |
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| The Last Judgment, Sistine Chapel, Vatican City |
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| Maya calendar |
In the reality envisaged in this century the situation seems much more prosaic and mundane. Certainly the four horsemen of disease, hunger, war and death will have - as always - a key role, but there is nothing great in destroying an entire ecosystem. It would appear that the majesty of these myths reflects the human ego more than trying to describe a reality; after all, if the human race has to disappear, that it will do better with a great event.
In the reality of the irreversible processes that will reach the turning point within this century will be crucial items of absolute banality, if not ridiculous:
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| Great Pacific Garbage Patch |
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| Flood victims, USA, 1937 |
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