Materialism & self-awareness

As usual, I’ve been reading all manner of unhinged babblings from every dark corner of the Internet (at least, every dark corner Google has indexed). Normally I try to link these articles together through some common thread, cunningly embedding them across various words and phrases for your amusement. I’m suspect that today’s ramblings are a bit more fragmented than usual, and for this I apologize in advance.

Today’s theme stems from a conversation I had with Jessie (astute readers will not be shocked by the uniqueness of such an occurrence). It began with a discussion of antimaterialism, but not from the commonly explored religious standpoint (or the more open-minded though absurd postmodern Christian view). Rather, we hashed over topics of human “uniqueness” and hubris in the context of a society constantly wearing blinders and being unnaturally attached to the things it claims to own. (“The things you own own you,” “You are not a unique snowflake,” “Humans are stupid monkey people,” etc.) Honestly, nothing was covered that can’t be gleaned from Fight Club or other “subversive” media.

I object to any antimaterialist conclusions arising from such discussions because materialism only becomes a problem when people don’t have a logical reason for possessing what they do. Humans have evolved to use tools; it’s what we’re good at. There are other animals more robust than us in pretty much every way, except for our ability to think critically about situations, then invent and use tools to overcome obstacles. Thinking that the application of such tools is against some “natural order” and that we should revert to hunting and gathering is a dangerously illogical stance that would unravel society’s very foundation should it be implemented. (Fortunately, it is nearly impossible to spread this extremist view without the use of the very tools it claims to reject.)

The secret to thinking logically about one’s behavior is the ability to perform self-analysis. If you do not exercise your self-awareness, you will be unable to realize why you possess the thoughts and feelings that you do. And this analysis must be scientific; you do not start with your conclusions and try to justify them. That would be apologetics, which some Christian proponents of “rational thought” proudly practice to defend the Bible and their ludicrous “Intelligent Design” theory (a.k.a. Creationism). To fully indulge in this tangent: one reason the faulty cause of Intelligent Design has gotten so much press is because of the journalistic obsession with reporting both sides of an issue, no matter how ridiculous or laughable. To be fair, however, although the overwhelming majority of scientists find Intelligent Design to be an untenable theory (since by its very nature the idea cannot be disproven), journalists may still feel obligated to address it due to the overwhelming number of nonscientific monkey people who senselessly embrace it.

Anyway, once the conversation proceeded into a discussion of self-awareness, it became much more interesting. We concluded that although humans possess only limited sentience, one should reflect back on oneself whenever possible, because otherwise conscious self-improvement is impossible. Humans make mistakes. What’s important is that each person approaches things rationally, puts forth his best effort, keeps an open mind, and forgives others. Also that he kisses babies, hugs kittens, loves clowns and shits rainbows.

Unfortunately, I’m still convinced that the stupid, antiquated half of the U.S. isn’t holding itself to such a standard. On the topic of rational inquiry into political issues, however, I read a really cool and impartial article written right after 9/11 criticizing both the Bush administration and the USA-blaming liberals. The author’s hard-hitting, logical criticisms were refreshing, particularly his point that “what they [the Islamic fanatics] abominate about ‘the West,’ to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals don’t like and can’t defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state.” Checking up on the article’s magazine, The Nation, I noticed the quote from its founding prospectus: “The Nation will not be the organ of any party, sect, or body. It will, on the contrary, make an earnest effort to bring to the discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit, and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration, and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred.” Holy The Nation, Batman! It makes me want to read more of its articles to see whether it lives up to its own ideals, but I really should be getting back to work. So sad.