Is there anything more programmed, more manipulated than all this? Yet we take it all for granted call it human even romanticize it.
In modern communities there is now much talk about the individual's right over its own body, particularly in such matters as sex abortion drugs etc.... But what about rights over your own body? You enjoy no real rights no control over your own body. Try telling your body not to breathe for a few minutes. Try not relieving yourself when the pressure builds. Your body is not manipulated by you. You are manipulated by your body.
Then too we are helpless robots manipulated by environment. I once traveled on a malfunctioning train. A sudden power failure shut off the air conditioner. Most of us took off our jackets. Then the lights suddenly went off. Soon we all fell off to sleep. Then suddenly the lights went on again. We all sat up again reading and talking. Then the air conditioner went on and we all put on our jackets again. During the next few hours each time the lights went on we sat up and read. When the lights went off we obediently fell off to sleep. When the air conditioner went on we quickly put on our jackets. When it went off our jackets came off.
There we were like marionettes manipulated by a crazy power system.
Is this not precisely the condition of our existence? Day breaks we wake up—night comes we sleep—the cold sends us scurrying away for cover—then the heat then the cold then the rain...
What do you or I have to say about all this? Is there a manipulation more arbitrary than that of the environment which, without any consultation with me or you, decides the seasons the heat of the summer the cold of winter the cycles of night and day light and darkness, when it will rain or shine when it will unleash a hurricane or an earthquake?
Every year around the planet tens of thousands of people perish in floods—fires—heat waves—cold waves—snowstorms—typhoons—cyclones—hurricanes—earthquakes and many other arbitrary manipulations.
Even a simple picnic or sports event enthusiastically planned in advance must be forfeited at the last minute because the sky has suddenly decided to piss on our heads.
The very people who rebel against manipulations by a political regime or an economic system obediently, even cheerfully, accept the more repressive manipulations of biology and environment. “Why do you want to make genetic alterations in the human body or implant electrodes?” protests a radical political activist. “What is wrong with the body as it is? Why fight death? When my time comes I'll go. Why control the environment? It is more exciting not to know when it will rain or snow or shine. I like the variety of seasons anyway."
But what variety? Variety imposed by environment, not by you.
People obediently accept such basic manipulations yet invest energy and time, even their lives, fighting human-made institutions which in relatively superficial ways manipulate them.
There is no government no industrial-military complex no economic system no mass media which can ever reduce us to puppets and robots as the biological and environmental dictatorships have.
* * *
beyond equal rights
What does equality mean to you?
Equality you will say means feeling equal. It means having equal social and political rights. Or equality derives from a just distribution of wealth.
We can continue gaining these equalities—social sexual economic political—but so long as there is no biological equality there can be no real equality.
Biology is the primary perpetrator of inequality. People are born unequal. Not simply dissimilar—that is not bad. But unequal.
The literature and folklore of all societies are crowded with themes dramatizing this most primary of inequalities. The bright attractive child favored by everyone over its brothers and sisters.
The beautiful peasant girl discovered by the prince and taken to the palace to be his queen. Too bad for all the homely girls who have to stay behind in mud huts.
The tall handsome man spotted by Mr. Rich Man's daughter. The hell with all the short skinny boys.
The brilliant individual who wins awards and the adoration of the whole country. Nothing for all the dum-dums who struggle year after year but can never go far as musicians writers scientists lawyers etc.
And what about the birds with broken wings—those born crippled blind deaf...
If all this is not inequality and injustice—what is?
So long as some are born healthy others sickly some strong others weak some bright others dumb some beautiful others ungainly some cheerful others gloomy some vigorous others frail—in other words, so long as these gross biological inequalities persist there can be no real equality, only the perpetuation of rivalries jealousies conflicts...
* * *
beyond competition
Run run run run. Where am I running? Why am I running?
I run not simply because my competitive family life competitive school system competitive economic setup have conditioned me to run. I run because of a far more powerful pressure—the pressure of Time.
I run essentially because my Time is limited.
Every day every hour every minute every second I am a little older a little weaker a little closer to the end.
Is there any social system, any social pressure more competitive, more dehumanizing than this biological pressure?
What time is it? It is five thirty. It is getting late.
Late for what? How can five thirty ever be late?
The fact is that it is getting late. It is always getting late. Even when I am resting it is getting late. Even then Time is running and compelling me to run with it. My life is running—out.
This is ultimately what we mean when we say it is getting late.
The running and competition are built into me—into my biological system.
No person on this planet is ultimately in competition with me. Everyone is finally running the same race against Time.
This Time-tension, this race to the finish has nothing to do with East or West, capitalism or socialism, democracy or dictatorship, technology or pretechnology. This is a universal dilemma.
You can remove modern technology, remove watches and clocks and rigid work schedules—still the Time-tension will persist. The most insidious schedule is the rigid schedule of limited lifetime. The most brutal clock is the biological clock within my system ticking away and nothing anyone can do to stop it. This is surely the most brutal race of all.
“Drink for tomorrow you die.” This was written long before modern technology and clocks long before capitalism and socialism...
Our competitive social economic systems only aggravate the biological race against Time. Not until we have defused the Time-bomb—the imminence of death—will we stop running.
Only then will Time cease to matter, only then will all competition and pressure become superfluous. For why run then? You can take your time. You have all the time ahead of you. It will never be late.
* * *
beyond violence
As I explained in Optimism One there is a historical trend toward nonviolence. Between parents and children, between men and women, teachers and pupils, employers and employees, leaders and citizens, society and the criminal society and the emotionally troubled, between nations between races between sects even between people and animals—at all levels of all societies there is a steady diminution in violence.
But there is still much violence in the world. It is no longer enough to focus only on the social economic political causes of violence. If we succeeded in removing these pressures there would still be violence.
Violence is inherent to our situation in Time and Space. The human organism is under relentless pressures from biological conditions within it and environmental forces outside it which at every instant threaten its safety, its very existence.
Conceived in the precarious environment of the womb the human organism is then violently thrust out into an even more hostile environment outside. Left suddenly alone, very alone. Threatened at first by light
and noise and movements and the pressures within its own body. This human organism then goes through life forever exposed and vulnerable at the mercy of all kinds of violence—the violence of pain the violence of disease the violence of hunger and thirst the violence of abrupt separation from loved ones the violence of burning and falling and freezing ... One misstep and we break a limb or crush a bone, one misstep and we drown or choke.
So perpetual are these violent threats within us and around us that we take them for granted and do not consciously realize that we are perpetually warding them off, perpetually exposed and vulnerable.
Life is a relentless struggle against the violence of suffering and the violence of death.
This lifelong struggle makes us deeply insecure and suspicious, disposing us to violence toward one another. It is curious that we are not more violent.
Not until we have remade—completely remade—the biological makeup of the human organism can we overcome our vulnerability to the ever-present threats of biological and environmental violence.
* * *
beyond loneliness
Today we enjoy more individuality and at the same time more communication than ever. We have had a long hard climb from the valley of hostile tribalisms and are now nearing summits of individuality and global communication.
Yet we look around and realize that our individuality and ability to communicate globally are still not the answer. We are still lonely isolated separate.
We communicate better than ever. But how do we really communicate? We still have to communicate as separate entities. We still have to go through a maze of protective shells which every individual in understandable protection of its self has had to construct. We have to go through countless other protective layers which the individual in its anguish and anxieties has had to build to protect itself not only from the world but to protect itself from itself.
How then can I ever reach you really communicate with you? How can you ever really communicate with me—the inner me, the real me? The me I myself dare not know, cannot know.
How can you and , even when resting side by side and feeling close, ever bridge the isolation which our separate biologies compel? No love no friendship no empathy no sympathy can fuse this separateness which is predicated on our separate minds our separate emotions our separate bodies.
There is a loneliness which no social system no individuality no communalism can allay. This is the loneliness which is inherent in our physiological separateness.
Loneliness is not essentially a psychological or social problem. It is a biological reality.
So long as we are separate biological entities there will be loneliness. So long as we are separate self-interest is unavoidable. Self-interest is chauvinism—self-chauvinism which is at the very root of all later chauvinisms and conflicts of interest.
* * *
beyond all identities
Modern individuals are now fluid and mobile as never before. We no longer belong to a fixed family—tribe—village—lifelong profession—religion—nationality—political movement—philosophy of life. The modern no longer have a fixed identity. We derive a sense of selfhood and security not from total permanent commitments but from a sense of continual growth. Nonidentity is the new emancipation.
But the individual is basically as immobilized as ever within fixed biological identities.
What are these fixed identities? They are my inherited body inherited skin color inherited gender inherited brain partially inherited personality.
How fluid am I, compelled to remain pegged to these static biological identities which determine my very existence?
The real identity crisis today arises from my growing reluctance to accept my inherited biology. I refuse to be immobilized in predetermined biological identities in whose selection I had absolutely nothing to say.
Why should I accept this particular body of mine? Why not different bodies different sizes different shapes different colors? Why know only this specific gender? Why not the other gender or an alternation between both genders or a fusion of the two? Why accept this particular brain or this particular personality?
Why go through a lifetime trapped within the same body the same mind the same personality? What a bore. Future-people will look back and wonder how an individual could have gone through an entire lifetime with its one and only self.
I may be fortunate and have a graceful body a warm self-confident personality a vibrant mind. Still I am caught in a monotony.
Who at times has not grown monotonous to its own self? Only the rooted accepts its biological status quo. Only the static individual is content—or is it resigned?—to go through life pegged to inherited identities.
The dynamic fluid individual wants biological diversity—biological emancipation.
I do not want only to be myself. That is too static. I want the option to be also Andreas and Miriam and Emiliano and Yoshiku and Awolowowo and Jamileh and Stanley and Silvana and Sadruddin and...
I want to maximize my fluidity not simply by merging and demerging with different people but also having different kinds and shapes of bodies different colors and designs different admixtures of personalities and brains the option to plug into human/machine systems and be such systems.
This is the biological freedom and fluidity we are finally striving for.
* * *
beyond alienation
In February 1971 a severe earthquake jolted Los Angeles. Around fifty people died in that earthquake. The psychological damage was even more widespread affecting many thousands of people.
For weeks and months following the earthquake psychotherapists treated people suffering from earthquake jitters. Children were afraid to leave their parents. People young and old were gripped with profound anxieties—emotional exhaustion—depression—inability to concentrate and to sleep—nightmares...
Los Angeles psychotherapists1 provided some of the common causes of the widespread emotional crises —
The unexpectedness of the quake.
The fact that there is no place to hide.
The feeling of complete helplessness.
The sense of having been betrayed by Mother Nature which people had always viewed as reliable and good.
The sudden realization that no one can finally save you. That parents friends mates leaders are themselves vulnerable and afraid.
A loss of confidence in the world.
The realization that one cannot predict one's own future. That ultimately there is no control.
The sudden reality of the tenuousness of existence—all existence.
These were some of the causes of the widespread psychological damage. Yet several months after the earthquake life in Los Angeles was back to normal. People were out of their shells—having fun—playing—starting careers—having children—building homes—planning for the future.
Has the threat of earthquakes suddenly disappeared? No.
How then do the people cope with their exposedness? They cope by repressing. They repress their anxieties and fears of more earthquakes.
Convulsing a whole modern city the earthquake was like a gigantic flash of self-illumination. One fleeting terrifying glimpse at the real human situation. The earthquake and its aftermath compressed within it the whole dilemma of human existence.
Life itself is an endless cycle of tremors and the ever-present threat of one final quake which snuffs out each individual life. People the world over suffer from “earthquake jitters.” We all harbor horrendous anxieties. The unexpectedness of death. The fact that there is no place to hide. The feeling of complete helplessness and exposedness. The realization that no one—no parent friend lover or leader—can finally do anything. The inability to predict our own future. The desperate tenuousness of existence.
How do we cope with these primary anxieties? We cope simply by repressing. By refusing to face our real human situation. We run away from ourselves and from the world.
This is the real alienation.
The root of all alienation.
How can it be otherwise? How can I not feel alienated from my own temporary self which at any moment may slip away into permanent nonexistence? How can I help feeling alienated from my own fragile vulnerable body which brings me suffering: toothaches—agonizing stomach aches—throbbing headaches—broken limbs? How can I not feel alienated from the world which at any instant can forfeit my existence? It is not only the ever-present threat of my own sudden extinction which precipitates this alienation but also the fact that people dear to me have died and others will at any moment suddenly die.
How then can I ever stop running away from my self and the real world? To face my self—to really face my self and the real world—is to face the fact that I am a highly vulnerable fleeting consciousness exposed to hostile forces over which I have no control.
* * * *
I have stressed these problems in their rock-bottom elemental context to prod you to focus on our human situation. I am not surfacing these problems to depress you or simply to throw up my arms. This tract is not an exercise in metaphysical despair. Not at all. This is a tract for Action.
I want to energize you to action precisely because now at last our tragic human situation can be and must be reversed.
Until this stage in history we have run away from these fundamentals. They have been too tragic and we too helpless.
At best we rationalized them through theologic fantasies and philosophic speculations. Our attention and energies have been focused instead on immediate social economic political problems. In other words, unable to do anything about our sinking ship we have quarreled over cabin rights and household chores.
The time has now come for us to confront our fundamental human situation. We now have the potential to overcome the basic tragedies and limitations.
UP-WINGERS Page 8
