Introduction

I write at a strange time. I enter my apartment courtyard through a sort of cage that I unlock with a key. Outside in the alley, human beings that could very well be my friends are rummaging through trash cans trying to dig for cans and bottles, presumably so they can take them to a recycling center where they can scrounge together a few dollars for something to eat (or drink, who knows). A sign posted on the garage outside compels me to call the police if I see these characters, for they are liable for a fine or jail. A fine? But these people are sifting through garbage. They can’t have very much money to offer. Jail? What if they have friends or family somewhere that are waiting for them to get back with their scraps? And these punishments for digging through the trash? The sign says we need to reclaim our alleys. Reclaim our alleys? Who is “our”? And reclaim these alleys from whom? Whose alleys are they? Why are the allies ours and why are these trash diggers the occupying enemy?

Take this micro problem and blow it out to the macro and you have a picture of the madness that has befallen our modern society. From where does this madness come (hint: it has been with us for a while)? How did it happen? How did we get here? Why do some have so much and so many have so little? How are we supposed to survive as a society when none of its constituents care for one another? What then is this society composed of? Atomized individuals pursuing their own self-interest? But what holds us together? How is this theory supposed to work?

Well we can answer that pretty quickly. It doesn’t work. And this can be scarcely described as a society. Or at least a democratic, free society. Of course when individuals are left to pursue their own selfish interests, many will seek power. Many already have power. Since power tends to constrain those who don’t have it, I suppose we don’t really have a free society anymore.

But then exploring these issues will take much time and care. They are complicated issues to be sure (and all-encompassing), and they require the aperture of awareness to be pulled far back, perhaps to cosmic proportions in order for us to examine the nature of our own species and how it relates to the earth. And so we must accurately isolate and criticize those tendencies (and resulting ideologies) of ours that we view to be flawed and destructive, but at the same time we must put forth a positive evaluation of all of the values, principles, and accompanying tendencies that we find to be good and constructive, lest we sink into an abyss of despair.

And I’m not trying to be overly dramatic here. Take a look at the national mood and the day-to-day people relations before us. There are patches of sunlight, of good people trying to share their good and do their good. But spend a long enough amount of time with anyone, and you will find dark valleys to match those sunny peaks. And so it goes for modern man. We are constantly in danger of falling into despair. But we don’t. And we don’t necessarily give up in the face of these cascading human disasters because our humanity (or our tie to the cosmos) is still there (and cannot be destroyed). And we often attempt to bring it back. Well, let’s keep at it then. Not every day will be a good day. And I know I won’t find the answer in a sudden revelatory dash of brilliance (though some breakthroughs in thought can happen sort of like this). But we can still work everyday at improving our situation. And why not do this in the spirit of the internet age? In diffuse (but still interrelated) form on a blog? Let’s see if we can begin to master or at least improve our faculties of understanding in this emerging mode of internet consciousness.