...is ´evolution´ just a fuzzword?

...Does cartesian logic accurately represent reality?

 

During extensive IQ tests, children below 5 years of age were found to be 98% 'genius', as in possession of true divergent thinking skills. Once they reached 8 years of age, the percentage of divergent thinking was 30, and once they were over 25 years of age, this ratio was reduced to 2%.

To live within western culture at the start of the 21st century is to experience a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, it is sophisticated and pushes ‘forward’, with philosophy and science as ‘enquiry tools’ at its forefront. On the other hand is the cultural detachment from perceptions that such intellectual tools should help to attain.

The way sand and water particles rearrange themselves in patterns when vibrating to certain frequencies is clearly a system, formed by the pattern that encloses the particles within it: seemingly individuated particules form geometric patterns and rearrange themselves into an observable form, a ‘pattern’, a system, an ecology. Particles behave as though they belong to a greater vibrational ecology than their own individuated existence. This is a scientifically measurable phenomenon, studied by the science of cymatics. It is the subject of ongoing research, as technology increasingly allows for the detailed study of the behaviour of molecules when exposed to changing frequencies. 

In recent years, the science of physics has also proven the properties of cross-scale self-similarity, also called fractals. Similar to the ‘russian-doll’ situation,where the outer doll contains self-similar, smaller dolls, fractal behaviour implies that systems display recurring patterns at smaller or larger scales. This is used when describing the structure of snowflakes and when describing ‘partly random or chaotic phenomena’ such as crystal growth and galaxy formation.

In a similar way to which sand molecules arrange themselves in orderly patterns reacting to audio frequencies, it is observable how cultural systems tend to arrange themselves in ‘cohesive’ ways which seem somewhat orderly and respond to patterns of organization. Hierarchy, policing, governance systems, urban organization, linguistic systems, social classes, occupations, calendars, are all systems of observable organization. There are, also, as Raymond Williams points out in Culture [1983], actual‘tangible’ works that stem from culture, such as art. Pierre Teilhard De Chardin described this as part of the Noosphere in The Phenomenon Of Man [1955] the ‘atmosphere of the productions of mind’, where human cognition fundamentally transforms the biosphere, emerging as a sort of ‘shell’, enclosing the planet: an ecology within an ecology.

A resonance within a vibration.

“I think religion has done great damage to ecology. A human being has a soul and is therefore deemed different to the rest of ‘creation’ - at least this is what you’re taught if you, like me, were brought up under the Christian tradition. You are a ‘superior’ being thanks to your body-soul duality, which has placed humans above the idea of being integrated in an ecosystem - within which we are actually just ‘one more’ element, and in fact, the most intrusive element. …And I think that, consequently, whenever you bring up ecology, the culture’s subconscious mutters: “people first!” …As long as there are grave economical and political problems -which there always are- they take precedent over preoccupations for a greater ecology. …When, actually, we should probably consider it as a whole: the problems that stem from the same system are related. Quite possibly, there are people dying of hunger because we are trashing the planet. Quite possibly, these are connected” - Risto Mejide, 2012, ‘What: About the Future’ interview'.

As Cambridge, Oxford and Trinity College lecturer Raymond Williams points out in Culture, the word ‘culture’ applied to human deeds derives from the observation of bacterial behaviour, given its ‘clogging’ into overarching systems of ecologies within a lab petri dish, and as also related to the cultivation of crops.
This very metaphor reveals human culture’s ability to recognize and reflect on the existence of fractal patterns, metaphorically revealing an ´as above, so below´ natural behaviour of systems belonging to different scales of other systems, arranged into smaller or bigger –including the unfathomable by human intellect- ecologies.

Information is so called because it defines systems that display form-ation and therefore display perceivable patterns, from which in-form-ation can be extracted. 

As Alfred North Whitehead stated in Process And Reality [1929], intelligence can be defined as the acquisition of pattern as such. 

There is an all-permeating presence of patterned arrangements in the observable world: nature’s cyclical behaviour, the formation of hurricanes, the ‘pi’ ratio present in petal and leave formation and arrangements, the molecular arrangement of ‘pure’ water molecules, the sequence of prime numbers, the fibonacci sequence, etc.

All of these phenomena abide the ‘constant’ of patterns within patterns, or fractality.
...Aesthetically apprehensible order.

Aesthetics -as an apprehensible phenomena- should provide information about the plausability and impeccability of any system and/or idea, and aesthetics are definitely apprehensible within ideological, social and/or cultural systems.

When only logic and analysis are applied to a situation, with no space left to chance, no evolution occurs, as stated by Darwin. This just shows how slippery regular reality actually is, despite all of our intellectual endeavours and abstract systems of rationalization. ...The greater ecology of which we are part of does not respond to, nor function through, human reason and logic.
For instance, western industrial systems of agriculture have chosen to narrow biodiversity into 9 main cultivation crops, ignoring previously present biodiversity, in favour of for-profit, yield-rich, industrial concepts of cultivation. And this is, obviously, out of kilter with what is advisable towards the greater biological ecosystem that human culture is part of.
 

So, does our cartesian logic accurately, aesthetically, represent reality?

..Because if this is the case, the 'progress' and 'civilisation´ western societies simbolise should have brought us to a different 21st century status quo than the perpetual threat of imminent international war, xenophobia, racism, publicly justified corruption, social programming as executed by mass-media, and cut-throat financial and economic markets.

....We should, pershaps, stop collectively feeling so self-fulfilled with our civilised assumptions, and should rather start proving that evolution has enabled us to generate perceivable motion towards better socio-cultural spaces.

Dr Lara Boyd - Repeat those behaviours that are healthy for your brain.

As Dr Boyd states during her TED presentation, learning -evolving- is about doing the work that the brain / mind requires, and this requires practice and engagement in order to avoid repeated and undesirable patterns of behaviour... because the opposite of aesthetic is an-aesthetic - to be dormant, unaware, asleep, sedated, as explained below (5min 51secs) by british linguist Sir Ken Robinson, PHD.

"Life is not a linear or mechanistic phenomena, it is organic, and human success depends on synergistic relations with the environment"
 "Our view of intelligence is exceedingly narrow"
 (Sir Ken Robinson)



Evolution implies change, at whichever rate of adaptation may be necessary, in order to change undesirable circumstances as related to one´s environment.

"The problem with human beings is not that we aim too high and fail...
The problem with humans is that we aim too low, and succeed".
(Michelangelo)



------------------------------

(Clip 1) Cymatics, from Greek: κῦμα, meaning "wave", is a subset of modal vibrational phenomena. The term was coined by Hans Jenny (1904-1972), a Swiss follower of the philosophical school known as anthroposophy. Typically the surface of a plate, diaphragm or membrane is vibrated, and regions of maximum and minimum displacement are made visible in a thin coating of particles, paste or liquid. Different patterns emerge in the excitatory medium depending on the geometry of the plate and the driving frequency.

(Clip2) Franciscus Bernardus Maria "Frans" de Waal, PhD, is a Dutch primatologist and ethologist. He is the Charles Howard Candler professor of Primate Behavior at the Emory University psychology department in Atlanta, Georgia, and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and author of numerous books including Chimpanzee Politics and Our Inner Ape. His research centers on primate social behavior, including conflict resolution, cooperation, inequity aversion, and food-sharing. He is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

(Clip 3) Dr. Lara Boyd is the Canada Research Chair in Neurobiology of Motor Learning, a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Career Investigator, a Peter Wall Scholar, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy, at the University of British Columbia.  She is a Neuroscientist and Physical Therapist. 

Dr. Boyd directs the Brain Behaviour Lab at the University of British Columbia, which performs research designed to advance theoretical conceptualizations of how brain function relates to behaviour during learning. She is an expert in neuroimaging and neurophysiology, and uses a variety of cutting edge technology in her research. 

(Clip 4) Sir Kenneth Robinson, PhD, is a British author, speaker and international advisor on education in the arts to government, non-profits, education and arts bodies. He was Director of the Arts in Schools Project (1985–89) and Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick (1989–2001), and is now Professor Emeritus at the same institution. In 2003 he was knighted for services to art. Originally from a working class Liverpool family, Robinson now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and children.

Robinson contracted polio at age four. He attended Margaret Beavan Special School due to the physical effects of polio then Liverpool Collegiate School (1961–1963), Wade Deacon Grammar School, Cheshire (1963–1968). He then studied English and drama (BEd) at Bretton Hall College of Education (1968–1972) and completed a PhD in 1981 at the University of London, researching drama and theatre in education. 

Transform our perception of the universe we must.

[...we must] transform our perception of the universe

(Dr Stephen Hawking, 1942-2018)

Whatever he meant with this sentence, uttered, once more, as he was publicly announcing the opening of the London 2012 Paralympic Games, it is fairly clear that with a world in its current state... we most definitely could do with a transformation of our perceptions.

 

Stephen Hawking suffered in many ways throughout his life, but the motor neurone disease he experienced since age 21 was not high on this list. He repeatedly stated that he was happier towards the end of his life than he had ever been, including the time previous to the onset of his medical condition.

A complicated man, who most probably suffered mild -and not-so-mild- abuse at the hands of his nurse and second wife, Stephen Hawking had one most striking message, as an atheist physicist: we must transform our perception of the universe.

...The famous showbiz sentence "perception is all when it comes to launching films" could be compressed into "perception is all when it comes to the arts", and even further into, simply, "perception is all" without much of an ontological problem taking place. We all obviously perceive -and privately interpret- the world as information.

in-form-ation / in-formation / ...pattern-like

We (aim to) perceive -make sense out of- form. ...Some classic philosophers have gone further and simply put it that "we are pure perception". 

'A Brief History Of Time', by Hawking, did, amongst other things, place this 'perception' concept within a scientific context.

Stephen Hawking's last words from his final speech were "my motto is: there are no boundaries"

...And one can almost believe these very words, however challenging, when you look at one of Dr Hawking's last public contributions, below.

The man must have had a phenomenal sense of humour, to have agreed to appear on such narrative. I still remember the shock / laughter I personally experienced once the video picked up its pace, and it became clear just how much of an accomplice Dr Hawking must have been to the whole plot, throughout its ideation. ...Humour without boundaries.

(By the way, no animals were hurt during the making of the video above, as can be seen here)

This MojoTv compilation of Dr Hawking's cameos in pop culture is an evident sign of a genius sense of humour:

Below -not for the first time on this blog- Hawking opens the London 2012 paralympics by way of spoken prelude to Orbital's "Where is it going?", choosing to stay onstage throughout the execution of Orbital's uptempo, electronic-dance-music anthem, medley-ed with Ian Dury's british classic 'Spasticus Autisticus'... just for good measure.

 The complexity of Hawking's personal story is best shown on the biographical movie 'The Theory Of Everything' (2014), a much applauded effort by the British Film Industry (BFI) which follows him throughout his Cambridge University years, his lovelife, and his scientific endeavours. 

As a short resumé of his life, the short BBC documentary piece, below, is a brief (3 mins) story on his brief history of time, and on the man himself.

 

No boundaries then, Dr Hawking, and so long.

 

Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author, and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge. His scientific works included a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He was a vigorous supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Hawking was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. In 2002, Hawking was ranked number 25 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009 and achieved commercial success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. His book A Brief History of Time appeared on the British Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

Hawking had a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis "ALS" or Lou Gehrig's disease) that gradually paralysed him over the decades. Even after the loss of his speech, he was still able to communicate through a speech-generating device, initially through use of a hand-held switch, and eventually by using a single cheek muscle. He died on 14 March 2018 at the age of 76.

 

 

 

 

 

On Evolution, Media, and the Sociocultural Narrative.

...So people such as Jordan Peterson -from this blog´s last entry- believe that one per cent of the population (human or animal) will inevitably control eighty per cent of the resources within any given situation - be it money, power, opportunities, or simply resources per se. 

This is, in his view, the ratio and dynamic which will be generated within any societal structure, and it cannot be helped - nor can any specific structure of societal organisation be blamed for this ´natural tendency´.

 One word: evolution. If evolution is, at all, the great driving force we have been told about, then it must account for the changes we thrive towards, changes which are observable and whithout which, in fact, 21st century society cannot be understood.

 It´s interesting how nature and ´natural tendencies´ are brought into the discussion of society´s organisational patterns, while the evolutionary aspects of our human predicament and condition are ignored: for starters, humans only became so while evolving out of a previously monkey-primate status. 

When the modern car was invented by Henry Ford, wealthy industrialists sentenced: "It will never catch on! horses can run on either uneven ground or tarmac, and horses do not require those ´roads´ which cars do!"

 ...Right?

Take the recent phenomena that is texting, for instance. It has been around for the last 17 years - as experts arbitrarily count from the year 2000 onwards, when researching the texting phenomena. Texting has greatly affected our view of language, communication, the frequency of this very  communication, the quantity of things that we now more or less collectively consider worthy of sharing, etc etc etc.

Professor David Crystal, a life-long linguist, honorary linguistics lecturer at two prominent british universities and patron of the International Teachers Association of English as a Foreign Language, has this to say on the matter of texting and the evolution of the English language:

 Professor David Crystal during his BBC "It´s Only A Theory" appearance. 

It´s Only A Theory is a primetime BBC program where experts are given the opportunity to defend "a theory of theirs" within their field of expertise, which they may not have a chance to delve into, during their regular professional lives. Professor Crystal argued the validity of "texting language", and its evolutionary significance.

The current narrative which underpins occidental society argues that tough characters thrive, "everything has been invented", and that human evolution finished with the acquisition of a thumb.

This is not the case. 

Evolution is an ongoing process, by its very definition.

We may not personally like the direction in which a society may be going, or the fact that it is at all in motion - just as we may not personally be able to appreciate this planet´s perpetual and orbital motion. It would, however, appear that neither of these two are about to be stopped due to personal discomforts and dislikes.
Why? Quite simply, "...because you can´t hold the tide with a broom".

"We´re all just looking out for something real" ...Ryan Gosling´s police boss tells him, during a private chat, in Denis Villeneuve´s Blade Runner 2049. 

 ...Well, forget science fiction. 

Our current world is striving to identify the 'real' out of the immigration phenomena, cultural meltdown and dissolution, the proliferation of new, uncontrolled emergence of technologies, the loss of ´traditional values´, cultural amalgamation, ecological fragility, ideological pendulums... However much all of these things may really be currently happening, we seem to be on the lookout for something real which may suit our idea of the real.

Apparently, convenience defines our concept of the authentic, to a much greater degree than we had realised.
...Not a very authentic attitude, in and of itself.

 ...We seem to be currently enduring a kind of evolution - which some of us seem to be resisting with all of their might. 

We can stay monkeys, stuck on meaningless traditions, whilst human rights are swept away, or we can better ourselves, improving what we deem worth shedding, observing, analyzing, feeling just what it is that makes us feel good, and what it is that we could do without... Because, indeed, plenty of the evolutionary aspects of existence are epigenetic, beyond the biochemical diktats of our genes and/or past-acquired behaviours.

On another episode of BBC´s It´s Only A Theory, ex-BBC programme coordinator and internet entrepreneur Andrew Keen tries to argue that social media is harming "proper and adequate audio-visual media" narratives - as he deems teenage (in any case, amateur) provided youtube content to be of a lesser quality than approved, traditional, filtered, supervised, edited, censored, audiovisual "entertainment".

See below.

 ...And how about this verbal jewel of a reply to Mr Keen´s argument, above, concluding the programme, from american panelist, comedian and social commentator Reginald D. Hunter (thumbnailed above), on "traditional media", economics, and old models of social cohesion, as the very conclusion to this blog entry - which you can see here, at 27 mins, 07 seconds.

Hats off to you, Reginald.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

David Crystal, OBE, FBA, FLSW, FCIL (born 6 July 1941) is a British linguist, academic and author. Crystal studied English at University College London between 1959 and 1962, and was a researcher under Randolph Quirk between 1962 and 1963, working on the Survey of English Usage. Since then he has lectured at Bangor University and the University of Reading and is an honorary professor of linguistics at Bangor. Retired from full-time academia, he works as a writer, editor and consultant, and contributes to television and radio broadcasts. His association with the BBC ranges from, formerly, a BBC Radio 4 series on language issues to, more recently, podcasts on the BBC World Service website for people learning English.
Crystal was awarded the OBE in 1995 and became a Fellow of the British Academy in 2000. He is also a Founding Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. His many academic interests include English language learning and teaching, clinical linguistics, forensic linguistics, language death, "ludic linguistics" (Crystal's neologism for the study of language play), style, English genre, Shakespeare, indexing, and lexicography. He is the Patron of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL, honorary vice-president of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), and Patron of the UK National Literacy Association. He is a consultant for Babel - The Language Magazine, for which he has also written articles.

Reginald Darnell Hunter (born 26 March 1969) is an American stand-up comedian based in the United Kingdom. Having initially travelled to the UK at the age of 27 as a theatre student training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Hunter became a comedian after performing his first comedy set as a dare. Realizing that he enjoyed performing comedy, and that it might be remunerative, Hunter turned his attention from acting to stand-up. 
Hunter was nominated for the Perrier Award in the 2002, 2003 and 2004 Edinburgh Festivals. He won the Writers' Guild Award for Comedy in 2006 for his show Pride & Prejudice... & Niggas

It's Only a Theory is a British television panel game show, first aired on BBC Four in 2009. It was conceived by and starred Andy Hamilton and featured Reginald D. Hunter as a regular panelist. Announced by the BBC in April 2009, the eight episode series was produced by Hat Trick Productions. The panelists discuss theories "about life, the universe and everything" submitted by professionals and experts. The panel debates each theory and decides whether it is worth keeping.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, London and it is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees.

...as we were saying.

Who would have thought it.

I was talking about patriarchy during the last blog entry, and then THIS happened.

The interview above takes place during the same news slot that was featured on the previous blog entry, where Orbital had a feature entry, granted by the same Channel 4 news anchor, Cathy Newman, not six months ago.

...Well, has the more recent, above, Cathy Newman / Jordan Peterson interview become viral, and a worldwide item of ideological discussion, let me tell you.

Jordan Peterson is professor of clinical psychology at the university of Toronto, and he has recently become rather controversially famous, worldwide, due to his views and statements on feminism, gender roles, hierarchical structures within society, natural selection, happiness, and fulfillment.

Many of his phenomenally controversial -to say the least- theories stem from the observation of 'natural organisational patterns' within nature. 

...Such as lobster dynamics.


Yep, that's right.


He has picked lobsters, due to his evolutionary metadata appreciations, as the organism to observe when fighting human depression, due to investigations into serotonin modulation while researching depression.


Pattern recognition within nature is, rightfully, the latest scientific furore, as its acknowledgement and practical applications seem to possess endless practical uses within all sciences - funnily enough, in a fractal universe. 

However, pattern acquisition is not for the simple minded. Perhaps for this very reason, pattern acquisition is the measure used by occidental governments as an accurate estimation of intelligence, as of late.

However, Mr Peterson is seeing patterns where there aren't any, and is also recovering some old cyclical behaviours when it is convenient for his discourse.

Twenty days have gone by since such interview was held on Channel 4's news at 10 - which is perhaps one of the most, if not the most, objective news slot in the UK.
This interview / heated exchange has so far been viewed six and a half million times on YouTube, and counting.

Jordan Peterson has since disclosed on his personal podcast, and everywhere else he has been since, that he declared himself the 'winner' of the interview, where he was being challenged by Ms Newman regarding views he had expressed somewhere else, and which he was avoiding the mentioning of.
Cathy Newman stated, live, what she knew he had said somewhere else, and which he was pretending he hadn't.
The video above must be watched to fully understand this blog, and while it is true that Cathy Newman often interrupts Jordan Peterson during the interview, it is clear she is doing so because she understands who she is sitting opposite to.

Doubts? Watch the video below, as Jordan Peterson vents off at large on his actual views of the 21st century's workplace, gender roles, women, relationships, and everything we had come to know and love as 'civilization', or even 'evolution'. Not much, then.

There is, as of late, a tilting trend to ´grant´ the ´victory´ from the Channel 4 interview, to Jordan Peterson, based on the fact that a sector of the public perceived an outcome where he ´owned´ his host, Cathy Newman, during such interview. 

...Patriarchal thinking patterns, once again.

Nobody ´owns´ anybody else when a debate is being held, as it is the case here. Even more so when the interviewer is simply trying her best to elicit statements from her guest, and which such guest has made somewhere else, and which would shock most people who apparently give Mr Peterson an unconditional ´thumbs up´, simply because he speaks confidently... as only a professor of clinical psychology would know.

Jordan Peterson oozes superficial confidence, like a two-dimensional Don Draper from Mad Men, if this was ever within the confines of the possible.

Still, Mr Peterson once again vents off, on one of the currently most popular 'comedy' podcasts, with daily downloads of 120 million - the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast (of which I am a regular listener):

During the podcast interview above, Mr Peterson is humorous, cynical, highly hind-sighted, self-righteous, and all kinds of wrongs, when referring to his Channel 4 interview.


He appears, as per usual, articulate, calm, well structured in his thought process, and a long list of superficially healthy etceteras. 


Does this take away one iota from his radically shortsighted, predatory, unevolved, and unimaginative discourse? 

Not in my book.

Self-confidence does not equate righteousness. 
A mirage also appears real, until it is found that it isn't so.

...You be the judge.

Dr. Jordan Peterson is a professor at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist and the author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Jan 2018, Penguin Books). His now-classic book, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief, offers a revolutionary take on the psychology of religion, and the hundred or more scientific papers he published with his colleagues and students have substantively advanced the modern understanding of creativity and personality. As a Harvard professor, he was nominated for the prestigious Levinson Teaching Prize, and is regarded by his current University of Toronto students as one of three truly life-changing professors. His classroom lectures on mythology and psychology, based on Maps of Meaning, were turned into a popular 13-part TV series on TVO.

Cathy Newman was educated at Charterhouse, an independent school. Newman graduated with a first from Oxford University, where she read English at Lady Margaret Hall. After university, Newman briefly worked for Media Week and The Independent (as business correspondent) before joining the Financial Times at the age of 23. Her older colleague Alice Rawsthorn acted as a mentor at the FT, where Newman worked as a media and then (for three years) political correspondent. Newman entered a television career in 2000. She gained a Laurence Stern fellowship to work at The Washington Post for four months. During her period in the US, she followed the 2000 Presidential campaign of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. She joined Channel 4 News as a political correspondent (and deputy to political editor Gary Gibbon) in January 2006. In this role she broke several stories, including claims the Treasury pushed through the nomination of then Chancellor Gordon Brown's close friend Ronald Cohen for the House of Lords, challenging Peter Mandelson at the Brighton Labour Party conference in 2009, over his claimed use of the C-word in a conversation with Rebekah Brooks, then Wade, the CEO of News International.

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster that began transmission on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the station is now owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation, a public corporation of the Department for Culture, Media & Sport.

The Joe Rogan Experience is a free audio and video talk podcast hosted by American comedian, actor, sports commentator, and television host Joe Rogan. It was launched on December 24, 2009 by Rogan and his friend, comedian Brian Redban, who also produced and co-hosted. It has grown to become one of the world’s most popular podcasts, spawning a community of listeners around the globe. On August 18, 2017, it reached its 1,000th episode.

On society's definition of success, and "quelling the aggression in men"

Actresses currently endlessly denouncing male power and its corresponding abusive behaviours in Hollywood... Big time international media moguls, high ranking media executives, media personalities being denounced as sexual predators... Predatory behaviours apparently being practised amongst male youngsters... 

What on earth is going on??

The standard sociological definition of patriarchy states that "patriarchy is a social system in which males hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property."
...Sounds like generic James Brown lyrics, had he chosen to express himself this way?

When establishing a dialogue about complex issues, we understand metaphors best, as comparative systems which enable the identification of similarities between ideas and concepts - as the comparison established within a metaphor aims to provide clarity on otherwise hard-to-grasp subjects.

The lion roars at its loudest and is at its most dangerous when mortally wounded and cornered.

This seems to be our current patriarchal predicament.

This is not a case of trying to appear sophisticated, nor trying to side with women at the right time. It is a case of genuinely believing that organisms evolve, and as such, global culture (in itself a metaphor for the way organisms cluster cohesively)  is ´moving up a notch´, forcing a change on past -wrongly- tolerated behaviours, as these will simply not only not serve us in the coming future: the patriarchal archetypes of yesteryear will impede our individual happiness. They stomp on evolution.
They always did, as a matter of fact.

If this is ´hard to grasp´ -pardon the, once again, metaphorical pun, but metaphors are where it´s at!- consider this: once upon a time in the not too distant past, ´popular´ music was understood to be publicly enjoyed in clubs and discos, where male bravado, trouble, and general shenanigans were the recipe of the day, any day - in and of itself, a very male way of spending an evening. Moreover, music-making was to be overseen, controlled and distributed very much within a patriarchal pattern, as it almost exclusively projected male dreams and defined reality within a male mentality of righteousness, aspirations, desires, fantasies, world views, romance, etc

From Bob Dylan to Lou Reed, James Brown to Oasis, ´popular´ music seemed to display the content of the male imagination - furthermore, it epitomised the male idea of success, and it stained the creative process with it.

'To quell the 'machoism', to quell the aggression in men': Orbital interview, Channel 4 News, July 2017.

(at 2 minutes 22 seconds, Phil Hartnoll pretty much resumes the core concept of this entire blog entry)

Yes, electronic music festivals have been described as ´tribal´ -as if this was a 'step back' in the wrong direction (??)-, but then again, the dynamics often established within these festivals and style of music observe a much more ´egalitarian´ community, distribution of roles, behaviours, male-female polarity, and cultural concepts.

In the video interview above, Paul Hartnoll states at 3 minutes 5 seconds: "Punk was always hitting against the wall, trying to hit against society, whereas 'rave culture' just turned away from the wall and walked away from it... and that's what truly frightens people in power, when people just say: 'we're just off to do our own thing, we're not going to try and fight you, we don't really care what you do'".

...Evolution, in action.

The prominent places women are increasingly occupying within occidental societies seems as strange a phenomenon to some, as electronic music is to 'rock traditionalists'. In the same sense that 'replicants' in Blade Runner are originally perceived as 'lesser forms of life' but they prove to be 'more human than human', the evolving aspects of modern life shock, at first, those who believe music is exclusively made by guitars, and women should carefully and perpetually make sandwiches.

And it is important to understand that the male-female polarity is just that: a polarity, not necessarily concordant with gender attributes - just as electrical polarities (+/-) are interchangeable. 
Music, like everything else in this planet, evolves in seemingly strange ways, and what seems 'artificial', electronic, is not necessarily less natural than, say, Led Zeppelin's chauvinistic lyric narratives - that's right, the Zeppelins have a few things to answer for, including the theft of the music featured within, at least, their first album, and there is a lengthy lawsuit on course, due to this. Whereas electronic music, often lacking lyrics, allows for a concentration of pure harmonic power, and a sonic delivery untarnished by narrative projections of ideals, which are often, quite simply, male projections and masculine fantasies of 'authenticity' and what is 'natural'.

Could it be that occidental definitions of success have, at their core, long been defined by an 'everything goes' / 'the lion always eats the zebra lagging behind' etc etc paradigm? And could it be that we are now, finally, challenging this paradigm? Could it be that the feminine polarity within society is challenging society, as we have lately come to know it?

The -often overlooked- english philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, stated during a Harvard lecture in 1929: "when criticizing the philosophy of an epoch, do not chiefly direct your

attention to those intellectual positions which its exponents feel it necessary explicitly to

defend. There will be some fundamental assumptions which, adherents to all the variant

systems within the epoch, unconsciously presuppose. Such assumptions appear so

obvious that people do not know what they are assuming because no other way of

putting things has ever occurred to them. With these assumptions, a certain limited

number of types of philosophic systems are possible, and this group of systems

constitutes the philosophy of the epoch.”

In other words: a caveman would probably not understand that 'rights' are a worthwhile concept, or that women are, in fact, not 'the weaker sex'. Women are equipped to give birth - I'd say that's pretty tough.

M.I.T. lecturer William Irwin Thompson, building on Alfred North Whitehead’s ‘epoch theory’, has
stated that "to understand contemporary culture, you have to be willing to move beyond

intellectual definitions and academic disciplines. You have to be willing to throw your net out widely and be willing to take in science, politics, and art. To catch a sense of the whole in pattern recognition, you have to leap across the synapse and follow the rapid movement of informational bits."

To put it simply, cultural conditioning exists, and it is something to be observed, and to very much keep an eye on, as it may feel comfortable to 'belong' to a socially condoned paradigm, but this may often be a collective misperception.

If it is true that everything evolves, then everything moves along. Music moves along, society moves along, the concept of success moves along, and women accordingly protest the 'balance of power' which a while ago seemed to be 'socially acceptable'.

...And patriarchy is, apparently, dying. 

...Good riddance, too. For if it is true that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, then the existing 'balance of power' between genders genuinely needed to be challenged... since long ago.

Physicist Stephen Hawkin allowed Orbital to sample his voice for the London 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony, reciting '(it is time we) transform our perception of the universe'.
Couldn't agree more.

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The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) covered the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in London and is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees.