![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Evolution is not a purpose-based argument
Apr. 3rd, 2012 10:31 amI am 55 years old. By my genetic heritage as a descendent of hunter-gatherers, I should be teaching the younger generation how do to things, defending the tribe on those rare occasions it happens to be necessary, and lending a strong but low-stamina back as it happens to be useful.
But 'heritage' is not the same thing as 'purpose.' It is not a designed system; simply because those tasks are what my hypothetical long-distant ancestors might have been suited for doesn't mean they're what my people need me for *now*. At basis, I'd argue that the *defining characteristic* of being an adult is taking responsibility for the *creation* of societal roles and contexts.
Back in the 1970s when I was getting started with the SCA, I was intrigued by the idea of a territorial noble thinking of himself *as* his territory -- think of the King of England shifting uncomfortably on his throne, and saying in an aside to his aide or jester "I have a pain in my York." Or a low-level baronet having an itch in his back 40.
I've run into a lot of synasthetics in my neurodiversity activism, and have learned to experience some synasthesia myself. Being one's country, when said country is as sick as the United States has become over my lifetime, is like climbing inside the body of a terminal cancer patient -- everything is so riddled with corruption that it's difficult verging on impossible to locate the vital core, the principle of life that created the organism in the first place.
In my working with the Occupy movement, there are two principles that I have yet to find anyone who disagrees with: The first is economic justice, the second is participatory democracy, which we turned to in an effort to create the economic justice we found lacking in the first place. From there, it goes any number of different directions, but on those first two, we have consensus.
I have a task in front of me I can work on, that of starting a local newspaper for Lincoln Heights CA. I am having a lot of trouble focusing on it because I keep getting stuck in 'eagle-eye-view' mindset, where I'm seeing the relationship of this project to other projects, and how it relates to America-the-cancer-patient as mentioned above. The model *does* have to scale, from mole's-eye-view to satellite view. But if I am having difficulty scaling *myself*, I am not the person to be working on that mechanism.
*off to recalibrate self.*
But 'heritage' is not the same thing as 'purpose.' It is not a designed system; simply because those tasks are what my hypothetical long-distant ancestors might have been suited for doesn't mean they're what my people need me for *now*. At basis, I'd argue that the *defining characteristic* of being an adult is taking responsibility for the *creation* of societal roles and contexts.
Back in the 1970s when I was getting started with the SCA, I was intrigued by the idea of a territorial noble thinking of himself *as* his territory -- think of the King of England shifting uncomfortably on his throne, and saying in an aside to his aide or jester "I have a pain in my York." Or a low-level baronet having an itch in his back 40.
I've run into a lot of synasthetics in my neurodiversity activism, and have learned to experience some synasthesia myself. Being one's country, when said country is as sick as the United States has become over my lifetime, is like climbing inside the body of a terminal cancer patient -- everything is so riddled with corruption that it's difficult verging on impossible to locate the vital core, the principle of life that created the organism in the first place.
In my working with the Occupy movement, there are two principles that I have yet to find anyone who disagrees with: The first is economic justice, the second is participatory democracy, which we turned to in an effort to create the economic justice we found lacking in the first place. From there, it goes any number of different directions, but on those first two, we have consensus.
I have a task in front of me I can work on, that of starting a local newspaper for Lincoln Heights CA. I am having a lot of trouble focusing on it because I keep getting stuck in 'eagle-eye-view' mindset, where I'm seeing the relationship of this project to other projects, and how it relates to America-the-cancer-patient as mentioned above. The model *does* have to scale, from mole's-eye-view to satellite view. But if I am having difficulty scaling *myself*, I am not the person to be working on that mechanism.
*off to recalibrate self.*
