Eurocentrism and the Dilemma of Deep Time John Chenault If we begin with the notion that all history is European we are led to conclude that the colonialization of the Past provides the essential mechanisms, methods, and madness to conquer, subjugate, and dominate the Future. Artificial as the paradox of Time may be (within the context of the dreamtime/dreamstate), it is still quite operable in the so-called realm of reality/materiality. Consequently, the giant European Ego Project, which is a culturally-based immortality project (as opposed to our own individual egoist self-preservation impulses and ambitions), is driven by its inherent (dna/rna/genetic/behavioral/biologic/psychologic) need to appropriate Other, redefine Other, or eliminate Other in order to avoid confrontation with Other which could ultimately lead to its (Europe's) devaluation, deflation, demise, destruction, deconstruction, decease. Therefore, cultural hegemony and world mastery via a New World Order (which is merely the Judeo-Christian settler-colonialist monotheistic complex modified by a pseudo free market ideology glossed over with techo-geek run-amok capitalism in millennial drag) are the Darwinian imperatives of European survival. In this case "fittest" or "fitness" is not the issue. Fitness doesn't matter anymore. Since Europe has successfully cannibalized the rest of human cultural and technology in order to manage and sustain its "great leap forward" the Darwinian rules no longer apply.The new paradigm is INNOVATION. Innovation has replaced Evolution. Perhaps this shift occurred with the INVENTION of the silicon chip. I don't know. All I know is that yesterday I heard on the news that scientists are growing "stem cells" in the lab, and that these cells are the basic building blocks of organs, building blocks normally created during the embryonic stage of development, building blocks that ultimately would replace the need for organ transplants, building blocks of immortality? Check out the word INN Ovation. In Ova. In the egg. In the egg of time, in the egg of humanity, in the egg. It is in the egg where mutation takes place. Mutation is the driving force of evolution as those little accidents(?) of replication occur in amino acid sequences which result in genetic and phenotypic changes. As innOVAtion replaces evolution Deep Time ceases to pose a problem for the European immortality project. We can anticipate a complete break with the Past, a complete disavowal that it ever existed. The past and history will cease to exist, as Fukayama and Hegel would have it, but not because of imperialism alone-imperialism combined with alchemy. What used to be the province of the seer, the master magician, skills that took determined individuals a lifetime of devotion, sacrifice, and selfless commitment to achieve, now reside within the hands of ruthless institutions. Yet beneath all this Brave New World optimism still lies the possiblity inherent in the myth of Pandora. When you open the box (crack the genetic code) you release upon the world demons, ogres, and monsters-the gatekeepers of paradise, the mad dogs of heaven, killer angels who take no prisoners. ----------------- Requested: Origins, true and false; temporal strategies; escape routes and hidey holes; compensations; maps and ontological GPS locators; identity papers and pins; anachronisms; proleptic prognostications; pyramid texts from the future; silicon prophesies from the past; Deep Blue Sciences and pink scientificities. |