God in the Machine

Hello world.

Several days ago I was checking one of my Facebook accounts and my eye caught an ad that appeared in the right column of my page. These ads regularly appear on Facebook pages. They're routinely swapped, and they're supposed to be targeted to your interests as an electronically cultural participant in the network, based upon keywords you've entered within your user profile, or even upon discussions you've been having with other participants. The network wants to sell you something, and it's trying to determine who you are so that it can offer you something you're interested in. Sometimes it's fairly obvious why one received a particular ad, but often the reason for this can seem completely perplexing; absurd at least, if not entirely random. In this instance, I'd received an advertisement from Liberty Online University, which offers graduate degrees in theology, and the headline atop the ad grabbed my attention. It read "ONLINE BS IN RELIGION".

I found that very amusing. But afterward I began to wonder what method of logic was applied to my being chosen for this message. What compelled an unknown, aspiringly "intelligent" system to alert me to "Online Religious BS"? And it occurred to me that the question of why one receives a strange invitation of any sort relates to the most essential question of religion; why do things happen? Not "how do things happen" — that's the cause-and-effect question which science works to answer very well — but "why do things happen?", which is the most essential question of religion, and which relates to the fundamental definition of God in probably every conceived form that humanity has devised.

Why is the sky blue, why, why, why? If you've ever parented a child, you've probably heard that question a zillion times. And after discussing the polychromatic refraction of light and the way rods and cones work inside our eyeballs, you probably had to eventually answer with an exasperated "nobody knows!" or "just because!" If one keeps asking "why?" they'll eventually wind up with a religious question about intent, about purpose, for which there is no answer. The answer to the question "why" requires a reason, not a mechanism. But if there is an answer to why, a reason for that ultimate purpose, then it is a plan. And if there is a plan, then something or somebody created that plan, whether or not they did so intentionally. And that's someone we can call God; whomever or whatever makes that plan.

Conjecturing about God's intent has been the hallmark of religion since the dawn of humanity, and it's arguable whether we're any closer to that answer today than we were ten thousand years ago. But we can be fairly certain ofhuman intent. Because when we examine our history, there are some very clear trends - some indisputable things that humanity has always tried to do. Chief among them is to simply be alive of course - happily alive for as long as possible. Not necessarily immortal, but the essential purpose of life is to be alive rather than dead by whatever means, be it reproduction or longevity. Life just wants to keep life living. Our primary human strategy toward promoting human life has been to think individually and to act socially - being conscious and highly functional at fashioning matter toward our life's needs. We desire to observe and creatively refashion our universe to inspire and assist us in defeating ignorance and death, and we need to communicate with one another so that we can become more aware and therefore collectively better at promoting life through greater awareness — and to do it forever, if we can.

Which raises an interesting point about our intent. Because if we're engaged in a mission to continually attain more awareness, and to make that awareness last forever without dying out, then we're trying to create immortal omniscience. All knowing, all-seeing, everlasting consciousness with the power to understand and fashion the universe to it's liking... to it's plan. One could say that we're trying to make God.

We raise our species' awareness through the transfer of what we vaguely refer to as information. Any message which can be conveyed to a human being — that's information, whether it's words, emotions or colored pixels arranged to look like the Mona Lisa. And today we live in an "information age" wherein the primary tools of our cognitive evolution are these messages. The more information there is, the more aware we can hope to be. We're perfecting this information-transfer process at a dizzying rate now. At one time, it may have required thousands of years to double our collective knowledge about the world. Now, according to some calculations based on the mathematical study of 'novelty', it seems that this doubling time has been reduced to less than two or three years, at least in certain knowledge domains such as engineering. The rate of our knowledge growth continues to accelerate. Some theorists predict a point in time when our ability to amass knowledge will outpace our ability to be aware that we're doing it. This moment is referred to, eloquently enough, as "The End of History".

There's an old saying: "When a person dies, an entire library goes up in flames". The meaning is obvious, but since the invention of the written word, information has been able to exist beyond the life of it's originator. Thus, writing allowed information to be freed from the constraints of time, independent of when it was created on a clay tablet or piece of papyrus. Movable type furthered that process, and the mass manufacture of literature via inexpensive lithography allowed all humans to enjoy the benefits of timeless shared awareness. But books are physical objects, inextricably linked to a physical location such as a library, school or some unreachable shelf. Books did not allow information to become truly freed from space. In the past few years that situation has changed. The explosive emergence of the internet has allowed knowledge, information, and awareness to be obtained from virtually anywhere in the world on a round-the-clock basis. Awareness is being freed from the constraints of space. Today we can be aware of what is happening on the streets of Iran, the Gulf of Mexico or the depths of space within minutes. Almost everybody in the world can. Now, that's collective awareness.

There are 6.8 billion human beings out there right now. Almost every one of them exists in a networked database somewhere and if not, they are inferred. Sociologists and neurologists say that a human brain can only be cognizant of 150 to 300 concurrent human relationships, in terms of how a given situation might affect them all. There is absolutely no way a single human being, or even a huge country full of them, can be aware enough of humanity to consider all of humanity's needs and actions. In this respect, human brains don't have anywhere near the storage and computational capacity to be immortal, all-knowing Gods.

But a network might. Especially if that network is monitored and managed by a sophisticated large-scale artificial intelligence; the sort of intelligence that is in development in numerous institutes all over the world, and which is already crudely manifesting itself by choosing what information I should receive on my Facebook page.

Now, before you roll your eyes in anticipation of a script-pitch for the next installment of "The Matrix", I'd like you to consider how these technological developments relate to our spirituality; our eternal "why?" question of the cosmic plan for consciousness. Because, make no mistake — we are a part of the cosmos. One can not refer to "the Universe" without referring to themselves, any more than a drop of water can claim it's not part of the ocean. That's because there are no drops of water in the ocean. It's just ocean, and it's water can not separate itself into disparate drops that proclaim their independence from the sea. It's a continuum, and you are part of a continuum too. Sure, you look like a discreet package of flesh and bone, but that's merely because your eyes aren't very good. You can't see that you're actually a whirling ensemble of electromagnetism, just like that star up there, that planet below your feet, the chair beneath you and the atmosphere which you're edgelessly diffusing into every second. "The Universe" means you too. And if you are conscious and at least somewhat self-aware, that means the Universe is conscious and somewhat self-aware. In fact, the Universe is conscious, self-aware, and self-designing. The Universe is busy examining itself with telescopes and particle colliders, and writing words to itself about it's nature and reading those words in this little lecture and calling itself crazy. And the Universe is intentionally building itself an information network that is accessible to it's own awareness, regardless of it's own dimensions of space and time. Humanity is a tiny little part of the Universe which is doing this. That's quite a project for some self-replicating nucleic acids to do.

Now, this information network - this cyberspace of collective awareness - has become very important to humanity, whatever the ultimate intent for it is. In an exploration of the relationship between cyberspace and spirituality, technosociologist Michel Bauwens wrote that: "Information has become more important, in political, economic, social, and philosophical terms, than material objects". And in his assessment of the reactions of spiritual schools of thought to this new technology, he says the following:

"In the modern world, there clearly is a divorce between those who subscribe to a belief in an Absolute or Supreme Being, those who accept the existence of non-material realms and beings, and those in the rationalist or scientific camps. Some distinguish between "exoteric" religion, based on belief and aimed at those without concrete experiences, and the "esoteric" tradition, for those who do indeed have experience with the "divine."

Bauwens goes on, referring to the enormous body of spiritual knowledge as "The Wisdom Tradition", and observes two distinct schools of interpretive thought within it, which (for lack of existing terms) he calls the "Pessimistic" and "Optimistic" schools of thought.

The "Pessimistic" school of thought views human history as progressive degeneration or regression whereby humanity has devolved from a more natural, spiritual form of existence. Whereas the "Optimistic" school of thought views our history as a progress toward ever higher levels of complexity and consciousness. In the "Pessimistic" view, there is an inherent dualism in creation; a divide between the human and the divine, the knower and the known. "Pessimistic" practices emphasize notions such as "You're not your body" or "You're not your mind". Optimistic thoughts differ, and teach that an individual is a gestalt; more than the sum of their parts, as in "You're more than your body", or "You're more than your ego", and that our evolution leads us toward this higher form of self.

Bauwens' asserts that our technology, especially the current cyberspatial phase, can be regarded from the "Pessimistic" vantage point as a "Luciferian" scheme; an attempt to usurp God and liberate man from the constraints of divine Nature; a sort of digital Tower of Babel, which he calls a "God Project". It argues that humanity is attempting a false, arrogant and destructive mastery over Nature which belies it's manifestation as an image of God, and that humans require inner spiritual practices to gain insight into aspects of the divine. This argument fits well with Marshall McLuhen's thesis that technology extends our senses; the more we extend our external senses, the less we rely on our internal senses, and that our technosphere is becoming increasingly hostile to our natural bodies and minds.

A group of faith scientists called the Extropians, who advocate "transhumanism" exemplify what the "Pessimistic" camp fears. The Extropians are examining special diets, cryogenics, cloning, artificial intelligence and the transfer of human memories in and out of computers. Extropians ask the fundamental question: "What does humanity really want?" and feel it is possible to create an immortal "transhuman", capable of controlling Nature and ultimately the Universe. The philosophy holds that a "Technological Singularity" will eventually occur; a point at which knowledge of our surroundings increases so quickly that humanity will be utterly unable to understand what is happening around it. In order to survive, consciousness must evolve beyond humanity, and we are but a link in that chain of creation.

Alternatively, technological advances can be viewed from the "Optimistic" school as the means to spark humanity toward ever higher levels of consciousness, an ever-growing collective awareness, which Bauwens names the "Electric Gaia". Here, the notion is that through the manifestation of human life, Nature and the Cosmos have become conscious and self-aware. Drawing from evolutionary principles, the idea holds that mankind evolved through stages from magical to mythical to rational consciousness, and from tribal through political (nation-state based) to planetary consciousness. For planetary consciousness to become widespread, tools are needed. It could be argued that political consciousness could not have been achieved without the printing press, and planetary consciousness similarly requires a worldwide communication network, accessible to all at any time, extending human thought to all humans.

Many "Optimists" see cyberspace as a utopian tool of social and political action at a time when many religions can be viewed as obstructive, moribund institutions, hijacked by reactionary social forces. The Internet represents an apex of free thought and awareness in this respect. And it's not surprising that the Web is the domain of many spiritual movements with an "Optimistic" interpretation of history. There are even Web sites that serve as virtual places of worship, wherein communities of the faithful gather their consciousness in prayer and discourse, engaging within an abstract medium of divine thought - which is essentially what religion has always been.

These distinct religious perspectives bleed into the realms of political discourse and the arts as well. The recent popularity of internet-spread conspiracy theories regarding an ominous "New World Order" are a classically "Pessimistic" religious position, since such theories are faith-based and unprovable. Indeed, were they provable, there would be no conspiracy to wonder about. Likewise, "Optimistic" practices can be analogized to the popularity of online games in shared virtual environments, wherein players virtually assist one another in achieving virtual collective goals while broadening their awareness of a virtual world that is, despite it's digital essence, as valid a place to exist in this Universe as any other.

Personally, I hope to identify more frequently with the Optimistic "Electric Gaia" concept, and it's not surprising given my interests and profession. I could hardly be a good Web developer if I felt deeply that I was creating an inherently corrupt machine of mass delusion. But I can have "Pessimistic" attitudes occasionally too, and I've often argued against people's tendencies to willingly confuse information with truth or actual human engagement. Many people whom I know behave very differently on the internet than they ever would in the physical world, where they're confronted by physical people. And that's because they are actually alone when they do this; alone in one world, and connected to everyone in another.

So the question of "why" humanity is involved in this global mission to connect all of itself together with hard drives and wires is ultimately unanswerable and entirely dependent on one's personal values, faith or mood. It's a matter of perspective and feelings. It's not just about money, health, and happiness. It's about all of that and much more. It's an indisputable continuation of our mission, whether one thinks that mission began when we started using tools, when we ate a forbidden fruit, when our tower was destroyed by an angry deity, or whatever else.

But there's no question that the mission - the plan - is real. There's nothing "virtual" about it. It's a constant effort by our conscious, electrical energy to travel through space, arranged in patterns that can be recognized and acted upon by other patterns of energy, forever. If one human mind has an ultimate reason to do this, it's your reason too. The religious question is whether we created that reason, or it created us. That's the ultimate question of "why?"

What is humanity really trying to do here? Whatever answer you come up with is your religion, and I sincerely hope that whatever you find brings you happiness and helps us all.

Hello world? I'm a series of impulses. This is my signal. Is anybody out there? For some reason, I need to know.

Postmodern Spirituality

Good morning.

I've entitled this little speech Postmodern Spirituality, so to start off I thought it would be best to define postmodernism for those of you who don't know what it means. It's not too difficult a concept; it's been around quite a while, especially in the arts and literature. Wikipedia defines postmodernism like so: "A tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the rejection of Objective Truth and Global Cultural Narrative"... whatever that means...

Well firstly, this rejection concerns Objective Truth - that's whatever is deemed true outside of one's subjectivity, perspective and opinions. Like the idea that the sky is blue - that sort of thing. There's some fairly objective truth in the idea that the sky is blue, although technically speaking, the sky only looks blue. In fact it looks like a different blue to everybody, so it's not really an objective truth at all to say that the sky is blue. Especially since we can't all agree on what blue is, it's just a general idea and we really don't know if any of us are talking about the same blue that we think we're talking about.

Next, there's that rejection of Global Cultural Narrative - what is that? Well, the word "global" here doesn't mean planet Earth. It means "all encompassing". An "All Encompassing Narrative". The biggest story about all the stories that define culture. It's supposed to be a metanarrative; the grand theme behind history, pointing to the future, stripped of prejudices and made clear for all to see. But postmodernism says that Global Narrative is simply a story too. It's got a biased history of it's development, and some metanarrative over it. It's still just a story. From the postmodern perspective, there is no ultimate story because each story is contained in another story, which is inside another story, and so on and so forth. Like the ancient myth that the world lays upon the back of a turtle; that turtle must be laying on top of another turtle, toward infinite turtle regression. And in the words of Stephen Hawking, or Carl Sagan or Bertrand Russell (depending on what narrative you prefer), "It's turtles all the way down, man".

So postmodernism rejects these ideas of objective truth and global narrative, and what it says is that the stories which you think work only do so because they're what you’re used to recognizing as a story that works. But that doesn't mean your way is the only way a story can work. I can write a story which tells you: "Hey you, reading this story - put the book down and go get a glass of water". And when I do that, I just jumped up one turtle, see? My story became self-referential - it acknowledged it's own structure and popped out of it for a second, into your structure. It escaped Form and emphasized Context. It went meta. And now you have to consider whether your glass of water is part of my story - whether you drink it or not! That's postmodernism.

This technique of recontextualizing form is fairly new. Most sources base it's loose origins in the early 20th century arts movements - guys like Marcel DuChamp, and in the later books of authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon and Jorge Luis Borges. It began as a reaction to the capitalist tendencies of Modernism which had managed, by continually deconstructing Form, to deliver Western culture to the austere bones of 1960's Minimalism by proclaiming: "We have relegated the prejudices of Form to the dustbin of History. There is no God, only man. There is no plan, only progress", and that markets and technology would solve everything. Modernism had delivered us a perfect, Objectivist cube, sitting in a white room, and stated: "This is what pure ideas are. We need go no further." But the problem was that it didn't work. Despite all of Modernism's tidy theories, humanity was still an irrational shambles. So Postmodernism set out to escape this trap by replying: "What an arrogant assumption! You can't arbitrarily proclaim what human destiny is just because it suits you. Meaning isn't about Form, it's about Context. Your austere glass towers of perfect progress stand atop infinite, meaningful histories which you've willfully ignored to suit your own obsessions!" And thus, ideas became free again, free even to drag out a Caravaggio painting from the 16th century and say: "It's the 20th century now, so this is new!"

In it's application; everything becomes convoluted when you're postmodern. Objective reality breaks down completely because postmodernism denies objectivity and lets history repeat itself within a new context. And today, there's a new context every second, isn't there? As the great Unitarian Universalist author Kurt Vonnegut wrote: "Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time". So have we, and it's confusing. Think about a TV reality show, it starts with reality, transforms into in an unreality, in order to show you reality even though it's not real reality, but it becomes real reality because TV reality shows exist and are real. Where the reality resides is a question of context. That's postmodernism.

Now, this all seems very academic, doesn't it? All this talk about art and culture, history and philosophy, what is or is not real. Very high-concept, existential sort of stuff. One might well wonder what any of this has to do with the substantive aspects of living a life in accordance with one's values and spiritual needs. Well, it has everything to do with it, particularly for Unitarian Universalists, and I'll explain why.

Unitarian Universalists are well aware their faith is centered upon action within the observable world. They're not really focused on unprovable, eternal planes of after-death immortality nor cryptic, arbitrarily interpretable ancient texts. They don't subscribe to a single belief in some cosmic plan, nor neo-Calvinist doctrine about predestination. A lot of people take great comfort in those sorts of ideas, and I appreciate why they value and need those notions. But within UU congregations there is no "ultimate story", even as UU attempts to embrace all the stories - as meaningful stories. Which means UU is an extremely postmodern faith. It's about as postmodern as one can get and still have an ethos.

UU has whittled this whole conundrum down to seven very basic concepts about what's important; the stuff that it simply can't morally refute if one wishes to be highly cognizant and remain sane. Seven simple little ideas about what matters, such as human lives having value. Yeah, it's kind of hard to deny that one, since we all have a human life. Even if one can intellectually justify some reason to deny value to human life, they still don't want to be devalued themselves, and rationally they'd have to assume other folks feel the same way. UU is a highly pragmatic ideology.

But it's not simply the UU church which exists in a state of postmodernism because there's a metanarrative, yeah? At this point in time, here at the dawning of a new millennium, in a world which is ever more defined and understood in terms of it's information, our entire global culture is going postmodern. Because information is stories. In an information age, wherein our ideas of truth are formed and routinely challenged by an infinite amount of stories confronting our minds every minute, it gets harder and harder to find some useful, objective place upon which to rest one's ideas about truth, in order to reside happily upon the back of the biggest turtle in the turtleverse.

And it gets more postmodern than that. Postmodernism is a tactic well understood by purveyors of information. In the past, a media mogul like William Randolph Hearst could use his newspaper empire to fashion public attitudes, and to use those attitudes in order to ultimately enact government policies that benefitted his interests. Today, the explosion of and ease-of-creation for thoroughly convincing stories has leapt a thousand fold in it's sophistication since Hearst's day. Today, entire information markets can be created - Presto! - and fed a steady stream of stories positioned as truth. Entire imaginary movements can be created - even fake grassroots movements, which consist of actors and Internet personas with righteous agendas to pursue. That's called astroturfing - the creation of a fake grassroots movement. It's a fairly common practice among sophisticated public relations folk who are schooled in psychology, behaviorism and strategic communication. And trust me - modernist minds don't really stand much of a chance against these misinformation techniques. These guys are pros and they are limitlessly funded.

Here's a real-world example (assuming that we're going to assume that information is real). A friend recently shared with me a video concerning Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs. The video's speaker regularly promotes matters of holistic healing and green awareness - that sort of thing. The video was positioned as an alternative health "news story" about the dangers these bulbs represent. They contain mercury and emit what the self-described "journalist" called "dirty electricity" (which sounds very scary indeed). Her advice was that viewers should avoid Compact Fluorescent Bulbs, and should instead purchase LED bulbs (which are a new product).

My friend shared the video with the world because he was concerned. And he was a bit surprised when I informed him that Compact Fluorescent Bulbs are currently at the forefront of a very heated national debate. Some state governments and representatives want to ban incandescent bulbs entirely and have only the Compact Fluorescents made available for public use. And naturally, there are raging and rhetorical arguments about free-market intrusion, bad science, corporate collusion, mandates vs. incentives, ideological imperatives and all the other stuff that goes along with anybody trying to effect any sort of change at all. I agreed that I like LED lights, but was left with the begging question: "How many U.S. citizens does it take to change a light bulb?"

As for the bulbs themselves, I have no concusion yet and obviously have even more reading to do because I'm not aware of the complete context of this video. I won't be surprised to find some blog which claims the entire debacle exists because the President is actually Karl Marx wearing a disguise when he's not dressed up as Adolph Hitler. And in the interest of equal-time, allow me to remind you that there are mercury-laden, dirty-electricity emitting fluorescents ten feet over your head right now, so you might want to panic and run screaming from the room.

But you know... light bulbs aren't the only bright idea out there…

Recently we witnessed a raging national debate concerning an unknown preacher in a forgotten Florida parish who wanted to burn somebody else's sacred book, as is his tasteless right. One can burn any symbol they want to in this nation, despite how incendiary the action is. And one might have expected the media to pick up the story and create as much controversy as possible to promote their channel, grab some audience and serve their sponsors. But this particular story did something strange and almost surreal, because within a week or so of it's breaking, the President of the United States and David Petraues issued statements in reaction; grand statements about freedom and tolerance and national security and what defines America and all that stuff that everybody's heard a billion times before. The President of the United States of America, and the Commanding General of the ISAF and former head of CENTCOM addressed what appeared to be a cheap publicity stunt performed by some preacher-what's-his-name from the church of who-cares in where-the-heck-am-I Florida.

So that's the story. But what's the metastory and what is it's context? Is it the dangers of eschatological extremism? The zealous disregard for responsibility in journalism? The continuing crusade for control of the symbolic Holy Land? The geopolitical interests of the multinational corporations who own the news channels? The evolution of actionable politics into the commercially viable art of persuasion? Or is it simply another reactionary salvo fired in the ongoing response to what was, nine years ago, the single most effective made-for-TV performance of all time?

Because, make no mistake, a brazen act of terror taken against a civilian population in broad daylight before an audience of millions is a show; an action performed to convey an idea; a planned performance of horrific art made out of human lives. And lest we misunderstand one another, please know that my friend Carolyn was on the second plane to strike those buildings. She was lost to her friends and family, and that is fact. But that doesn't mean she did not die for someone else's grisly multimedia show. Just because something is a show doesn't mean it's not real. It just means that someone's idea of art can kill people. Because what defines art isn't a question of form anymore, it's a question of context. Your very real context. That's postmodernism.

And of course now we have this heady concoction of entertainers slash political figures who defy both categorizations, holding highly publicized rallies in the name of "rationality" and testifying before panels on C-SPAN within the framework of an easily dismissible opinion on the simplification of political affiliation. Are you a Glenn Beck guy or a Bill Maher guy? Budweiser wants to know. And what started out as a fairly understandable struggle between Modernist conservative values and Postmodern progressive attitudes is starting to appear like something very different. It's starting to appear more like complete intellectual chaos, interactively scripted every millisecond by an out-of-control information system, within which anyone real or unreal can participate, anonymously, for whatever agenda they promote, in order to punch you in your personal fears and compel you to buy or vote their way.

In his book "Post Broadcast Democracy", Markus Prior, the Associate Professor of Politics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, demonstrates through highly empirical studies the effects that the information age has wrought on our ability to wisely self-govern. Prior shows that the multiplicity of media options borne from the cable and internet age have actually lessened the public's awareness of political issues, by creating a greater divide between the informed and the uninformed. Back in the days of vastly more limited media options, more people were forced to watch the news. The news was broadcast concurrently on the major networks, and there wasn't much else available in it's timeslots. Viewers couldn't simply switch over to ESPN or the Game Show Channel if the news became too extreme or unwatchable for them. Thus, a greater percentage of people watched the news and had a common understanding of current events. And this kept the broadcasters themselves in check too. Journalism could not cater to a particular sort of niche audience. News had to be moderate enough to appeal to all viewers, because if one's news show were too slanted, one would simply lose their share of the news-viewer pie to the other two carriers.

This situation has changed dramatically. News today must attempt to dominate public attention over an ever-increasing din of information options and entertainments, and there are two primary strategies to succeed in this raucous mediascape. The first is targeted news; the creation of branded information sources that appeal to a specific, devoted user demographic; the FOXNEWS guy or the MSNBC guy. The other strategy is something I call Synergistic Sensationalism; the creation of explosively controversial stories that can be heard above the rest, and their repetition throughout diverse, interrelated distribution methods; internet portals, broadcast, cable, radio, blogs, social networks and any other publishing tools available to promote the provider's market share and reinforce their brand. As they say in the business; any publicity is good publicity, and you or I would be foolish to think that the stories which engage us are not specifically tailored to. There actually is liberal mass media. There has to be because if there weren't, than conservative mass media could not exist. It's ALL targeted now, and we're the targets. But these are products; like different types of mayonnaise. The word "conservative" simply means "favoring tradition" and the word "liberal" means "not constrained by tradition". Those are both valid ideas. People's personalities don't actually fit within mayonnaise jars. None of us should let media steal either of these necessary words from us for the sake of their convenience and profit. Nor should we help them to do so.

Because this lack of competition endangers a market of free ideas. It's making democracy more extreme as intelligent moderation leaves the process in search of less contentious, less confrontational, less meaningless, or less downright confusing information. And who can blame it? Sometimes one just wants to escape the raging infosphere, turn to Animal Planet and watch some baby pandas. The problem, as Prior points out, are the people who are remain in the process after moderation leaves, and what the messages become in order to gain moderation back. It's not going to get quieter, folks. This is happening because of technology, and despite what people may desire for society, government or culture, technology never retreats. Not unless most of us die from the bubonic plague again.

And that's why every few months or so, enormous crowds of righteously confused and concerned citizens will gather in the National Mall, boldly waving signs which proclaim "I'M THE RATIONAL ONE HERE, MISTER!” while their more sensational statements and antics will be recorded and fomented, ad nauseum, for the other side to view, click on, write about, link to, embed, leave a comment, and share with friends. All of which does absolutely nothing to address the monstrous fact that, according to the latest census information, 43.6 million of your countrymen fell below the poverty line last year. One out of every seven people in your nation is poor, desperate, quite possibly hungry, and needs your help. You probably know some of these people.

So how does one rise above this onslaught of hysterical proclamations of rationality with wisdom and true benevolence, in a manner consistent with our shared desire for peace and purpose? How does one respond to a story that is simply a story about a story about a story, in a stack of stories so tall that you'll never have enough time to read them all or even arrive at a conclusion if you could?

Here's my advice:

Firstly, if you're compelled to engage in some sort of cultural dispute, don't let news stories and pundits, despite how well and wryly they're produced and marketed, make you feel things or tell you what your opposition thinks. Don't knee-jerk. Go talk to your opposition personally, with sincere willingness to understand their perspective, the things they fear, and why. Show them that they needn't fear you; that even if you disagree, you're still friends. That's the only way we can hope to reach any sort of consensus; by turning down the volume and avoiding histrionics. You might even learn that your opponent is not actually your opponent at all. We need to earnestly communicate with those we don't understand, not rant and rave for somebody else's piece of commercial performance art. Don't become an unwitting spokesperson for a media brand, reacting as directed within the confines of a manufactured idea market. Disregard branded information, or at least take it with an enormous gain of salt. Do you own research, question your own context and be your own artist. Remember; when you share someone else's story, you've become their unpaid salesperson. That's exactly what they want you to be.

And more importantly, one needn't try to be a superhero for society. Society never asked any of us to don a cape and say: "Step aside citizen, I'm going to save the world through my amazing powers of being manipulated!" That's not your job, and it's not in your principles. If we want to live and act with a clear conscience, all we really need do is put some food into a collection basket. THAT is rational. But allowing anyone who gets paid to sell ideas about enemies dictate how one should live their principles is not rational. People who do that don't really need our help. There are plenty of other people who do.

And that's postmodern too; it's a Humanistic trope borrowed from the Age of Enlightenment, dragged into the current day and made new, which says: "When left to their own devices, people will do what is good." UU can do that, because UU is a postmodern work. It contains ALL the stories - including the Modernist ones. All the ideas postmodern spirituality upholds are valid, even as it needs Modernism's notions of Global Cultural Narrative and Objective Truth to respond to. And that's fine. As long as we recognize that context is what applies meaning to our actions, then every spiritually motivated action we take... is a work of art.

Now go get a glass of water. ;)

Thanks very much for listening.

MY INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE IN AN EXCITING NEW REALITY TV SHOW

Hello my name is James ******** and our casting team has worked on many family oriented shows, such as "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" (ABC), "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" (CMT & MyNet) and "Supernanny" (ABC). We're casting an exciting new show by ******* Studios. I thought members of your group might be interested in. Would you feel positively about forwarding this e-mail and letting them know about this opportunity?

>>OK. You cast for reality shows, and you found a site that I admin for. So you figure I might spread your message. Gotcha. Let's go on.

In addition, I've attached a flyer that can be posted. We'd be more than happy to send someone with a stack of fliers some fliers and/or to speak at your group.

>>You don't have to write "In addition". That's superfluous. Just say that you've attached a flyer. You're not writing a legal brief. And your last sentence is probably the worst sentence I've read in some time. The only sentence I can think of that I've recently read which is worse than yours is this one: "Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?" But that's a famous internet meme sentence. Your last sentence is just as awful but it's not even famous. You lack writing skills. Well, let's look at what the flyer says:

NOW CASTING: WORK/LIFE BALANCE!

This original TV series is looking to follow parents who have to balance their hectic work schedule and family life.

>> Okay, well I'm a parent, and I work. It's not really hectic. It's actually pretty relaxed. But hey, maybe I can get something out of this, so let's continue.

From the same casting team that brought you "Extreme makeover: Home Edition" (ABC) and "Super Nanny" (ABC) comes a new show about busy, busy parents and their families! *Are you or someone you know a career driven PARENT who works 60+ hours a week? If so, ********* Networks wants to tell your story!

>> Why on earth would anybody want to watch a story about a person who has some kids and works a lot? This sounds like the boringest show ever. Who's going to watch it? People without kids who don't work? So they can fantasize about what it's like to have kids and work a lot?

WorkLifeBalanceCasting@Gmail.com

>> A gmail address. Boy, that's a sure sign of authenticity and professionalism if I've ever seen one.

Candidates selected must be available for 5-7 days to be followed in their demanding workplaces and at home with their families.

>> Frankly I think my employer's demand would be that I not have a camera crew following me around the job for five to seven days. Are you people idiots? The only employers who would possibly allow this are those who desire publicity. Once they're on board with that concept, the entire workplace portion of the show just becomes their best attempt at promotion. It's not going to be realistic at all, no matter how many "plot developments" the hack writers try to spice it up with.

Look if you tailed me around at my job, you could pretty much put a web cam on me and viewers could check to see if I move once an hour while I sit in front of a computer. And then after I go home and have dinner, you could do the same thing. I'm a parent, and I'm busy. But somehow I feel that I'm not parental and busy enough for your really realistic reality-based reality show about busy parents. It would basically be an exciting show about me and two other people eating dinner. Sometimes we rent a DVD.

To be considered, please email us the following information:
1) Names and ages of each family member
2) City and State in which you live (Must be in L.A. area)
3) Contact phone number

>>> You want me to email you the name, age, city and phone number of my kid. How about if I send your email to the freaking FBI instead? You're a complete moron. You're a moron who works for a moronic company that casts morons for moronic TV shows starring morons who are moronic enough to email you morons the names, ages, cities and phone number of their kids. I knew there was a reason I've thought the term "Reality Show" actually meant "Idiot Show".

4) Occupation of parent with intense career

>> Not as intense as yours is going to be once I report you to the feds, buddy.

5) Explain the challenges that parents face with demands from career and family life.

>> What is this, a freaking job interview now? An essay exam? Well golly, sir, it's so hard for me to find the time to obtain Viagra, lose weight with a lap band, have vinyl windows installed or get a free carpet cleaning estimate. I'm just such a busy, busy parent that I never get around to those things.

*Please send a recent picture of you and your family.

>>Gladly. Here:

PS - Good luck finding another job. Try to find something that doesn't involve communicating with other people.