Man, The Measure Of Nothing....

One of the common motifs of human existence is its obvious anthropocentricism. Monotheistic religions see Man as the supreme creation of God. Pantheistic and Panatheistic systems of mysticism believe that Man, by his own efforts, can attain the sum of all wisdom and the knowledge of the Universe. Secular Humanists elevate Man to the pinnacle of animals, and worship Technocracy and Science. All of this is little more than Man's orgiastic worship of himself, and his pitiful aims.

It is sort of like the ideation that Norman O. Brown described in "Life Against Death"; of the experience an infant has in taking a shit, as though he were creating something out of nothing. All of the aims and doings of Man, are much like this fecal, anal-retentive, sadistic orgasm of narcissistic introjection. All human aspirations are colored with this anthropocentric hue, that is indeed, fecal brown with the presumptive stench that corrrupts all pure thought and epistemological constructs with the vile egotism and delusion that is the hallmark of Man not as the Crown Of Creation, but rather as a living Monument to mediocrity. Hubris, is the world that comes to mind. Man, the scientist, the theologian, the magus. But how much is valid in this, and how much just assertions and articles of faith? There is much in science that is spurious, like the "catacholamine hypothesis" of psychiatric illness, that does not have one iota of truthful evidence in its favor, but yet it is the basis for medical neuropharmacology (and its high levels of financial profit, I might add.) Science and facts of whatever nature are fudged in the direction of self-interest, and not truth. But of course, this is true of virtually ever human discipline of thought. Central to all these things is the facile idea of "progress." Progression of spiritual evolution. Progression of salvation and redemption by God. Progression of science and innovation, and the last echo of the ideas of the Enlightenment. It is my view however that progress is also nothing more than an article of faith and a delusion, based upon the idea that what humans think and are has any final meaning. What has availed the world of everything that has been thought of? Has Metaphysics and Religion created a world worth living in? How about Science and Technology? Have these endeavors liberated Mankind? Is Man really any happier then the hunter-gatherer picking berries and clubbing animals in the forests of pre-history? I would say no. The convolutions of intellect have done nothing but enslave people in their labyrinths, bind them to their artifacts, and imprison Man in a symbolic wilderness that has replaced the actual reality of Man as a being living within a natural eco-sphere, and as a part of Nature. The whole of human endeavor throughout history has just been cobwebs drawn by a deranged monkey in the mist, accented by centuries of atrocity, barbarism, misery, and bloodshed. When Man's house of cards has collapsed, he will see that he is the measure of nothing, and signifies even less. That it makes no difference if somebody creates a great invention, or puts a bullet into his own head. That the Universe waxes indifferent to whether we are all civilized or barbaric, good or evil, that it could care less whether a mother gave birth to a child and tenderly cared for it, or whether she just decided to bash its brains out against the wall. So in the end, nuclear missles will rain down upon the earth, biological/chemical poisons will be unleashed through terrorism and ecological devastation, and humans will slaughter and decimate each other and plunge the world once again into the stone-age, and if anything survives, it will be back to the caves as hunter-gatherers, or total human extinction and the death of most of life on earth. But either way the earth will turn, and the stars shall shine down with ironic indifference. Because in the last analysis, Man is indeed, the measure of nothing.