Cultural Corner: I saw a little article about recent goings-on in the field of cultural anthropology. Actually, they’re doing some fairly interesting research these days. Well sure, anthropology was always sort of interesting, with Margaret Mead and her cronies searching out the last of the painted tribesmen and hunter-gatherers in central Africa or some far-away Pacific island, with their colorful feathered costumes and crazy dances.

But today, the anthropology professors and grad students are focusing on a topic that hits home, right here in post-industrial America. They are now doing “ethnography” research and writing papers about “commodity chains”. Consider this: in America today, it seems like we don’t make anything. Just about everything we eat, use, drive, burn, entertain ourselves with, etc. comes from somewhere else. The place could be Mexico, could be Brazil, could be China — who knows. Actually, there are people who DO know – they are the trans-national businesses that get rich off of all this international trade. And then there are the people in far off lands who dig up or make the stuff for those big importers. Interestingly enough, the anthropologists have recently gotten interested in all of this, and how it’s changing the world.

I hope that some of this research will be tapped by the popular article writers and TV news shows, to enlighten the public on just what the effect of modern trade arrangements are, and who wins and who loses. (No surprise that the losers are mostly the poor countries who gather the raw materials and process it for us; although maybe there are some good effects in some places). For the time being, I’m going to give links to a few commodity studies that I found in a quick Google search.

1.) Table Grapes from Mexico

2.) African Gray Parrots

3.) Imitation Crab (a.k.a. “surimi seafood”)

All of this stuff is probably exists right there in your home town, if not in your house; it’s available at your local supermarket and pet store, probably at the Wal-Mart. Maybe you might want to know a little about what the stuff is, who makes it, who brings it over and sells it, and whether things are better or worse off because of it.

Well, just thought you might want to know what’s going on.

I’ve been reading some books about human consciousness over the past two years (the serious ones, not the new-age stuff), and I’ve noticed that most of the authors don’t have much regard for God or religion. I suppose they figure it would be bad for their academic careers to mix metaphysical hope with such a strange and uncertain topic, as consciousness certainly is. The ones who posit that consciousness may be more than a materialistic process, at least beyond any material physics that we now know, seem especially assertive in asserting their atheism (e.g. John Searle, Colin McGinn, David Chalmers). Their “dualism” arguably leaves a gap through which God’s presence might arguably enter the world and be shared in and through our realization of it. But to even consider that possibility seems beyond the pale of any serious mind scholar right now. Even the most “science-friendly” concepts of dualism are attacked by many as naive, wishful thinking.

At least one consciousness researcher, Dr. Susan Blackmore from England, speculates that practitioners of Buddhist “mindfulness” find our conscious mind to be an illusory (Consciousness: An Introduction, 2004). Buddhists claim to know that the self and free will are illusions. They realize there to be no distinction between ego and experience. They experience nonduality. Well then, consciousness is certainly not real, and God is obviously toast too.

Right now I’m finishing a book by another ‘Dr. Susan’ from England, Dr. Susan Greenfield (The Private Life of the Brain, 2000). Dr. Greenfield makes an interesting point about meditation, the primary practice informing Buddhist metaphysics. Dr. Greenfield explains that the electrochemical processes which correspond to deep meditation create very large neuronal constellations which are remarkably stable and distributed, so as to deeply diminish the mind’s need for sensory stimulation. A different kind of consciousness ensues, one that is not in need of the usual external reassurances that we seek from our environments (the company of other people, conversation, music, food, etc.). At that rarefied point, the normal kind of egotistic self that we are used to becomes unnecessary. Thus, it becomes easier for those who have known such meditative experience to speak of how we don’t actually exist, how mind and earth are one, how nothing more is needed. It’s just an impression created by a certain mental state made possible by a certain combination of chemicals and electrical signals.

What I find interesting about this is how similar it is to the arguments being used by other mind analysts to disregard the opposite notion, that we are different from the earthy world beneath us, and that our difference is a half-way step to the ultimate principle represented in God. Daniel Dennett, Samuel Harris and Richard Dawkins have recently released books explaining those feelings to be nothing more than accidents stemming from certain chemical and electrical patterns in the brain, patterns that may have spun-off from useful evolutionary processes. Dr. Greenfield (who herself seems to have little sympathy for the religiously inclined) ironically identifies a similar pattern as the basis for non-belief.

So, it would appear that Dr. Blackmore’s fashionable Buddhist anti-dualism and its implied atheism are just as illusory and physically explainable as the processes which seem to push most people in this world, except Buddhists, toward the consideration of a “higher metaphysical principle”. (And a whole lot of Buddhists aren’t all that dismissive of higher metaphysical principles after all; the practice of Pure Land Buddhism, quite popular in Asia, has various elements that a Christian or Jew or Muslim would find familiar). Dr. Blackmore doesn’t seem satisfied with a dryly logical approach to the God-or-not question. She wants something a bit more deeply felt. But if so, then why would her Buddhist ‘anatta’ be any more compelling or intellectually respectable than my longing for ultimate universal hope?

It looks to me as if we wind up right on the fence, as always. The glass remains half-empty and half-full. It’s up to you what to call it. Despite the bad name that various political factions have given the notion of Abrahamic faith within the past few decades, I’ll stick with the hopeful view, but I’ll keep the ‘God-politics’ aside. And I hope that the consciousness analysts can likewise learn to disregard the politics and fashions of modern academia, and be able to think and write freely on whether or not their research leaves room for the notion of God. It would certainly be nice if discussions about God could be brought back to the intellectual circles without all the politically-correct fear.

Time for a picture. Here’s a shot I took on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, looking up at some buildings (including the Chrysler Building) on a sunny March afternoon.

I took a look at the New York Times bestsellers list the other day to see who is winning the day in the showdown between religious faith and “the new atheism” (which cites and interprets biological evidence to show that widespread human faith in a deity of one kind or another is just an evolutionary misfire). Right now, it looks as though faith is winning. Coming in at number 4 on the non-fiction hardcover list is “Grace Eventually” by Anne Lamott. Back at 13th place is “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. Nothing too much after that, except down at number 29 there is “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief”, by Francis S. Collins (who made his name as a leader of one the two teams that fully mapped the human genome).

A spoiler, though, is Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s “Infidel”, coming in at number 5. Ms. Hirsi Ali was formerly a devout Muslim, and is now a pro-western atheist. But I’m not sure if I would count this book as a true commentary on faith. It may be more of a politicized reaction to politicized situation (i.e., radical Islam). God may have never had a chance in this case.

I noticed that the NY Times chose to review the Dawkins book and the Hirsi Ali book, but ignored the other two. I guess that the old-tyme religion just isn’t good enough for the Times anymore.

I have to take my hat off to Wired Magazine. I don’t have a subscription yet, but in doing internet research on a variety of topics, I’m often led to articles in Wired. If it’s about science or technology and its going to make a mark on the way we live, those Wired folk seem to be on it. Anyway, here’s a link to an article on “The Big Unanswered Questions”. Quite interesting. (No, I wasn’t paid to put this up. Just thought I’d give them a plug for making some good content available for free on the net.)

Another interesting magazine article: in the May Atlantic, there’s an article about homosexuality in Saudi Arabia. Actually, what I just said is not fully accurate. In fact, the article tells you about the many heterosexuals doing the homosexual thing in the desert kingdom. It sounds like what went on in the ancient Greco-Roman world, back in the time of the Bible; other than Mohammad and petrochemicals, things probably haven’t changed much in Arabia since then. So, if you want to know what St. Paul was ranting about with regard to same-sex perversions, read that article. More evidence that the anti-gay Bible thumpers are just plain wrong.