Teilhard de Chardin's 'noosphere'
We should petition to re-brand and re-name this country, now that there's such a tremendous opportunity to do so: instead of being known as The United States of America we will henceforth be known as The Nation of Advertising and TeleMarketing.
According to The New York Times, Stephen Hawking is dead. In Hawking's obit, TheNYT quotes him as saying, "It's the past that tells us who we are. Without it we lose our identity."
Mr. Hawking made a career of studying the 'black holes" of the physical universe. It now occurs to me that the black holes are not necessarily to be found in outer space but are actually here on earth in the person of people like Jeff Sessions and Mike Pence. The President of the USA hmself is a small little black hole of a man. He's best seen on tv, sitting at a large table surrounded by his minions, arms folded, looking tough. It's reassuring to see Trump this way, so tough, such a negotiator! At long last, leadership has become more common than the people it is leading.
Our pizza addicted populace has chosen the large Pepperoni/Cheese/Opioid Pizza with a side of fried churros dunked in white sugar, lapping up whatever this President does and says. He's been on tv, he had a reality show for many years didn't he? This establishes his cred. In reality his dad Fred, something of a slum lord in real life, gave his son $11 million so the son could get his career as a self-made man started; Donald Trump took it from there all by himself, or so the story goes.
The narrative is quite amazing, and that so many people buy it is even more so. It's tempting to call these people, 'good people' but perhaps it's like calling the Austrians who flocked to hear Adolph Hitler speak 80 years ago today at the Heldenplatz in Vienna and who applauded the annexation of their country, cheering the German troops as they marched into the city, 'good people.' Maybe good people too are black holes into which all the vacuity, emptiness, lies, and stupidity of a culture is poured so that nothing remotely resembling the truth can be seen.
I think it's time to disappear for awhile into de Chardin's 'noosphere'. The noosphere has always sounded good to me, a special place where serious people go to disappear to get perspective on what's real and what isn't.