CT from M2G

I think I've finally come to a point where it's possible to make solid sense of my blog's name: cultural technology from meditation to globalization. Essentially, my topic today is about bringing together an Abhidhamma approach to time and consciousness with Marshall McLuhan's point that the medium is the message.

One of the functional aspects of Abhidhamma descriptions and practices of how time and consciousness unfold is a certain precision in how one pays attention to moments and the flow of moments. For a gross oversimplification, we can think of Abhidhamma meditation as focused on increasing the precision of one's ability to take in details and to notice increasingly minute instances. One effect of many types of meditation is that one moves from emphasizing thoughts in one's attentional field to noticing the progression of thoughts. If one does not identify with the thoughts themselves or their meanings, one familiarizes with the flow of that progression. Let me expand the same basic structural movement to cultural change on a global scale.

People in all societies are aware of the direction of cultural change. Those who like that direction tend to think of change as progressive and they also tend to think of themselves as progressive. People who challenge that the change is good usually think of themselves as traditionalists or cultural conservatives. Progressives and traditionalists in our society similarly experience what we call a generation gap. Generation gaps happen with types of technology as well as with people. In proto-human prehistory, when technological generations turned over more slowly than humanity's ancestors' generations did, there was no need to notice the speed of technological advancements. Societies formed relatively stable cultures with solid assumptions and circular myths about how the world is, and kids' generations could basically agree with their parents' generation on how it is.

Now that cultural exchange has become relatively speedy and commonplace, the generation gap is not only noticeable but unavoidable. As the speed of technological change blows by the rate of human reproduction and maturation, societies are having to face innovation itself as one of the solid assumptions about how our world is. One way of thinking about this is to talk about technology and innovation as the common global "language". Although we all come from somewhat distinct societies, we have in common an ability to adapt. That ability to adapt, especially when paired with the rate of technological advance, is creating a new sort of homogenization. From my perspective, from a structural viewpoint, the way this is happening is much more influential than any type of particularist cultural input (although I will not deny the importance of inputs from our relatively distinct cultures). Because there are so many cultures to draw from, no one of them will dominate. It is the structure that predominates, and that structure is roughly analogous to what happens when people stop identifying with thoughts, begin watching how thoughts and moments tend to unfold, and familiarize themselves with the progression of thoughts. Familiarity with this progression trains one to follow directions and qualities instead of looking primarily at stable structures and assumptions and competing "sides". Where you are from and where you are now take their place alongside the importance of where you're headed.

The basic laws don't really change, but the state of the union might. It seems roughly analogous, again, to the state change between solids and liquids. We can still rely on the laws that govern physics, but we cannot continue to rely on the properties that define solids when we are dealing with liquids. The basics that govern how people function are the same when dealing with meditation or globalization, but the experience of what determines what in our lives may be as different as standing on a frozen lake ("stable" ancient cultures) or swimming in the spring thaw (present). Progressives and kids will tend to say that spring is good, while traditionalists will tend to point out that it is nice to have somewhere solid to stand. Most times they argue, they argue ostensibly about issues that are actually secondary to the fact that one tends to choose stability of or return to a golden past (which never existed as it is sentimentally portrayed) while the other favors embracing a golden future (which will be more detailed and nuanced than is usually idealistically portrayed). Both the past and future unavoidably accept without difficulty solids and liquids. That is suchness in any timeframe.

As innovation, technological change, and cultural change become increasingly obvious and unavoidable, we will tend to focus less on relatively stable assumptions while relying more on our ability to move, interact, and coordinate (which, since it is consistent, can feel "stable"). This will not in the least change that some things are solid, but we will become increasingly accustomed to giving up fictions that once seemed solid because we will be increasingly driven to give up many realities that once seemed so important; newspapers and radio and universal, institutionalized education were once breakthrough products, and newspapers are fading into obscurity. Just as the press has become less hierarchical, less professional, and less edited, education is becoming less institutionalized. That which does not grow in our culture(s), dies. It happens at a fast enough pace now that our grandparents saw it in less than a lifetime and we see it within less than a generation. Just as this affects individuals noticeably, it affects groups, companies, institutions. And just as Abhidhamma meditation can bring increased vitality and awareness and appreciation to one's life, creating and playing with this process is both the fundamental aspect of humanity and also our future.