SUPER-CULTURE and THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
Thor May
This essay had its genesis in the usual bumptious superiority complex
of an expatriate teaching in foreign surrounds. In this case, it was the
PNG University of Technology, Lae, Papua New Guinea in 1987. I found my
untried liberal conscience struggling to comprehend the sheer incompetence
of people faced with institutions and technology which didn't seem to work.
Many of the locals were bright and friendly enough, but somewhere a spark
of insight was missing. Much later, surveying Australia with the naked
eyes of a returnee, it was all too clear that the paralysis of imagination
was a universal problem.
Have you danced with the ghost ... ?
I am going to tell you the secret of a super-culture, to which I
belong. You may not hear me, but at least I will do my best to tell you.
First of all, be clear that super-culture belongs to no country,
nationality, race, sect or language group. Its members have been scattered
in every age and latitude. We have had, of course, our different under-cultures
to divide us. However the super-culture has been our gift and burden.
Secondly, forgive my impertinence, but I must remind you of some
of the signs of super-culture. I wish not to be boastful (for everyone
has a culture), but merely to set the scene for my explanation.
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Thorold May 1997, SUPER-CULTURE and THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
all rights reserved
Super-culture designed the clothes and the shoes that you are wearing.
It designed the building that you are in and the chair that you are sitting
on. Also all the vehicles that you travel in, the pen that you write with,
and the radios and televisions that you listen to. Super-culture produced
almost all the knowledge that you learn in schools and universities. It
is the source of most of the music that you listen to, the novels that
you read, and the games that you play. It provided the systems and procedures
that allow businesses and government administration to function. It developed
ways to allow large numbers of people with conflicting interests to share
power, to transfer power without bloodshed, to accept mediation by impartial
judges, and to work together for a common good. It is the most powerful
culture on the planet earth.
For many centuries a small number of the super-cultural group have
tried to influence their original under-cultures, as well as foreign under-cultures.
They have chosen in this way for many reasons, good and bad. Some wished
to learn about the other cultures, some wished to trade, some to teach,
and some even wanted to conquer. Whatever their purpose however, they have
all brought a part of the super-culture with them to these other people.
Almost everywhere foreign cultures have tried to copy or adapt parts of
the super-culture into their own.
I am a teacher, and what I try to teach is some part of my super-culture
to people in other cultures. This is not always easy. People naturally
feel that by showing them another way to do things, this teacher is insulting
their own culture and their own values. If the super-culture that I bring
is obviously very powerful and can't he defeated easily, then the people
may smile and come to my school, but in their hearts they are often jealous
and bitter. This is a natural human reaction, but it makes me sad. Finally,
it forces me to look very closely at the super-culture that I bring, and
to ask why indeed it is so powerful. After all, I am only a man, no more
intelligent, charming or gifted than the people I teach, but this knowledge
that I convey overwhelms all opposition.
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Thorold May 1997, SUPER-CULTURE and THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
all rights reserved
Those of us who work in other cultures (at home and abroad)have
noticed something puzzling. In a large number of cases the people we teach
our ways to happily learn to drive cars, use telephones and work in business
offices. They come to the schools and universities we set up and pass examinations
in the knowledge that we teach them.....BUT, but, but .... the technology
and the knowledge is dead in their hands and minds. They don't take
the knowledge from my super-culture as a starting point to develop even
better ideas. They use it like a religious ritual, like a powerful magic.
They don't use the pen that I give them to design an even better pen. They
will watch a clock until the battery runs down, then throw it away.
Something is missing. The people of my super-culture have demonstrated
the power of their machines. They have even made a gift of the machines.
But they have not given away the ghost in the machines: the spirit that
made them in the first place. Like any spirit, you have to catch this one
by surprise to see it at all, but once you have seen it and accepted it,
you are changed forever. Let me tell you about the ghost in the machine.
It is the secret of super-culture.
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Thorold May 1997, SUPER-CULTURE and THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
all rights reserved
The ghost is unbalanced. That is its essential quality. It can never
lie down, but must dance forever. While you dance with this ghost you are
never secure. You never know the whole truth, but only enough to get by
with for the time being. You may expect the sun to rise tomorrow, but you
are not quite certain because the ghost has not told you everything there
is to know about heaven and earth.
The ghost is a very tricky partner, and dazzlingly clever. You have
to use all your wits to stay in the dance. It is not enough to follow the
old steps, even though they make a nice pattern. If you follow the old
steps, round and round, in a little while you suddenly find that you are
dancing by yourself. When you dance by yourself, without the ghost, your
culture becomes an empty shell, like the cast-off skin of a snake or a
cicada.
To dance with the ghost you have to invent new steps all the time.
You invent three steps and the ghost will show you another five to follow.
The ghost knew this new dance all the time, but it was not going to show
you until you invented those first steps yourself. In my super-culture
we call making new dance steps by several names: innovation, invention,
scientific discovery, philosophizing. The steps may be concrete or intellectual
- it makes no difference to the ghost - but they must be made.
The extra steps the ghost reveals, once we have shown initiative,
my under-culture usually calls "the laws of Nature" or "scientific laws"
or even "the whole truth". These names are very misleading. Maybe the ghost
itself told us to use them as a joke. The names like "law of Nature" sound
final, and this disguise leads many to lose the ghost as a dance partner
forever. They are probably also the reason that so many strangers accept
the empty shell of my super-culture without understanding. To repeat, each
"law of Nature" is just a small pattern that the ghost has followed our
invention with. To see a larger pattern holding this small pattern we must
take another three steps ourselves again. The ghost laughs and gives us
five more .... and suddenly the "law of Nature" looks entirely different,
once again. While we have the energy to dance, there is no end to this
contest with the ghost.
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Thorold May 1997, SUPER-CULTURE and THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
all rights reserved
Now I want you to consider the qualities of mind that can keep you
dancing with the ghost. Firstly there is initiative. You
must take those three steps. The ghost will never do it for you. Secondly
there is wit. You must use every bit of intelligence and
ability that you have been blessed with, for the ghost has no time for
fools. Thirdly there is skepticism. You must always doubt
that you have discovered perfection, for although the ghost will give you
five beautiful steps to follow your three, it has countless others hidden
and will quickly tire of your simple-minded discovery. Finally, there is
humility. It is exhilarating, wonderful to invent three steps
and be whirled on by the ghost to a new vision. But the ghost endlessly
mocks those who make three steps and proudly consider themselves masters
of the universe.
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Thorold May 1997, SUPER-CULTURE and THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
all rights reserved
I can see that you are becoming very curious about the owners of
this super-culture. What is it's home, you ask. What is its island, country,
continent of origin? Well, super-culture began with the first spark of
independent intelligence, and from that moment its territory has been the
galaxy of the human mind. If you know a bit of history, or have walked
the byways of this planet, you will realize by now that you have met dancers
with the ghost in the machine in some very exotic places. By a Bronze Age
hunter's fire perhaps, in Classical Greece, in Song Dynasty China, in a
l2th Century Arabian university. Nowadays you may find a dancer in an Eskimo
hut, a Papua New Guinean village, or a space laboratory in Palo Alto, California.
The members of super-culture are scattered across the face of the earth,
but we recognize each other whenever we happen to meet. |