Ends and Means

For your thoughtful consideration and meditation this morning I approach the topic of Ends and Means from two perspectives. One perspective is that of my observations, interpretations and understandings of what is happening in the world around us. The second perspective is a personal one. As you know, Lucile and I are in the process of up-rooting ourselves from our home of sixteen years and moving into a "Retirement Community." Although this is a short move, geographically, it is an enormous mover psychologically and spiritually. I am telling you ahead of time what my plan is because I do not want you to go to sleep on me with the conviction that I am merely engaging in omphaloskepsis - deep contemplation of my navel. I will start with my view of what is happening.

In his book on the subject, Dr. Fukuyama states that we have arrived at the end of history. His point is that the evolution of the processes of politics, religion, science, economics and of all things going on in our lives has reached a platform of stability. Democracy and Globalization are the norms and will remain so, for there are no better replacements on the horizon. Science will continue to tweak the rules, but we know about all we are going to know.

While arguments for and against Dr. Fukuyama's thesis abound, I begin to wonder if he isn't just trying to establish some Ends for what seems to be an endless series of Means.

Which brings me to the question "What are the Ends?" What is the End of Science? What is the end of Art? What is the End of Politics? What is the End of Economics? What is the End of us?

We seem to be so totally embedded in the processes of our existence - in the Means - that we almost don't speak of them as such. Instead, we talk of "Making Progress," "Moving Forward," "Getting On," or "Moving On." All this talk, of course, assumes that we know where we are going. Or does it mean that we don't care where we are going, only that we are achieving "Progress." In other words, the question is "Have we unconsciously conflated Ends and Means?" Do we just act out our lives as though there are Ends to which we are travelling when in truth there are none?

There is a tremendous distinction between living as though you are going to some End and living your life as though that was the End to which you were travelling. To behave as though there were some end to which we are headed is to fool ourselves, and in the process, loose it all. The question we might ask ourselves is "Are we living now as though the process of living is the End purpose of our lives?"

When I look around me, I get the impression that most of the people I see are not living life as though it was the purpose of their existence here on this planet, in this galaxy, in this universe. Rather, I get the impression that most of us are just hacking through the jungle of reality without any goal in mind.

I realize that you might object to this statement. I suspect that most people feel like they know where they are going. But if you push the question on them a little further the End becomes less real. To expand on this for a moment, let us start with Science.

Science is pursuing a formulaic description of all of reality. This is great. Now, for a minute, let us suppose that such a fantasy is achievable. What will you do with that? Go to the stars? But to what End will you go to the stars - for more knowledge? But, then, what is the End of knowledge. Can it ultimately be nothing more and nothing less than to finally know ourselves for the first time? [PAUSE]

Am I asking too many questions - just as Rev. Liz said that we UUs tend to do?

I raise all of these questions not just to be obstreperous. I am concerned to my core. It hurts deep inside me when I see us mindlessly hacking away at our reality and blindly pushing forward - onward, ever onward - towards what, we don't know.

I suggest to you that none of us here today can search ourselves and come up with a really solid End of all that we are pushing for - there is no terminus. I suggest this because while it is true that we all can come up with an End, it will turn out to be only a step in a larger process. What I am suggesting is that the End lies in the process - the End reason lies in the very Means we are using to pursue it.

This is why the mountain climbers give their typical answer when questioned as to their motive for their pursuit of what many of us consider to be foolish. They say, "We are climbing the mountain because it is there to climb." Here it is in plane English. The End purpose of the activity lies in the activity itself.

In our culture, we seem to have totally internalized the commercial catch phrase: "Progress is Our Most Important Product." I am not saying that progress is bad or wrong. I am saying that if all we do is progress we are in eminent danger of reaching our end as a species. Will it come to pass then, that Nature's great experiment, which we call the human animal, will eradicate itself as the result of its own blind inventiveness?

The extermination of humankind has been threatened before - of old, by the Hebrew God and more recently by other lesser beings. But today there seems to be a growing awareness that it is entirely possible that we might achieve this all by ourselves.

There seems to be an endless supply of indications that we are progressing out of control. The indicators of the scary nature of our present world are all around us. Nuclear weapons are proliferating around the world in spite of all of our actions to stop them. Human population is overtaxing the resources and capacity of the ecological systems of the earth. Yet what we are pursuing is more/better/faster everything - all in the name of progress.

I keep asking myself "Progress towards what? Where are we going?" Is progress the end of what we are about? I have heard answers like: "We want to make our life easier," and "We want to have more leisure time."

An easier life and more leisure time with our families are a reasonable goals. But how to achieve them is a different and more difficult question. I don't have an answer to this question. I have only the following startling disclosure.

The Kalahari bushmen - whom we consider to be very "primitive" - spend only about 20% of their time in what we call work. The remainder of their time is spent in social activities - interacting with the members of the their families and members of the tribe and performing leisure activities. Living close to the earth and in intimate relationship to all that is surrounding you, does have its advantages. Living in such a way that you do not overtax the environment is a stable way of living and it is obviously satisfying to them.

Remember that in the movie, "The Gods Must be Crazy," the heroic act performed by a leader of the tribe was to return the offending object, the Coke bottle, back to the Gods. This single modern object became the focus of all of the social energy of the tribe and totally disrupted its functioning. Its removal was what saved the society.

Oh, what if we could achieve such a goal. Can we extirpate that piece of us that endlessly pursues "more?" Can we bend our selfish desires to seek a higher good --a good for the entire community? Can we live life as though living is our purpose here on this earth? [PAUSE]

Let us switch gears for a moment. We have talked about the endless and insatiable appetite of Science and Engineering, what about art?

Art has existed in human history since our earliest days as a species. The cave paintings of deer and bison at L'Esceau are as beautiful to our modern eye as Picasso's line drawings of the same subjects. These artists, separated by forty thousand years seem to have made no "Progress" of the sort that we have been speaking. Yet we seem to be content with what we see. Is this the End of Art?

Much of what is called modern art leaves me cold, but I am sustained because I understand that we are not progressing in art so much as we are continuing to explore the human understanding and appreciation of beauty. Therefore, I would say that there is no End to the process of artistic expression but the purpose of art - the End of art - is the expression and appreciation of beauty.

The technology of art has progressed, regressed and come around again, many times. The Greeks created the perfect form of human beauty in marble statues. The Romans copied them. The Muslim empires created really intricate images that married art and writing. The Renaissance built on these historical bases and pushed further into the expression of emotions and stories. More and greater complexity was pursued with details that were achievable only through the use of a "camera obscura." Then we come back around to the single line drawn by Picasso that expresses the outline of a nude reclining woman. [PAUSE] He did it with a single line. I don't call this progress but I call it the pursuit of human creativity. The End of art is the expression and appreciation of beauty.

An artist pursues art as a process of living; and living is the art pursued. The End purpose of an artist is to be an artist. There is no where else to be.

But what about Religion and Philosophy. Can we throw them both on the trash heap of history? I can't imagine what we will become when we do that.

I was reading newspapers on the World Wide Web last Friday and I came across an article in the Washington Post (Friday, April 26, 2002).

It spoke to the questions raised by the latest book of Dr. Fukuyama "Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution." In this new book he is really stepping off into the future. He says: "The people in 'Brave New World' may be healthy and happy, but they have ceased to be human beings."

Now that sends a chill up my spine. Maybe I have read just too much science fiction in my youth, but this sounds really ominous to me. Dr. Fukuyama goes on to explain: "The most significant threat posed by contemporary biotechnology is the possibility that it will alter human nature and thereby move us into a 'posthuman' stage of history. This is important . . . because human nature exists, is a meaningful concept, and has provided a stable continuity to our experience as a species. It is, conjointly with religion, what defines our most basic values. Human nature shapes and constrains the possible kinds of political regimes, so a technology powerful enough to reshape what we are will have possibly malign consequences for liberal democracy and the nature of politics itself."

Now there is a real shocker. I have known for some time that we are on a exponentially accelerating rate of change. It seems like only yesterday that we were cheering the identification of the magic helix that is our DNA. Now we are not only writing out the detailed description of how it works but we are modifying it to conform to our own desires. What pray tell is it End of all of this?

In this same article I learned that this weekend there is a debate going on in Silicon Valley the topic of which is "Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future." The electrifying word for me in this title is "Inevitable." The title of this debate assumes that there is just no way of stopping this process. It has gone too far. Science has gotten the bit in its mouth and there is no possibility of controlling it. The metaphor of a bit and reins to control a horse is a good one here. The image of a hapless rider caught on the back of the runaway horse of science certainly rings true for me.

It is important to note also that the two protagonists in this debate, Kurzweil and Gregory Stock agree on the inevitability of our remaking what it is to be human. The only debate is to whether it will come via genetic engineering or by electronic implants that will allow us to mentally control objects and processes.

Here is another segment of this article:

"Kurzweil agrees with Stock that the biogenetic changes he foresees will take place, but believes that we will also see profound integration of our biological systems with nonbiological intelligence," enabling routine integration of machines and the brain by 2030. By 2040, the nonbiological portion will be far more powerful than the biological portion: We will have become cyborgs, Kurzweil argues.

The towering question is not whether this is good or bad, its inevitability renders that question moot. The question is what is the End of all this fantastic technology. It is being pursued as though there were an End to it; yet no one can define what that End is. Therefore, we are on the rocket to nowhere. The challenge is to assert ourselves with sufficient power to regain control over this runaway horse of science and technology. If we cannot muster the will and the means to regain control the future has already been spelled out for us. [PAUSE]

To help you recover your sense of reality, I quote here from an article in this morning's New York Times. This is about the foibles of modern electronic devices and their controls.

[New York Times, April 28, 2002 A Tyranny of Digital Controls Invades the Comfort of Home, By KATIE HAFNER]

"Last Christmas Eve, just as Lynne Bowman was preheating her oven to roast a turkey for 15 guests, her daughter accidentally brushed against one of the new oven's many digital controls.

"We heard this `beep beep beep,' " recalled Ms. Bowman, a 56-year-old freelance creative director who lives in Pescadero, Calif., "and no more oven. After that, we couldn't get it to work."

"Ms. Bowman's husband, an engineer, was unable to fix the problem. Nor were any of the assembled guests, half of whom were also engineers.

"Desperate, Ms. Bowman resorted to the small, simple 1970's-vintage Tappan electric oven in the guest house, which worked like a charm.

"Four months after Christmas, meanwhile, Ms. Bowman is still without a functioning oven, as her husband remains convinced that he can fix it. "Here we have this modern, shiny oven, and it's just taking up space," she said.

"While she waits, she has turned her attention to the microwave, and has expanded her repertory of stove-top dishes. The electronic ignition for the burners gave out months before the oven did, Ms. Bowman said. She lights them with a match.

Now this sounds much more like the human reality I know from my own experience. The truth is that nothing works quite as advertised; and, it is virtually impossible to get it to do so.

How then am I to understand all the glowing forecasts of these tremendously advanced technologies and what they will mean for our future?

In the article on Friday in the Washington Post, the author goes on to say that "what we're talking about here is transcendence -- becoming separate from or going beyond the gritty world we've always known." Now this is a kind of transcendence with which I am not at all familiar, and I want no part of it. I personally don't like the idea of no longer being human.

In fact, I rather like being human. I have spent a good deal of time, money, and personal anguish on Psychotherapy that has brought me to a place of acceptance of myself, nay, joyful acceptance and love of myself.

To those people who speak of the confines and limitations of being human I say you are looking in the wrong end of the telescope. Limitations are merely boundaries - they keep us within what is human. What we need, what we desperately need is to love ourselves as total beings - warts and all.

As you might have already noticed, I am shifting my thoughts from that of the observer/critic to my personal view of Ends and Means.

You have probably already surmised that I am trying to live my life as if living were the purpose of my being here. I have come to the conclusion that there are no ends there are only processes. The universe is a process and we are an integral part of it.

While what Kurzweil and Stock are saying is not exactly science fiction. They are experts in their fields of endeavor. What they have failed to account for is the frailty of their own humanity.

As I said earlier, those who cry out against the limitations of being human are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Our frailty is the source of our inventiveness. Our limitations are the source of our adventurous spirit.

My allusion to the runaway horse of science is only slightly flawed. Science is on a runaway course and needs to be reined in. But it does not have the power that Kurzweil and Stock ascribe to it. Science, is after all, a human invention. Science is a human activity and therefore subject to all of our limitations. All this does not however excuse us from our responsibilities.

The Romans said "Carpe Diem," seize the day. We need to seize this day and every day and make it ours. Put our life into it and live it fully as if it were the End of our existence, for it is.

We cannot sit idly by and let the course of event merely flow over us. For, if we do nothing we are liable to be contributors to our own demise.

The words for the 21st Century are Carpe Diem, not Go West. The End of life is in the living of it. Go therefore and live it fully until you reach your end. I can personally recommend this course of action for I have found it richly rewarding.

Love to you all.

Amen