I know it isn’t pleasant, but consider the 9/11 terrorist attacks, if you please. It was a time when the nation came together in mourning for the dead, and anger for those who would attack our homeland. According to Morgan Read-Davidson (if he’ll pardon my mention), an eyewitness to society during the tragedy, solidarity across the nation died down and things returned to normal a mere week after the towers fell. This is not alarming in the slightest, but humanity’s way of coping after a great shock; moving on with individual problems to ignore the problems of humanity at large.
Not even ten years later, a craze, in the sense that it dominated talking points and gathered support from a untraceable origin point, sweeps the nation. That craze? To allow mass immigration from the same countries that supported those same attacks. Whether in the name of sanctuary or hiding beneath that name as cover, the loudest voices shouted “xenophobia” and “racism” against any who were opposed to such a large influx of half-vetted foreigners.
How did fear and skepticism die out so quickly in this case? Does society at large just have a terrible memory, an unbelievably forgiving nature (contrary to other cases when far lesser grievances are committed), or is there something less conspicuous to it? The truth of the matter is that this is all part of the expected “circle of life,” to cite a cliche. Just as the body dies and returns to dust, so does humanity’s Enlightened hive mind, which never builds on top of itself but is constantly being destroyed and reconstructed. In that way, however, though still a cycle, it is never a full circle, the new ray choosing a different set of points each time.
“Are we to understand that the entire human race is caught up in the process of Enlightenment ? In that case, we must imagine Enlightenment as a historical change that affects the political and social existence of all people on the face of the earth. Or are we to understand that it involves a change affecting what constitutes the humanity of human beings? But the question then arises of knowing what this change is. Here again, Kant’s answer is not without a certain ambiguity. In any case, beneath its appearance of simplicity, it is rather complex” (Foucault 3)
Foucault, Michel. “What is Enlightenment?” The Foucault Reader. Ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985. 32-50
Enlightenment is a destruction and reconstruction of what once constituted (American) humanity. “Offense,” you could say, is a deeply inherent American quality; even seventy years later, I know some folks who still hold deep grudges against the Japanese for Pearl Harbor. It is, of course, misguided for them to feel that way. But, when it only takes a few years for a society to about-face their offense from a culture that chants “Death to America,” and turn it towards the people who are, not always anti-Muslim, but simply questioning such affectionately and unwaveringly open arms, something is rotten in the state of Topeka.
Wherever that is.
Foucault goes on to charge “each individual [as] responsible in a certain way for that process” (Foucault 6). But I would like to argue that this is not the case; when change occurs, and it does occur often, humanity is not one to hoard the pieces of the beings we once were. What impact does the individual have on the whole, anyways? I stress that I am not talking in physical terms here, but of the nature of the human identity. The system is immaterial, and therefore not reliant upon your individual participation for it to jump headlong into the next cycle of Enlightenment.
What I have just described with the 9/11 situation is societal manipulation of a traumatic event, something Neil Badmington labels “anamnesis.”
“The traumatic event cannot be remembered as such, cannot be
Badmington, Neil. “Theorizing Posthumanism.” Cultural Critique 53.1 (2003): 10-27. JSTOR. Web. 4 Sept. 2016.
simply and surely re-presented to consciousness. But neither can it be forgotten, for if the patient could turn his or her back on the past, he or she would not require the help of the analyst. This strange condition, this twilight zone, is the predicament of anamnesis” (Badmington 21).
But where does this societal manipulation come from? Humanity’s circle of life, so I shall continue calling it for the sake of simplicity, is neither beholden to the individual nor the society. American Humanity as a whole is now committed to progressive Enlightenment, and yet that progression is becoming less about the cycle of discovery through trial and error, and more like there is a specific path it’s being sent towards. If it wasn’t so, there wouldn’t be such anamnesis, where to question the path directly is to receive an explosive reaction from those affected. It’s a fairly new affliction.
For some reason, and I do mean unknown, humanity now ignores the traumatic events that trigger the rebirth of our base humanity. We go along with the ray on whichever new path towards “Enlightenment” it shoots next, but we ignore the fact that it skews a little closer to the sun every time. It is not difficult to suggest, then, that Enlightenment is now a posthuman force. What force controls this cycle now, then? Is it a general ethereal feeling, swimming about in the aura of humanity? Or something more sinister, a world in tune with John Carpenter’s “They Live”?
“Internal consistency is best. Snowman learned this earlier in his life, when lying had posed more of a challenge for him. now even when he’s caught in a minor contradiction he can make it stick, because these people trust him. He’s the only one left who’d known Crake face to face, so he can lay claim to the inside track. Above his head flies the invisible banner of Crakedom, of Crakiness, of Crakehood, hallowing all he does” (Atwood 96).
Atwood, Margaret Eleanor. Oryx and Crake. Anchor Books, 2004.
Snowman, for now, remains unquestioned. It is not necessarily for sinister intent, mind you, but it is nevertheless focused on controlling a people’s understanding of reality, manipulating their connection to what they know and what actually is. Snowman gives them a form of Enlightenment, but it is not a post-human force at all; it is entirely humanist, born from a humanist origin and directed towards a humanist purpose.
Still, if there is something, or someone, directing us along that ray of sunshine, at least it’s good enough to sometimes remind us that we can damage our eyesight – should we gather the courage to stare directly at that giant burning ball of hot gas.
Morning's Early Dark 