Debating the Global Brain

A couple of things this week that have been making me itch to write. First off I finally finished a book with a new scientific twist on evolution called Global Brain by Howard Bloom. The day after finishing the book I turned on the radio and caught the presidential debate. What's really interesting is how these two "Taboo" topics have been dovetailing together in my mind.

Global Brain is a whirlwind tour of history from the Big Bang to today's current society of man. Harold Bloom takes into account microbiology, Greek philosophy, psychology, chemistry, and a number of other socio-scientific principles in an easy to read book backed up with numerous footnotes and bibliographic references. The interesting twist of this book is that it looks at evolutionary theory from the standpoint of networking. Evolution is possible because of like creatures coming together. This happens on the microscopic level with bacterial colonies literally changing form due to chemical imbalances in their environment. A more tangible example is the current ability of the common flu to somehow morph into a more virulent strain every year despite millions of dollars worth of research to stop it. Global Brain also gets into the forces that shape a network and thus force an organism to evolve. The need to create, the need to conform, the need to rebel, all are factors that can be seen on the playground, in the petri dish, or even in a flock of birds. Harold Bloom argues that these same forces have been at work with all species for millions of years. The network is what causes cities to grow. Wars to start, and creation to take place. Without networking and interaction, evolution stops.

SOOO... What does a wacky book about evolution have to do with a presidential debate? Actually, in my mind, a whole bunch! Let me start off by saying that I hate to discuss politics. Like religion and abortion, politics is one of those topics that, once brought up in conversation, forces this listener to immediately start forming stereotypes. Because of my beliefs, for the last ten years in every election I have registered as independent. I'd rather form an opinion about the politician based on what he/she has to say; NOT what party they belong to. Voting straight ticket in my eyes is a slap in the face to our political system...

Back to the debate. I started listening the night after finishing Bloom's book. The entire premise of this debate was the war in Iraq. I knew that Bush had to be on the defensive for most of the debate because of the obvious - wars are never popular. What did raise my concern was our current administration's stance on working with other countries. America seems to have really given ourselves a black eye in the world perspective by going into Iraq. Admittedly Saddam Hussien is a bad man and needed to be stopped. The issue is that by stopping Saddam we have raised the ire of most of the Arab world and certainly downgraded our perception of America by a bunch of other countries which once called us allies. In the long run this will hurt us.

Call me a globalist but I believe that we have to learn to work with our fellow countries out there and not bomb them, exclude them, ignore global treaties, and basically act like the playground bully. In Global Brain, Harold Bloom points out the dangers of exclusionism; being out of the "network". His book, written in 2000 talks about the threat to America by Osama Bin Laden a year before 9/11. We, as Americans, receive very little news of the world around us beyond the headlines on the nightly news. Perhaps the size of our country is partly to do with it but we don't speak other languages, we don't learn about other cultures, and we don't respect those who are different. One of the effects of going outside of the network is the polarization of viewpoints by our own nationality. This can be seen today by the seemingly opposite views of our two political parties. People quickly stamp themselves as conservatives or liberals and then hold onto preconceived notions of those who hold a different label. As these labels are hammered into us it makes it increasingly more difficult to remain objective. Just like our nation needs to become more diplomatic we as Americans need to show more understanding of our our fellow man - our neighbor. If we remain as we are then our evolution will slow.

As a footnote, I'd invite any readers of this blog to check out Global Brain. The concepts are interesting and the knowledge is bound to change your view of the network of your own life....