Sunday, June 24, 2007
Nothing new under the sun
CNN recently added this article to CNN.com. Normally, I would go off on a meandering diatribe about the fall of Rome, the degeneration of social morality, and the repulsiveness of our modern cheap-is-easy-is-bliss mentality...blah, blah, blah. But I'm old now and old people are supposed to be wiser than they were in their youth. With that in mind, let's look at the topic from a different, more realistic angle.
Humankind has been doing drugs and having promiscuous sex for the entirety of its existence. There has not been a day, month, or year in ALL of human history that did not see at least one human, somewhere, getting high, or having sex for pleasure. Despite my desperate clinging to ideals like spirituality, love, and good health, the reality is that humans are still very much animals. As such, we will seek to be gratified via one means or another, whether we are cognitively aware of the seeking or not. We are animals, intelligent animals, but animals nonetheless, so it is foolish to expect anything but animal-like behaviors from our species. Getting high and having lots of sex with as many partners as possible is going to be a part of that equation.
But that doesn't mean we all have to accept or embrace being animals. We can work to transcend and be free of our animal nature. In fact, many people (I want to say most, but I think that would be inaccurate) will in fact develop the degree of self-awareness and self-control needed to facilitate recognition of their animal impulses at work in their psychology, so that they might contain them (if they so choose), and achieve a greater level of mastery over themselves. The fact that most marriages end in divorce and that an ever increasing number of people have, are, or will cheat on their significant others speaks to the power wielded by the primal aspect of our collective psychology and the willingness to act on impulse.
No religion, philosophy, or social movement has been able to significantly dent the human drive to copulate and inebriate. This is the way our species has always been, and appears to be the way we will continue to be for the foreseeable future. The exceptions only prove the rule, in that the exceptions are exceptional and noteworthy. For some, happiness is only one sex act or chemical experiment away, and again, none of this is news. Which brings me to the different angle which is starting to take shape in my mind.
Where once I thought we should all be outraged and alarmed at the way things are going, I now have finally accepted that this is the way things have always been. There may have been a time when I would make the argument that things are getting worse, but in reality, things are simply repeating. There may have been brief instances in history when more people saw sex as something precious or even spiritual, but the fact of the matter is that for most of human history, intercourse has been little more than just one more way to experience physical pleasure. After all, prostitution IS the oldest profession, right? We may have more known diagnoses of STDs today, but syphilis has been killing people for thousands of years.
So there is no intelligent, rational reason to believe human sexuality will align with human spirituality in a healthy, transformative way, at least as a general trend. Again, the exceptions will continue to be exceptional, but the generalization still holds. It may be easier and more acceptable in some cultures today...part of Paris Hilton's fame is the direct result of more young men and women being able to relate to her behavior...but that ease and acceptance is not a sign of something new at work within society. It is simply a natural progression of collective psychology. Don't forget that humankind has embraced child molestation and incest at varying points in its past. Making promiscuity mainstream seems almost quaint in comparison.
While I can't claim to be alright with any of that personally, I think we all have to understand that this is simply the way things will always be, so long as we are stuck in our present state of evolutionary development. We are the bridge between base primates and a species capable of greater understanding. We are a transitional stage, in my opinion. As such, we are blessed with incredible potential and incredible failings. There is no easy way around, over, or through this particular reality. Humans will continue to sleep around, get high, and seek pleasure irrespective to the physical, psychological, or spiritual consequences. Once we accept that, we can gain a sort of resolute indifference to it, which ultimately sets us free from concern. This freedom allows us to live and let live, without becoming overwrought with worries of what goes on around us.
By setting ourselves free of these concerns, we take a step beyond the norms and give ourselves a chance at a new level of understanding without having to embrace the random exchange of bodily fluids or a life lived in altered states. In this way we take a more reasoned, more intelligent approach to our own existence. At the same time, we divorce ourselves from the emotional chaos and instability caused by promiscuousness and drug abuse, thereby taking a step away from the human failings that so often derail or outright destroy human lives. That certainly can't be a bad thing, can it?
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