Culture Nodes
The primordial node
We don’t choose when and where we are born. This can be both a good and a bad thing. This ontological matter depends on whether we were born orphaned into war torn Prussia or into an affluent family of merchant scholars—off the port of Hellenistic Alexandria. If you want to be mathematical you can reduce your existence to a statistical blip in the primordial ocean of space-time. Those who don’t want to think about it too much easily attribute their existence to preordained fate and what was written in the stars eons ago. Those stressed under the demands of daily life don’t even ponder the issue.
Before you are aware, the prepackaged narrative of your life has been half decided. As helpless infants we exist as the latest addition of a family, rooted in a culture, housed in a country, attached to a continent. How and when your families cultural norms were embedded as a national identity have little to do with you and more to do with the imaginary lines in the sand.
As you grow, you realize you are one of countless participants in your nation’s GDP aspirations. You will—most likely—play the economic game and wave a lifetimes worth of paperwork in the faces of bankers, industrialists and glorified civil servants. Or maybe you go your own way, using your ambition as startup fuel, ignoring the boulevard of broken dreams and failed businesses all around you. Either/or you are forging your way into the great unknown of job markets. Many controls will try to stop you but this is what nations are made of.
During this journey you bury a lot of what you think you are and pick up a few masks on the way. You need these personas to navigate the jagged waters of the social and business worlds. Much talent has been squandered, goals abandoned and relationships butchered in the race to make it. Shuffling between different timezones and communities you connect, disconnect, reconnect and come home. During this journey of trial and mostly error character building occurs. Throughout this lengthy process of coming out of the cocoon of the self, much of the world’s creative content gets generated. Digital symphonies, flying machines, self-aware programs, interactive manuscripts, magical algorithms and the billions of relics—scattered across museums—all around the world are but few of humanities creations. There will be intellectual alienation and creative blocks but this is what culture is made of.
For what is nation building and cultural progress besides the ongoing efforts of outliers and champions of personal expression who challenge the norm. Thought leaders push the local collective out of darkness and forward into the light. That darkness can range from oppression and suppression to outdated social, economic or mental models. In the past (and today) people have turned to religious, spiritual and sacred texts to find: God, meaning, a moral compass, wisdom and themselves. In a future riddled with mysterious high frequency trading algorithms, self-driving cars, genetically modified babies, cloned pets, biometric data mining, hacked psychology, manufactured public opinion, shadow governments, cyber warfare and mass industrial automation—how will the Quran or Bhagavad Gita guide us through the digital dark ages?
“Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbours are, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions. People have to understand that their neighbours are not different even if they have a different religion, different sociological background. At this moment, I don’t see too much hope in political dialogue. But I see a lot of hope in cultural dialogue.” — Paulo Coelho
Definition of node:
- Technical: A point in a network or diagram at which lines or pathways intersect or branch.
- Computing: A piece of equipment, such as a computer or peripheral, attached to a network.
- Mathematics: A point at which a curve intersects itself.
- Physics: A point at which the amplitude of vibration in a standing wave system is zero.
- Astronomy: Either of the two points at which a planet’s orbit intersects the plane of the ecliptic or the celestial equator.
- Botany: The part of a plant stem from which one or more leaves emerge, often forming a slight swelling.
- Grammar: (in generative grammar) a vertex or end point in a tree diagram. [Oxford Dictionaries]
Definition of culture:
“It goes without saying that “culture” is a confusing word, this year or any year. Merriam-Webster offers six definitions for it (including the biological one, as in “bacterial culture”). The problem is that “culture” is more than the sum of its definitions. If anything, its value as a word depends on the tension between them. The critic Raymond Williams, in his souped-up dictionary, “Keywords,” writes that “culture” has three divergent meanings: there’s culture as a process of individual enrichment, as when we say that someone is “cultured” (in 1605, Francis Bacon wrote about “the culture and manurance of minds”); culture as a group’s “particular way of life,” as when we talk about French culture, company culture, or multiculturalism; and culture as an activity, pursued by means of the museums, concerts, books, and movies that might be encouraged by a Ministry of Culture. These three senses of culture are actually quite different, and, Williams writes, they compete with one another. Each time we use the word “culture,” we incline toward one or another of its aspects: toward the “culture” that’s imbibed through osmosis or the “culture” that’s learned at museums, toward the “culture” that makes you a better a person or the “culture” that just inducts you into a group.” [The New Yorker]
Recognizing local luminaries pt. 1
Free thought might not be correct thought but free expression begins with free thought. We become better, rational, empathetic and more open individuals by trial and mostly error. We need those individuals willing to stick their necks out for a thought, an ideal, an artistic expression. Before you can be, you need space to think freely.
Artists, poets, writers and thinkers overcome crippling internal resistance to access flow states where they can draw from a pool of inspiration to create something out of nothing. Breaking through internal barriers is in itself a momentous task but fighting external societal resistance can be brutal and energy draining for many creative progressives.
Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.
— John 4:44 (NKJV)
Those who commit to their ideas find the strength to navigate fearful cultures and watch their creations mature, streamline, build momentum and reach critical mass then fruition. These creators become the movers and shakers with the power to start cultural chain reactions with new content, a tweet or mere presence. In rare cases, some individuals have the power to shift consciousness in a crowd or mass of people.
Examples:
- Pope Francis appearance triggers high emotions in a crowd of onlookers.
On World Communications Day, Pope Francis praised the internet as a “gift from God,” who is helping towards the “unity of the human family.” He said that the digital world is not “a network of wires,” but rather “a network of people.” [source]
2. Musical performance by Coldplay synchronizes thousands of voices, raises the vibe and leaves fans euphoric.
“This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival
A joy, a depression, a meanness
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor
Welcome and entertain them all!
Be grateful for whoever comes
Because each has been sent as a guide”
—Coleman Barks verse on Coldplay’s Kaleidoscope
3. Energizing football fandom chant spreads from viral internet video to pub to stadium. Alcohol induced social effects unite strangers in a show of team solidarity.
After a mass of people synchronize in a collective ritual, football game or music concert their mirror neurons fire together and the stadium or arena has a sense of oneness that can be felt if one enters the wave. Those who resist will not feel it or be moved by the energy that is radiating through the crowd from a focal trigger point. In the above cases the focal points are: 1. the pope 2. the artist 3. the athlete.
“What we call a ‘vibe’ in the club or concert can be quantified both psychologically and physiologically.” —qz
Small social resistance like not participating in games, sport and conversation can snowball into social connection problems, as is happening today. The explosive spread of social media platforms has had a paradoxical effect on social interaction—connecting many but isolating others. Attachment to mobile phones and social media apps is showing negative effects on children during the years they should be learning how to socialize and interact. Hashtags, emoticons and memes are not one-size-fits-all responses in the real world. As simulated reality overlaps with physical reality it will be harder and harder for future generations to unplug.
From seafaring to web surfing society
People fear what they don’t understand—other people included. Hence, societies create a psychological ‘norm’ in which certain behavioral patterns and social interactions are normalized, reinforced and force-fed as local custom. Some social norms are beautiful expressions of human bonding but some of these social norms are rooted in ignorance, prejudice and fear. Historically societies were formed along rivers, bays and fertile lands. Of these societies, few gained dominance and turned into civilizations. But what happens when societies begin to form online and polarize in an uncivilized way? Where cyberspace has no sheriffs, no boundaries, and digital geography is infinite, how will social norms change and evolve through social media?
In the race to join global markets, calendars and business language has been standardized which has created a monoculture across different fields and industries. The rapid dissemination of data and sharing of information is the backbone of the global information highway. As internet users we are all helping nourish this highway with our constantly connected devices and upload streams. We can accept or reject what we encounter on the web, just as we accept or reject the views and thoughts of other people. In a time where our minds are overloaded with an influx of data like never before in human history, how can we make sense of a world where data is generated faster than we can understand it?
Recognizing local luminaries pt. 2
Accepting different ways of thinking is something all cultures need to work on, both within the many branches of sub-culture and in regard to outside cultural influence. A group with a strong sense of cultural identity are sometimes guilty of bashing potential luminaries that threaten the status quo. Marginalization of creative thinkers can be traced all the way back to the Middle Ages during which, witch hunts were a common group activity. The Church was also busy ostracizing astronomers who proved that the earth was not the center of the universe, which was in direct opposition of biblical interpretation (at the time). It is almost unbelievable that in 2018 flat earthers are rampant, fake news is trending and Trump is in arm’s length of the nuclear football.
The internet has the power to act as a personal microphone that connects to a collective amplifier to synthesize public opinion. This massive social experiment shows us the many dark sides of humanity and its effects on the online collective unconscious. A big part of the internet represents a digital black mirror of society’s taboos and dysfunctions that have been submerged in a sea of data waves. The dark web can be home to illicit content, scammers and predators. In the past these groups were pushed underground but today they are but clicks away on the onion router.
Depending on where you live, certain expression may be blocked, forbidden or criminalized. Even reporting the truth can come with a heavy price tag for uncorrupt journalists. The need for free thought has pushed some groups to the intellectual dark web to publish, write and express ideas that would have been censored by the mainstream media and conservative public. If bitcoin’s white paper wasn’t published under an alias and the panama papers weren’t leaked anonymously, we would have many Edward Snowden situations, and the world would be devolving in a different direction.
In the past, civilizations had few myths that defined the culture. They told stories about how things worked and how things came to be. Today we are reading and hearing about new myths every few hours. New stories, new ideas and new ways of thinking—all with too many links, sources and points of view to create an accurate representation or collective picture. In the sea of technological advancement and accelerating returns, the lines between fact and fiction are getting blurred. This is mostly due to data floods, increasing complexity and a disjointed cultural narrative. In other words, the story tellers are telling several stories, across multiple timelines with contradicting allegories to a mass with a diminished attention span.
On any given day, our attention is finite and can be wasted if we are not conscious of what we choose to focus on. Staying in touch with current culture takes time and energy but that doesn’t mean what’s trending is what’s important. The biggest debates today are about data democratization, data decentralization, data mining, data transparency, and data protection. These data points have social, environmental, political and economic repercussions, making data the spinal column of humanity’s future. How will organically linear humans fair against infobesity and AI? Who will we put on a digital pedestal to lead us into the unknown and who from our current heroes will we destroy for blowing the whistle on the upcoming technological crisis?
Conclusion
Human creativity has one of two outcomes: 1. expression 2. suppression. The outcome decision process is rooted in a combination of external conditioning and internal thought processes based on past experience. As I suggest in the opening paragraph, our subjective experience of the world starts as a mishmash of genetic-geofencing and a socio-economic birth lottery of sorts. After realizing self-awareness it is our duty to override our social and genetic predisposition, which floats around in the mind as thought and then gets hardwired into the brain as habit. Creating a mental environment that allows creative thoughts to sprout is your own responsibility and begins by cultivating healthy habits. Once you master sailing between the different brain waves (beta, alpha, theta, delta, gamma) you can switch between thinking inwards and outwards simultaneously, granting you access to the deeper ravines of the mind where inspiration flows in abundance. Once you unlock your creative mental faculties you will tend to consciously choose option 1. over option 2. It is human nature to use what we learn to create a new physical reality out of the imagined constructs of the mind.
[See: epigenetics, placebo/nocebo, demystifying DNA, brain waves, states of mind, sources of inspiration, creative process, resistance]
Working towards a thought, an ideal or residual self image takes work, deep work. Some of us have done—or are in the process of doing—this deep inner work on ourselves. Striving towards a triathlete’s physique, a scholar’s erudition, a diplomat’s eloquence or prophet’s compassion, are all difficult pursuits. All of this takes deep work. Deep work starts with blocking the noise of the preprogrammed crowd and writing your own internal life code.
[See: Program or be Programmed, erudition, Deep Work]
Those who are masters of their own domain are the ones who shape culture for the better by simply participating in daily life. This participation adds value by enlightening the collective and reduces ignorance by demystifying the programs of those trying to take advantage of the majority.
Active creatives aid in spreading awareness and are stand-alone cultural nodes, immune to the negativity of resistant societies. In many cases they become the central point of discussion because they bring something new and out of the norm that challenges the culture. Past societies have only recognized these cultural nodes after their death, glorifying them in art and bidding after their possessions only too little, too late. Today we see the same social pattern mirrored through our advanced analytical tools. Royalties from skyrocketing downloads, record breaking stream counts and trending hashtags, is how modern society mourns creatives on the internet today. How would the world look like if today’s creative nodes were connected together instead of fighting social battles as independents? How can we consolidate and scale creative influence while we still have active individuals generating quality cultural content?
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” —Aristotle
Culture is the average of shared behavior, belief and knowledge. From these shared cultural tools, expression as art form is created by those who look deeply, listen attentively and respond creatively. In this context, art is an abstract and malleable word which denotes distributed expression as cultural commentary by the observer. For some, just being present is an art form in itself. In the end we are all accountable for what be bring to the on and offline table of human expression. We are all pushing and pulling in the tug and tow of ideas—and ideas are the seeds of everyones reality.
