Is human being defined by design of nature, or by imprinting of society?
Over the course of the centuries human being has given himself a blanket to cover his definition that inevitably would have become too short: eventually, the baby grew and we would need a new one. Ancient Greeks needed philosophy to explain human restless nature. Christians religion, to explain his wonder and destiny.
Church Counter reform, Renaissance and Enlightenment introduced, each in different ways, reason and nature as a major definition: We got secularism. “God is dead” as Nietzsche said. Science explains human nature by genes, by DNA. Neuroscience tells us that we’re all about neurons and chemical mechanistic reactions. Sociology, psychology and psychoanalysis, at the turn of the last century, imposed the heavy hand of culture and society’s legacy upon us.
But somehow, all these answers always provide with fulfilling but temporary definitions, until the next one comes up. Nowadays, globalization provides new cognitive elements for the mind to define their psyche: Internet and media convergence provide a cognitive platform for the brain to work on an horizontal level, rather than on a “vertical” one, an in-depth analysis belonging to the “Guttenberg” era: we “surf” on Internet. we work by links. The same show can be watched on different platforms, like Internet, cells, TV, i pods, video games. Kids’ attention, as well TV audience’s attention spam, remarkably shrinks in light of a growing brain’s ability to juggle multitasks activities as we simultaneously text, listening to the i-pod, while downloading a video from youtube.
Do children grow up with a different use of the brain? How does this affect our definition of human being ?
With such boost of secularism made of technology and science, human being is able to find lots of brand new answers to ancient and atavic existential questions. Nevertheless, contextually, such a sudden boost of technology scares us, paradoxically bringing us to look for comforting answers away from reality. Like religion.
In the US, president Bush won the second term election because of the so called bible belt’s vote.
In the Middle East, terrorism (too often, with the aid and support of heads of state) exploits and speculates on Muslim religion to leverage poor people to attack western countries, whereas, in reality, Muslim religion is a peaceful one.
In any case, whether for political or existential reasons, religion seems to have a major come back. If you look up on IMDB.com, amidst the overall top 10 rank in movies, ” The passion” is the only actual movie about a real fact. All the rests are mostly cartoons, like Shrek. People feel lost, unsettle within a scary and confusing reality and in need of a shelter, something that doesn’t make them think. Unless it’s religion.
After political ideologies definitely died after the Berlin wall fall, after Fukuyama’s “end of history”, the pope, regardless of your religion, or appreciation for him, is objectively the only “ideological leader” capable to gather thousands of people.
So my question is, how do we redefine human being in the wake of such a golden age of post- secularism, where, on one hand, technology and science have improved human life and discovered the apparent real nature of human behavior and design, and on the other hand, God may have not been dead, but actually “resuscitated”, because of the paradoxical people’s sense of confusion and fear about current modern high tech society?
