Identity.
Humans are facing multiple levels of change. Moving from absolutes to relativism, from honour-based societies to the dignity of individualism. A ‘transhuman’ era has begun through advances in neuroscience and bio-engineering – cyborgs are for real. In tandem, despite hyper-connectivity, people are lonelier than ever. This maelstrom brings into question the trajectory of human identity and personhood. Einstein said ‘love is the heartbeat’ of social beings who crave relationships. How do we reconcile the drive to be ‘fully human’, with a sense of common citizenship?
Identity and immediacy.
Neurons that fire together, wire together. Psychologists use this expression to explain many things from addiction to memory, reminding us that neural pathways are like stray footpaths – the more you use them, the more concretised they become. And once concretised, then familiar, preferential, favoured. The path of least resistance. The question is, are we are aware of this? Likely, yes. Yet do we live like we’re aware? Likely not.
How Can We Navigate Late Modernity?
Cultural nihilism stands as a reductive, depersonalizing, disenchanted contrast to incarnational spiritual culture. The tone of nihilism is depicted clearly by the articulate Eugene Peterson: "We depersonalize God to an idea to be discussed. We reduce people around us to resources to be used. We define ourselves as consumers to be satisfied. The more we do it, the more we incapacitate ourselves from growing up to a maturity capable of living adult lives of love, adoration, trust and sacrifice. In our identity-confused society, too many of us have settled for a pastiche identity composed of social security number, medical records, academic degrees, job history, and whatever fragments of genealogy we can salvage." (Eugene Peterson, Practice Resurrection, 66,79)
Samuel G Johns, in ‘Mes Pensées’ (#11), May 2013, echoes the warning about ‘the deeply narrow, reductionist, even flawed view offered by the purely ‘immanent-frame’ of modern society. It places an implacable emphasis on the hic et nunc, the here and now, as well as the material. +[#/.. 3 consequences from Taylor? P35.]
Personhood.
Guy Brandon and others are concerned for how technology is reshaping us. What is all this tech doing to our brains, to our relationships, to our families and friends? Brandon writes – these technologies could ‘compromise our ability to relate by sensitising the mind to distraction [which] undermines our ability to love’ (2016, p.30).
The Master and his Emissary.
In a book of unprecedented scope, Iain McGilchrist presents a fascinating exploration of the differences between the brain's left and right hemispheres. He argues that the division of the brain into two hemispheres is essential to human existence, making possible incompatible versions of the world. Read a book review here and more insight on the topic.