I read this book years ago and was quite taken with it. Superorganisms, memes, pecking order.
He pretty well predicted the revival of Islam's long jihad against the West.
It's part of the reason I focus on group status as crucial to survival, along with wealth and power.
(A huge part of group status is the group's beliefs about itself. If you believe your people are The Chosen, it will show. If you believe your people are The Cancer of Human History (with thanks to now happily dead Chosen People member Susan Sontag), it will show.
'via Blog this'
3 comments:
The review by the reader who said that it destroyed all of his previous views makes the book seem intimidating. As a previous reader, could you give a brief overview of the ideas discussed in the book? I assume that "the Lucifer Principle" has to do with rebellion or self-reification. The political version of "better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven"?
-Sean
http://akarlin.com/2010/07/15/review-lucifer-principle-bloom/
The Lucifer Principle is not about rebelling, but his assertion that what we call evil is a natural and therefore unavoidable byproduct of the structures of nature required for survival. It appeals to my Gnostic side,which holds that Creation and Fall are the same.
The central power of the group, of status in the pecking order and of memes are the three basic idea. Nature, red in tooth and claw, including us.
Hm. Seems like "evil" in this context is what I think of as "unfortunate necessities." "Evil" is a word I reserve for things that seem totally UN-natural, something that is not exhibited in nature. Cannibalizing other people because you like the taste of human flesh and not for survival, for instance. I am unaware of any species of animal whose members consume each other for pleasure; there are plenty who eat their own to survive.
The Gnostic concept of the Fallen Creation certainly has its appeal, since it explains the irritating habit of the rules of the universe being disobeyed left and right, but I can think of a few possible rebuttals:
1. The human bias rebuttal. The idea of an imperfect universe comes from an anthropocentric worldview. The universe is imperfect because it does not meet human standards of perfection. God would see the universe as perfect since, unless our expectations of God are very wrong, God is perfect and is incapable of making imperfect things on his own. The rules aren't being broken; things are proceeding exactly as God intended them to.
2. The literary foil rebuttal. How can we understand imperfection unless there are examples of perfection? A person who lived their entire life below ground could be told what the sky is, but they would not understand it until they saw it. Thus, God allows imperfections to arise through the interactions of the laws of nature so that we may appreciate perfection in the universe, and through that, the imperfections in the universe.
3. The ignorance rebuttal. What we call imperfections or the breaking of rules arise from the following of rules of which we are currently unaware. Thus, imperfections are actually gaps in our own knowledge of the universe.
1 appeals to my Catholic upbringing. 2 appeals to my inner writer. 3 appeals to my inner scientist. But sooner or later, we'll all get the answers to our questions- even if they aren't what we would like.
-Sean
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