Dependence on Independence
CityVP Manjit
Our dependence on independence is the reality we create. This dependence is a real thing or need within us, and it comes with both human costs and human values. The United States "Declaration of Independence" is a dependence on independence - but it is not necessarily a pathway to the liberation of any individual, it is simply an idea that is a dependence on nationality and identity as an idea.
We are all dependent on the womb to begin with, the Earth when we enter it and each other as we develop through the bookends of our existence. Without air the next step does not matter, without body we are as in the dark as the darkness that our brain sits in as it is covered by the bones of skull and the sheaths and fluids that protect it like cerbrospinal fluid, without water or food we are only a few fat layers away from becoming dust with the Earth.
Independence is valued by human beings as much as it is valued by social forms, but we don't think of independence as a dependence, and breaking that linkage makes no sense whatsoever unless we are able to hook our brain to a computer, download our consciousness and exist in a state where we can see anything, hear anything, feel anything, sense anything, taste anything or smell anything - and that state of nothingness is termed as the "abyss". The greatest form of "hell" has to be that state where (if it is possible) we achieve immortality and if so, that is a terrible and the most horrific manner imaginable to discover the value of dependence and the dependence necessary for our independence.
A word touted along with independence is freedom. The domain of being free is still a domain. It is not an horizon that touches the sky, something that a horizon cannot touch. Then there is what goes beyond a horizon and that constitutes metaphysical fun and how we indulge our imagination does not need to become a product or a vision, the independence of our thinking is equal to the dependence we create as a result of that thinking. We love novelty and sharing that novelty or idea or thought - and so dependence is the conduit to free us to marry thought with one and another :
Dependence of Independence goes beyond the dependence that keeps us tethered to things or situations which are within our power of becoming free from, but there is dependence that we become dependent on. Getting sick or infirm is a reality that comes with the temporal nature of our existence and we all need guardians and parents to protect us from the years we needed another human being to feed and protect us. That need is food but while we learn to eat our own food, the dependence a baby shares and we have for the rest of our lifetime is a dependence on love.
We can become independent of love or of our humanity but that is psychopathic, which is still a warped form of dependence because then we are losing faculties that enrich us, and while the danger of such a human being is real, the dependence of our independence means the continuity of protection and the consequent of nurturing and evolving our humanity can continue. We are very far removed as a species to touch the full power of our humanity, but we share the experiences of our animal self as much as other animals share their ways within each of their species - except animals have no need for a cell-phone or a fridge (unless a bear realizes that is where food is kept by human beings).
So it is we have this emerging technological dependence and within that we can still find our tiny space to build our dependence on independence. As Marshall McLuhan demonstrated, the electric age is an extension of our nervous system and simple awareness such as this pushes our dependence on independence to whole new spaces and places and informs us our own individual limitations and the wisdom of recognizing but yet still testing those limitations. That desire sits at the heart of what we term "human progress" of which technology is simply but one example. That we are still progressing to be fully human, where we understand our mechanical and animal being and how that connects wisdom to the independence we seek. So far history demonstrates much more unintended consequence rather than consequential wisdom.
The only reason we worry whether smart technology is making us dumb is because our dependence is on the technology and our dependence is not on our independence. We are not a modern day luddite if we learn what thinkers today question about the type of dependence that leads to unintended consequence, rather than dependence that leads to wisdom. Wisdom is not a social artifact, it is whatever we are (as an individual being) and the sum of all the "we"'s that are whatever we are.
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