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In a recent essay on the nature of Power, I posited that the most pressing philosophical and practical question of the day – and, as I now further reflect upon it, the most moral – is what might transpire if no further scientific advances could be made. If, in fact, humankind would have to make do with only the currently available technology, what would happen? What would happen if we put a halt to the never-ending quest for material control of the natural world?
I personally believe that given the scientific and technological ability we currently possess, which is quite considerable, problems of resource distribution, infrastructure, poverty and malnutrition are perfectly soluble, with determination and work. In short, the resolution of such global problems is contingent only upon human will, not human technological capacity. After all, we have thousands of sophisticated satellites encircling the globe, all manner of machinery, sources of energy and computing power, and both robotic and human labor. What cannot humankind achieve with such an armamentarium if obstacles inherent in human psychology, group and individual, can be overcome – obstacles such as greed, selfishness and the sadistic use of Power?
In the past, when the world was not so globally united, and when our technological capabilities were much less, the march towards further control via scientific discovery appeared to be essential, and human morality and psychology were weighted perhaps less prominently in this equation.
In the context of pondering these issues I happened to revisit a psychoanalytic classic, a paper which I regard as one of the most significant contributions to psychoanalytic thought after Freud’s own work: “The Fall of Man,” by K. R. Eissler. Eissler’s essay, published in 1975, ranges from the origins of life to the development and potentialities of the human psyche, and concludes in essence that the twin pillars of aggression and narcissism would overcome the restraint needed to prevent the large-scale deployment of nuclear weapons, making human extinction ultimately unavoidable.
Enveloped as we are within the Corona War in the Age of Covid, nuclear annihilation has been relegated to the shadows while another lethal agenda plays out. Yes, we now find ourselves in the midst of a concerted attempt at genocide at the hands of a cabal – planned purposeful murder – accomplished via a many-pronged and highly sophisticated operation that has kept the global population in thrall, eviscerated individual rights, and that has imposed a lethal and unnecessary injection in violation of body and soul, as part of an even more ambitious plan to control us all with further restrictions, surveillance and social credit systems in an ostensibly ‘new world order’ whose chief characteristic will be depopulation and slavery on a scale never imagined.
Every advance in understanding the natural world has been accompanied by an appropriation of knowledge in the service of Power. We speak of ‘grasping’ or ‘comprehending’ something, and our very language betrays the aggressive drive inherent in the pursuit of science. The word ‘science’ itself is derived from an Indo-European root meaning ‘to cut, to split’, the psychological implication being that we must take apart the object we study in order to possess it. And for every pacific use of technology, there is a corresponding martial one, inevitably. Knowledge is pursued, psychically speaking, for purposes of control and possession, even if such possession and control appear to result in no immediately apparent practical benefit other than satisfaction at having solved a riddle.
The penetration of the atom and the exploitation of nuclear forces constituted a watershed moment in the history of the species. The manipulation of the human genome constitutes another. Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed a glimpse of the devastating potential of the former, and the Covid so-called vaccines are showing us, in real time, the destructive capabilities of the latter.
I suspect our world would have been the better if such barriers had never been crossed.
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Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Neurotechnology could help people with disabilities use their thoughts to control devices in the physical world. It may also be useful in weapons systems. Private companies, militaries, and other organizations are funding neurotechnology research. Credit: US Army.
