The First Post

We are in need of a renaissance, no less than medieval man needed to be lifted from the dark ages into the light of the modern period, so do we need to be awoken from the slumber of the scientific and digital tyranny to which we have descended.  But this is not a blog for luddites or it would be more aptly named, it is not to shun the progress that science and technology have brought us, for their bounties are legion, the purpose of this blog is to examine and put to scrutiny the moral existence of man in his new advanced surroundings.

So we are clear from the start by moral I do not mean or wish to have it inferred that I am referring to sexual morality, which is what seems to pass for moral discussion in the modern age, and is the only thing that seems to divide us morally, as in the case of gay rights, or on which we unanimously agree, as in the case of infidelity. I grant that sexual morality is a subset of a broader moral view but it is not the one I wish to dwell on here. I am concerned with the more classical question of what does it mean to be a good person and what does it mean to live a good life.

I hope to accomplish a few things with this blog which is to discuss random thoughts that come to me about art, film, poetry, travel, literature, philosophy, psychology, politics, and any other subject that appeals to me. But the thread that will bind it all together is the pursuit of a morally good life, something to which I aspire. Some of what I write will be personal, some of it will be academic, and some of it undoubtedly will not be worth its digital ink, but nevertheless, at the risk of being cliche, the unexamined life is not worth living.

So why then do I say that we are in need of a renaissance? I don't think I can answer that in one single post but the answer will undoubtedly reveal itself over the course of this blog. But if I can summarize it is this; that we have become slaves to our technology, our media and to a formulaic way of living. We have effectively  ceded control over any moral discussion of how we want to live as individuals or as a community to  technology. To question technology or to ask how do we want technology to be a part of our lives and our societies is akin to medieval heresy.  Our politics and politicians have been reduced to ministers of an economic system, where the primary function is to ensure the well functioning of the economy. No one is asking the question what kind of a world do we want to live and what kind of a people do we want to be.

It is said that we get the leaders that we deserve, and our leaders today are caricatures of ourselves. They are one-dimensional and creations of a technological media. If I am a reactionary it is in this, I long for the days when politicians were humans, they drank to much, smoked cigars and were ruthless and relentless in their pursuits. Today they are vegetarians who attend church appropriately, they where sweater vests and or suits when it is relevant, of course they exercise and have read all the right books and generally are bland and boring but certainly not offensive to anyone.

The reasons for all of this are many and I would not put the burden on technology alone, I can only hope that this blog will somehow contribute to a dialogue on who we are going to be as technology advances faster and faster and the whirlwind of media fails to provide us a rock on which we can stand. We are morally adrift and the time, as always, is now to begin questioning our moral purpose.