A narcoleptic in the chicken coop of history: notes of a passive aggressive philosopher, part 1

Is it possible to work locally and think globally as the old activist slogan exhorts us? What if we want to, but i our hands are tied, our brains are quietly liquifying in the solvent of information? What good does a glimpse of the blue marble do us anymore?

When did mankind begin to think of the globe as a factor in individual life? When Napolean III commissioned the massive renewal of Paris, beginning with the excavation of eight lane radial boulevards radiating from the center of the city, engineers and planners were amazed to discover families of Parisiens who had never ventured more than 4 blocks from their home in the course of several generations! Now that is parochial. But it stands for the vast majority of humanity who do not have global horizons projected onto the inner surface of their hi-tech augmented thought goggles.

For the record, I was one of the kids who came of age with a Saturn rocket lighting up the night skies, the lunar lander a metallic zygote touching the great egg/moon with an act of fertilization which promised to give birth to the New Man. It was a moment midwifed by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG and consecrated by the martydom of a King and a Royal Pretender.

I am sobered by the failure of my generation to make the new man stand upright in any form except a wooden effigy, however soulful and cool it might be.

The New Man is supine, a horizontal figure that recalls the image of Marat in his bath, Gulliver wired by the Lilliputs, Siva sleeping despite the attentive entreaties of Shakti.

Shakti entreats. The active feminine is empowered to rouse the sleeping masculine spirit from its irresponsible slumber, to join the dance. It is a fraught dance, but it is life.

How does the globe, and global consciousness, help or hinder this romance?