Gigabyte 025

[electronichound]

Cultural traditions and holidays are often standalone complexes, copies without an actual original. Halloween is one that springs immediately to mind. Modern holidays seem less focused on spirituality and community than on consumerism, which a late twentieth-century writer dubbed "the bastard child of capitalism and fascism

Comments

[anomnipresence]

Are you saying "they" aren't cynical now?

[electronichound]

They've perhaps matured out of that studied phase of finding everything lacking.

[anomnipresence]

Hmm. Maybe.

A person once told me that, having removed ourselves from the process of evolution and natural selection, we have nothing left to do but consume and enjoy bodily pleasures.

[electronichound]

That's one philosophy, but not one that I subscribe to.

[anomnipresence]

Don't subscribe, in which regard?

[electronichound]

I'm an atheist, but I don't believe that all there is to life is satisfying our reptilian brain.

[anomnipresence]

Is that so? [She sounds genuinely interested, and not at all condescending. The cyborgs are foreign and amazing.] What ought we do, then, when our time is no longer spent struggling?

[electronichound]

If satisfying our reptilian brains was the purpose of life, then human beings wouldn't waste all their energy with art and science, and wouldn't fall into depression and social dysfunction when prevented from accomplishing more than satisfying bodily pleasure.

[anomnipresence]

Ah, of course. I think most people would agree with that. But I'm talking about a situation when all of our needs are met... and one could argue that those things you mentioned are susceptible to overindulgence, too.