A Note. My work on the "Trump" pieces has followed from an overflow of inchoate intimations concerning the present state of the world and its future. At all levels I see the regressive pull of the past, from wanting to return to some prior glory to trying to understand the present situation through the vehicles of past understanding. We cannot go back and we cannot understand the future while looking backward. We can only open ourselves to witnessing the full horror that is happening in and to the world, in and to human beings, in and to the rest of creation. There is an enormous fear of and loathing for the strange, for otherness, for difference, for incongruity, for disparity, for doubt—all those qualities that Keats pointed to as characterizing "negative capability." If we don't welcome these things, as Baucis and Philemon welcomed the "strangers who were gods," then will we experience the fate of the villagers who locked the doors, who sent the strangers away, who did not welcome the divine visitors? Their fate was to die in a great flood, leaving only the generous-hearted Baucis and Philemon alive. And, yes, I am aware of the irony of referring "back" to Baucis and Philemon. It's like the "hope" left in Pandora's box. My deeper intuition, however, is that hope is gone as well. "Something else" is in store. Of this, I am convinced.

I've been brooding. When I brood, I write, I doodle. Brooding provides room for negative intuitions, dark intuitions. Making such stuff public, even in a small way is risky, risky because of the possibility that what seems so obvious in the brooded world is, in reality, only a mirror reflecting one's own world. Still, even the strongest projections cannot obscure what is present, what is looming, what is coming.

On a lighter note, my grandson Ben Lockhart, and one of the best non-Asian Go players in the world, was just interviewed by the New Yorker on the current match between Lee Se-dol and Google's Deep Mind Alpha-Go computer. The computer has won the best of five match, but all five games will be played. Lee won the fourth game. For the first time, Alpha-Go made a mistake and recognized its error too late. Here's the link:

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/in-the-age-of-google-deepmind-do-the-young-go-prodigies-of-asia-have-a-future

The Meaning of Not-Human

One of the major conclusions in my book (in progress) The Commodification of Desire, is that the value of humans is being replaced by the value of money. For example, climate change denial is driven by valuing short-term profit over long-term human existence. This process is ubiquitous and is continuing to escalate its profound consequences at all levels of human function. Unintended consequences—coupled with ignored consequences—are quickening the ascendancy of the not-human replacement of the human.

The not-human takes varied forms. A catastrophic hurricane is not-human, though humans now play a role in increasing the likelihood of catastrophic forces never seen before. For the first time, the global life-extinction process currently underway is aided and abetted by humans. At present, humans—at least those in control—seem incapable of changing course. Such extremity is necessary to bring about the conditions of "something else," conditions that might form the generative eros for welcoming what Jung called the "Coming Guest." I think it safe to say the Coming Guest will be shocking and will inaugurate a new age for humans, unlike anything humans have experienced before. But not yet. The old dominant is breaking down, but not fully so. The new dominant is emerging and not fully recognizable. It takes time.

As the old dominant breaks down there is a tendency to escalate holding onto old patterns. This grasping often appears as a renewed "vitality of the familiar" as well as extreme attempts to "bring back" patterns of previous times. This is misleading, but can be very compelling in the short-term. As the new dominant emerges, it comes with elements that threaten complete destruction of what has gone before. Such destruction is not inevitable, but it is as if there needs to be a "clearing away of the rubble” of prior structures and dynamics before the "new" emerges in forms that are experienced as new. Some areas of human activity will be witness to and carriers of the new before others will. Look to non-mainstream art to reveal the first signs.

The not-human has both absolute and relative aspects. An asteroid smashing into earth, a binary black hole entering the solar system, an enormous electromagnetic emission from the sun—all these would have life-destructive consequences for humans. Of course, these have always been possible and so are not exactly "new" possibilities—though they would be new to humans. These are examples of absolute not-human forces. There are many such forces on the earth as well. It is here where humans may be engaging in behavior that escalates the negative potential for these factors to replace the human with the not-human. Climate change, ecological poisoning, and biosphere destruction are prime examples. Other examples are organisms such as viruses and bacteria that may be escalating in their not-human potential to eliminate humans as a result of what humans are doing. In any event, all these types of absolute not-human forces, are increasing in potential for destructive impacts on humans. Humans seem unable or unwilling to deal with such realities.

What do I mean by not-human in a relative sense?

We know that conscious integration of the shadow is essential for individuation— never-ending process. We know that the extent of shadow integration is quite small and that the population of those humans engaged in individuation is smaller yet. In Commodification of Desire, I propose that it is largely the human shadow elements that will be most rapidly and readily "computerized" by artificial intelligence. Psychopathic greed is already computerized via computer algorithms that played such a part on the financial collapse of 2008, and this process has accelerated since and points to a new collapse not far off. With the advent of immersion in virtual worlds coupled with “somesthetic” computerization, it is now possible to satisfy "lust" in high degree. The addictive potential of this bodes poorly for enhancing real-world relational dimensions of love. The more "positive" human qualities will not readily nor rapidly fall victim to this accelerating process of computer replacement of humans. It is this potential of human characteristics to be computerized that, in a relative sense, can be described as becoming "not-human." In addition, the more humans are tethered to their computer devices, the more insensitive to and unaware of they will become to this process of replacement.

We know that humans are capable of great atrocities and when this happens we call such humans brutes, animals, sub-human creatures, monsters, and all manner of evil incarnate. It is all of these qualities which together are going to be readily and most easily computerized and in this sense this becomes as example of the human replacement process.

So what has this to do with Mr. Trump?

Robert Paxton, the pre-eminent historian of fascism, has warned against using this analogy in relation to Mr. Trump because historical analogies distort the understanding of the present. Comparing Mt. Trump to Hitler or Mussolini is an example of "read made" analysis I described earlier. If, in Mr. Trump's campaign, you sense an absence of higher level values and a strong presence of identifiable shadow elements, as I do, then what we are witnessing is a powerful replacement process. It is perhaps more important than we realize what the synchrony of Mr. Trump's ascendency and the defeat of the best human by the Alpha-Go computer is pointing to. It is perhaps more important than we realize that a salesman may become president, an iconic personification of the overwhelming success of what Bernays unleashed: that the purpose of humans is to consume according to the dictates and to the benefit of those controlling the wires. This process can only be enhanced by the extremity of artificial intelligence particularly as the resources of the puppet masters will be in position to make early and full use of it. Whether we know it or not, we are tethered herd-like to this process. It is the commodification of desire made visible.

How this will develop is anyone's guess, but develop it will, and to great extent before we will see the Coming Guest.