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Some societies happened to be structured in ways that make such devastation far less likely than in other societies. These societies remain open to new ideas and new ways, and yet not so open as to let just any young whippersnapper of an idea sway them. They ruthlessly test new ideas in a vast metaphorical arena known as the marketplace of ideas. These churning internal societal processes of creative destruction, so much more invigorating and benevolent than those imposed by emperors and kings, this furious ‘natural’ selection of ideas, this life’s breath of truly free societies, this is what we call cultural evolution. And, we value it for the same reasons we value the biological kind.
Mackay is wrong, profoundly wrong about evolution. Evolution is the natural unfolding of the universe. It is not at all immoral. Neither is it progress by command, although it does tend to generate self-organizing systems of growing complexity. Particles into atoms. Atoms into molecules. Molecules into stars, planets, and life. Life into thought, poetry and song. Ideas into vast arrays of ordered matter and energy, and profoundly human mindfulness, understanding and joy.
What is the universe? It is emergence. |
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