The Crunchicles (1995- )
Post-Modernism is over; at least, its dominance over the western world.
Most western societies have shifted into a new cultural movement: The Crunchicles.
So what are the crunchicles?
The crunchicles are the chronicles of the crunch.
“Everything is crunching down on us, including ourselves”.
I know, it sounds pretty scary doesn’t it? I mean everything is going o.k. in the western world, right? The economy has never been so well; scientists are discovering new ways of doing things every single day; the internet provides us with tons of information about any subject we can think of; and even our beloved art is selling for record prices.
So why then call this period in time the crunchicles?
First of all, the crunch isn’t necessarily a bad thing; I just believe that there are two important crunches dominating the western world today; the major crunch and the minor crunch.
The Major Crunch
The crunch of knowledge efficiency
The major crunch represents our internal world (what we know) that is getting smaller and smaller proportionately to the increase of our external world (what we can know).
For example, even though the average highly educated Roman 2000 years ago had less knowledge or a smaller internal world than the average highly educated western now, they had a higher Knowledge efficiency. Their internal world and external world were closer to each other.
This Knowledge efficiency or Ke can be calculated by dividing that what we know by that what we can know. If we then multiply that number by 100 we’ll get the Ke as a percentage.
Ke = . what we know .
what we can know x 100
Ke = . Internal .
External x 100
Ke = . I .
E x 100
What caused our external world to increase so rapidly since the 1990s?
Access to knowledge
Before you can have access to knowledge, there must be knowledge. And even though some of the greatest scientific discoveries that brought a lot of knowledge were made during the modernism, the increase of knowledge started to happen faster and faster since the 1980s because there were more higher educated people than ever before in human history making new scientific discoveries and creating new technologies.
But the spread of all this new information was still happening relatively slowly in most societies. It was until the mid 1990s when the internet sparked a revolution in human communication that we suddenly had access to more information then we could handle. The western world changed almost overnight from a mass production culture, linked to post modernism and pop culture, into a mass distribution culture.
To understand the effect of this new mass distribution culture, imagine giving some of the indigenous peoples from the Amazon region that has never had any contact with other cultures, a personal computer, with access to the internet. At that very moment their Knowledge efficiency takes a huge plunder because their external world increases dramatically proportionately to their internal world.
I know it’s a little easy to make that comparison, because access to the internet is not enough; to just have access to the internet doesn’t mean that we also have access to all the information on the internet. There are many factors that influence how much access we have to all the information and therefore how big our external world is. Some of these factors are intelligence, wealth, education, language, personality, health, creativity, motivation etc.
But the comparison does explain a little bit what happened in the 1990s when more and more people got access to the internet. Their external world grew dramatically. Of course, so did their internal world. But their internal world didn’t increase nearly as dramatic as their external world and thus caused a crunch in their knowledge efficiency.
For the first time in human history our access to knowledge is superseding our intake of knowledge; we have now proportionately more access to knowledge and less intake of knowledge, even though in today’s societies the intake of knowledge is seen as more important. This crunch of knowledge efficiency is having a huge effect on our societies.
Like I said, “before you can have access to knowledge, there must be knowledge”.
The western culture is more educated now than ever before. There are more highly educated people now who’s education provides them with a better general understanding of things and therefore with more access to new information; think about this, scientists have more access to information than most people because they have all the right factors going for them, high intelligence, high education, many speak more then one language, they are extremely motivated, etc., yet it’s extremely hard, even for them, to acquire 100% of the known knowledge they have access to in their own field, while 300 years ago it was possible for natural philosophers (early scientists) to obtain 100% of all the known knowledge they had access to in more than one field and still find time to play a mean clavichord or write a great play. That’s how fast our external world is growing.
The bigger our external world gets the smaller our internal world will become proportionally to the external world.
What caused our internal world to increase so rapidly since the 1990s but still not fast enough to keep up with our external world?
Intake of knowledge
There was a time we could go to sleep and wake up to find the same kind of world again, only, with new information to think about. Now, we wake up to find a new world because the new information has already changed it. 8 hours of sleep has never felt so long as it feels now.
We need to constantly keep ourselves up to date if we want to know what’s going on. All of this has had a tremendous effect on our personalities, lives, thoughts, emotions etc., not to mention the effect it’s having on our children who are growing up more and more confused about all this information that is coming their way.
“Everything is crunching down on us, including ourselves”.
With “everything is crunching down on us” I’m referring to all the massive new information that is coming our way and that we have to take in; at least, if we want to realize our dreams and/or the dreams of those who love us, but have high expectations of us. This information is coming so fast that every single day we need to make more choices than ever before. Everything is fighting for our attention, because everything seems to be within our reach.
I don’t think that all this information coming our way is a bad thing, its great! Human beings have always focussed on expansion or growth, even in the dark ages. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, creatively, artistically, philosophically, scientifically etc., at any given time one or more of these concepts were important to the western culture.
Nothing has changed here; we are still focussing on expansion today.
The most important expansions of modernism are the expansion of scientific knowledge and believe that science can improve our lives by helping us understand the world better.
The most important expansions of post modernism are the concepts of human self reliance and self believe (Nietzsche: God is dead) and the idea that all cultures are important; there are no high and low cultures; all deserve to be studied and understood.
These expansions of human knowledge are still happening, but because they are happening so fast it’s hard to keep up; I think even impossible. We are limited by the speed with which we can learn and by the time we have to learn; these are important reasons for why our intake of knowledge is decreasing proportionately to our access to knowledge. A day only has 24 hours; a human life still reaches a maximum of around 110 years. We are still using 6 to10 hours a day to sleep. So while society is making our external world grow, the limitations of life is helping the crunch of our knowledge efficiency. Scientific progress is going too fast for the early 21st century human being; even scientists are now more specialized than ever before; and there seems to be a specialist in any subject. We are living in the crunch; and that is the story of the crunch; the chronicles of the crunch; the crunchicles.
With “including ourselves” I’m referring to what people are willing to put aside or risk in order to “make it”. Changing their personality; being someone they’re not; values that were still present during post modernism are now disappearing. Lives, ways of living, personalities, thoughts, emotions etc., all are changing rapidly and people don’t get the time to structure it all in their mind. We are doing things we never thought we would do; thinking things we never though we would think; treating people in ways we never thought we would treat them.
All this wanting or needing to “make it” is off course a direct result of the popular culture that immerged in the 1950s and 1960s, during post modernism. The world started to focus on self reliance and self believe. People started to develop very high expectations of what their lives could be and should be. But these high expectations weren’t based on the depth of the human psyche, but rather on the surface. Material things became more and more important and became surrogates for love, happiness and success. They became synonymous with individual human progress and during post modernism that was more important then scientific progress.
But guess what, the combination of people’s high expectations of themselves (post modernism, pop culture) and the crunchicles (Knowledge efficiency going down) has made pop art turn into a new art form that doesn’t support post modernism, but the crunchicles. I will show what art style I think is home to the crunchicles in my next blog post: “what art styles are dominating the crunchicles”.
Conclusion
What is causing the crunch of our knowledge efficiency?
1) the dramatic increase of knowledge and access to knowledge in the mid 1990s and
2) the limitations of our current human nature, both mentally and physically, that are making the intake of knowledge more difficult
The Minor Crunch
The crunch of life or society efficiency
The minor crunch represents our behaviour world (what we do) that is getting less and less rational proportionately to the increase of our internal world (what we know).
This Life or Society efficiency or Le/Se can be calculated by dividing that what we do by that what we know. If we then multiply that number by 100 we’ll get the Le/Se as a percentage.
. what we do .
Le/Se = what we know x 100
Le/Se = . Behaviour .
Internal x 100
Le/Se = . B .
I x 100
For example:
If we want to know the life efficiency of a single woman that is drinking a lot of alcohol during her pregnancy because she is depressed of a current job lost, we should first start by finding out what she does and what she knows:
What she does:
1) drink a lot of alcohol
What she knows:
1) drinking a lot of alcohol is bad
2) drinking alcohol during a pregnancy is bad
3) drinking alcohol during a depression is bad
4) being depressed from a job lost is natural
5) being depressed from a job lost while you’re a single woman is natural
6) being depressed from a job lost while you’re a single woman and expecting a child is natural
Now we can calculate her life efficiency (for this particular life experience or situation):
. what she does .
Le = what she knows x 100
Le = . 1 .
6 x 100
Le = 17%
Let’s now assume that she has less knowledge of these subjects:
What she knows:
1) drinking a lot of alcohol is bad
2) drinking alcohol during a pregnancy is bad
3) being depressed from a job lost is natural
Now her life efficiency is:
. what she does .
Le = what she knows x 100
Le = . 1 .
3 x 100
Le = 33%
Apparently the world is upside down because the less we know the better the choices we make; the more we know the worse the choices we make; this is the crunch of life efficiency.
Our internal world, of course, is now much bigger than at any given moment in the past. More and more information is coming our way and we are gladly enriching ourselves with some of this new information. Now, when we look at what is changing in our lives and societies and we compare it to what can be changing in our lives and societies, based on our knowledge or internal world, then there to is a crunch; the minor crunch.
Another example,
in the early 20th century we weren’t sure if smoking was bad, now that we do, we’re still smoking. Of course addiction and the fact that the tobacco industry weren’t telling the whole truth are factors here, but still, we do have the knowledge and we do have a choice.
We know better, yet we are not living better.
Our knowledge of how we should do things the right way is increasing and yet we continue to do the same things.
A few examples of some minor crunches:
These minor crunches are based on scientific research and religious or philosophical moral views that most westerners are aware of. Every single day we are dealing with these crunches. We see our children become more and more impulsive when making important choices in their lives.
When we sit down for a moment and really think about what we know, then we’ll realize that we are capable of making better choices. But it’s hard; people are competing against people for time, sex, love, space, money, power etc.; people are competing against animals for space; companies are competing against companies for important markets; countries are competing against countries for everything and nothing; Thank God there are no aliens living on Mars, I don’t want to be in that competition.
The crunchicles: a silent movement
Well, is anything really ever over? I think that with Influentialism I’ve shown that everything is connected to each other (check out “the philosophy of influentialism art” blog).
Nothing is really ever over. Things combine with each other, transform, evolve etc. But, at any given moment in time there are new ideas that as a reaction to older ideas and/or new discoveries, turn into movements and then dominate society.
Modernism was a reaction to new scientific discoveries and the changed views of what it means to be human.
Post modernism was a reaction to major events (WW1, WW2, capitalism, socialism) and modernistic ideas, Nietzsche, Carl Marx etc.
Right now the dominating movement is the crunchicles. People are struggling to keep up. The crunchicles is not an idea, it is not a thought, it does not effect; it is an effect. It’s the effect of the scientific progress of society (modernism) and human self reliance and self believe (post modernism) that are pushing each other upwards like two tectonic plates to form a giant volcano in our western culture. The eruption of this new volcano will be the moment people realize how much effect the crunchicles is having on their being. They will realize that there are two things they can do about it:
1) accept it or
2) adapt; by changing the basis of what it means to be human
Deciding on one of these two choices will take a long time and a lot of debate. But I think that it’s not in human nature to just accept things. We want to move forward, see what’s behind the horizon. I think that we will choose to adapt; and by the time we make that choice, probably during the course of the 21st century, we will have moved into the next dominating movement: transhumanism, a movement that is all about transformation and acceptance of this transformation. This period in time will be on of the most important periods in human history; only comparable to the renaissance. This period will also be one of the most fiercely fought amongst intellectuals and the general public. This is the movement that will push us into posthumanism; the idea of a new kind of human being that has some people scared now, but is eventually unavoidable.
I don’t see posthumanism happening for another hundred years or more, but it will happen one day.
The crunchicles play an important role in all of this. I believe it will force people into transhumanism. Our nature and the very fact that we have such a competitive society, caused by post modernism (pop culture), will eventually make people accept enhancements that change the meaning of what it is to be human; and that is just the start.
I’ll write about this transition in one of my future blog posts.
For now, the crunchicles is a very “silent” movement. It’s still dormant, waiting to erupt.
It’s a transitional period between post modernism and transhumanism.
Trans-Art
The poem below is actually before it’s time, its part of what I call transhumanism art, transformation art or just Trans-Art; the art style or movement that I believe will dominate the late crunchicles and the early transhumanism. It’s all about exploring once personal experience, acceptance or rejection of the concept of transhumanism or transformation of the human being.
Father & Son
Father: Look son; behind that horizon; there lies everything that you can know and can be.
Son: But how should I get there father? There is nothing fast enough to bring me there.
Father: That is something you have to work out son.
Son: But I don’t want to father; I don’t want to leave you behind; I don’t want to loose you.
Father: Haha, you will never loose me son.
Son: how do you know father?
Father: There are some things a father just knows my son.
Son: But if I find a way to look behind that horizon, I won’t be your son anymore; I’ll be changed beyond recognition. I might not even like you anymore.
Father: I’m not too worried about it; during puberty you hated my guts.
Son: That was different father, I didn’t know better. Now I’m at the break of a new revolution; the evolution of my mind.
Father: You can evolve all you want son, take all the space you want, consume all the elements in the universe you can, but still nothing will ever change between us. You will always be my son because one thing will always remain.
Son: What is that father?
Father: The time order of the universe; I came before you. Even if you outgrow me, become mightier than the seas, higher than the mountains, stronger then the earthquakes, you could never change that much that I won’t recognize you. I know your weaknesses son; I came before you. I can spot you out of every line-up; I came before you. You are the product of my imagination. I came before you and that is why I will always call you son and you will always call me father.
Son: Thank you father.
Modernism and Post Modernism
During modernism (that dominated the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century), expansion of scientific knowledge couldn’t happen fast enough. Artists, philosophers and scientists, all where eager to use these new ideas of the universe and the human psyche in their work and to discus them with each other in able to understand for themselves how it all works. But then came two World Wars and it was especially the Second World War that made many question whether or not it was possible to understand it all. These questions are the start of post modernism, just after WW2. The artists, philosophers and scientists were still focussing on expansion in the post modernism period, but they were questioning whether or not these expansions would mean a progress of human life or the human psyche. These ideas are the cause why many started to look at the world in a very sceptical way and as a result were less interested in understanding the depth of things, including the human psyche. They were more interested in the obvious, the surface. I think that popular culture immerged from post modernistic thinking and that the greatest battle ever fought between modernism and post modernism, at least in art, is the battle between abstract expressionism and pop art to become the most important art concept of the 1960s. I know that some would disagree with me on that, because pop art is seen as a part of modern art, but I see pop art as the first post modern art. Its refusal to look at the deeper meaning of the popular culture, but rather to accept it, celebrate it and to only show its surface, makes it very post modern to me.
Influentialism Art and Split-Art
Both these styles that I’ve created are a part of the crunchicles. They are not the first art styles to arise from the crunchicles. The most dominating ones I will write about and also show in my next blog: “what art styles are dominating the crunchicles”.
For me personally, the crunchicles are very much alive. When I created influentialism in 2006, I hadn’t though about the concept of the crunchicles yet. But when I think about how and why I’ve created these two art styles it is clear to me now, that I was inspired by some of the effects of the crunchicles.
When I came with the notion of the small hold the large (influentialism), the idea that everything is connected to each other, I was really trying to find the foundation of humanity; and creativity is all about, what was there before and what will be there after; creativity is one of the basis of what it means to be human and as long as that never changes, we will always keep a piece of our humanity alive.
(Check out “the philosophy of influentialism art” blog).
Last notes
Leeyon Romany, 08-06-2008