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William and I exchanged several emails over a short period
of time. The subject matter discussed was based on an article I wrote for TAF entitle Are We
A Functional Culture? In that article I attempted to, at the very least, discuss some issues
regarding the day to day existence within North American culture. When William read the article he
sent me a note that said "I read through the question of functional and dysfunctional societies
and generally speaking I have a completely different view." And indeed he does. Having worked
along side the likes of Joseph Campbell, among others at the Stanford Research Institute William has
a much broader perspective, almost a spiratualistic pragmatism in his views. We corresponded for about
a week and left off with me having given him a whole new series of questions based inpart on his answers
to the questions presented below. Those questions and answers will be featured in a later issue of
TAF. In the mean time, I hope you enjoy our little discussion below as much as I did.
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TAF: In regards to the article "Are We A Functional Culture", how or what would you personally define as functional culture? WCL: Cultures are evolutionary engines. They are reflected from whatever the culture decides. Decisions are the fuel of a culture. Once a culture puts itself forward through a stream of history as the United States has, then it has put itself on the path to burnout. This truly becomes complex. To accomplish what I need to say, I will speak in metaphor. Comes on like this. We touch a match to the tinderbox. It begins to smolder toward greatness but at that moment it is nothing but a growing spark. It can hope all it wants to but the reality is only when the spark catches. Change happens. Cultures are no different from cells. They too go through mutations and we hear the cry of the culture as it suffers and plunges into protectivism. That's when the government becomes protective. We see it everywhere in our news. All of the tragedies of the day: John Jones Killed in Pile Up, Route Five Closed: Chemical Spill and what else is there? TAF: As we approach, and enter, the next millennium which direction do see Western Culture going? (imploding, dissolving, transforming into...) WCL: I have been a transformationalist from the time that I worked with some of the seminal people in that arena: Peter Schwartz, Duane Elgin, Mark Markley, Joseph Campbell, and others at Stanford Research Institute. What a team had gathered there? There is a circle of people who are sometimes coming together who will survive the catastrophe and they are the Rainbow People, the Dead Family, the alternative seekers. These will be the people who procreate the new generation and the new culture. As I look at the future, I see nothing shy of disaster for humanity. We are being challenged ecologically. Mother Nature is striking back already: Cancer, AIDS, new strains of tuberculosis, a new medical onslaught is hitting us. There are those people whom I've met out there on the Powwow Trail, the Grateful Dead, The Rainbow people, alternative communities internationally coming alive as though in anticipation of what is coming down the corridors of history. They may well become the back waters of culture. Not even footnotes in history. In this way these sub-cultures may emerge to create the new western culture. They contain an amalgam of thought that at its core respects Mother Earth and all sentient beings thereon. It is merging and coming together as a coherent philosophy to live by. This is unusual because it is happening globally. Never before in history has the world ever been so multi-culturally bound together and yet the irony is that racism continues to rip humanity apart. Maybe we aren't as well off as we think we are. The dominate culture in place at the moment is failing and at the same time, as throughout history it is creating its elements of survival in these sub-cultures. We must pay clear attention to even if we do not agree with their philosophy. It's good to check out what's happening on the edge of your reality. TAF: In regards to Western Culture, how do you see the issues of functional and dysfunctional as related to the Christian notions of good and evil? WCL: I don't. There is no such thing as functional and dysfunctional. None. In order to understand this, you need to go into the unified field and talk from there. This is where one feels that sensation of being at one with the universe. Conflict is only because it exists in the dual world. (This duality discussion is not even real but we have to talk this way in order that we communicate with each other.) There are many worlds that we can live in. All we have to do is come into contact with them. Harmony exists when we understand that we are all human bings simply expressing ourselves through different motifs. It is then that the tapestry of being human is real. On the issue of Christianity? It is coming down in its death throws. Today, it seems to me that we are changing our views of what's good and what's evil. If you run back some twenty five years ago and take a look, Jack Kavorkian could never have done anything close to what he has already done. The State of Oregon could never have passed its suicide law. Who would have possibly thought about dignity when you travel off into the nether-world? These are the real changes that are developing beneath our feet. These are the events in our modern world that are changing everything. We have a few years to go before all of this comes down and becomes the dominate social and cultural structure. Right now there are serious and more traditional views being played out. For instance, we do have freedom of speech given to us via the Constitution but there are governmental officials in Congress who want to alter our freedoms because they think that our children should not be sexually educated or excited. They fear what they call terrorists. TAF: Throughout recorded history there has always been a degree of societal/political upheaval around major century or millennial changes. What are your views on the current and near future condition or state of Western Culture with this in mind? WCL: Well, we can just travel back to the last turn of the century and see so much along the lines of what we are seeing today. Yes, we seem to have a cycle here. If you look directly at the turn of the 19th to the 20th centuries, we moved from a world of the past and into the technological revolution that has created the 20th Century. It was in 1896 that Madame Currie began her examination of radium and thus launched Quantum Mechanics. It was during this time too that philosophers were haggling over the new ethics and Darwin's notions that came to be evolution. Changes occurred. Just like now. But the difference now is that we are shifting a new millennium. We are involved within a deep, spiritual transformation within global culture. I may well be stepping far out on this but it seems to me that the old religions are being rejected and something else is growing up in the forest of technology and ethics. That's a huge question right there. TAF: With regards to the coming end of one millennium and beginning of another, what role, if any, do you see the apocalyptic myth that is central to many, if not all, cultures having? WCL: Never in the history of the world, as transformations arrive and there have been many, do we see a real apocalypse. However, if one steps way back and takes a look we see that when changes really happen that change the world as we see it, we often fail to notice it because we grow into it all. We never feel evolution. We never really feel the nudge of history when we decide one way or another about this and that. It is from generation to generation exactly what it is. It is only people who are stuck who fail to feel the change. There you have it. To be continued... |