Critical Review of Mindful Nation UK;
Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 68(1),
pp.133-136, 2016,
ID: 1123926 DOI:10.1080/13636820.2015.1123926
Mindful Nation UK – Report by the Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group (MAPPG) 82pp., October 2015 – available free online at http://www.themindfulnessinitiative.org.uk/
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Professor Terry Hyland – Education & Psychology, University of Bolton, UK – hylandterry@ymail.com /terry.hyland@mindfulness.ie
The Report was commissioned in 2014 as a result of the growing interest in mindfulness and mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) in an expanding range of domains including health and care services, psychology, psychotherapy, leadership and management, work in prisons, workplace training, the military, and education at all levels. Members of the Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group (MAPPG) – some of whom had experienced mindfulness practice for themselves – intended the project to achieve three main aims:
• review the scientific evidence and current best practice in mindfulness training
• develop policy recommendations for government, based on these findings
• provide a forum for discussion in Parliament for the role of mindfulness and its implementation in public policy
Recommendations – all generally favourable to mindfulness practices – are made for the introduction of MBIs in four key areas: health, education, the workplace and the criminal justice system (8).
This remarkable interest in practices rooted in Buddhist contemplative traditions by Members of the British Parliament – especially in a period of economic austerity and cutbacks in public services – stems directly from the ‘mindfulness revolution’ (Boyce 2011) which has swept virus-like through academia, public life and popular culture over the last decade or so. Mindfulness is a now a meme, a product, a fashionable spiritual commodity with enormous market potential and – in its populist forms – has been transmuted into an all-pervasive ‘McMindfulness’ phenomenon. As Purser and Loy (2013) argue:
While a stripped-down, secularized technique -- what some critics are now calling "McMindfulness" -- may make it more palatable to the corporate world, decontextualizing mindfulness from its original liberative and transformative purpose, as well as its foundation in social ethics, amounts to a Faustian bargain. Rather than applying mindfulness as a means to awaken individuals and organizations from the unwholesome roots of greed, ill will and delusion, it is usually being refashioned into a banal, therapeutic, self-help technique that can actually reinforce those roots (1).
The Foreward to the MAPPG Report (10) was written by Jon Kabat Zinn who – in establishing his mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programme at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1979 – is almost single-handedly responsible for the establishment of the current boom industry in mindfulness (Hyland 2015a). In the academic sphere, mindfulness has been taken up most energetically by psychologists, psychotherapists and educators, and there has been an exponential growth of publications measuring the impact of MBSR and related mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) programmes on anxiety, depression and chronic pain sufferers, on addictions of various kinds, and to enhance mind/body well-being generally. Since his original MBSR programme
has played such a large part in generating much of this research activity, Kabat-Zinn’s criticisms of contemporary developments are understandably nuanced. Acknowledging the ‘challenging circumstances relating to the major cultural and epistemological shifts’ as Buddhist meditation was introduced into clinical and psychological settings, Williams & Kabat-Zinn (2013) observe that:
Buddhist scholars, in particular, may feel that the essential meaning of mindfulness may have been exploited, or distorted, or abstracted from its essential ecological niche in ways that may threaten its deep meaning, its integrity, and its potential value (11).
Other commentators have been more forthright in their reaction to the growth of scales for measuring mindfulness. Grossman (2011), in particular, has been forceful in his criticisms of mindfulness measurement techniques, particularly those relying upon self-reports by MBI course participants. The key weaknesses are that they de-contextualise mindfulness from its ethical and attitudinal foundations, measure only specific aspects of mindfulness such as the capacity to stay in the present moment, attention span or transitory emotional state and, in general terms, present a false and adulterated perspective on what mindfulness really is. The proliferation of mindfulness measuring techniques which has accompanied the exponential growth of programmes has exacerbated this denaturing of the original conception and it is now no longer clear precisely what is being measured.
In a recent article in The Guardian designed to accompany the publication of the MAPPG Report, Kabat-Zinn (2015) re-iterated his definition of mindfulness as awareness of the present moment with curiosity and kindness, and warned against ‘opportunistic elements’ for whom ‘mindfulness has become a business that can only disappoint the vulnerable consumers who look to it as a panacea’ (1). The ‘opportunistic elements’ warned against by Kabat-Zinn have have now managed to mutate mindfulness into a commodified consumerist product used to sell everything from colouring books and musical relaxation CDs to “apps” for mindful gardening, cooking and driving. Such commercial activity, arguably, results in the misuse of mindfulness, whereas the inclusion of mindfulness in US army training regimes and by Google in staff development programmes (Stone 2014) clearly raises issues about the outright abuse of MBIs since foundational mindfulness values such as right livelihood, loving-kindness, compassion and non-materialism are self-evidently and fundamentally at odds with aspects of the core business of corporations and the military.
The neuroscientific and clinical evidence for the effectiveness of MBIs is, as the MAPPG Report outlines, robust, and this may justify the recommendations (9) for applications in the criminal justice system (randomised trials with offender populations), and the National Health Service (expansion of MBCT access for those with recurrent depression), but the extension of MBIs into education and the workplace is more problematic. Recommendations are made for the establishment of pilot schools to pioneer mindfulness teaching, and there are proposals for greater collaboration between the Department for Education and health providers alongside suggestions for the introduction of online training programmes for teachers (34). In relation to the workplace, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is asked to ‘demonstrate leadership in working with employers to promote the use of mindfulness’, and mindfulness programmes for public sector staff are recommended in order to ‘combat stress and improve organisational effectiveness’ (46).
Applications in the health service and with offenders are essentially remedial, thus directly connecting them with foundational mindfulness principles concerned with relieving suffering. In education and work on the other hand, there has been a tendency for this core transformational function to be co-opted in order to achieve specific operational objectives, and such pragmatic purposes have obscured the links with the foundational moral principles. In education, such practical aims have included enhanced self-esteem/control and improved focus/attention span and, in the workplace, reduction of employee stress, lower rates of absenteeism and enhanced communication skills (Hyland 2015b). All this seems quite some way from the ethical values which Kabat-Zinn and mainstream mindfulness practitioners would ideally wish to advocate.
Harvey (2014) has described in graphic detail how the voracious appetite of neo-liberal capitalism has come to devour all aspects of public and private spheres bringing about the total commodification of everyday life. The scramble by large corporations to jump on the mindfulness bandwagon has direct parallels with the expropriation of the Protestant Ethic to serve capitalist interests during the Industrial Revolution. On the current model, the capitalisation of mindfulness has produced an ideal consumer product with a handy dual purpose which, on the one hand, promises to alleviate stress in employees – often in organisations whose ruthless and draconian working conditions have caused such stress in the first place (see Purser & Ng 2015) – and, on the other, a commodity with infinite sales potential in a spiritually impoverished culture shot through with attention deficit disorder and late-capitalist angst.
It would be churlish, indeed, to discourage potential participants from gaining any benefits they can from the mindfulness sessions offered in schools and workplaces. The examples of MBIs at work cited in the MAPPG Report – such as the Finance Innovation Lab and Transport for London – note improvements in team working and the reduction of employee stress and absenteeism (44). However, all this is quite remote from the cultivation of the values and dispositions which form the heart of mindfulness practice. All those concerned with applying mindfulness in the workplace would do well to note Kabat-Zinn’s (2015) warning that ‘it can never be a quick fix’, and that there are grave dangers in ignoring ‘the ethical foundations of the meditative practices and traditions from which mindfulness has emerged’ (ibid).
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References
Boyce, B.(ed)(2011). The Mindfulness Revolution. Boston, MA, Shambhala Publications
Grossman, P. (2011). Defining mindfulness by how poorly I think I pay attention during everyday awareness and other intractable problems for psychology’s (re)invention of mindfulness: Comment on Brown et al. (2011). Psychological Assessment, 23, 1034 –1040
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Harvey, D. (2014). Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism. London, Profile Books
Hyland, T. (2015a). On the Contemporary Applications of Mindfulness: Some Implications for Education; Journal of Philosophy of Education, 49(2),170-186
Hyland, T. (2015b). McMindfulness in the Workplace: Vocational Learning and the Commodification of the Present Moment; Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 67 (2), 219–234
Kabat-Zinn, J.(2015). Mindfulness has huge health potential – but McMindfulness is no panacea; The Guardian, 20.10.15; http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/20/mindfulness-mental-health-potential-benefits-uk , accessed 3.11.15
Purser, R. & Loy, D. (2013). Beyond McMindfulness; Huffington Post, 1/7/13, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ron-purser/beyond-mcmindfulness_b_3519289.html; accessed 14/7/15
Purser, R. & Ng, E. (2015). Corporate Mindfulness is Bullsh*t: Zen or No Zen, You’re Working Harder and Being Paid Less. Salon, 25.9.15.
Stone, M. (2014). Abusing the Buddha: How the U.S. Army and Google co-opt mindfulness. Salon, 17.3.14
Williams, J.M.G. & Kabat-Zinn, J. (eds)(2013). Mindfulness: Diverse Perspectives on its Meaning, Origins and Applications. Abingdon, Routledge
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Spirituality, Mind-Body, Gender, Ecology, Ageing, Peace, Scrapbook (in English and Korean)
2018/09/29
1809 Mindfulness and “Educational New Ageism” - Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education
Mindfulness and “Educational New Ageism” - Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education
Marina Schwimmer and Kevin McDonough
Subject: Educational Politics and Policy, Educational Purposes and Ideals, Educational Theories and Philosophies, Education and Society
Online Publication Date: Sep 2018DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.175
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In This Article
Introduction
Mindfulness-Based Intervention in Educational Settings
Contemporary Educational Research on Mindfulness
Mindfulness as a New Age Practice
New Ageism in Contemporary Educational Settings
The Need for Critical Scrutiny of Mindfulness Education
Therapeutic and Entrepreneurial Dimensions of MBIs
The Undertheorized Political Dimension of MBIs
Conclusion
Further Reading
References
-----------
Summary and Keywords
Mindfulness meditation is a growing social phenomenon in Western countries and is now also becoming a common part of life in public schools. The concept of mindfulness originated in Buddhist thinking and meditation practices over 2,500 years ago. Its original purpose was mainly to alleviate people’s suffering by providing a path to inner wisdom and vitality, which implied the development of compassion, patience, and forgiveness, as well as other values conducive to inner peace. In the 1970s, this practice was popularized in the West as it was adapted to and integrated with secular intervention programs aimed at reducing stress and dealing with chronic pain.
Packages promoting mindfulness practices are disseminated commercially, backed by research in neuroscience and developmental psychology, for use in schools through programs like MindUp and Mindful Schools. In recent years, there has been a marked uptick of interest from educational researchers in mindfulness education. Several distinct research orientations or approaches can be discerned—
Contemporary mindfulness education in schools also sometimes reflects the cultural influence of New Age values, an orientation distinct from the instrumental, spiritualist, and political approaches, and whose impact may raise troubling questions about the purported educational benefits of MBIs. Accordingly, the alliance between New Age values, neoliberal economic and cultural values, and mindfulness practices in contemporary democratic societies and schools should be given due consideration in assessing the relative educational costs and benefits of MBIs. In particular, cultural and educational values at the intersection of neoliberal values entrepreneurialism and New Age values of personal and spiritual growth may have corrosive rather than benevolent effects on the pursuit of democratic values in schools.
Keywords: mindfulness, meditation, neoliberalism, democratic education, mindfulness-based intervention (MBI), New Age
Marina Schwimmer
Universite du Quebec a Montreal
Kevin McDonough
McGill University
Marina Schwimmer and Kevin McDonough
Subject: Educational Politics and Policy, Educational Purposes and Ideals, Educational Theories and Philosophies, Education and Society
Online Publication Date: Sep 2018DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.175
-------------
In This Article
Introduction
Mindfulness-Based Intervention in Educational Settings
Contemporary Educational Research on Mindfulness
Mindfulness as a New Age Practice
New Ageism in Contemporary Educational Settings
The Need for Critical Scrutiny of Mindfulness Education
Therapeutic and Entrepreneurial Dimensions of MBIs
The Undertheorized Political Dimension of MBIs
Conclusion
Further Reading
References
-----------
Summary and Keywords
Mindfulness meditation is a growing social phenomenon in Western countries and is now also becoming a common part of life in public schools. The concept of mindfulness originated in Buddhist thinking and meditation practices over 2,500 years ago. Its original purpose was mainly to alleviate people’s suffering by providing a path to inner wisdom and vitality, which implied the development of compassion, patience, and forgiveness, as well as other values conducive to inner peace. In the 1970s, this practice was popularized in the West as it was adapted to and integrated with secular intervention programs aimed at reducing stress and dealing with chronic pain.
Packages promoting mindfulness practices are disseminated commercially, backed by research in neuroscience and developmental psychology, for use in schools through programs like MindUp and Mindful Schools. In recent years, there has been a marked uptick of interest from educational researchers in mindfulness education. Several distinct research orientations or approaches can be discerned—
- mindfulness-based intervention (MBI), an instrumental approach that views mindfulness practices in clinical or therapeutic terms;
- a spiritualist approach, which emphasizes the rootedness of MBIs in ancient religious traditions and focuses on the benefits of mindfulness practices for individual spiritual growth; and
- a political approach, which highlights the potential benefits of MBIs to develop students’ capacities for democratic deliberation and participation.
Contemporary mindfulness education in schools also sometimes reflects the cultural influence of New Age values, an orientation distinct from the instrumental, spiritualist, and political approaches, and whose impact may raise troubling questions about the purported educational benefits of MBIs. Accordingly, the alliance between New Age values, neoliberal economic and cultural values, and mindfulness practices in contemporary democratic societies and schools should be given due consideration in assessing the relative educational costs and benefits of MBIs. In particular, cultural and educational values at the intersection of neoliberal values entrepreneurialism and New Age values of personal and spiritual growth may have corrosive rather than benevolent effects on the pursuit of democratic values in schools.
Keywords: mindfulness, meditation, neoliberalism, democratic education, mindfulness-based intervention (MBI), New Age
Marina Schwimmer
Universite du Quebec a Montreal
Kevin McDonough
McGill University
2018/09/25
Requiem of the Human Soul - by Jeremy R Lent.
Requiem of the Human Soul - by Jeremy R Lent.
Eusebio Franklin, a school teacher from a small community, is faced with the most terrifying dilemma imaginable: should he carry out an act of mass terrorism in order to save the human race?
Eusebio has been chosen to defend our human race in a special session of the United Nations. It's the late 22nd century, and most people are genetically enhanced; Eusebio is among the minority that remain unimproved, known as Primals, consisting mostly of the impoverished global underclass. The UN is on the verge of implementing a "Proposed Extinction of the Primal Species" and Eusebio's been picked to represent his race in a last ditch legal effort to save the Primals from extinction.
It's a hearing like no other. Our human race is on trial. Our own sordid history––the devastation we've caused to indigenous cultures around the world, the destruction of our environment and of other species––becomes evidence in the case against our continued existence.
But as the hearing progresses, Eusebio is faced with a terrible decision. He's secretly visited by Yusef who represents the Rejectionists––a renegade group of Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus refusing to accept the d-humans' genetic optimization because it prevents them from knowing God. Yusef urges Eusebio to take the only meaningful action to save the human race from extinction: detonate a nuclear bomb hidden in the UN building in New York where the session is taking place.
As the story develops to its dramatic climax, Eusebio finds himself increasingly alienated from the d-human world, while Yusef's plot places him in an agonizing moral dilemma: whether to engage in an act of nuclear terrorism to preserve the human race.
In this novel, the reader faces challenging questions about spirituality, history and global politics: Could our race "evolve" itself to a higher plane? At what cost and benefit? If we lost what is now the "human race" as a result, would that be so bad, given our sordid and shameful history? On the other hand, is there something special, our soul, worth keeping at any price? Ultimately, the novel forces the reader to grapple with the fundamental question: what does it mean to be human?
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Five Stars (out of Five)
It is one of the great travesties of the human experience that violence is often perpetrated by those claiming to follow Jesus, Mohammed, and other spiritual leaders who advocated peace. Therefore, the premise of this novel, a genetic manipulation that deselects the twin capacities for spiritual belief and fanatical intolerance (aggression) in new humans, might seem like a wonderful idea. Except that in the process, these designer Humans may be losing their souls.
In the d-Human world of genetic pre-selection, the wealthy also have the most happiness, good looks, height, compassion, or whatever characteristic their parents paid for.
Eusebio Franklin, a history teacher in remote Tucker's Corners who specializes in Native Americana, is forced to make an impassioned defense for the importance of spiritual belief and the future of the remaining three billion of "his" race–a definition that includes any non-genetically altered human. In actual human history, Eusebius was a historian and chronicler of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Christ was allegedly buried.
Counsel Naomi Aramovich tells Eusebio that the unaltered "Primals," "are the global underclass...who could never come close to affording even the most basic genetic enhancement. For the most part, they're illiterate, starving, and diseased."
As a member of a tech-avoidant, traditional Humanist community, Eusebio would seem to oppose everything the d-Humans stand for. But should he? What if every d-Human you saw seemed happy, healthy, engaged and purposeful? What if the d-Humans showed you that the vast majority of your fellow "Primals" lived in dire conditions?
Author Jeremy Lent holds a master's degree in English literature from Emmanuel College in Cambridge, England. His first novel flows quickly but smoothly, pulling the reader into Eusebio's ethical struggles and his arguments about our direct ancestors' destruction of cultures, indigenous animals, and entire environments.
While Eusebio grapples with questions about the motives of the lawyers trying his case at the United Nations hearing and the trustworthiness of the mysterious Yusef, who claims to be a freedom fighter for the unaltered minority, readers will pause to consider an even larger question: How responsible are we for the actions of our ancestors? For Eusebio, the ultimate question is: Does humanity deserve another chance?
Requiem for the Human Soul is a gripping read that will keep readers up at night, slurping up the last few pages like a specialty juice from the future world's neighborhood Betelbar.--Holly Chase Williams, ForeWord Clarion Reviews
The fate of mankind depends on a mere schoolteacher who must argue for his race's survival despite opposition from genetically "superior" humans.
150 years from now, Eusebio Franklin, a genetically unmodified "Primitive," faces the unfamiliar world of genetically modified "d-humans." The d-humans wish to consign Primitives to reserves and eventual extinction, but they pick Eusebio to speak on behalf of the primitives to justify their existence. A believer in religion, romance, wonder and other impulses that the d-humans lack, Eusebio eagerly seizes the chance to plead the case. He struggles to make the d-humans understand the ineffable mysteries of the human soul, but this is something that genetic engineering has, in a neat explanation of pseudo-science just detailed enough to be believable, legislated out of existence. Though ostensibly an exemplar of the glorious, emotional, wonderful messiness that humanity has to offer, Eusebio's moral indignation and sensitively outraged heart make him a flat protagonist, especially against the equally cardboard d-humans, who are superficially perfect but morally bankrupt villains. There's yet another layer in this tale of apocalyptic philosophy. During a break in the hearing, Eusebio is tempted by an anti-d-human freedom fighter, Yusef. He begins to take Yusef's proposal–to resist extinction by setting off a bomb in New York City as an act of defiance–seriously. At the same time, Eusebio's innately human faith and love, exemplified in his soul mate-like relationship with his tragically dead wife, makes him think that perhaps he could turn the tables on the d-humans and save humans without violence. Because Eusebio embodies a rather simple belief in human goodness and progressivism, all narrative indicators suggest that he will triumph over the evil d-humans. But Lent is too cynical for that. Note that the title refers to an inherently funereal requiem. Despite some character flaws, Lent writes engagingly, moving the story along with the dramatic swiftness and clarity of a movie script.
A philosophical suspense story that exhibits quick pacing, moral nuances and unexpected twists.--Kirkus Discoveries
In this ambitious and thought-provoking novel, Jeremy Lent's meticulously imagined future society is used as a means to take us to the very heart of the human condition. Intercut with gripping asides about how his imagined future world came to be, Lent's story focuses on Eusebio, his humane, everyman narrator, who is faced with a terrible decision.
There are very few science fiction works out there which speak to both the head and the heart, but Lent has produced one, a book which stimulates both intellectually and emotionally. This is a genuinely great read, and a profound one, written with intense and audacious ambition, but without ever losing the human element. Read it – you'll be glad you did.--Ed Lark, author of Grief (nominated for the British Science Fiction Association Book of the Year, 2005)
From the Author
Requiem of the Human Soul is my first novel. I wanted to write about where I saw our world going, and what it means for our human soul. Not the Judaeo-Christian immortal soul, but the kind we mean when we say: "That's got soul, man." I wanted to explore how genetic engineering may put the final nail in the coffin that Western civilization's been building around our soul for the past 500 years.
I tried to make the story believable - not some angst-ridden dystopia, but a realistic view of what the future may hold for our species.
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File Size: 1667 KB
Print Length: 354 pages
Publisher: Jeremy Lent; 1 edition (December 15, 2016)
Publication Date: December 15, 2016
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Biography
More info at: www.jeremylent.com
Jeremy Lent is an author whose writings investigate the patterns of thought that have led our civilization to its current crisis of sustainability. He is founder of the nonprofit Liology Institute, dedicated to fostering an integrated worldview, both scientifically rigorous and intrinsically meaningful, that could enable humanity to thrive sustainably on the earth.
Born in London, England, Lent received a BA in English Literature from Cambridge University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He pursued a career in business, eventually founding an internet startup and taking it public.
Beginning around 2005, Lent began an inquiry into the various constructions of meaning formed by cultures around the world and throughout history. His award-winning novel, Requiem of the Human Soul, was published in 2009. His most recent work, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, traces the deep historical foundations of our modern worldview.
Lent is currently working on his next book provisionally entitled The Web of Meaning: An Integration of Modern Science with Traditional Wisdom, which combines findings in cognitive science, systems theory, and traditional Chinese and Buddhist thought, offering a framework that integrates both science and meaning in a coherent whole.
He holds regular community workshops to explore these topics through contemplative and embodied practices in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Michael B
5.0 out of 5 starsWrite more!March 7, 2010
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Many of my recent ventures into unknown literary territory have ended in disappointment, so it was with a bit of skepticism that I purchased Requiem for the Human Soul. By the time I had read through the first chapter of the novel, that skepticism had completely evaporated. Lent's writing is clear, thorough, concise, and thought-provoking. He is not at all afraid to tackle weighty philosophical issues such as the nature of the soul, the definition of humanity, the emergence of consciousness as a neural phenomenon, and whether it is morally justifiable to kill innocent people to save others. Lent uses the debate as an opportunity to weave a few of his own original ideas in as well - it is clear that he has given ideas such as the tyranny of the prefrontal cortex and the "CONDUCTER" more than a little thought - and yet this is so well executed that it becomes a credible part of the backstory.
Yet this is not some abstract philosophical descant. It is as emotionally involving as it is intellectual. The moral dilemma of the protagonist becomes our own: what would *we* do in his shoes? And just as we think we've found the answer, the end of the novel takes a surprise turn.
If you haven't read this novel, you don't know what you're missing. I'm eagerly looking forward to more by Jeremy Lent.
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James E. Hamilton
5.0 out of 5 starsFive StarsAugust 30, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Great science fiction and based in the genetic science as we know it with today's research.
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heartwing
5.0 out of 5 starsbrilliant!July 29, 2011
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
you know a novel has captured you when you finish it, and immediately turn back to the first page, to begin reading again....jeremy's novel is well-written, with a fast-paced, suspenseful story, and engaging characters. if you enjoy fantasy or science fiction, and are interested in the human condition, and our planet's future, READ REQUIEM!
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Pipistrel
3.0 out of 5 starsA Platonic FantasyJuly 24, 2017
Format: Paperback
The year is in the 2180s, and the scene is New York, in which the Atlantic laps around the bases of the skyscrapers. A genetically unmodified human or 'primal' (in contemptuous slang, a 'chimp'), Eusebio Franklin is summoned to represent his species to a UN commission considering PEPS - the Proposed Extinction of the Primal Species. The 7 billion GM humans, or d-humans, are considering the gradual elimination of the 3 billion Primals by administration of 'isotope 909' to limit women to a single pregnancy. Eusebio is a history teacher, member of the Humanist movement, founded by Julius Schumacher, a 21st century neurologist who detected the human soul as 'smudges' on brain-scans of humans and other animal species, but not in d-humans. Eusebio is interrogated by the loathsome Counsel Harry Shields, Counsel for PEPS, and defended by the sympathetic d-human, Counsel Naomi Aramovich, who is a Primal Rights activist.
Eusebio is visited in his hotel room by a holographic projection of Yusef, a Middle Eastern representative of the Rejectionists - those who refuse GALT, the Glogal Aggression Limitation Treaty. Yusef explains that they hide out in the 'Believers Belt', the Muslim world, where they have access to Middle Eastern wealth. He tells of a secret plan to exterminate Believers with isotope 919 which sterilizes women He urges Eusebio not to take part further in the PEPS enquiry. Next morning Eusebio lies about this visit but is caught out by the thought-reader. The next night Yusef teaches him a technique to avoid detection, which works.
There is a great deal of fictitious technology, including thought-reading head-sets, virtual reality visits to actual places on the other side of the world, and projection of holographic images over similar distances. Much of this strains credulity, and 'isotopes 909 and 919' suggest lack of scientific culture. At the same time there seems to be a great deal of intercontinental travel, suggesting no shortage of material resources.
Succeeding PEPS sessions take Eusebio on virtual reality visits to sites in an Amerindian reserve, in Bengal and in Pakistan and to his daughter in Wales. These persuade him of the inhumanity of the d-humans and prepare him to agree to Yusef's plan to blow up New York in the name of jihad with a 100-kiloton nuclear bomb, for which the trigger is smuggled to him. He sets out to execute this plan, but his fingers refuse to obey him, proving his true humanity. This ends the PEPS sessions. Naomi Aronovich explains that PEPS will happen anyway; the real object was to record Eusebio's soul. She explains that there are two kinds of soul, the Earthly and the Infinite. Humans have both, but d-humans have only the latter.
Eusebio is permitted to retire in New York. A few months later he receives a request for the recordings of his PEPS sessions to be sold as a virtual reality recording. He agrees for the sake of the huge royalties, which he donates to the support of Primal reserves. His soul is immortalised and will survive the inevitable extinction of the Primal species. This is a strangely Platonic ending for a work by the author of The Patterning Instinct. It helps to explain why the hero is named after Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, historian of the Church, suspected of Arianism, leading participant in the First Council of Nicaea. It also gives a disagreeable taste to the portrayal of Muslims as the last to relinquish war.
The novel is well written, but the narrative is slowed down by chapters representing articles covering events and people between the present and the 2180s. My main problem is with the philosophical confusion and the scientific naivety.
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April M. Hanson
5.0 out of 5 starsWill Make You ThinkMarch 21, 2010
Format: Paperback
Requiem: a musical composition in honor of the dead.
It's late in the 22nd century and humans, as we know them today, have been slowly replaced by genetically enhanced d-humans. Those who never had any enhancements are called Primals and are considered inferior to the d-humans. They live in reservation like communities all over the world and are virtually cut off from the technological advancements enjoyed by the enhanced species. The UN has introduced a "Proposed Extinction of the Primal Species" and Eusebio Franklin has been enlisted to testify on behalf of all Primals in a last ditch effort to prevent the humane genocide. Soon Eusebio is approached by the leader of the Rejectionists, a group that isn't afraid to take violent action to protect the Primal species. He is presented with a choice, detonate a nuclear device that will kill millions, including him, or do nothing and watch the beginning of the end for his Primal brethren.
"Requiem Of The Human Soul" by Jeremy Lent is a book that will make you think. It will also make you feel such emotions as anger, frustration, and despair. Honestly, there is very little that is happy about this book and that is okay as the message is an important one. Where are we going as a society and what happens when we get there? Have we really learned anything from the past? Mr. Lent addresses these questions and so much more but, in the end, doesn't leave us with much hope. There is no happy ending here and I finished the book feeling let down. Despite this, it is a well-written and very profound story that should be looked at as a cautionary tale; a look at a future that I hope will never come about.
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Requiem for the Human Soul
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Jeremy Lent (Goodreads Author)
3.9 · Rating details · 21 Ratings · 6 Reviews
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Jun 30, 2010Lisa rated it it was amazing
This book started a little on the slow side, but got going & just ran straight up to the end.
Essentially, we have been tinkering with our genetic make-up to make us "better" so long that we have created a new race of humans (d-humans)and they are the majority on the planted now & we (Primals & not genetically enhanced) are slated for a "humane" extinction. But, before the d-humans go forth with the plan, they are holding hearings on the subject to discuss & justify their decision. To help with the "case", they pick a learned primal history teacher, Eusebio, to be the "voice" of the Primal humans. Through sides & flashbacks, we get his story. He is basically put on trial for all the atrocities that humans have made throughout history, extinction of species, destroying of the planet, etc, etc. Eusebio is also being pulled by the Rejectionists to their side in the fight against the extinction to help them continue their fight against the d-humans.
Many twists & turns are taken on the way to the conclusion of the story, with an ending that is very unexpected. When one watches the current news after reading this book, you can see the whole concept becoming clearer as we rush to become scientifically able to manipulate our genetic codes & get the desired outcomes of "perfection".
Aug 09, 2010Kelly Harmon rated it it was amazing
Shelves: highly-recommended
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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Mar 21, 2010April rated it really liked it
Requiem: a musical composition in honor of the dead.
It's late in the 22nd century and humans, as we know them today, have been slowly replaced by genetically enhanced d-humans. Those who never had any enhancements are called Primals and are considered inferior to the d-humans. They live in reservation like communities all over the world and are virtually cut off from the technological advancements enjoyed by the enhanced species. The UN has introduced a "Proposed Extinction of the Primal Species" and Eusebio Franklin has been enlisted to testify on behalf of all Primals in a last ditch effort to prevent the humane genocide. Soon Eusebio is approached by the leader of the Rejectionists, a group that isn't afraid to take violent action to protect the Primal species. He is presented with a choice, detonate a nuclear device that will kill millions, including him, or do nothing and watch the beginning of the end for his Primal brethren.
"Requiem Of The Human Soul" by Jeremy Lent is a book that will make you think. It will also make you feel such emotions as anger, frustration, and despair. Honestly, there is very little that is happy about this book and that is okay as the message is an important one. Where are we going as a society and what happens when we get there? Have we really learned anything from the past? Mr. Lent addresses these questions and so much more but, in the end, doesn't leave us with much hope. There is no happy ending here and I finished the book feeling let down. Despite this, it is a well-written and very profound story that should be looked at as a cautionary tale; a look at a future that I hope will never come about. (less)
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Oct 18, 2013Karen Kobie rated it it was amazing
Requiem for the Human Soul is an excellent, thought-provoking read. Lent immediately engages the reader into a fictional framework which is as brilliantly plotted as the most addictive thriller. He asks hard questions concerning the implications for a near future when we will be able to create designer humans. Truth is it's impossible to read this novel without asking those hard questions of ourselves. What makes us think we are wise enough to create designer humans? How can we know that our creations will not have insurmountable flaws, even if of a slightly different hue from our own? Is it ever permissible to commit a great wrong if doing so will prevent an even greater wrong?
If you do decide to read it, I hope you'll find it to be as interesting and compulsively engaging as I did. (less)
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Dec 09, 2009Brittany rated it it was amazing
Simply amazing. Well-written, well-conceived and well-developed.
Lent shows the reader a frightening dystopic future that seems all too real. What would "genetic optimization" do to us? Could it possibly create a new line of hominids? Can past human atrocities truly be put on trial and justify mass genocide?
Fantastic novel!
FYI: This book was hard to get a hold of! Since no libraries in the area had a copy, I purchased it through Amazon. It certainly is a novel worth having in your personal collection. (less)
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Eusebio Franklin, a school teacher from a small community, is faced with the most terrifying dilemma imaginable: should he carry out an act of mass terrorism in order to save the human race?
Eusebio has been chosen to defend our human race in a special session of the United Nations. It's the late 22nd century, and most people are genetically enhanced; Eusebio is among the minority that remain unimproved, known as Primals, consisting mostly of the impoverished global underclass. The UN is on the verge of implementing a "Proposed Extinction of the Primal Species" and Eusebio's been picked to represent his race in a last ditch legal effort to save the Primals from extinction.
It's a hearing like no other. Our human race is on trial. Our own sordid history––the devastation we've caused to indigenous cultures around the world, the destruction of our environment and of other species––becomes evidence in the case against our continued existence.
But as the hearing progresses, Eusebio is faced with a terrible decision. He's secretly visited by Yusef who represents the Rejectionists––a renegade group of Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus refusing to accept the d-humans' genetic optimization because it prevents them from knowing God. Yusef urges Eusebio to take the only meaningful action to save the human race from extinction: detonate a nuclear bomb hidden in the UN building in New York where the session is taking place.
As the story develops to its dramatic climax, Eusebio finds himself increasingly alienated from the d-human world, while Yusef's plot places him in an agonizing moral dilemma: whether to engage in an act of nuclear terrorism to preserve the human race.
In this novel, the reader faces challenging questions about spirituality, history and global politics: Could our race "evolve" itself to a higher plane? At what cost and benefit? If we lost what is now the "human race" as a result, would that be so bad, given our sordid and shameful history? On the other hand, is there something special, our soul, worth keeping at any price? Ultimately, the novel forces the reader to grapple with the fundamental question: what does it mean to be human?
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Five Stars (out of Five)
It is one of the great travesties of the human experience that violence is often perpetrated by those claiming to follow Jesus, Mohammed, and other spiritual leaders who advocated peace. Therefore, the premise of this novel, a genetic manipulation that deselects the twin capacities for spiritual belief and fanatical intolerance (aggression) in new humans, might seem like a wonderful idea. Except that in the process, these designer Humans may be losing their souls.
In the d-Human world of genetic pre-selection, the wealthy also have the most happiness, good looks, height, compassion, or whatever characteristic their parents paid for.
Eusebio Franklin, a history teacher in remote Tucker's Corners who specializes in Native Americana, is forced to make an impassioned defense for the importance of spiritual belief and the future of the remaining three billion of "his" race–a definition that includes any non-genetically altered human. In actual human history, Eusebius was a historian and chronicler of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Christ was allegedly buried.
Counsel Naomi Aramovich tells Eusebio that the unaltered "Primals," "are the global underclass...who could never come close to affording even the most basic genetic enhancement. For the most part, they're illiterate, starving, and diseased."
As a member of a tech-avoidant, traditional Humanist community, Eusebio would seem to oppose everything the d-Humans stand for. But should he? What if every d-Human you saw seemed happy, healthy, engaged and purposeful? What if the d-Humans showed you that the vast majority of your fellow "Primals" lived in dire conditions?
Author Jeremy Lent holds a master's degree in English literature from Emmanuel College in Cambridge, England. His first novel flows quickly but smoothly, pulling the reader into Eusebio's ethical struggles and his arguments about our direct ancestors' destruction of cultures, indigenous animals, and entire environments.
While Eusebio grapples with questions about the motives of the lawyers trying his case at the United Nations hearing and the trustworthiness of the mysterious Yusef, who claims to be a freedom fighter for the unaltered minority, readers will pause to consider an even larger question: How responsible are we for the actions of our ancestors? For Eusebio, the ultimate question is: Does humanity deserve another chance?
Requiem for the Human Soul is a gripping read that will keep readers up at night, slurping up the last few pages like a specialty juice from the future world's neighborhood Betelbar.--Holly Chase Williams, ForeWord Clarion Reviews
The fate of mankind depends on a mere schoolteacher who must argue for his race's survival despite opposition from genetically "superior" humans.
150 years from now, Eusebio Franklin, a genetically unmodified "Primitive," faces the unfamiliar world of genetically modified "d-humans." The d-humans wish to consign Primitives to reserves and eventual extinction, but they pick Eusebio to speak on behalf of the primitives to justify their existence. A believer in religion, romance, wonder and other impulses that the d-humans lack, Eusebio eagerly seizes the chance to plead the case. He struggles to make the d-humans understand the ineffable mysteries of the human soul, but this is something that genetic engineering has, in a neat explanation of pseudo-science just detailed enough to be believable, legislated out of existence. Though ostensibly an exemplar of the glorious, emotional, wonderful messiness that humanity has to offer, Eusebio's moral indignation and sensitively outraged heart make him a flat protagonist, especially against the equally cardboard d-humans, who are superficially perfect but morally bankrupt villains. There's yet another layer in this tale of apocalyptic philosophy. During a break in the hearing, Eusebio is tempted by an anti-d-human freedom fighter, Yusef. He begins to take Yusef's proposal–to resist extinction by setting off a bomb in New York City as an act of defiance–seriously. At the same time, Eusebio's innately human faith and love, exemplified in his soul mate-like relationship with his tragically dead wife, makes him think that perhaps he could turn the tables on the d-humans and save humans without violence. Because Eusebio embodies a rather simple belief in human goodness and progressivism, all narrative indicators suggest that he will triumph over the evil d-humans. But Lent is too cynical for that. Note that the title refers to an inherently funereal requiem. Despite some character flaws, Lent writes engagingly, moving the story along with the dramatic swiftness and clarity of a movie script.
A philosophical suspense story that exhibits quick pacing, moral nuances and unexpected twists.--Kirkus Discoveries
In this ambitious and thought-provoking novel, Jeremy Lent's meticulously imagined future society is used as a means to take us to the very heart of the human condition. Intercut with gripping asides about how his imagined future world came to be, Lent's story focuses on Eusebio, his humane, everyman narrator, who is faced with a terrible decision.
There are very few science fiction works out there which speak to both the head and the heart, but Lent has produced one, a book which stimulates both intellectually and emotionally. This is a genuinely great read, and a profound one, written with intense and audacious ambition, but without ever losing the human element. Read it – you'll be glad you did.--Ed Lark, author of Grief (nominated for the British Science Fiction Association Book of the Year, 2005)
From the Author
Requiem of the Human Soul is my first novel. I wanted to write about where I saw our world going, and what it means for our human soul. Not the Judaeo-Christian immortal soul, but the kind we mean when we say: "That's got soul, man." I wanted to explore how genetic engineering may put the final nail in the coffin that Western civilization's been building around our soul for the past 500 years.
I tried to make the story believable - not some angst-ridden dystopia, but a realistic view of what the future may hold for our species.
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File Size: 1667 KB
Print Length: 354 pages
Publisher: Jeremy Lent; 1 edition (December 15, 2016)
Publication Date: December 15, 2016
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Biography
More info at: www.jeremylent.com
Jeremy Lent is an author whose writings investigate the patterns of thought that have led our civilization to its current crisis of sustainability. He is founder of the nonprofit Liology Institute, dedicated to fostering an integrated worldview, both scientifically rigorous and intrinsically meaningful, that could enable humanity to thrive sustainably on the earth.
Born in London, England, Lent received a BA in English Literature from Cambridge University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He pursued a career in business, eventually founding an internet startup and taking it public.
Beginning around 2005, Lent began an inquiry into the various constructions of meaning formed by cultures around the world and throughout history. His award-winning novel, Requiem of the Human Soul, was published in 2009. His most recent work, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, traces the deep historical foundations of our modern worldview.
Lent is currently working on his next book provisionally entitled The Web of Meaning: An Integration of Modern Science with Traditional Wisdom, which combines findings in cognitive science, systems theory, and traditional Chinese and Buddhist thought, offering a framework that integrates both science and meaning in a coherent whole.
He holds regular community workshops to explore these topics through contemplative and embodied practices in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Michael B
5.0 out of 5 starsWrite more!March 7, 2010
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Many of my recent ventures into unknown literary territory have ended in disappointment, so it was with a bit of skepticism that I purchased Requiem for the Human Soul. By the time I had read through the first chapter of the novel, that skepticism had completely evaporated. Lent's writing is clear, thorough, concise, and thought-provoking. He is not at all afraid to tackle weighty philosophical issues such as the nature of the soul, the definition of humanity, the emergence of consciousness as a neural phenomenon, and whether it is morally justifiable to kill innocent people to save others. Lent uses the debate as an opportunity to weave a few of his own original ideas in as well - it is clear that he has given ideas such as the tyranny of the prefrontal cortex and the "CONDUCTER" more than a little thought - and yet this is so well executed that it becomes a credible part of the backstory.
Yet this is not some abstract philosophical descant. It is as emotionally involving as it is intellectual. The moral dilemma of the protagonist becomes our own: what would *we* do in his shoes? And just as we think we've found the answer, the end of the novel takes a surprise turn.
If you haven't read this novel, you don't know what you're missing. I'm eagerly looking forward to more by Jeremy Lent.
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James E. Hamilton
5.0 out of 5 starsFive StarsAugust 30, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Great science fiction and based in the genetic science as we know it with today's research.
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heartwing
5.0 out of 5 starsbrilliant!July 29, 2011
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
you know a novel has captured you when you finish it, and immediately turn back to the first page, to begin reading again....jeremy's novel is well-written, with a fast-paced, suspenseful story, and engaging characters. if you enjoy fantasy or science fiction, and are interested in the human condition, and our planet's future, READ REQUIEM!
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Pipistrel
3.0 out of 5 starsA Platonic FantasyJuly 24, 2017
Format: Paperback
The year is in the 2180s, and the scene is New York, in which the Atlantic laps around the bases of the skyscrapers. A genetically unmodified human or 'primal' (in contemptuous slang, a 'chimp'), Eusebio Franklin is summoned to represent his species to a UN commission considering PEPS - the Proposed Extinction of the Primal Species. The 7 billion GM humans, or d-humans, are considering the gradual elimination of the 3 billion Primals by administration of 'isotope 909' to limit women to a single pregnancy. Eusebio is a history teacher, member of the Humanist movement, founded by Julius Schumacher, a 21st century neurologist who detected the human soul as 'smudges' on brain-scans of humans and other animal species, but not in d-humans. Eusebio is interrogated by the loathsome Counsel Harry Shields, Counsel for PEPS, and defended by the sympathetic d-human, Counsel Naomi Aramovich, who is a Primal Rights activist.
Eusebio is visited in his hotel room by a holographic projection of Yusef, a Middle Eastern representative of the Rejectionists - those who refuse GALT, the Glogal Aggression Limitation Treaty. Yusef explains that they hide out in the 'Believers Belt', the Muslim world, where they have access to Middle Eastern wealth. He tells of a secret plan to exterminate Believers with isotope 919 which sterilizes women He urges Eusebio not to take part further in the PEPS enquiry. Next morning Eusebio lies about this visit but is caught out by the thought-reader. The next night Yusef teaches him a technique to avoid detection, which works.
There is a great deal of fictitious technology, including thought-reading head-sets, virtual reality visits to actual places on the other side of the world, and projection of holographic images over similar distances. Much of this strains credulity, and 'isotopes 909 and 919' suggest lack of scientific culture. At the same time there seems to be a great deal of intercontinental travel, suggesting no shortage of material resources.
Succeeding PEPS sessions take Eusebio on virtual reality visits to sites in an Amerindian reserve, in Bengal and in Pakistan and to his daughter in Wales. These persuade him of the inhumanity of the d-humans and prepare him to agree to Yusef's plan to blow up New York in the name of jihad with a 100-kiloton nuclear bomb, for which the trigger is smuggled to him. He sets out to execute this plan, but his fingers refuse to obey him, proving his true humanity. This ends the PEPS sessions. Naomi Aronovich explains that PEPS will happen anyway; the real object was to record Eusebio's soul. She explains that there are two kinds of soul, the Earthly and the Infinite. Humans have both, but d-humans have only the latter.
Eusebio is permitted to retire in New York. A few months later he receives a request for the recordings of his PEPS sessions to be sold as a virtual reality recording. He agrees for the sake of the huge royalties, which he donates to the support of Primal reserves. His soul is immortalised and will survive the inevitable extinction of the Primal species. This is a strangely Platonic ending for a work by the author of The Patterning Instinct. It helps to explain why the hero is named after Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, historian of the Church, suspected of Arianism, leading participant in the First Council of Nicaea. It also gives a disagreeable taste to the portrayal of Muslims as the last to relinquish war.
The novel is well written, but the narrative is slowed down by chapters representing articles covering events and people between the present and the 2180s. My main problem is with the philosophical confusion and the scientific naivety.
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April M. Hanson
5.0 out of 5 starsWill Make You ThinkMarch 21, 2010
Format: Paperback
Requiem: a musical composition in honor of the dead.
It's late in the 22nd century and humans, as we know them today, have been slowly replaced by genetically enhanced d-humans. Those who never had any enhancements are called Primals and are considered inferior to the d-humans. They live in reservation like communities all over the world and are virtually cut off from the technological advancements enjoyed by the enhanced species. The UN has introduced a "Proposed Extinction of the Primal Species" and Eusebio Franklin has been enlisted to testify on behalf of all Primals in a last ditch effort to prevent the humane genocide. Soon Eusebio is approached by the leader of the Rejectionists, a group that isn't afraid to take violent action to protect the Primal species. He is presented with a choice, detonate a nuclear device that will kill millions, including him, or do nothing and watch the beginning of the end for his Primal brethren.
"Requiem Of The Human Soul" by Jeremy Lent is a book that will make you think. It will also make you feel such emotions as anger, frustration, and despair. Honestly, there is very little that is happy about this book and that is okay as the message is an important one. Where are we going as a society and what happens when we get there? Have we really learned anything from the past? Mr. Lent addresses these questions and so much more but, in the end, doesn't leave us with much hope. There is no happy ending here and I finished the book feeling let down. Despite this, it is a well-written and very profound story that should be looked at as a cautionary tale; a look at a future that I hope will never come about.
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Requiem for the Human Soul
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Jeremy Lent (Goodreads Author)
3.9 · Rating details · 21 Ratings · 6 Reviews
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Jun 30, 2010Lisa rated it it was amazing
This book started a little on the slow side, but got going & just ran straight up to the end.
Essentially, we have been tinkering with our genetic make-up to make us "better" so long that we have created a new race of humans (d-humans)and they are the majority on the planted now & we (Primals & not genetically enhanced) are slated for a "humane" extinction. But, before the d-humans go forth with the plan, they are holding hearings on the subject to discuss & justify their decision. To help with the "case", they pick a learned primal history teacher, Eusebio, to be the "voice" of the Primal humans. Through sides & flashbacks, we get his story. He is basically put on trial for all the atrocities that humans have made throughout history, extinction of species, destroying of the planet, etc, etc. Eusebio is also being pulled by the Rejectionists to their side in the fight against the extinction to help them continue their fight against the d-humans.
Many twists & turns are taken on the way to the conclusion of the story, with an ending that is very unexpected. When one watches the current news after reading this book, you can see the whole concept becoming clearer as we rush to become scientifically able to manipulate our genetic codes & get the desired outcomes of "perfection".
Aug 09, 2010Kelly Harmon rated it it was amazing
Shelves: highly-recommended
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
flagLike · comment · see review
Mar 21, 2010April rated it really liked it
Requiem: a musical composition in honor of the dead.
It's late in the 22nd century and humans, as we know them today, have been slowly replaced by genetically enhanced d-humans. Those who never had any enhancements are called Primals and are considered inferior to the d-humans. They live in reservation like communities all over the world and are virtually cut off from the technological advancements enjoyed by the enhanced species. The UN has introduced a "Proposed Extinction of the Primal Species" and Eusebio Franklin has been enlisted to testify on behalf of all Primals in a last ditch effort to prevent the humane genocide. Soon Eusebio is approached by the leader of the Rejectionists, a group that isn't afraid to take violent action to protect the Primal species. He is presented with a choice, detonate a nuclear device that will kill millions, including him, or do nothing and watch the beginning of the end for his Primal brethren.
"Requiem Of The Human Soul" by Jeremy Lent is a book that will make you think. It will also make you feel such emotions as anger, frustration, and despair. Honestly, there is very little that is happy about this book and that is okay as the message is an important one. Where are we going as a society and what happens when we get there? Have we really learned anything from the past? Mr. Lent addresses these questions and so much more but, in the end, doesn't leave us with much hope. There is no happy ending here and I finished the book feeling let down. Despite this, it is a well-written and very profound story that should be looked at as a cautionary tale; a look at a future that I hope will never come about. (less)
flagLike · comment · see review
Oct 18, 2013Karen Kobie rated it it was amazing
Requiem for the Human Soul is an excellent, thought-provoking read. Lent immediately engages the reader into a fictional framework which is as brilliantly plotted as the most addictive thriller. He asks hard questions concerning the implications for a near future when we will be able to create designer humans. Truth is it's impossible to read this novel without asking those hard questions of ourselves. What makes us think we are wise enough to create designer humans? How can we know that our creations will not have insurmountable flaws, even if of a slightly different hue from our own? Is it ever permissible to commit a great wrong if doing so will prevent an even greater wrong?
If you do decide to read it, I hope you'll find it to be as interesting and compulsively engaging as I did. (less)
flagLike · comment · see review
Dec 09, 2009Brittany rated it it was amazing
Simply amazing. Well-written, well-conceived and well-developed.
Lent shows the reader a frightening dystopic future that seems all too real. What would "genetic optimization" do to us? Could it possibly create a new line of hominids? Can past human atrocities truly be put on trial and justify mass genocide?
Fantastic novel!
FYI: This book was hard to get a hold of! Since no libraries in the area had a copy, I purchased it through Amazon. It certainly is a novel worth having in your personal collection. (less)
flagLike · comment · see review
The Patterning Instinct - BR: A new history of cultural big ideas looks to the East for solace | New Scientist
A new history of cultural big ideas looks to the East for solace | New Scientist
REVIEW
24 May 2017
A new history of cultural big ideas looks to the East for solace
To create a less divisive world, Jeremy Lent's The Patterning Instinct wants to get rid of the Western split between animalistic urges and rational control
The revolution starts here: a Confucian temple in Shanghai
Olivier Aubert/Picturetank
By Pat Kane
AS THE daily turbulence of politics, economics, environmental change and religion rages around us, there is an understandable marketplace for books that look at the bigger picture. Jeremy Lent’s The Patterning Instinct does just that, joining the dots between points in history and culture, identifying echoes and consiliences across the natural and social sciences.
This is more than a scholastic exercise. Our planetary predicament demands the broadest and deepest perspectives, not just to enable masterful armchair contemplation, but also to guide our actions in the middle of what would otherwise be an enervating horror show.
The cover of Lent’s intellectual epic shows a line drawing of networks, the dots ostentatiously joined. No doubt this expresses the author’s fundamentalism, derived from his scientific and religious readings, about the power of connectedness.
But on the way to a somewhat familiar end point, Lent provides a useful and massively referenced road map of the most enduring structures of meaning in human history.
Humanity’s first world-encompassing idea, says Lent, was the hunter-gatherer belief that “everything is connected”. There followed an agricultural era during which humanity lived under the “hierarchy of the gods”.
He then charts what he calls “the divergence”. Lent’s shorthand for this pattern is “split cosmos, split human”: the assumption that our physical reality, personal or objective, can be controlled by transcendent powers. Whether we call those powers “divine” or “rational” is, to Lent, neither here nor there. The two developed in lockstep: you couldn’t have conceived one without the other.
Articulated first by the philosophers of Ancient Greece, this “Western pattern” of meaning gathered force under the rise of Christianity and the innovations of the Enlightenment and continues to hold sway under today’s scientific industrialism.
“This idea could produce a split humanity, one species enhanced and exploring, the other barely surviving”
Lent traces his splitting thesis all the way to the thrumming fortresses of Silicon Valley. Here, Plato’s fantasy – a rational soul subjecting the animalistic body to its will – is not just a moral compass, it’s become techno-scientific mission.
Are you extending our cognitive abilities by creating devices that mimic and mesh with our thinking? Are you influencing people’s emotions through mood-altering drugs? Are you engineering our bodies to the optimum with gene editing? Then you are in the grip of an ancient idea: that pure rationality stands sovereign over the biological world.
This idea has the potential, already half-realised, Lent says, to produce a split humanity, “one species, genetically and technologically enhanced, exploring entirely new ways of being human; the other species, genetically akin to us, barely surviving within its collapsed infrastructure.”
Similar to Yuval Noah Harari’s recent, and equally expansive, Homo Deus, Lent’s book seeks some perspective on our modern juggernaut of radical innovation and global polarisation. To do so, it reaches towards Asian wisdom traditions – an “Eastern pattern” that Lent calls “the harmonic web of life”.
But while Harari’s no-self Buddhism comes close to exulting in the way humankind will be overtaken by intelligent algorithms, Lent finds a place for connecting, meaning-seeking humans in this complex future.
To carve out this space for ourselves, Lent says we must recast the deep metaphors structuring our attitudes to nature and other humans.
Neo-Confucianism is the candidate that Lent favours to lead this metaphorical revolution. Its core concept is an understanding of the universe as the interrelation of qi (spoken as “chi”) and li. Qi is the raw material of the universe – but liis “the ever-moving, ever-present set of patterns that flow through everything in nature and in all our perceptions of the world, including our consciousness”.
Like his mentor Fritjof Capra, who provides an introduction for the book, Lent seeks corroboration for this spiritual insight in what were once called the “new”, non-deterministic sciences – the study of complex adaptive systems in physics and biology, which find curious analogues in certain branches of mathematics.
Lent shows how the tenets of Neo-Confucian thought are homologous with maths, neuroscience and climatology, particularly when those disciplines identify “a complex of dynamical systems that remain valid across the entire natural world, from systems as vast as global climate to as small as a living cell”.
Like Capra, Lent wants to fuse spiritual tradition and the “new” sciences in service of a less rapacious and divisive world. If we could grasp what Lent calls elsewhere “liology”, we would attribute our ultimate sources of value not to “a transcendent realm”, or to our “moral rationality”, but to “humanity’s intrinsic connection with the natural world”.
There’s an obvious, real-world refutation available, of course. It’s not hard to find a regime that loudly deploys Confucian values in a modern setting. But does China, which recorded its highest ever figures for coal-fired electricity this April, provide the best exemplar? Lent himself delicately “refrains from making direct inferences regarding modern China” in his study of Neo-Confucianism. He should entertain a little more hope. Although China is producing more energy from coal in absolute terms, the percentage of total energy provided by coal is dropping.
Since 2007, Beijing elites have been hyping East Asia as a land mass uniquely placed to bring about an “ecological civilisation”, underpinned by the Confucian belief in harmony with nature. Meanwhile the administrations of US president Donald Trump and UK prime minister Theresa May have each rubbished climate change action and research. They have handed China a golden opportunity: to make good on its soft-power rhetoric and create a sustainable model that, sooner or later, the rest of the world will have to emulate.
Lent uses what he calls “cognitive history” and “archaeology of the mind” to show how such massive shifts in underlying world view can happen, and they involve an evolutionary account of the brain. Again like Harari, Lent dates the advent of our capacity for advanced cognition to a point about 70,000 years ago, when our prefrontal cortex began to expand.
Lent describes the “executive function” of the prefrontal cortex well. “It mediates our ability to plan, conceptualise, symbolise, make rules, and impose meaning on things. It controls our physiological drives and turns our basic feelings into complex emotions. It enables us to be aware of ourselves and others as separate beings, and to turn the past and the future into one narrative.” This is the locus of the “patterning instinct”.
In many of the neurology-informed history epics, authors are often studiedly neutral about the raw mental ability of humans to forge new paradigms. Few of them dare to connect our cognitive flexibility to any necessary idea of progress, or human flourishing. This is perhaps understandable given what’s involved is often a survey of historical carnage. Lent himself is unsparing in his descriptions of the cruelty and brutality meted out by righteous monotheists and dualists, their meaning-patterns justifying colonialism and empire.
“Cultures shape values, and those values shape history. Our values will shape our future”
Given all this, you have to admire the way Lent sticks his neck out on behalf of Neo-Confucianism. He goes so far as to propose that its concept of “heart-mind”, which seeks to integrate emotion and reason, is analogous to the prefrontal cortex when it functions at its best. And he has a point, citing research that shows that a healthy prefrontal cortex is not about “repressing or overriding emotional states”, but about “integrating them into appropriate decisions and actions… our cognition takes place not in the brain but in the felt sensation of the entire body.”
The Patterning Instinct, oblivious to the science-deniers currently occupying high executive office, ends with a statement of simple confidence: “Cultures shape values, and those values shape history. By the same token, our values will shape our future.” One way to equip yourself for this heroic task will be to read this enormous, learned, yet garrulous and helpful book.
The Patterning Instinct: A cultural history of humanity’s search for meaning
Jeremy Lent
Prometheus Books
REVIEW
24 May 2017
A new history of cultural big ideas looks to the East for solace
To create a less divisive world, Jeremy Lent's The Patterning Instinct wants to get rid of the Western split between animalistic urges and rational control
The revolution starts here: a Confucian temple in Shanghai
Olivier Aubert/Picturetank
By Pat Kane
AS THE daily turbulence of politics, economics, environmental change and religion rages around us, there is an understandable marketplace for books that look at the bigger picture. Jeremy Lent’s The Patterning Instinct does just that, joining the dots between points in history and culture, identifying echoes and consiliences across the natural and social sciences.
This is more than a scholastic exercise. Our planetary predicament demands the broadest and deepest perspectives, not just to enable masterful armchair contemplation, but also to guide our actions in the middle of what would otherwise be an enervating horror show.
The cover of Lent’s intellectual epic shows a line drawing of networks, the dots ostentatiously joined. No doubt this expresses the author’s fundamentalism, derived from his scientific and religious readings, about the power of connectedness.
But on the way to a somewhat familiar end point, Lent provides a useful and massively referenced road map of the most enduring structures of meaning in human history.
Humanity’s first world-encompassing idea, says Lent, was the hunter-gatherer belief that “everything is connected”. There followed an agricultural era during which humanity lived under the “hierarchy of the gods”.
He then charts what he calls “the divergence”. Lent’s shorthand for this pattern is “split cosmos, split human”: the assumption that our physical reality, personal or objective, can be controlled by transcendent powers. Whether we call those powers “divine” or “rational” is, to Lent, neither here nor there. The two developed in lockstep: you couldn’t have conceived one without the other.
Articulated first by the philosophers of Ancient Greece, this “Western pattern” of meaning gathered force under the rise of Christianity and the innovations of the Enlightenment and continues to hold sway under today’s scientific industrialism.
“This idea could produce a split humanity, one species enhanced and exploring, the other barely surviving”
Lent traces his splitting thesis all the way to the thrumming fortresses of Silicon Valley. Here, Plato’s fantasy – a rational soul subjecting the animalistic body to its will – is not just a moral compass, it’s become techno-scientific mission.
Are you extending our cognitive abilities by creating devices that mimic and mesh with our thinking? Are you influencing people’s emotions through mood-altering drugs? Are you engineering our bodies to the optimum with gene editing? Then you are in the grip of an ancient idea: that pure rationality stands sovereign over the biological world.
This idea has the potential, already half-realised, Lent says, to produce a split humanity, “one species, genetically and technologically enhanced, exploring entirely new ways of being human; the other species, genetically akin to us, barely surviving within its collapsed infrastructure.”
Similar to Yuval Noah Harari’s recent, and equally expansive, Homo Deus, Lent’s book seeks some perspective on our modern juggernaut of radical innovation and global polarisation. To do so, it reaches towards Asian wisdom traditions – an “Eastern pattern” that Lent calls “the harmonic web of life”.
But while Harari’s no-self Buddhism comes close to exulting in the way humankind will be overtaken by intelligent algorithms, Lent finds a place for connecting, meaning-seeking humans in this complex future.
To carve out this space for ourselves, Lent says we must recast the deep metaphors structuring our attitudes to nature and other humans.
Neo-Confucianism is the candidate that Lent favours to lead this metaphorical revolution. Its core concept is an understanding of the universe as the interrelation of qi (spoken as “chi”) and li. Qi is the raw material of the universe – but liis “the ever-moving, ever-present set of patterns that flow through everything in nature and in all our perceptions of the world, including our consciousness”.
Like his mentor Fritjof Capra, who provides an introduction for the book, Lent seeks corroboration for this spiritual insight in what were once called the “new”, non-deterministic sciences – the study of complex adaptive systems in physics and biology, which find curious analogues in certain branches of mathematics.
Lent shows how the tenets of Neo-Confucian thought are homologous with maths, neuroscience and climatology, particularly when those disciplines identify “a complex of dynamical systems that remain valid across the entire natural world, from systems as vast as global climate to as small as a living cell”.
Like Capra, Lent wants to fuse spiritual tradition and the “new” sciences in service of a less rapacious and divisive world. If we could grasp what Lent calls elsewhere “liology”, we would attribute our ultimate sources of value not to “a transcendent realm”, or to our “moral rationality”, but to “humanity’s intrinsic connection with the natural world”.
There’s an obvious, real-world refutation available, of course. It’s not hard to find a regime that loudly deploys Confucian values in a modern setting. But does China, which recorded its highest ever figures for coal-fired electricity this April, provide the best exemplar? Lent himself delicately “refrains from making direct inferences regarding modern China” in his study of Neo-Confucianism. He should entertain a little more hope. Although China is producing more energy from coal in absolute terms, the percentage of total energy provided by coal is dropping.
Since 2007, Beijing elites have been hyping East Asia as a land mass uniquely placed to bring about an “ecological civilisation”, underpinned by the Confucian belief in harmony with nature. Meanwhile the administrations of US president Donald Trump and UK prime minister Theresa May have each rubbished climate change action and research. They have handed China a golden opportunity: to make good on its soft-power rhetoric and create a sustainable model that, sooner or later, the rest of the world will have to emulate.
Lent uses what he calls “cognitive history” and “archaeology of the mind” to show how such massive shifts in underlying world view can happen, and they involve an evolutionary account of the brain. Again like Harari, Lent dates the advent of our capacity for advanced cognition to a point about 70,000 years ago, when our prefrontal cortex began to expand.
Lent describes the “executive function” of the prefrontal cortex well. “It mediates our ability to plan, conceptualise, symbolise, make rules, and impose meaning on things. It controls our physiological drives and turns our basic feelings into complex emotions. It enables us to be aware of ourselves and others as separate beings, and to turn the past and the future into one narrative.” This is the locus of the “patterning instinct”.
In many of the neurology-informed history epics, authors are often studiedly neutral about the raw mental ability of humans to forge new paradigms. Few of them dare to connect our cognitive flexibility to any necessary idea of progress, or human flourishing. This is perhaps understandable given what’s involved is often a survey of historical carnage. Lent himself is unsparing in his descriptions of the cruelty and brutality meted out by righteous monotheists and dualists, their meaning-patterns justifying colonialism and empire.
“Cultures shape values, and those values shape history. Our values will shape our future”
Given all this, you have to admire the way Lent sticks his neck out on behalf of Neo-Confucianism. He goes so far as to propose that its concept of “heart-mind”, which seeks to integrate emotion and reason, is analogous to the prefrontal cortex when it functions at its best. And he has a point, citing research that shows that a healthy prefrontal cortex is not about “repressing or overriding emotional states”, but about “integrating them into appropriate decisions and actions… our cognition takes place not in the brain but in the felt sensation of the entire body.”
The Patterning Instinct, oblivious to the science-deniers currently occupying high executive office, ends with a statement of simple confidence: “Cultures shape values, and those values shape history. By the same token, our values will shape our future.” One way to equip yourself for this heroic task will be to read this enormous, learned, yet garrulous and helpful book.
The Patterning Instinct: A cultural history of humanity’s search for meaning
Jeremy Lent
Prometheus Books
Steven Pinker You can deny environmental calamity
You can deny environmental calamity – until you check the facts
Rosy worldviews that rely on avoiding inconvenient truths should always set alarm bells ringing
One of the curiosities of our age is the way in which celebrity culture comes to dominate every aspect of public life. Even the review pages of the newspapers sometimes look like a highfalutin version of gossip magazines. Were we to judge them by the maxim “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people”, they would not emerge well. Biography dominates. Ideas often seem to come last. Brilliant writers such as Sylvia Plath are better known for their lives than their work. Turning her into the Princess Diana of literature does neither her nor her readers any favours.
Even when ideas are given prominence, they no longer have standing in their own right. Their salience depends on their authorship. Take, for example, the psychology professor Steven Pinker, who attracts breathless adulation.
I am broadly sympathetic to his worldview. I agree with him that scientific knowledge is a moral imperative, and that we must use it to enhance human welfare. Like him, I’m enthusiastic about technologies that horrify other people, such as fourth-generation nuclear reactors and artificial meat. So I began reading his new book, Enlightenment Now, with excitement.
I expected something bracing, original, well sourced and well reasoned. Instead, in the area I know best – environmental issues – the alarm began to sound for me when he characterised “the mainstream environmental movement” as “laced with misanthropy, including an indifference to starvation, an indulgence in ghoulish fantasies of a depopulated planet, and Nazi-like comparisons of human beings to vermin, pathogens and cancer”.
Yes, I have come across such views, but they are few and far between. When they are expressed on social media, they are rapidly slapped down by other environmentalists. They are about as far from the environmental mainstream as they are from the humanitarian mainstream.
But this is just the beginning of the problem. Rather than using primary sources, Pinker draws on anecdote, cherry-picking and discredited talking points developed by anti-environmental thinktanks. Take, for example, Pinker’s claims about the landmark Limits to Growth report, published in 1972. It’s a favourite target of those who seek to dismiss environmental problems. He suggests it projected that aluminium, copper, chromium, gold, nickel, tin, tungsten and zinc would be exhausted by 1992. It is hard to see how anyone who had read the report could form this impression. The figures it uses for illustrative purposes have been transformed by some critics into projections.
Its actual prediction is that “the great majority of the currently important non-renewable resources will be extremely costly 100 years from now”. It would be perfectly reasonable to take issue with this claim. It is not reasonable to recycle, then attack, a widely circulated myth about the report. That’s called the straw man fallacy. It is contrary to the principles of reason that Pinker claims to champion.
Citing the famous ecologist Stuart Pimm, Pinker maintains that “the overall rate of extinctions has been reduced by 75%”. But Pimm has said no such thing. I checked with him. Pinker had latched on to a seven-word quote in the New Yorker, invested it with spurious precision, and misunderstood it as referring to all species rather than only birds. Pimm’s work has upgraded the overall extinction rate to 1,000 times the natural background rates, while “future rates are likely to be 10,000 times higher”.Like the straw man fallacy, cherrypicking offends the principles of reason.
He also claims that “we may have reached … Peak Car” (yet global car sales rose 11% between 2014 and 2017), and that as countries become richer “their thoughts turn to the environment”. In reality, the 2014 Greendex survey of 14 nations shows environmental concern has consistently been highest in India and China, and lowest in Britain, France, Japan, Canada and the US.
Pinker suggests that the environmental impact of nations follows the same trajectory, claiming that the “environmental Kuznets Curve” shows they become cleaner as they get richer. To support this point, he compares Nordic countries with Afghanistan and Bangladesh. It is true that they do better on indicators such as air and water quality, as long as you disregard their impacts overseas. But when you look at the whole picture, including carbon emissions, you discover the opposite. The ecological footprints of Afghanistan and Bangladesh (namely the area required to provide the resources they use) are, respectively, 0.9 and 0.7 hectares per person. Norway’s is 5.8, Sweden’s is 6.5 and Finland, that paragon of environmental virtue, comes in at 6.7.
Pinker seems unaware of the controversies surrounding the Kuznets Curve, and the large body of data that appears to undermine it. The same applies to the other grand claims with which he sweeps through this subject. He relies on highly tendentious interlocutors to interpret this alien field for him. If you are going to use people like US ecomodernist Stewart Brand and the former head of Northern Rock Matt Ridley as your sources, you need to doublecheck their assertions.Pinker insults the Enlightenment principles he claims to defend.
Could he have succumbed to the motivated reasoning these principles are supposed to suppress? If the environmental crisis cannot be so easily dismissed, it threatens his argument that life is steadily improving. What looks like a relentless enhancement in human welfare could emerge instead as an interlude between one form of deprivation and the next.
I doubt such poor scholarship will dim the adulation with which his claims are received. While Pinker is lauded, far more interesting and original books, such as Jeremy Lent’s The Patterning Instinct and Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics, are scarcely reviewed. If there is one aspect of modernity that owes nothing to the Enlightenment, it is surely the worship of celebrities.
• George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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