Over
the course of this column, I have used several metaphors to describe the
process by which humans are subtly influenced and even transformed by ongoing
interaction with modern machines, computers and robots. I have used a chemical metaphor of machine
behavior somehow leaching out of machines and into humans, as if machine
behavior was like a soluble substance that could leach into the minds of
humans. A related chemical metaphor
could be that of being like a dye that bleeds out of machines and into the
minds of humans. I have used a
biological metaphor of contagion, as if technological behavior was like a
bacteria that could be transmitted to humans.
Related to this biological approach to contagion is the magical approach
to contagion: the continued influence of something – in this case, a technological
device - on a person long after the
person is no longer in actual contact with that thing. I have used an anthropological metaphor of
totemic connection, as if modern machines, computers and robots could become
symbolically tied together with people who develop a mystical relationship with
them. Finally, I have used the
psychoanalytic metaphors of mirroring and modeling the most to explain how
different modern machines, computers, and robots mirror back to us images of
ourselves as formatted through technological images and how different modern
machines, computers and robots act as implicit models for us, as we try to
increasingly approximate them. Each of
these metaphors generate images that help us to visualize in certain ways the
relationship that humans have with modern technology.
In
this article, I am going to discuss a phenomenon that exists in a Native
American tribal group and that develops a connection with humans that has an
aspect that is qualitatively somewhat distinct from inanimate materials, from
bacteria, from totemic animals, and from parental figures. The relationship that develops between this
phenomenon and humans can shed new light on the relationship between modern
machines, computers and robots, on the one hand, and humans on the other.
Kachinas
are spirits that insure the preservation of the Hopis, a Native American tribe
from northeast Arizona in the United States, by insuring the flow of life. Visually, Kachinas are represented as
mythical creatures with faces that are usually built on geometric patterns. Some
Hopis dress up as Kachinas, and when they do, they become the Kachinas, they
become the supernatural. They do this to
revitalize the natural – the fertility of not just humans, but of all life
forms. As is discussed by Barton Wright
in his book, Kachinas, A Hopi Artist’s Documentary (Northland
Publishing, 1973), Kachinas are accessible spirits that allow humans to use
supernatural powers to “cure disease, grow corn, bring clouds and rain, watch
over ceremonies and reinforce discipline and order in the Hopi world” (p. 2). The Kachinas become a major vehicle by which humans
can insure their harmony with the natural world, their communion with and their
grounding in the natural world. Kachinas
revitalize life experience in the villages by creating random intense primary
experience interactions with non-Kachina Hopis.
Sometimes, Kachinas whip people. Sometimes
they pretend to hump women, imitating sex.
Sometimes Kachinas perform ceremonies. Sometimes they act like clowns
and involve the viewers of their antics in interactive theater. Sometimes, they sing or dance. Sometimes they discipline youths who
misbehave. Sometimes, they just act
angry. Sometimes, they perform dangerous
feats like hanging from a pole over the rim of a cliff. In all cases, Kachinas enhance the vibrancy
of people’s life experiences and by extension the vibrancy of the cosmos. These enhanced life experiences make people
feel more alive and, by extension, magically increase their fertility.
The
focus here is on the protection of the flowing blendable continual life force
rather than on the protection of isolated defined discrete life entities. Kachinas are not the highest spiritual
entities in the Hopi pantheon. Rather
they are the bridge that connect humans to the spirit world. When a Hopi puts on a Kachina costume, he
becomes the Kachina and takes on the flowing blendable continual life force
that emanates from the Kachina. It is as
if within the Kachina costume, the Hopi immerses himself (and it is typically a
he) in the Kachina spirit.
Kachina
spirits are in practically everything that surrounds a Hopi – animals, plants,
skies, clouds, rocks, trees, even abstract forms. A Kachina can be an ancestor, a member of a
neighboring tribe, or even a particular occupation within the Hopi, such as a
village head or a guardian. The whole
Hopi field of experience is filled with different kinds of Kachinas. The Hopis have created a complex behavioral
entity that cannot be reduced to any one kind of pre-existing entity in the
external world. To make it even more
complex, the Kachina takes a third form apart from the spirit and from the
human enshrouded in the spirit. The
Hopis carve beautiful Kachina dolls out of wood, and they are given to girls of
the tribe as well as sold to tourists.
The Kachina is a very special unique entity.
In
the same way, modern humans have created unique complex behavioral entities in
the form of modern machines, computers and robots. Just as Kachinas are expressions of the
complex world of spirit that surrounds the Hopi, so modern machines, computers
and robots are expressions of the complex world of electrical energy that
surround modern technological humans.
Just as Kachinas take many forms and permeate many areas of Hopi life,
so modern machines, computers and robots take many forms and are inserted into
many different areas of modern life.
Whereas Kachinas help keep the human race alive by creating rich vibrant
life experiences and by stimulating fertility and the flow of life over
generations, modern technology keeps the human race alive by creating safe
mediated frictionless environments that protect individual humans from harm.
In
the form in which Kachinas interact with humans, Kachinas become basically
humans dressed up as Kachinas. The
Kachina actors blend with the Kachina spirit entities they are supposed to
represent and, as a result, become a bridge over which non-Kachina humans can
enter the world of Kachinas, can become immersed in the world of Kachinas. This blending with Kachinas is the vehicle by
which the strong life force of the Kachina spirits can enter and permeate both
the Kachina actors and the non-Kachina humans.
This strong life force is the basis for strengthening the flow of life
of humans and, by extension, their fertility.
But the influence of Kachina spirits being in the world is not limited
to humans. It extends to animals and
plants and strengthens their fertility.
This is particularly important for maize, the basic grain of the
Hopis. Grown in a desert climate, the
maize of the Hopis requires that the Hopis stay in harmony with the spirit
world in order to survive and thrive.
The Hopis, therefore, are themselves a bridge between the Kachinas and maize
as well as the other living things in the world. Through the Hopis, the strong life force of
the Kachinas is passed on to maize as well as all living things.
Modern
technological humans, on the other hand are more focused on preserving the
lives of individual living units and protecting them from the perishability
that occurs in nature. Just as the Hopis
use the Kachinas to stimulate a strong flow of life and a greater fertility in
life, modern technological humans use their modern machines, their computers
and their robots for their principal purposes: preserving individual lives and
protecting them from organic perishability.
Unlike the Hopis, modern technological humans do not dress up as their
complex creations. The merger of people
with technology is more subtle and indirect.
There is a sense in which we could say that all the modern complex
technological devices with which modern humans interact leach into or bleed
into the minds of humans, as humans are subtly influenced to copy the behavior
of these complex technological entities.
One might almost say that the influence of these complex technological
entities is so impelling that their influence jumps from the technology to the
humans like some magical psychological contagion. There is the admiring imitation of
technological traits that is parallel to the admiring imitation from
preliterate tribespeople of their clan totems.
And finally there is a deeper individual connection that develops
between humans and technological entities, as these entities are unconsciously
used as mirrors to show humans how they have to modify their behavior to become
more robotized. Also, these
technological entities act as implicit models for behavior to which modern
humans aspire.
In
addition to the immersion that individual Hopis experience being Kachina actors
- the immediate experience of directly blending with the Kachinas - the whole
Hopi community as a group can also be said to be influenced by the Kachina
actors through the channels I have discussed: the four metaphorical connections
I have used for modern technological humans.
The direct blending of Kachina and actor is an indication of the
importance placed by the Hopis in the stimulation of the flow of life by spirit
energy. Only through dressing up as
Kachinas, can the Hopis activate this spirit energy. Modern technological humans don’t need to
dress up as machines in order to active their protective energy, electricity.
So
Hopis blend with their created complex behavioral entities – namely, the
Kachinas – and modern technological humans blend with their created complex
behavioral entities – namely, modern machines, computers and robots. With modern technological humans, there is no
need as yet to actually dress up in costume and become a modern technological
entity in order to merge with modern technological entities. But the psychological blending occurs
nevertheless. And all four of the
metaphors I have used for this blending – chemical, biological, anthropological
and psychological – can all be true to some extent and coexist, because they
are all simply symbolic explanations that are useful to describe a blurry
flowing continual experiential situation for humans.
And
yet there is a fifth metaphor for merging that is brought out by the Hopis
interaction with Kachinas. Because there
are several hundred Kachinas, and because they interact with the Hopis in many
different ways, the Kachinas create an enveloping flowing blendable continual
atmosphere of Kachina-ness for the Hopis.
This atmosphere surrounds each individual Hopi with a Kachina essence
that helps to make those Hopis that become Kachina actors more predisposed to
become Kachinas and those Hopis who don’t to be predisposed to blend with the
Kachinas through the Kachina actors. For
all the Hopis, it is an experience of a cultural atmosphere created by the
hundreds of Kachinas.
In
spite of the ongoing creation of new technological entities in modern society,
it is my belief that modern humans experience an ongoing enveloping technological
atmosphere created by all the different technological devices as well as those
aspects or pieces of the modern field of experience that have been transformed
in some way by these devices. This
atmosphere contributes independently of the one-on-one interaction with
individual devices to the gradual robotization of humans. Furthermore, this atmosphere has an influence
apart from the sensory distortion created by overstimulation and
understimulation from different segments of the living environment. In spite of the sensory distortion created by
modern technology, the mind has a need to try and pull together the stimuli
from its field of experience into some coherent grounded whole. And this is why we can speak of modern people
creating some kind of coherent experiential atmosphere in their minds.
Basically
the blending with Kachina-ness, the Kachina experiential atmosphere, is useful
for Hopis in their strategy to survive by resulting in their making an ongoing
flow of organic imprints. The blending
with the modern technology experiential atmosphere is useful for modern humans
in their strategy to survive by resulting in their protecting and preserving
their organic imprints. Modern
technological humans have built a complex modern civilization based on their
filling the spaces of their fields of experience with their preserved organic
imprints. Increasingly these
accumulations of preserved organic imprints – the physical and mental
structures of modern technological civilization – are making it more and more
difficult to continue creating a flow of new vibrant organic imprints that can
then be preserved, as there are fewer and fewer organic surfaces left on which
to leave imprints. In a certain way,
modern humans may need to learn something from the Hopis and their enveloping
symbolic connections to their world, in order to continue a vibrant life with a
flow of organic imprints. Modern humans
need some of the vibrant experiences of the Hopis (not the whipping of people)
to balance out the gradual blending with modern technology and the gradual
conversion into robots.
© 2015 Laurence Mesirow
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