Outside The Box

During the early 1800’s, about 3% of the world’s population lived in cities. In the year 2007 for the first time in human history, most of the population was urban. That percentage is around 55% today, and the migration continues: By 2050 it is projected to be around 75%.

Here in North Georgia, we know that you don’t always have to move to the city. The city comes to you, whether you want it or not. Some of that growth is driven by economics. People move where the jobs are. It’s a process. Infrastructure must grow to meet the demands of increased population. New housing must be built. People are displaced.

There is always an element of chaos which accompanies growth and change. There is more traffic, more pollution, more elbows to rub; more competition for the same resources. Honey attracts bees, but it also attracts flies. There is more crime. This is particularly true in large American cities where ideology has displaced merit.

Not everyone was cut out to live in a city. The term “homo urbanus” is sometimes used to propose a new species of human adapted more to technology and city life than the humans who throughout our vast history were required to adapt more directly to the earth itself.

Then there are those who move to the city for work, reach retirement age and seek to move back to the country or the suburbs as quickly as possible. We have many families in that category amongst our friends and neighbors here, and this time of generational change, as the Boomers reach retirement age and enter into senior life, accelerates the process.

It all combines to create a secondary or derivative wave of growth and change in an exodus from the cities, and that’s what we are seeing in our small towns surrounded by houses in the fields and macmansions on the mountaintops.

When enough escapees collect in an area outside the city limits, the lure of economic activity to be harvested will attract business and development. First come the gas station/convenience stores. Then the Dollar General. Then someone moves a shop outside the city limits to escape the high taxes.

Alas, when enough value is generated, the assimilating arms of the nearest city or town will reach out to enfold that activity and increase the tax base, always claiming that the residents want this inclusion so the city can “provide services.”

In some cases this might actually be true. “Homo urbanus,” if not actually a separate species is most certainly a different alignment of values and thought processing. The urban, suburban and rural environments are markedly different and require different adaptations. Our values are a function of the adaptations we must make to our environment. Usually.

Values, ideology and political preferences in the US are largely determined based on location. Don’t worry, this article is not about politics. OK, it’s a little bit about politics. A quick glance at the electoral map will support the premise: Vast red voting areas of lower population density surrounding blue voting pockets of high population density.

But there is another factor at play. One of the strongest forces for assimilation in western civilization is what we have often referred to as the “pixel universe.” It is the ubiquitous presence of the unceasing flow of information and entertainment and the ability to be “online” and “connected” every minute of every day.

Once we had a Fourth Estate of information providers that functioned as a forum where the nation could discuss ideas and be informed of matters of national interest. We referred to that information rather than being joined to it. It was something we could pick up and put down, and with plenty of time to process in between. We had time to think about it. Now the information flows uninterrupted. It targets our amygdala and limbic system rather than our cognitive functions.

Enter “The Borg.” If you have watched any of the several Star Trek franchises produced over the last 30 years, you are familiar with the soulless hive mind of the Federation’s nemesis. The Borg was an entity which sought to join all life and all consciousness into a single hive mind. “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”

In my own mind, thus far unassimilated, I see elements of Borg in the ever-growing urbanization of the world’s population, and in the values which accompany that transition. Don’t think for a moment that we are safe from the hazards which science fiction’s cautionary tale warns us about. There is a very “Borg-like” force at work in the world.

The novelist and political satirist, C. J. Hopkins calls it “GloboCap,” short for Global Capitalism. It is the apolitical fragment of humanity which controls the monetary system, the industry, commerce and information of western civilization. It has wielded political parties left and right to advance its goals. Currently it swings from the left, using news, entertainment and social media to force assimilation of the west, and just like the Borg, it is intent on destroying the unassimilated.

It isn’t the free-market capitalism that built America and which the right seeks to preserve and restore. The left would be horrified to truly understand that it is at its very core, totalitarian in nature. GloboCap will go to any lengths to keep left and right from understanding that they both have a common enemy in the wedge between them which continues to drive deeper, dividing to conquer, conquering to assimilate.

The book of Genesis contains a cautionary tale analogous to the Borg story, and it speaks of a deep understanding of human nature. In the story of Babel, humanity, united under a common language, sought to build a tower to challenge the heavens. God confounded their understanding and separated humanity with different languages, and thus the nations were born. We were not designed for assimilation.