In retrospect, we are living in an era that is unlike any of the realms of being that have existed before the 21st century. Humanity has gathered an extensive amount of knowledge, art, literature, technology and science. We have created through our creative explorations newfound realms. Life has dramatically altered in that we are becoming able to choose from incredibly vast range the content of our lives. By universalizing all the values that have defined the cultures, we are able to combine from those ingredients new cultures in the level of values too. But by creating new ones with our own signature, THAT would be something. A realm of our own century’s design. In the remembrance that it will give the rise to other consequential forms.
So should we call this as the Garden of Eden 2.0? I did the update for Plato’s cave, so why not do it for the Garden of Eden too? The Garden of Eden famously has the Tree of Knowledge that made Adam and Eve to become able to know good and evil. And it was the one tree Adam and Eve were not allowed to eat, but from all the other trees that were in Eden. And let us suppose now the other trees in the garden were trees whose fruits represented a certain type of knowledge. Good and evil must be considered as types of knowledge, since the reality of independent objects do not contain in themselves any knowledge at all. After all, their content in the form of knowledge is only the representations we have of them. Let us then suppose that just as by being allowed to become aware of anything else but good and evil, Adam and Eve did explore different types of knowledge they could become aware of. Consider then the excitement they must have had when a new realm of possibilities opened for their views and experiences. Consider then just how many realms of possibilities there exist now for a human who is born unknowing.
I have experienced the cultural transiency myself in the following way. I have driven my car listening to Capone-N-Noreaga’s timeless “L.A., L.A” with the sign of East Coast in my hand. Lived the culture of hip hop and rap with the smooth gestures all over body language, wearing the relaxed but notorious clothing. I moved through a certain bridge into being something close to a hippie only later move on to Funk, Afro-Cuban Jazz, Nu-Jazz and to the magical tango’s of Astor Piazzolla. Opera and classical music opened me the doorways for listening symphonic metal with the flame of passion and depth in lyrics the best of that style has to offer. I am now dressed to black suit with my head shaved. Metal and drum and bass have stuck with me. My experience with the taste of literature and philosophy are similar to the changes I have gone through throughout my life. And I believe this transiency is a common experience for all the individuals, varying between styles. Indulging vitally the best of our days in the good, the excellent and the worse.
It is perhaps because I have refined so many different tastes I have found from the modernity of cultures, and found them to be so enriching that the potentials cultures contain have become so clear to me. This is to say that best of the fruits of any form of a culture are now available for us to enrich our daily lives with. But without the past ties to fit in with the masses the previous generations might have experienced. And in this, the freedom of our lives has increased and the scale of human experience has become vaster. Therefore giving the rise for the Garden of Eden 2.0 in the representational realm. But this time, without the snake.
Copyright A� 2010 Henry M. Piironen