Ten...Nine...Eight....

Well, we screwed up this time...big time. We had a century or more to get it right or it least to give it our best shot. But the time has passed, all those precious years wasted and we didn't even really try toward the end.

A flashback. 1950. Stalwart explorers had been breaking new trails for decades . Starting with Freud, Adler and especially the Swiss wizard from Thurgau Canton, Carl Gustav Jung. They were getting closer all the time. Closer to a description of mankind free from pious dungeon and secular waffling that just might lead to something real. Like maybe a clear picture of what constitutes a human being after millennial layers of obfuscation and exploitation are removed.

Alas, it was not to be. Close but no cigar. A powerful new distraction had been released affecting the brave world of human psychology. What was heard abroad was the sound of hot potatoes dropping as the media rushed to their new darling. The old guys and their big complicated ideas were abandoned never again to occupy even page six.

Miltown, that wonderful happy compound, had been invented in New Jersey. Hallelujah! It would prove to be second only to the discovery of fire in the minds and hearts of millions. Especially to the second tier mind mechanics who had visions of tranking the folks into a modern nirvana.
No more heavy tomes and endless talk. No more professional disdain for those low earning docs who merely sit and listen. Now we can bottle it! Lots and lots of beautiful pills in those charming bottles with the glorious M.D. imprint. Scripus Reignus, hooray. Stop listening and start writing scrip. And as a bonus, stop thinking too. You've done quite enough of that!

With Miltown the folks began to cheer even more loudly for man the consumer. U da' man! My material man! All hail! How happy he is now! See him as he shops. Note how cleverly he consumes Earth's goodies. Homage to the most efficient user-upper of damn near everything. All Hail!

Did this simple compound and those that followed herald the end of the search for the human?
Have the forces of Joyous Consumerism triumphed and Economic Man become the paradigm that prevails? Are we, since that era, content to treat only symptoms and ignore first causes.? It appears so. But then,

Carl Jung cautioned that if we did not soon find a universal understanding of what makes us human the future looked dim. That perhaps we will see a gradual collapse of our material way of life and enter into a time comparable to the Dark Ages. The failure to examine in depth the actual nature of the human as opposed to the arbitrary hunches and dogmas currently in vogue fail to ground mankind within nature and the scheme of things. In no regard are we meeting the future united, prepared and in agreement on what we really are and what we really need . If we couldn't fix things during good times, how on Earth will we do it now?

Start making candles. It could get very dark outside.