Monday, June 4, 2012

The anti-materialism of Philip K. Dick and Gnosticism, a long war for the Demiurge and the Materialists

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/philip-k-dick-sci-fi-philosopher-part-2/

This is an amazingly smart and important article. I recommend it highly even though my next statement is negative. In this Part 2 section, it delves into Gnostic belief that *this world* (the phenomenal/physical world explained and manipulated by politics, science and technology) is inherently evil and not the product of God, and God's creation is out there in another knowledge/non-physical universe that is calling some of us to it. It even names the demiurge as a height of evil. That is a quick snapshot of who the good guys and bad guys are to Philip K. Dick.

I couldn't disagree more, nor be more in opposition. Serious opposition. What Gnostics and Philip K Dick would call the Evil Empire -something very much like the machine managed human-using Matrix- I call this: The Best Thing in the Universe, the Superior Thing in the Universe. And I say superior with the full weight and intention of such a loaded word.

I anticipate a long, maybe endless, battle between anti-materialists such as Gnostics (Muslims and Christians of certain types possibly included) and the demiurge (people who maintain this political technological world). I see a never ending torrent of anti-materialists arising through every age, and the only way to defeat them is with a further Rise of the Machines.

My book Athena Techne is a healthy push against the anti-materialists. I'm so glad I made this contribution to the war against anti-materialism.