Musings on Scenes from Westwood

A few days ago I was stopped at a red light in the corner of Sepulveda and Santa Monica Blvd in West Los Angeles. I noticed on my left across the four lanes of the boulevard an interesting man standing at the street corner. A tall upright man, dark skinned, dressed in a long black winter coat going down to his bare ankles. I seem to remember he was wearing black shoes.  A sleeping bag was spread in front of him on the pavement and nothing else. For a moment I thought he is one of the homeless people you see in this part of town. But as I was waiting for the red light to change I observed his rhythmic movements from side to side. And it looked like a beautiful dance. Was it a dance or was it a reaction to some drugs he injected?  I will not know the answer as the light changed and I was on my way to my writing group.
My hair dresser works in a Salon near the supermarket on Westwood Blvd. She is one of the Jewish immigrants who came to California from Iran in the eighties. She is an intelligent woman who used to work as a nurse. She is very warm and friendly and often wants to talk about what is going on in my life. I told her about my last visit in Amsterdam and my tour of the Portuguese Synagogue there. The synagogue was built in 1675 and still stands in the original architecture with no electricity. People continue to pray there until today. At nights they use candle light. It was built by Jews who were expelled from Spain and Portugal by the inquisition in the 15th century. I asked if she heard about this expulsion. She had No recollection.

Amsterdam's Portuguese Synagogue

At the Landmark Theater in Westwood they are now showing the movie RBG about the Supreme Court judge. She is the second woman in history that was nominated for the Supreme Court. I loved this movie and recommended it to my friends. You will be surprised to hear how many people in Westwood never heard of her. So I continue to ask them in the same line: Do you remember the French Revolution?  Liberty, Equality, brotherhood?
They remember nothing!
There was a homeless woman who sat at a street corner a few days. She was covered with old blankets and her dirty clothes were piled in a supermarket cart. I saw her once in the supermarket restrooms washing her long hair in the sink. What does she know of freedom and democracy? Maybe she once learned to dance in her youth?

Balance of Tradition and Progress

Let's check out the history of human kind.  We evolved from hunters gatherers to modern day internet, smart phones in the palms of our hands and knowledge available to any child.
When do you think we were happier or better off? 
One of my friends is absolutely certain that the hunters gatherers had the best life: roaming the lush forests all day, free in the fresh air, no stress of any kind.  She thought she could convince me of that.  But I am absolutely sure that the knowledge we gathered, our understanding of our world and the inevitability of progress are all pointing out that this life is the best and the only balance that could be achieved between the past and the future.
Let us examine this balance.  First off studies show that the rate of killings in the days of the hunters gatherers was very high relatively speaking.  One had to be extremely vigilant in the forest just to survive day in and day out.  The human population of the world is ever increasing and it would be impossible for us all to live simply today.
I am certain that progress could not be stopped.  We have gone through all these revolutions.  Just to name a few:
The language revolution made homo sapiens communicate and use their collective intelligence to overcome the other humans.
The agricultural revolution made humans stay in homes near their fields. 

The harvesters: Early agriculture in America. 

The print revolution brought the written words to the masses.  Humans everywhere began reading and writing and communication improved.  People started writing novels so human stories were now available for people to read.
The industrial revolution welcomed technology into our lives.  We now know more about the very large the very small stuff:
space, galaxies and planets, atoms and electrons.  Electricity and magnetism.
The science revolution made people realize that we have the capability to understand things beyond our imagination.  Governments and philanthropists started funding research and the march of knowledge is unstoppable.
The internet revolution is the largest most amazing one of all!

Cloud Data:

It is not amazing that we still have wars, power struggles and clash of cultures.  It is the inevitable chaos amidst all the progress.  It is all the in the fine balance. 

There are many predictions about future progress.  The best prediction in my mind is that the future  break through will be in psychology and understanding behaviors.  These understandings will be based on true knowledge of our fight or flight instincts or survival instincts.  True knowledge of evolution of space and planets on a large as scale and our biology on an atomic level.

There will be no justification for a group of people to execute an individual because he believes our planet is round and revolves around the sun.  That individual simply watched the stars with a telescope and knew and understood what he saw.  His knowledge was lost in the balance against those who were fighting for their survival.

I am sure there are many more examples of basic injustices like this.  If we all raise future generations with access to true knowledge there will be no place for such injustice.  

Many groups who try to preserve their traditions are constantly fighting against progress.  Some of these traditions have many positive aspects.  I am certain that respect for the elderly is important, yet in many modern societies youth is revered.  There is a prediction that this reverence for youth will dominate the future of history.  I am very curious to know if this indeed where the balance will end up.