2.2 Macro/Micro
Last modified 05/26/2008
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Let us reiterate that we have discovered a candidate for the elusive
'macroevolution' that is always suspected, but never found, in the study of
evolution via Darwinian perspectives. We are strictly speaking talking about the evolution
of man, but it would not be hard to apply this basic reasoning to all stages of
evolution, save that we simply don't have the data required that is visible in
the closely tracked version seen in the eonic effect. Looking at the confusions
over the Cambrian, for example, we can easily see in principle at least why so
much ambiguity is being generated by the Darwinian perspective. We can hazard a
guess that the characteristic two levels are being missed, as the whole sequence
is collapsed into one form of explanation, natural selection. Clearly some
unknown macro process is braided with the selectionist process. But more we
cannot say, and it is not our subject. It could not be anything like what we see
later in human evolution, save for the overall rubric of macro and micro
processes operating on different levels.
In history it is a surprise indeed to find this double action, and yet the facts speak for themselves. It is important to develop a method to properly use this insight, since we can't directly invoke a macro explanation for anything pertaining to our present or future. We see this macro factor in the past, more we do not know. We can arrive at no real understanding of the Axial Age, for example, without this kind of two level analysis, but it does not follow that we can expect to produce such a macro factor in our microaction, that is in our ordinary history. This welcome complication to standard theories completely transforms our way of understanding both history and (human) evolution, and gives us a way to bring the discourse of evolution into historical analysis without its interfering with the basic necessity of chronicle the saga of human freedom. The intersection of the two processes is visible in the Axial Age: we see that the direct flowering of human self-consciousness and creativity is the medium of evolution, while its realization in time is what we call history. The elegant interaction of the two produces the innovations that we see and which form a settled part of our traditions. But as 'evolve' in this context, we must learn to see the limits of previous realizations. Thus we must graduate to a higher understanding of, for example, the Old Testament, to see that while its realization in history suffers from elements that have declined into mythology its basic framework, beyond the text, is something far larger, the context of the evolutionary process we see in the 'eonic effect'.
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