CYCLE TWENTY

1. NOUMENAL AND PHENOMENAL COMPUTERS. From the alpha of PCW-type integral CPU/VDU computers to the omega of integral CPU/VDU computers with hard-disc/CD-ROM drive via the phenomenal relativity of tower/VDU computers and desktop/VDU computers (with or without integral CD-ROM). Hence from an objective noumenal absolutism to a subjective noumenal absolutism via both objective (tower) and subjective (desktop) manifestations of phenomenal relativity. Clearly, nothing short of an integral CPU/VDU computer with CD-ROM will suffice for the computing avant-garde!

2. TECHNOLOGICAL GENERALIZATIONS. Broadly speaking, where radios are phenomenally objective and televisions ... noumenally objective, the former conceptual and the latter perceptual, video-recorders are phenomenally subjective and computers ... noumenally subjective, the former perceptual and the latter conceptual. This is, of course, to generalize ... relative to a specific technological quadruplicity, but it does, I believe, highlight the cultural nature of each medium, from televisions on the 'far left', so to speak, to computers on the 'far right'.

3. POLITICAL PARALLELS. One could speak, echoing the above contentions, of the autocratic nature of television, the bureaucratic nature of radio (right wing), the democratic nature of video (left wing), and the theocratic nature of computers, as from fundamentalism to transcendentalism via nonconformism and humanism. Televisions and radios, being objective, tend to affirm the not-self, the former in noumenal terms and the latter phenomenally, whereas videos and computers tend, in their subjective bias, to affirm the self, the former phenomenally and the latter with regard to the noumenal. That is why one could equate strength and knowledge with television and radio respectively, but beauty and truth with video and computing respectively. Yet these media, being external to the self and inherently phenomenal entities, are really more political than religious, as though symbolic of external manifestations of the Father (television), the Son (radio), the Mother (video), and the Holy Spirit (computing). Only a fool would confound these electrical devices with genuinely religious realities! Nevertheless, it would be still more mistaken to confound them with economic or scientific realities ... after the fashion of, say, cinema or jukeboxes (which, in any case, are more economic than scientific). One could therefore speak, with regard to a political estimation of our chosen quadruplicity, of the authoritarianism of television, the parliamentarianism of radio, the republicanism of video, and the totalitarianism of computing, allowing for an overall standing of phenomenal subjectivity for the context in question, which is nonetheless subdivisible along objective and subjective lines (see above).

4. BEYOND PLURALISM. One thing I have come to realize over the years ... is that the determined truth-seeker can sooner or later get to the truth about anything, and that the achievement of truth liberates one from beauty, knowledge, and strength, or, if that sounds too sweeping, let us rather say that truth makes one more absolutist and less able or disposed to abide relativity, including the much-vaunted relativity of political and other forms of pluralism. Only that society, it seems to me, which has not reached truth or, more likely, has no real interest in the pursuit of truth, can abide the pluralism of strength, knowledge, and beauty. For truth cannot abide such a pluralism, and to put truth (assuming one had it) on a par with strength, knowledge, and beauty would be equivalent to putting God on a par with the Devil, man, and woman! Obviously, God cannot be treated as equal to the aforementioned trio, else He will cease to have any divine significance and become, instead, their subverted shadow, whether singly or collectively, as tends to be the case in open and heathen societies, where the concept of God is tailored to fit the wearers of fundamentalist, nonconformist, and humanist values, and He has no independent existence in relation to what God should be - namely, the utmost truth, and means, thereby, to supreme being. If God is to be honoured and realized on His true terms, if, in other words, God is eventually to come properly to pass, then the shadow Gods to the Devil, man, and woman will have to be cast down, so that the true God can be raised up ... in refutation of all pluralistic relativity and affirmation of transcendental absolutism. Verily, the truth liberates from nonconformist/humanist relativity, as such relativity liberates from fundamentalist absolutism.