An Insane Human World Article 4

In relation to the future regarding the building an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on Earth we might ask if the glass is half full or half empty. In other words are you an optimist, or a pessimist? We could say that the true optimists are happy about the possibility of a favourable future even when the glass is only quarter full and when it seems that the forces of destruction are everywhere and insurmountable – that is when optimists show their mettle. Here true optimists not only express their belief in humankind, but follow through in their actions. In all too many ways pessimism about the future is broadcast in large part by the mass media with its obsession with disasters and the nasty side of human nature displayed in the actions of a small percentage of the human population. Of course there are huge problems and challenges concerning continuing human existence.

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Problems and challenges such as the ongoing destruction the world's natural resources that sustain us, harmful drugs, the obsessive greed of some people, the vast amount of money going to the fossil-fuel industry, the arms industry etc.,, lack of food and clean water for millions and millions of people, the persistence of avoidable disease, the exploitation of human and natural resources, and all of this with only a glimmer of hope of improvements to human welfare. Again it would be extremely naïve to overlook the horrendous misery inflicted by human beings on each other (horrendous wars of the 20th century and the continuing wars of today) and by natural events. Nevertheless, it would be misleading to deny that human life has in part improved across much of the world in the past number of decades. However, there is a long way to go, and we must try and keep going towards ensuring a more productive, meaningful and sustainable Living Earth.

The multitude of insane responses to a financial crisis created by a number of greedy people, and destructive organisations, will be looked upon by historians with contempt and scorn. Future generations will wonder: “What were they thinking?” Trillions in wealth and resources were vaporized due to the actions of a small, often greedy and lacking empathy groups, as well as powerful elites whose warped sense of morality led them to pillage the wealth of the natural world through fraudulent financial products, bribing regulatory agencies, stabbing (not literally of course) clients and competitors in the back, and peddling lies, propaganda and misinformation to the public through their captured media mouthpieces.

 

Not only haven’t these selfish greedy and often powerful people been thrown in jail, but instead have grown their parasitic entities to enormous proportions while paying themselves obscene billions in bonuses.

Luckily for the financial elite, the average person would rather watch soap-opera and football etc., than try to understand how powerful control the lives of billions of people. The profits accrue to those who run the show, buy the politicians, often write the laws, command the media propaganda machine and control the currency. As a sane person in this insane world I’m somewhat flabbergasted that there is virtually no outrage at the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity and the Living Earth.

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It was neither capitalism nor communism that made possible the so-called progress and pathologies (total war, the unprecedented concentration of global wealth, planetary destruction) of the modern age. The meta-trend, the mother narrative, for the past two – three hundred years is carbon-fuelled expansion. Our ideologies are mere sub plots. Now, with the accessible reserves somewhat exhausted, we must ransack the hidden corners of the Earth to sustain our impossible proposition.

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The inescapable failure of a society built upon growth and its destruction of the Earth's living systems are the overwhelming facts of our existence today, and has been for much too long. As a result, they are mentioned almost nowhere. They are the 21st century's great taboo, the subjects guaranteed to alienate your friends and neighbours. We live as if trapped inside a Sunday supplement: obsessed with fame, fashion and the three dreary staples of middle-class conversation: recipes, renovations and resorts. Anything but the topic that demands our attention. Statements of the bleeding obvious are treated as distractions, while the impossible proposition by which we live is regarded as sane and normal and unremarkable that it isn't worthy of mention. That's how you measure the depth of today’s problems: by our inability even to discuss them.

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The fundamental basis for thinking that much of our culture is based on is flawed. However, the phenomena itself is not examined, and remains unaddressed, and unacknowledged. It is because of our use of ideas as the primary referent, which allows massively complex environmental problems to be explained away by the ignorant, ill-informed and those prone to denial of the facts. You see the failing of ideas is that they can be as complex and open-ended, or as narrow and simplistic as you want. So you put concerns about the environment in the very shallow straw man idea box, used simply to dismiss the massive complexity of environmental problems in very simple terms.

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Any fool can laugh at environmental science and ecology, and dismiss the best possible predictions of science. It is easy if you wrap it up in a simple idea - a straw man argument - meant as a vehicle to dismiss the real concerns. Yet the reality is millions of species, each with a myriad of individuals that defy general description. The complexity of species and their environmental interactions is incalculable beyond our imagination. These are by far the most complex fields studied by humankind in terms of what is to be known.

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No one can look at the actual world, nor the real environmental impacts of our unsustainable lifestyle, and say there is not a problem.  A shift in perception is needed away from seeing the world in terms of our personal simplified ideas of the world, to looking at the complex reality of the world, even the bits we cannot yet explain, or describe.

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While most people want to, and believe that they live in a reality-based community, they also tend to believe that solutions to problems emerge from the study of discernible reality supported by enlightenment principles and empiricism. Sadly that's not the way the world really works, nor has it done so for a very long time now. Throughout recorded history power elites have created their own realities, and somehow imposed these realities on much of the rest of humanity.

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It might be useful to somehow conceptualise four stages to help people to collectively address the serious problems of resource depletion, global warming and economic collapse that are ahead of us unless things change in a more positive direction. These four stages are:

·       Honestly accepting the reality in which we find ourselves.

·       Creating meaningful and purposeful goals in the light of this reality.

·       Focusing on both constructive and positive action.

·       Building communities of shared-learning and support.