Possible Extinction Article 1

Are we sleep-walking to extinction? It could be said that most people seem un-willing or simply don’t want to acknowledge the economic implications of the need to put the brakes on wasteful economic growth and fossil fuel-based overconsumption. We all somehow need to live in one, or other, form of denial, and believe in delusions that carbon taxes, or some technical fix, will save us because we told that the economy has to grow or we’ll all suffer. And the thought of replacing our consumer lead societies seems so impossible, especially given the powers arrayed against necessary change. But what’s the alternative?

 

The greatest crime against the Living Earth is the belief that attempting to control and abuse the natural world is somehow justifiable. Over time we have created a series of stories that simple allow us to believe it makes sense to deforest the planet, pollute the oceans, and to impoverish millions of our fellow humans. If the stories are effective enough at convincing us that our beliefs are more important than physical reality - they simply supply the rational for destroying the natural world that sustains us. In order to survive we need clean water and breathable clean air, without both we simply cannot exist. In the meanwhile any social system based on non-renewal resources is by definition unsustainable. Our way of living, our cultures, have been depleting the planet for some 8 - 10 thousand years with the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution, and ever since expanding and in time depleting more and more of the Living Earth’s resources.

 

Because we carry the genes of our Hunter-Gatherer ancestors each person, at least the vast majority of us, are born into the world with the potential to become someone who can live sustainably and meaningfully on the Earth. The psychiatrist R. D. Laing (1927-1989) argued that from early childhood most people, including young people, today are confronted by the forces of power, greed and increasing consumerism, just as their parents and their parents have been. Indeed, by the time the young person is 15, or so, they are most likely left, just like their parents, in a mad illusionary world created by mankind over the centuries. From a social, or perceptual level history, started when certain groups of people, following the Agricultural Revolution, gained the where with all to tell the story of what was going on, a story that was advantageous to them while at the same time establishing a worldview to which they could get others to subscribe. In general, history as we perceive it has been passed on by those with excessive power and influence in the world.

 

In his book ‘The Sane Society’, the psychologist Erich Fromm proposed that not just individuals, but entire societies "may be lacking in sanity".  He wrote that it is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas, or emotions, proves the validity of these ideas and emotions. Indeed, nothing is further from the truth. The fact that millions of people share the same madness does not make such madness either sane, or virtuous. The fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane, just as has happened throughout recorded history and remains so today.

 

When we talk about sane societies we might ask if saneness is like beauty in that 'beauty is seen in the eye of the beholder' or is there some universal constant of saneness that we can measure both our social and organizational actions against?  In other words is saneness something objective, or subjective? Again, there is the idea of what constitutes “saneness” will enable actions that people can agree are “sane”? These are no doubt difficult and complex questions. Indeed, it could be argued that any attempt to define sanity with precision is somewhat pointless. Nevertheless, we can make appeals to loosely defined concepts of sanity that reflects the real world of human concourse and that will gather public support without ever defining what you mean and where and what the difficult choices are regarding what is sane or not.

 

For example: Why such obsessive concern with "leaders" in today’s world? Yet, it remains the case that people seem to yearn for someone to show the way, to inspire and to move us in one direction, or other, that is not withstanding that throughout the ages many, many millions of people found themselves at the mercy of leaders who imposed their malignant version of the world upon their own, and other, peoples. Too often the hope vested in leaders, and especially new leaders could be described as excessive even unbalanced. Preoccupation with leaders, of course, deflects attention from the powerlessness of people in general with the mirage of democracy, even in places where the most highly sophisticated "electoral process" prevails. Too many leaders are keen to display their control over events over which they hopefully have waning influence.

 

The grandiose words of their office of "governance", "high office", "senior politicians", "veteran leaders", "statesmen and women"; as well as the global babble about "transparency", "accountability" and of course, the "empowerment" and "participation" of the people are merely decorative phases . It could be said that the destiny of many leaders is to strut and fret their hour upon the stage, to exit and not mess with the décor.