Executives at NPR are forced out of their jobs for telling the truth. Obama dodges responsibility to lead at every turn. The spineless, corrupt Democrats pass for a ‘centrist’ position, when they clearly represent the Republicans’ bitch. Voices of the progressive left are shouted down and out of the public conversation, while the neo-fascist shills at Fox continue to pass for sane. Truth tellers like Chris Hedges are crowded off the edge of the platform and “liberals” continue to back away from their core beliefs. Discouraging? Just slightly.
Let’s not mince words or dice the truth. The Tea Parties are dominated by uneducated, scared racists. The few who don’t fit that profile have simply (and justifiably) lost faith in the ability of government to function in their behalf, or for anyone other than the moneyed elite. Did one of those NPR execs make some reference to their “stupidity”? Oh dear. We are watching what will likely be seen as the final battle between human intelligence and human ignorance, willful ignorance, fear and denial. It’s the top of the 8th, and stupidity is up by ten.
There are peer-reviewed studies, documented and reproduced, that demonstrate significant patterns of difference between those who hold the conservative mindset and those who identify as liberal / progressive. Those on the left are better educated, less materialistic, less nationalistic, more in favor of human rights and humanistic values, and more open-minded, more flexible in their thinking, more creative and appreciative of culture. Sadly they are more inclined to play by the rules, even when their opponents are cheating at every opportunity. Conservatives are motivated, in general, across their experience, more by fear than confidence in the future or hope. They are more resistant to change AS change, regardless of the reasons for change. They are less willing to question their assumptions or prejudices. DUH. Liberals are conversely all too willing, continually, to question their assumptions, values, goals, strategies, clothing choices, religious beliefs and diet. To a fault. To THE fault that pushes human civilization and humanity toward the brink: the tipping point of global eco-disaster. Every statement here is already established fact, or provable tendency.
Chris Hedges, in a “book talk,” links the global financial fraud with the global eco-crisis. He sees that they are two sides of the same issue. He acknowledges that we can’t address one without addressing both. He points out that at the root of both problems - the environment at risk and the economy sucked dry - are the same corrupting influence of money on “democratic” politics, protected by corporate controlled information.
My words, not his: There is a zero-sum equation between the dollar value of total global ecological (and human rights) damage, and the total of accumulated, stolen, exploited and hoarded global wealth. Clues are emerging everywhere, to the only trend that can save us. The middle east rebellions demand punishment for political criminals and the return of the wealth the dictators stole from their own people. Progressives here continue to speak of the shameful refusal to tax the rich or to force corporations to obey tax law. No mention of the eco-damage as yet. One can only hope, that additional link will be established and that rebellions for basic rights will continue to spread.
Showing posts with label zero sum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label zero sum. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
I debate World Trends Research
A good friend posted a link to an essay by Van Wishard, host of the site World Trends Research, on “understanding our moment in history.” I gravitate to anyone’s attempt to present a ‘big picture’ analysis of this unprecedented time and our understanding or lack of it. And Mr. Wishard certainly strikes some major chords, addresses some powerful issues insightfully, and point us to some very wise interpretations, if not solutions. It’s a somewhat long piece, but it’s worth your time. I hope it’s equally worth it to read my areas of agreement and my rebuttal.
What boggles me about so many of such analyses, even the ones that ally with my political, social, spiritual or economic rants, is their inability to recognize or break through the massive environmental blind spot that, I argue, is the REAL threat to civilization.
So I’ll try to be brief. I’ll highlight the many very smart observations and hope you’ll read them in their entirety. I’ll point out what I see as gaps, and try to fill some of them in.
Yes, we are at the crossroads between two ages. Who do we (Mr. Wishard and I) mean by “we”? The whole of the human race and the myriad variations of civilizations and cultures we’ve built, but we in the U.S. and the industrialized West in particular, because it is WE who have turned us all toward this crossroads and stepped on the gas. He defines this threshold in terms of a set of technological, social and spiritual shifts. And he seems to suggest, rather subtly, that the solution, or the proper navigation will depend upon a new “globalized” kind of understanding, a widespread change in “world view,” including a readjustment toward spiritual values. I couldn’t agree more.
He cites three aspects of this changing trend: 1. a shift in our view of the earth, and / or of human civilization as having a unified identity and destiny; 2. technology as the driving force behind “globalization” and as the fundamental factor creating this new age; 3. it is not a war between civilizations, but a struggle within an emerging global civilization. While he thinks the view of the earth from the moon changed fundamentally our view of our lives on this planet, I have my doubts; we certainly have not changed our behavior as a result of a more ‘global’ view. Technology, clearly, YES, is the driving force in the shift from the age we are leaving to the one we are entering.
He cites brilliant minds historic and contemporary who have predicted and defined, and tried to warn and redirect us; minds who saw some of the emerging patterns well before the rest of us. It’s worth it to notice his experts and their observations. He raises issues about whether human technologies are part of “natural evolution,” and suggests, as I would, that they redefine “nature” and skew all the arguments we would otherwise make about nature or technology. To our peril, to the degree we misunderstand. He challenges us to imagine that unfettered technological advancements may obfuscate, some would say obviate, a clear moral order in individual cultures and in the civilization at large.
It’s great to see comments that directly parallel some of the experts I cite. He says, ”In other words, we may be fooling around with phenomena that are, in fact, beyond human awareness; possibly even beyond the ability of humans to grasp.” The International Futures Foundation, which I quote several other places, says, “We (the same “we”) are in a Conceptual Emergency. The world we have constructed expands and accelerates beyond our ability to understand or control it.”
And he makes some wonderful references to the “eternal mystery” and the “sense of wonder” it induces. While I lament our loss of a sense of wonder, so deeply have we come to take the many mysteries for granted.
And he also makes the courageous leap to say that the roots of the problem, the nature of the change of age, and the understanding of it, all lie, in whole or in part, in the unconscious mind, and/or the collective unconscious. Though I disagree with his characterization of the unconscious and the nature of its influence.
But, to my dismay, in a 6000 word essay that covers the issues described here and more, there are only two sentences that refer, rather obliquely at that, to the environment, the global environmental crisis, its expansion, severity and acceleration, and its rapidly increasing risk, not only to human civilization, but to the lives of hundreds of millions, if not billions of our fellow inhabitants.
Every argument he cites, every analysis he offers, every piece of history, every note of technological hubris: they all go by without a mention of the historic impact of the industrial revolution, setting up global warming. With only a side note to Bill Joy, he decries the possibility of more destructive new technologies, without enumerating the unintended consequences of the technologies we have let loose in our myopic drive toward materialist excess. He does come down on materialist values and he does point to some kind of a spiritual re-understanding of our situation, as parts of a proper preparation for these millennial changes we face.
My argument is that YES we are at a threshold between Ages, and YES the age we are leaving is represented on the ground by industrialization, technology and myopic materialism. I’d add, with emphasis, we are also in the middle of the Information Age (“Ages” can and do overlap and intersect) without having much of a clue how information and the lack of it perpetuate the problems by leaving us uniformed.
The nature of a Blind Spot, whether optical, vehicular, mental or cultural, is that it does not merely hide information, it conceals the fact that information is missing.
But the age we are entering is yet to be defined and it will be defined by many more factors than economic and cultural “globalization.” And it will not be defined so much by the dangers of new micro technologies. Nor will the environmental catastrophe be ameliorated or reversed by “geo engineering” (my argument only, not his). We are either entering into the Age of Ecology or we are entering a new Dark Age that will likely last, like the last one, for a millennium.
If we assume that this radical shift in global “world view” will be only about technology, or spirituality, or about reasserting some collection of social values, we’ll be navigating that new age without a compass, fresh water, or a predictable next meal. When we forget the NATURE of the world we stand on, and when we ignore the web of life that has allowed us to evolve, and when we take for granted the stability of our “civilized” systems, we risk launching ourselves, and more critically our children and theirs, into a world of chaos and decline.
My final argument, predicted or echoed in no way by Mr. Wishard: there is a critical and deep-seated equation in the global crisis we face. There is a balance between the total value of the accumulated wealth in the world, concentrated in the industrialized West, and the total damage to the planet and to human rights over the last five hundred years. I think that “Zero Sum” equivalency is all three: the explanation for how we got into this predicament, the reasons we are unable to become informed or make democratic decisions about it, and the key to the remedy. Thanks for your attention.
What boggles me about so many of such analyses, even the ones that ally with my political, social, spiritual or economic rants, is their inability to recognize or break through the massive environmental blind spot that, I argue, is the REAL threat to civilization.
So I’ll try to be brief. I’ll highlight the many very smart observations and hope you’ll read them in their entirety. I’ll point out what I see as gaps, and try to fill some of them in.
Yes, we are at the crossroads between two ages. Who do we (Mr. Wishard and I) mean by “we”? The whole of the human race and the myriad variations of civilizations and cultures we’ve built, but we in the U.S. and the industrialized West in particular, because it is WE who have turned us all toward this crossroads and stepped on the gas. He defines this threshold in terms of a set of technological, social and spiritual shifts. And he seems to suggest, rather subtly, that the solution, or the proper navigation will depend upon a new “globalized” kind of understanding, a widespread change in “world view,” including a readjustment toward spiritual values. I couldn’t agree more.
He cites three aspects of this changing trend: 1. a shift in our view of the earth, and / or of human civilization as having a unified identity and destiny; 2. technology as the driving force behind “globalization” and as the fundamental factor creating this new age; 3. it is not a war between civilizations, but a struggle within an emerging global civilization. While he thinks the view of the earth from the moon changed fundamentally our view of our lives on this planet, I have my doubts; we certainly have not changed our behavior as a result of a more ‘global’ view. Technology, clearly, YES, is the driving force in the shift from the age we are leaving to the one we are entering.
He cites brilliant minds historic and contemporary who have predicted and defined, and tried to warn and redirect us; minds who saw some of the emerging patterns well before the rest of us. It’s worth it to notice his experts and their observations. He raises issues about whether human technologies are part of “natural evolution,” and suggests, as I would, that they redefine “nature” and skew all the arguments we would otherwise make about nature or technology. To our peril, to the degree we misunderstand. He challenges us to imagine that unfettered technological advancements may obfuscate, some would say obviate, a clear moral order in individual cultures and in the civilization at large.
It’s great to see comments that directly parallel some of the experts I cite. He says, ”In other words, we may be fooling around with phenomena that are, in fact, beyond human awareness; possibly even beyond the ability of humans to grasp.” The International Futures Foundation, which I quote several other places, says, “We (the same “we”) are in a Conceptual Emergency. The world we have constructed expands and accelerates beyond our ability to understand or control it.”
And he makes some wonderful references to the “eternal mystery” and the “sense of wonder” it induces. While I lament our loss of a sense of wonder, so deeply have we come to take the many mysteries for granted.
And he also makes the courageous leap to say that the roots of the problem, the nature of the change of age, and the understanding of it, all lie, in whole or in part, in the unconscious mind, and/or the collective unconscious. Though I disagree with his characterization of the unconscious and the nature of its influence.
But, to my dismay, in a 6000 word essay that covers the issues described here and more, there are only two sentences that refer, rather obliquely at that, to the environment, the global environmental crisis, its expansion, severity and acceleration, and its rapidly increasing risk, not only to human civilization, but to the lives of hundreds of millions, if not billions of our fellow inhabitants.
Every argument he cites, every analysis he offers, every piece of history, every note of technological hubris: they all go by without a mention of the historic impact of the industrial revolution, setting up global warming. With only a side note to Bill Joy, he decries the possibility of more destructive new technologies, without enumerating the unintended consequences of the technologies we have let loose in our myopic drive toward materialist excess. He does come down on materialist values and he does point to some kind of a spiritual re-understanding of our situation, as parts of a proper preparation for these millennial changes we face.
My argument is that YES we are at a threshold between Ages, and YES the age we are leaving is represented on the ground by industrialization, technology and myopic materialism. I’d add, with emphasis, we are also in the middle of the Information Age (“Ages” can and do overlap and intersect) without having much of a clue how information and the lack of it perpetuate the problems by leaving us uniformed.
The nature of a Blind Spot, whether optical, vehicular, mental or cultural, is that it does not merely hide information, it conceals the fact that information is missing.
But the age we are entering is yet to be defined and it will be defined by many more factors than economic and cultural “globalization.” And it will not be defined so much by the dangers of new micro technologies. Nor will the environmental catastrophe be ameliorated or reversed by “geo engineering” (my argument only, not his). We are either entering into the Age of Ecology or we are entering a new Dark Age that will likely last, like the last one, for a millennium.
If we assume that this radical shift in global “world view” will be only about technology, or spirituality, or about reasserting some collection of social values, we’ll be navigating that new age without a compass, fresh water, or a predictable next meal. When we forget the NATURE of the world we stand on, and when we ignore the web of life that has allowed us to evolve, and when we take for granted the stability of our “civilized” systems, we risk launching ourselves, and more critically our children and theirs, into a world of chaos and decline.
My final argument, predicted or echoed in no way by Mr. Wishard: there is a critical and deep-seated equation in the global crisis we face. There is a balance between the total value of the accumulated wealth in the world, concentrated in the industrialized West, and the total damage to the planet and to human rights over the last five hundred years. I think that “Zero Sum” equivalency is all three: the explanation for how we got into this predicament, the reasons we are unable to become informed or make democratic decisions about it, and the key to the remedy. Thanks for your attention.
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