Interesting Posts from my friend Lawrence Turners FB page: The challenge now before us is to craft a new mythology in which our heroes are ordinary people like ourselves who pave the way toward a sustainable future. --- A new mythology needs to bear forth the truth that equity is a moral and practical imperative in any healthy and functioning society, leading to something much more akin to the African concept of Ubuntu, in which it is said that “I am because we are”. --- For one to prosper all must prosper. - Baháulláh born Mírzá Ḥusayn-`Alí Núrí --- The narrative of entitlement to ownership needs to be replaced with that of common access to all that nature provides. A new mythology needs to bear forth the truth that equity is a moral and practical imperative in any healthy and functioning society, leading to something much more akin to the African concept of Ubuntu, in which it is said that “I am because we are --- We need to replace the myth of humanity holding dominion over nature with the truth that we are simply a part of nature’s complex web of symbiosis. --- we need a new mythology that is responsive to the needs of our planetary emergency. --- Our global society is yearning for a new wave of Romanticism to communicate the messages that our modern-day Enlightenment of the purely intellectual is unable to convey, and to reach people in the ways that cold hard facts and figures cannot. New stories will be needed --- It was believed that the structure of society and politics had led to a culture of servitude and oppression, and that a departure from materialism and possessive ownership in favour of values more congruent with the needs of the natural world would assist in catalysing a much-needed fresh start. Such views were heavily influenced by accounts of “new world” travellers who had had contact with First Nations’ peoples. --- The Romantics were of the view that society could not be reformed simply by the application of information and reason, but that a narrative would have to be woven – a view in line with our emergent contemporary understanding that informing society of ever more facts and figures does not have the desired effect for social change. --- In our denial of any alternative views and ways of life we are trapped in a cycle of Cassandra-like despair, in which the wise fervently preach portent of what is to come if we do not mend our ways, and we ignore the ill-fated messengers who fail to dislodge our minds from their comfort-zone of embedded myth. --- A move toward adopting a new mythology, a more honest set of narratives for a worldview in sync with reality is one that will not come easily. Believe me when i say ... i have experienced this to be true. --- Our confirmation bias serves the maintenance of the status quo, and our trajectory toward collapse of our beloved way of life --- have you seen Shiva dancing yet ? Dancing hand in hand with our culture of mythology is our culture of denial. --- none of the needs on Maslow’s hierarchy pertain to luxuries of the material world --- Our sense of entitlement to own knows no bounds – the enslavement of our less-entitled brothers and sisters worldwide is what facilitates our insatiable hoarding of iCrap; the rape and pillage of our life-giving biosphere is what affords us our glitzy shopping malls and highways between havens; through grabs for land and water the starvation of our fellow humans is what enables us to self-pityingly experience obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease – the maladies of our own affluence. --- DAILY HOLOCAUST OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS !!! We use the offerings of the natural world for our own selfish gain, failing to recognize the needs of other species as equal to our own – for they, too, are under our dominion. We punish the natural world for its inferiority to our perceived greatness – we tear up forests, vacuum oceans, blast the tops off mountains, create vast swathes of desert, bleed our rivers dry, and we enslave, torture, and murder animals in a daily holocaust of biblical proportions --- The false and arrogant belief in our dominion over the natural world has led us down the path of destruction only an Old Testament God could incur. We fear wild nature and seek to tame it, fencing ourselves into concrete enclaves within which we foster the belief that all else is beneath us. We distrust the wisdom of Mother Nature, insisting that our own technological offerings are superior to her craft. --- At the root of our erroneous worldviews – the views that are fast-tracking us towards annihilation as a species – is the notion that humanity has dominion over nature. The origin of this concept long predates the biblical references to it, yet it is, nevertheless, a religious belief – one that has become so entrenched that even atheists who have long since cast off the mantle of religion subscribe to and repeat it as though it were absolute truth. EVEN ATHEISTS !!! --- the telling of stories is a double-edged sword Those who craft and perpetuate the stories of our culture are in a position of both great responsibility and great power – the power to influence, even determine, the behavior of whole populations. sustainabilitysc.org/a-new-mythology/
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 22:56:32 +0000
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