Process - Part 6

But, we’re getting a bit ahead of the story.  Let’s return to Industrialized Humans.

 “They had no plan but the one they made in the morning, to be discarded at noon.  And they took pride in being impertinent and reactionary and never crossed their bridge till they came to it.  And they were perpetually on the move, but they mostly moved over and not with what was around them, until they had pretty well covered everything green with pavement and railroad tracks, and telephone lines and sewage disposal plants, and runways, and parking lots, and shopping malls, and hamburger stands which sold billions because one had to stop neither to pick them up nor to eat them, and that suited people on the move just fine.

“But the voices of poets and philosophers who had tried to learn from Nature rather than conquer Her, were eventually heard.  One had built a shack by a pond and spent considerable time in jail for not paying his taxes.

“Another asked that we:

‘Think me not unkind and rude

That I walk alone in grove and glen;

I go to the god of the wood

To fetch his word to men.’

“Another

‘…retired into a silent bay…’

‘…to cut across the reflex of a star…’ and

‘…reclining back upon my heels,

Stopped short, yet still the solitary cliffs

Wheeled by me – even as if the earth had rolled

With visible motion her diurnal round.”

“One had watched, ‘a noiseless, patient spider.’  Another told of ‘The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore, and dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn.’  Still another told of us ‘stopping by woods on a snowy evening.’  And perhaps they all heard ancient Varuna say:

‘I move with roaring, howling, and radiant might,
I move with the infinite and nature’s powers.
I hold the love of the Lord of Lords, I hold
The fire of the soul, I hold life and healing.’

“But most people did not hear this voice.  Or, if they heard, they did not embrace the message and so they continued to do to Nature, not with her.  But where once they were prouder of this power over Nature than they were appreciative of Her wonders, they’ve begun to recognize that their science and technology and fabricating genius combine with their unique personal contradictions to produce the premier danger that they and the rest of Earth Process have encountered thus far:  the trinity of science, technology, and ethical contradiction.

“And they have become afraid once again.  Once they were afraid of their powerlessness.  Now they are afraid of their power.  They realize that they have been conscious in Process and resident on this expression of it for only a moment of cosmic time.  And they realize that their terminal potentialities have existed for only the last split moment.  They realize that answers offered by their charming old stories are inadequate, but they are afraid to pursue new ones and their implications.  As far as they are concerned, their ancestors did well enough with the old stories – they provided a sense of supremacy and meaning and direction and destiny.  They set humans apart and made them “special.”  They even released people from ultimate dependence upon their earth footing, and that release freed them from responsibility for other aspects of Process around them.  After all, their stories told them:  ‘this world is not our home – we’re just a passin through.’  They thought, ‘our real home is up there somewhere.’  And, so it is that industrialized humans’ selfish individualism and tendency toward separation persists in this behavior.  They’ve been raised on competition, hierarchies, and getting to the top and what happens here in the meantime doesn’t really matter because The Earth is so incredibly vast.”

What “ethical contradiction” are you referring to, Professor – and why is it so dangerous?

I’m talking about an ethical dilemma caused by the awareness that time-honored TRADITIONS, behaviors they were convinced were right and just, are producing results that they know to be wrong and unjust.  For example, the knowledge that through their scientific and technological manipulation of the world to achieve material satisfaction (something they’ve been told is good), they are altering the environment into which they and countless living things have evolved and are dependent upon now and into the future (something that is most certainly wrong).     

And you say that while they recognize this, they’re afraid to replace the old TRADITIONS, I suppose we could say philosophies too, with new ones because they’re unable to accept the implication that their lifestyles and behaviors are unsustainable?

Correct, their selfish individualism encourages them to destroy more, consume more, and discard more.  They manipulate the world around them to create short-term material satisfaction while discovering little of the beauty and spirituality of the world around them.  They seek to have the most toys while destroying community, interdependence, and personal interaction.   Ironically, their pursuit of individual satisfaction promotes lifestyles and behaviors that are unsustainable for themselves and the whole.