{"id":2725,"date":"2020-12-17T14:38:08","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T14:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=140465"},"modified":"2020-12-17T14:38:08","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T14:38:08","slug":"one-world-the-wisdom-of-wholeness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/17\/one-world-the-wisdom-of-wholeness\/","title":{"rendered":"One World: The Wisdom of Wholeness"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cWe won’t be in a position to make permanent progressive changes until the bad governments are changed permanently into good governments. And all governments are bad governments now and will remain bad governments until we have a global humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The words are those of Mark Haywood, in an email to me last week about my column, \u201cEmbracing Ecological Realism.\u201d I think the words nail it. And I would add that \u201cglobal humanity\u201d includes a connection to Planet Earth, to life itself. And my intention is to put these words in a political context that is free\u2014so I pray\u2014of cynicism.<\/p>\n

The irony is that this is ancient wisdom. We used to know this, once upon a time. Then we got civilized and became conquerors. We are now at the end, or nearly so, of this dark, bloody path. And while global humanity\u2019s next step is uncertain\u2014we must plunge into a new way of being\u2014the wisdom of our fathers and mothers can guide us:<\/p>\n

\u201cFor instance, an Ojibway friend of mine gave me a sheet of paper entitled \u2018Twelve Principles of Indian Philosophy.\u2019 The very first principle on that sheet read as follows: WHOLENESS . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

These are the words of Rupert Ross, in his book Returning to the Teachings<\/a>. He continues: \u201cThe principle of wholeness thus requires looking for, and responding to, complex interconnections, not single acts of separate individuals. Anything short of that is seen as a na\u00efve response destined to ultimate failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

If we don\u2019t look at the world\u2014every person, every living being, every flowing river, every handful of earth\u2014with a sense of wholeness and wonder, with a sense of its connection to the larger eco-structure of the planet, which includes ourselves, whatever we do is likely to come back to haunt, if not us, then our children. This applies, most significantly, to political actions and government policy. If we go to war, war comes back to us. If we exploit, deforest and poison the planet . . . I think we know what happens.<\/p>\n

This is not us-vs.-them politics, left vs. right. And it is certainly not some sort of idealism. This is reality: ecological realism. And the outreach of this column is to politicians who do not want to be failures.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are \u201cinterests\u201d that are going to come into conflict, especially considering our long history of short-term winning, also known as profit. In this country, as well as much of our divided world, short-term gain is often all that matters and nothing else exists. This flawed thinking is at the core of our social infrastructure. But much to the surprise of many corporate leaders, a deeper wisdom is also present at the core.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s showing itself. The residents of Grant Township, Pennsylvania, for instance, have managed to stave off the construction, by the state gas company, Pennsylvania General Energy Company, of what are called fracking waste injection wells in their community. Five years ago, the residents, by a large majority, passed a Rights of Nature<\/a> law, which, my God, \u201crecognizes the rights of local ecosystems\u201d to thrive, to exist. The law asserts that nature isn\u2019t simply property, to be used (or used up) in any way the \u201cowner\u201d sees fit.<\/p>\n

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The gas company has sued the township several times over this infringement of its right to pollute, but the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has recognized the law and revoked the company\u2019s permit to build its wells in the township.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis decision is soooooo delicious,\u201d township supervisor Judy Wanchisn told Rolling Stone<\/a> after a legal victory in March. \u201cI am hopeful that the haters and naysayers will take note, and that communities will be inspired with what\u2019s just happened and run with it. Fights like ours should mushroom all around Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n

One fascinatingly strange facet of this issue is that it had to be settled in a court battle, with Nature, the defendant, pitting her interests against the plaintiff, as though the two were separate entities. As awareness of the \u201crights of nature\u201d grows across global humanity, I have no doubt that the wisdom of this awareness will start infiltrating our judicial, social and economic infrastructure as well, and begin undoing the short-term, dangerous thinking behind it. This is the return of pragmatic wholeness to human consciousness.<\/p>\n

For instance: \u201cThe idea of a value-based economic structure is far more realistic than many of our present business models, which are short-sighted in the extreme,\u201d Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee writes at The Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c. . .We need to explore ways that businesses can serve humanity in its deepest sense, rather than creating a poverty of spirit as well as an ecological wasteland\u2014develop an awareness that the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the energy we use are not just commodities to be consumed, but part of the living fabric of a sacred Earth. Then we are making a real relationship with our environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

With this return must come, of course, an awareness and an acknowledgement of our history of defying this wisdom, and the harm that it has caused. What we have done to the planet in the last few hundred years, we have also done to its human protectors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndigenous American oppression is often cast as an object of the past,\u201d writes Maria Fong at the Tufts University Sustainability<\/a> blog, \u201cbut like global warming, their struggle is ongoing, part of the past, present, and future. As we fight against climate change, keep in mind the colonial history of resource extraction and exploitation. The same Enlightenment ideals that inspired the industrial revolution, warming our planet, also led to brutal conquest of Indigenous people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moving beyond the misnamed Enlightenment is, of course, an immensely complex shift. But the wisdom is there! It\u2019s available to those who seek it, even president-elects. Of course, when politicians do not seek this wisdom\u2014and it\u2019s questionable <\/a>to what extent Joe Biden is doing so\u2014the wisdom must flow upward, from global humanity. Don\u2019t let cynical despair stop you from participating in this flow. We have a world to save.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe won\u2019t be in a position to make permanent progressive changes until the bad governments are changed permanently into good governments. And all governments are bad governments now\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2725"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2726,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725\/revisions\/2726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}