> we could have a very valuable discussion on some of the subjects
> raised in the program, and would like to encourage such a discussion.
i am strongly drawn to the idea, to quote gary, of the ethic
"of taking into account the effect of a decision on the
seventh generation to follow the present one." the essence
of this practice is, of course, accepting responsibility for
one's own actions and, in this case, the effects such actions
would have on generations yet unborn. as a species, we truly
have become the curators and the ones absolutely responsible
for what the future of life on earth may or may not produce.
in a nutshell i feel there is a rampant widespread lack of
owning up to this enormous mantle of responsibility by the
currently most militarily powerful nation on earth, the united
states and its collective citizenry. obviously there are many
factors that go into this bubbling brew:
- the full maturation of a state press and its ability
to limit/narrow the range and depth of public debate
over the fundamental issues confronting us and our
planet,
- ever-increasing corporate control over the political
system which continues to be billed as "serving the
people"..., but in fact serves the needs of those who
"bill the people" (biologically as well as economically)
for their own criminal acts like perpetuating the
nuclear economy (so primarily toxic to all life) and
continuing to push fossil fuels rather than renewable
sources of energy,
- the soul-numbing/mind-washing co-optation of people's
inner drive to grow and become more conscious and
self-aware by the evermore concentrated mass-market/
consumer-programmed society we are seduced by from the
day we're born--this pervasive influence has served as
a most potent catalyst for distancing and splitting-off
humans from the natural world of spirit and nature
which is our birthright, but for which the world of
"you need to get/buy/have this" preempts and profanes,
- and the still ongoing "colonization period" of human
history that began after magellan's voyage around the
world proved the earth was finite and was followed by
men from europe who claimed land for the monarchs they
represented giving no validity whatsoever to the
cultures of people already inhabiting these "discovered
lands".
such arrogance is today still being pushed in the name of
"national interest" and "national security". substituting
"corporate" for "national" is more accurate. helen caldicott
said it's capitalism for the people but it's socialism for
the corporations.
and yet, within even these massive western "economic entities",
the most basic unit of composition--still--is the single human
being. how can the c.e.o.s and presidents of the fortune 500
companies be so lemming-like in their pursuit of economic wealth
and influence (to increase their wealth even more) to the
detriment of even something as personally related to them as
their own children's physical survival? admittedly, it's a
riddle that baffles the soul. are these people (predominantly
white males) so faustian--have they so completely lost their
own souls--so that even the preservation of their own offspring
is not seen as a compelling enough reason to "change their
habits"? perhaps this is more true than any other factor in
the current age of planetary crisis within which we are all
living out our individual lives. the maxim that `absolute power
corrupts absolutely' may well be the bottom-line operative
feature of these people's raison d'etre.
but even if this rather simplistic analysis *is* true/accurate (as
far as it goes), there is still something much more fascinating
and fundamentally important that is happening more and more these
days which i believe is the last best hope of a positive and
life-affirming future for this planet and all the species still
inhabiting it--*including* humans. i look around and i see many
different kinds of localized developments and groups of people
networking in ever-expanding ways to pool their own collective
resources, ideas, imaginations, and creativity to challenge the
self-assigned hegemony of the corporate rulers and raise hell
more and more vocally and visually/visibly which in one form or
another communicates the message, we're mad as hell and we are
truly *not* going to put up with this life-denying nonsense
anymore. change is always slow to manifest itself, but the only
way positive life-promoting change will come is through the kind
of steady and long-term focused work that more and more people
are committing themselves to be engaged in within their own
communities. centralized government is an archaic institution
and it will have to pass away if we are to survive this
transition period. it is so clear to me that the great white
fathers of washington or sacramento to boston--and the whole
illusion of "representative democracy" that they like to sell--is
nothing but the dying gasp of institutions WAY past their heyday.
the seventh generation philosophy is an enormously powerful and
compelling idea when one holds it up to the kind of quarterly
time-measuring lens we all witness being practiced in this time
and place. as i recently listened to the president of the
company i have worked for, for the past 5 and a half years,
discuss the current state of the company's economic health, i
thought about how this sort of basis of perceptual reality is so
completely fundamental to the kind of culture i find myself
living out this life within. if we are indeed to honestly dream
about our children's children's future, we cannot continue to
make the types of decisions that will be so fundamental to
whatever future they will inhabit, in so short-sighted and
constricting a way. terence mckenna, a man i find compellingly
provocative, recently spoke in san francisco of how "we are
looting our children's future," and i absolutely concur with
his enunciation of this dilemma.
i have come to be motivated more and more by a desire to stir
people up--to stimulate people to exercise their own analytical
powers and focus them on what the hell is actually happening
to our world which we all share. which opinion do you value
more--your own or ted koppel's??? the kind of numbing paralysis
which the seduction of consumerism engenders in this culture is
truly earth-shattering and very new to the human--as well as to
mom nature's--experience. mass market culture has almost
completely replaced past generation's experiences of "roots"
and local stories and myths. we cannot just sit back and try to
"buy off" on the bill of goods being sold to us as a sort of
permanent "miller time." if we do, then there is no future for
our children's children's children. native net is one of the
very precious places where one can feel the breeze of a
different point of view than the one we are all constantly
ever more being bombarded by like a commercial scud attack for
more and more and more of anything we could possibly imagine
wanting to possess and have but which we don't really need.
Know that the people who are the richest
are not those who have the most,
but those who need the least.
terence mckenna, speaking in 1987 in a talk entitled "understanding
and the imagination in the light of nature", enunciated the necessity
of pinpointing the blind spot in one's culture and working to focus
the culture's gaze on that area:
"The world which we *perceive* is a tiny fraction of the
world which we *can* perceive, which is a tiny fraction of
the *perceivable* world.
"We operate on a very narrow slice based on cultural
conventions. The important thing, if synergizing progress
is the notion to be maximized, is to try and locate the
blind spot in the culture--the place where the culture isn't
looking, because it dare not--because if it were to look
there, its previous values would dissolve."
it is incumbent upon all of us who sense some awareness of the
sacred existing within ourselves, as well as abundantly infused
throughout the natural world we are born into, to seek to locate
and call attention to this blind spot of cultural reality in
order that previous outdated and out-of-time values might
dissolve and make room for more positive-growth inspired ones
for all living things to benefit by and from.
--
daveus rattus
yer friendly neighborhood ratman
KOYAANISQATSI
ko.yan.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life
in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating.
5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.