May 31, 2008 at 14:35:39

Building Economic and Political Systems based on Reality

SAVE AS FAVORITE

VIEW FAVORITES

By Michael Richards (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

opednews.com Permalink

Our present society operates with a very false perception of our experience, thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest of the universe and the natural ecology; we have been seeing our world through an optical delusion of very limited mythical consciousness. This delusion is a perceptual prison, restricting us to our individual desires and to familial connection with just a few persons closest to us. Our present human task is to free ourselves from this perceptual prison by widening our circle of compassion and connection to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty and awe inspiring reality. Wake up to reality.
The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the selfish self. The Bodhisatva consciousness is a base standard for all human beings in any human community that will survive into the next century. We now require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive the threats of global warming, environmental collapse and violent global war. We now face a choice; a world that works for all of us, or a world that works for none of us.

Developments in physics suggest that our delusions, myths and fantasies are not restricted to human values. Our perceptions of the external world are very distorted as well. Just as many aspects of our physical reality require the theories of quantum physics to explain them, this applies also to our understanding of the social world, because human reality is not separate from the rest of the world. Our present economic and political systems are a false construct that cannot survive the test of reality.

Although quantum theories of the Universe are somewhat challenging to fully comprehend, these theories are making it possible to think that the separation into ‘me and we’, ‘thou/I’; ‘self and others’ is intellectually suspect. Once you conceive of all living bodies as particles and waves , then individual humans are understood as a continuum in which ‘the one’ is an aspect of ‘the many’. This knowledge induces us to create new social and economic systems based on reality.We must devise systems where we value the survival of the whole as much as survival of each self. Our present political and economic systems tolerate starvation for 10,000 children each day. Future generations will look back on our present political paradigm as totally incredulous. Threats such as global warming and global terrorism both rise up out of the same ignorance of our irrevocable connection with each other and our host planetary life support system.

Our new understanding of genes and DNA demonstrates that each individual is a product of all
unions since the first spark of life in the universe. There is only one family on planet earth. We live as one unbroken chain of being that stretches in a mobius circle that connects past and future. We live within one whole system. The ‘Quantum message’ is that it is not possible to identify ‘out there’ and ‘in here’, only states of fluidity and merging. This message indicates that any certainty of the independent, autonomous self; of the solid, independent object is an illusion.

The separation of traditional subject boundaries melt in the quantum world which has so far not been integrated into mass human understanding, but presents fascinating possibilities for re-thinking and reframing our pursuit of knowledge, culture, society and human existence.

Conservationists and environmentalists and peace activists have long been warning that if we continue to pursue individual gratification by consuming global resources indisciminately, then there will be no sustainable future for our children, grandchildren and our species as a whole. We could extinguish our own genetic pool as a species. How do you define economic success?   Success first requires survival. We are at the point where we have to merge our motivation for individual and community survival. Wealth and commonwealth are one and the same.

Ecology is a rational and provable model for the basic metaphysical structure of the world. With the perceptual framework of ecology, we can see that the identities of all things- whether at the level of elementary quantum particles, living organisms, or galaxies, as logically interconnected: all entities are determined by their relationships with all other entities. Applying this principle of interconnectedness to the human race, it becomes apparent that the individual denoted by ‘I’ is not constituted merely by a body or a personal ego or consciousness. We are a unified living system, so we are required to live in that manner to perpetuate our species.

I am partially constituted by my own individual physical and mental structures, but I am also constituted by my ecological relationships with the elements of my environment and my human community. I am a holistic element of my native ecosystem, and of the concentric circles of systems within which my local; ecosystem is contained. Our present culture offers us a very inaccurate conception of the self and the context of the self. It depicts the personal self as existing in competition with each other and in opposition to nature .

As a species, we have so far failed to realize that if we destroy our environment, we are destroying what is in fact our larger self. Our present global human society that is structured with islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty is unsustainable. This fact demands radical change. This major change can be guided with intelligence and scientific principle. This can best be carried out by conscious evolutionaries.    The era of violent revolutionaries is as unworkable and obsolete as the economic and political falsehoods that gave rise to such movements in the past.

For the first time in recorded human history, human society has the capacity, the knowledge and the physical resources to eradicate poverty and violence. We have the scientific understanding of the world we live in so that we can create a human society that works within the ecological reality of planet earth. We can organize the material and energy of our planet in a way that sustains life with sustainable systems. This can only be done with human beings that understand the reality of how life works on this planet. So where do we begin to build a new ecological social organism that can operate an economic structure that supports us without destroying each other and the environment?    We can only begin at the beginning.   A human society needs several elements for basic life support; soil, air, water and physical materials to build shelter. If you have a few million dollars in your bank account, then you can build a sustainable ecovillage on a shared land trust plot.   If you are like most of us, that do not have access to such financial largesse, then organize your present neighborhood to plant community gardens, carpool and share resources in an efficient, energy conserving system. As you work together to organize such shared life support systems, you’ll rediscover our most important human value: each other.   Every city in the world can reorganize as sustainable, ecological structures by changing our perception of what community and wealth really means.   We can all build a “low consumption/high value” society in our own back yards. Once you have a foundation of family and community, then build new sustainable business models that offer your fellow human beings the essentials for life support; whole food, comfortable clothing and energy efficient tools, transport and shelter. Forge alliances through small business partnerships, cooperatives or community ventures to accomplish this. What you cannot accomplish alone, you will accomplish as you work with others.   Opportunity knocks. Open the door.What is the real wealth in your life?   Once you have adequate food, water and shelter, all additional human value is created through love, connection, community and culture not through acquisition of temporary things. In our present sick system, a celebrity that builds a 50,000 square foot house to prove that they are a success are only building a monument to their own spiritual poverty and deep existential emptiness.   You can lead the way to build a society based on sustainable human value. Start small, thing big and grow our new world order one healthy seed at a time.    "It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a  man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”    Robert F. Kennedy -US Attorney General 1961-64This essay is offered as a catalyst for community discussion and action by;Michael Richards, Founder, Sustainable Ecological Economic Development (S.E.E.D.)     author of;SUSTAINABLE OPERATING SYSTEMS/The Post Petrol Paradigm (available at; www.amazon.com)

1 | 2

www.soyawax.com

Michael Richards is a life long innovator, entrepreneur and author. His most recent book is; SUSTAINABLE OPERATING SYSTEMS/The Post Petrol Paradigm (available on line at; www.amazon.com Mr. Richards has presented as an author, speaker and (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.