Andy Schmookler:
I'm not sure if even the "initial motivations" behind the increasing corporate takeover of American democracy deserve to be called "noble." The moral vision behind the notion that "All men are created equal" -- that every human being is worthy of equal consideration, a notion that would have been quite radical in most civilized societies over the millennia -- is incompatible with the idea that the most powerful actors in a society (like the corporate system) should take still more power for themselves.
So if we accept the moral validity of that vision of equality, then the endeavor of the corporate system to prevent a democratically-elected government from being a check on their power, and to turn it instead into an instrument of their power, should be seen as being from the outset an expression of the force of wholeness.
And yes, you're right, Philip, in suggesting that this effort was indeed a response to the rising force of wholeness--namely to an effort to bring the workings of the market system under adequate regulation in service of the greater social and ecological whole.
(As you probably know, Philip, my book The Illusion of Choice is an extended argument to establish that while the market system is a marvelous tool, it has its considerable blind spots, and that for a society to be whole it has to find collective ways of correcting for the blind spots that grow out of that atomistic market system. In other words, Adam Smith's "invisible hand" optimizes some things but must be supplemented by the hand of government to optimize some other absolutely crucial values to which the market is blind.)
Hence, by the 1990s and even into the present moment, the political power of the corporate system has successfully blocked for decades now the kind of action that must be taken by government decision-making to address the immense challenge posed by climate change.
The Republican Party -- which is the main political instrument of that corporate system -- is the only major political party in any advance nation that has denied the science and refused to facilitate action to address what many describe as the greatest crisis ever to beset humankind as a whole.
I might add one point that fits into the coming presentation of how brokenness cascades through a cultural system in shape-shifting ways. In my WHAT WE'RE UP AGAINST, I cite Robert Reich to bolster my belief that the moral culture of corporate America has deteriorated over the past 60 years. (See page 174.) Reich speaks of how, back in the 1950s, there was talk about "corporate statesmen," who were concerned about the well-being of all the elements/actors in the situation. Whereas later, "Corporate statesmen were replaced by something more like corporate butchers""
In other words, brokenness at the moral level fed a campaign to increase brokenness within the political system which, in turn, has brought forth a political force that is blocking efforts to halt our breaking the stability of earth's climate system on which the integrity of the biosphere depends.
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David Spangler:
As always, Andy's logic is impeccable. What is interesting--and disturbing--to me in my work is that we see the force of evil (rather than specific evil deeds) as one extreme pole or another of a spectrum: either it is an outdated, Medieval theological fantasy which we have outgrown in our scientific, technological, enlightened age, or it is a Being, a Devil, actively working to undermine and destroy God's work and against whom we must wage war, a war which, ironically, perpetuates the very brokenness it seeks to defeat. Too often, the brokenness we do experience in our lives and in our world is often taken for granted and assumed to be normal. It can operate at a level of ordinariness that doesn't trigger our internal alarms, though it may engender feelings of regret and a wish the world could be otherwise. We must learn to look more clearly and with greater attention if we are to see and name it.
What is most powerful to me about Andy's presentation is the idea that evil is not inherently part of human nature, a core part of my own thought and teaching. We are working within a world structure that is itself struggling to restore balance and wholeness, and in this struggle, we can be allies to that wholeness rather than perpetuators of the brokenness. The work is one of creating wholeness--what I call holopoiesis--within us, between us, in our institutions and society, and in our relationships with nature. It's an ongoing work, at times a difficult one but properly approached, a joyous one. It's not the work of a warrior mentality but of an artist's sensibility that can imagine, conceive, and passionately co-create the shapes of wholeness in ourselves and the world around us.
Andy Schmookler:
I like what you say here, David, about the work being "one of creating wholeness...within us, between us, in our institutions and society, and in our relationships with nature." That is indeed the most beautiful part of the work we're called upon to do.
When you say "It's not the work of a warrior mentality," I am wondering if you're not including among the necessary tasks in the cause of wholeness the need sometimes to join "the battle" between the forces of wholeness and of brokenness. For, as I see it -- for example in America in our times -- the a vital part of the necessary work does call for the spirit of the warrior. That's why I wrote my 2014-15 series, "Press the Battle."
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