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Universe Thinking “There
is a general principle that if one wishes to consider an area of activity and
think about it, it helps to set it in the largest possible frame of reference.
If one can think of a system as embedded in another larger system, one can
draw more accurate conclusions about it. Some recent theorems in
mathematics come down to this: there are questions in any system that
cannot be answered in that system. If one embeds the system in a larger
system, however, one can perhaps get an answer that will be useful. Let us
then back up, and instead of trying to talk first about immediate concerns, try
to talk about the whole picture.” Harvey Jackins, “The State of the Cosmos,” in The
Upward Trend (Rational Island Publishers, Seattle, 1977), p.1. "Our human responsibility as one
voice among so many throughout the universe is to develop our capacities to
listen as incessantly as the hovering hydrogen atoms, as profoundly as our
primal ancestors and their faithful descendants in today's indigenous peoples.
The adventure of the universe depends upon our capacity to listen." “Philosophy is written in this grand
book the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze.
But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend
the language and to read the alphabet in which it is composed.” Over
the past month or two I have been exposed anew to the universe story, the
awesome unfolding of 15 billion years of evolution. We stand in that stream, an ever-changing yet
changeless drama that has made us all we are yet which we are only just
beginning to understand. My hope is
that today we are on the verge of a new era in that drama, one where humans
recognize their place among and not above other participants.
As we learn more, we recognize that we are part of a vast web of life
stretching billions of light years beyond us and still expanding. The vastness gives new perspective to the
problems we face day to day in our own lives and societies. Today
the church is no longer the most powerful institution having given way to the
global casino on Wall Street. Religious
buildings are dwarfs compared with the vast financial buildings, corporations
and consumer malls, the temples that express the spirit of global corporate
capitalism. The 400 years since the
time of Galileo and the chartering of the British East India Company in 1600,
have witnessed scientific and technological discoveries and evolving economic
theory and practice that have enabled us to develop a vast economic system that
now threatens to engulf the entire globe while destroying the very ecosystems
necessary to sustain our lives. In
the context of the universe, our modern, scientific age of consumerism is but a
fleeting microsecond in time or speck of dust in space. If the age of the earth
were one week beginning Sunday, the modern age would be the last twentieth of a
second before midnight on Saturday. In
this microsecond we have lost touch with the very principles that give us life
while speaking of economic development that will make our style of life
universal on earth, developing a monoculture that rapidly devours traces of
diversity. This culture
treats as heretics those who do not identify as consumers, whether by choice or
exclusion. Even more, it widens the divide between those who have and those who
do not. What has happened to us, the most
complex species to inhabit earth, to render us unable to remember our origins?
We are the species responsible for population levels that push the
boundaries of earth’s carrying capacity; global
warming and climate change that is melting Arctic and Antarctic ice;
stratospheric ozone depletion that allows ultraviolet radiation to reach us at
dangerous levels; an unprecedented loss of biological diversity; deforestation
that cuts our capacity to use the sun’s energy through photosynthesis;
desertification and land degradation that take away land available for food
production; freshwater loss and
degradation that reduces availability of a vital life-giving substance;
marine environment and resource degradation pushing some fish species to
the brink of extinction and persistent
organic pollutants found everywhere around the earth and known to be a radical
threat to life. What are the principles that have operated for
billions of years to allow the complexity we experience today to evolve? They are simple: differentiation, interiority and
community. Today’s
economic monoculture denies each of these in fundamental ways. It is inherently flawed and nearsighted when viewed from the
universe perspective. Our task is
to wake up from our apathy and expand our horizons, recognizing and proclaiming
the flaws and building alternatives that are consistent with models the universe
has provided. The questions before us are how to find ways to
make the shift +
From the quarterly statement to the seventh generation? +
From reaction to global crisis to creative solutions for the future? +
From local and product specific to global? +
From partial and linear thinking to systemic thinking? +
From mechanical models to living systems? +
From justification of previous action to acknowledgement of present
challenges? +
From a polemical approach to dialogue? +
From doing and having to being? +
From a command and control mentality to building relationships? +
From monoculture to diversity? +
From atomistic individualism to community? + From
materials and products to services? +
From efficiency to
effectiveness? + From
exteriority to interiority? +
From anthropocentrism to universe awareness? +
From absorption with human
creativity to biomimicry? +
From isolation to
interrelationship? +
From talking to listening? +
From objective to subjective? Before
the effect of our actions destroys the possibility of shifting course we have a
choice. The future is ours to
create, but we must act in accord with the rhythms of our being as creatures of
the universe. We must examine the
impact of our actions in every sphere of our lives, personal, communal and
institutional. We must find the
generative flow of the universe and join in or it will wash us away. Andy
Smith
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