What on Earth is going on?
That’s the refrain that’s been building to a crescendo over the past weeks.
Lack of accountability seems endemic to authorities in Western nations where countries like USA, UK, Germany, who once purported to be the good guys, have let down all pretence and are incautiously decimating systems that people believed were for the common good. Most of us can basically ignore the breakdown, for the moment. Perhaps the few are too good at ignoring the immorality of privilege and the many are too good at accepting the immorality. As long as there’s food on the table for most everyone, it’s OK.
Once you step back and appreciate the fundamental dynamic of our systems, which is difficult because we are so caught up in them, it appears that we’ve barely moved on from feudal, or pyramid of power system, in which the many pay part of their wealth or labour to a few who own everything. The difference between now compared to previous eras is that far more of us, whose impact is multiplied by technology, are extracting and consuming Earth and the natural systems which maintain a comfortable world. The planet can not absorb this level of consumption.
These depressing reflections became more poignant on a brief visit to London last week to celebrate the life of Mum. The trip offered an opportunity to meet friends and acquaintances much closer to the pulse of the world than we are. A couple of remarks hit me. One was that “some of us are here to organise, to manage and that’s just how it is” came unexpectedly from someone very generous, but also wealthy enough to observe the inequality of privilege. Another was that “half of people have an IQ of 98 or less which is the level technically indicating they’re stupid. How can democracy work if half the people are stupid?” There was so much to unpack, I stalled and simply drew attention, irrespective of the reliability of the data, to the diversity of intelligences which is ignored by IQ and that without that diversity we, society would collapse. Which seemed enough to end the debate, though I wondered which two of his four sons were the stupid ones!
Walking the streets of Piccadilly, Knightsbridge and Chelsea only tightened the twisted logic of these two ideas that represent the thinking of most of those on top. In those boroughs you pass extraordinarily elegant and luxurious houses with spacious, large cars parked nearby, enjoy the window displays of department stores, brands and boutiques all selling items that can not be afforded by most, except perhaps as a special gift, served by people who must travel in and out of town to work and can afford little if any of the luxuries available. The wealth gap is too great. And it is sickening to see the visible oppression of so many by so few. And simply because “that’s the way it is”. Even though it doesn’t have to be and in fact can not continue much longer.
While reeling from these observations, while floating on a cloud of ignorance because as a tourist in London Town I had to dig deep to be there, I happened to be reading The Great Gatsby. It has been called “the supreme American novel” but it was the remark on the back cover that made it a must read. Written in the 1920s it is said to “brilliantly [capture] … the moral failure of a society obsessed with wealth and status”. Although the recent film was a scintillating portrayal of much of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story it didn’t tell me the story as well. And it certainly didn’t evoke the visceral reality of the world then and our world today as a couple of passages in the closing pages:
“They were careless people,… – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…”
This image struck a chord as the kind of elitish mindset exhibited by privilege and riches.
And at the end the narrator offers a reflection on Long Island, near New York city, where much of the story takes place:
“until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors eyes – a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
That reflection vividly brought me back to the destruction of nature that has become extreme in the century since that era described by Fitzgerald, the 1920s. And here we are performing the same ludicrous drama, ironically and unwittingly mirrored in the American President’s ball recently and the extravagant waste of remodelling the White House. But the destruction is far wider, as war, brutality and extraction spread across the world throughout all societies, and far deeper as natural systems, such as weather, ocean currents, elemental cycles and whole ecosystems are being destroyed on Earth.
What is going on?
It appears to be a repeating pattern of hedonism, excessive consumption, immorality, lies, and murder, now on an international scale and exposed to broad daylight by the mobile video technologies at everyone’s fingertips. But since we’ve been here before we know what’s going to happen, but multiply the consequences of our greed. It’s not going to be a Wall Street Crash like 1929 (or 2007-8). The consequences are already manifesting in the complete breakdown of social order and natural systems. Both are accelerating. The richer you are the less you feel it, but most people feel it already. The end game will be influenced by how we choose to behave. If this pattern continues it will be very bad for most of us. Already thousands are dying unnecessarily from heat or famine. Soon our patriarchal pyramid of imperialism will be floating dead in the water, killed by ignorant revenge like the body of Gatsby. There might be a few oligarchs left in their mansions, served by robots, but surely that is a death sentence itself…
If we change our choices it will be much better for most of us. Those at the top might have to do a little bit of actual work, but they shouldn’t worry. It will be novel, not hard, they will be among friends and they might enjoy it. It’s called living!
So, what’s the answer? What sort of choices need to change?
It’s not obscure. Most of us can sense the answers. They tend to be “common sense”. “Do the right thing the right way”. Feel and follow your conscience. On a personal level change comes very quickly with delightful results. You feel better and improve relationships. System change is more obscure and of course complex, but even there we know the answers and instinct leads us to them. Reason and science have led us to this technically advanced world but has been ignored when it comes to human systems which are evidently corrupted by fraud of and theft of patriarchy and imperialism. Simply letting go is not easy when evidence is ignored. Awareness of the need to change is a first step. Then reforming society and industry to reflect the natural dynamics of life on Earth can happen.
We recommend informing yourself of the situation and options and we share our journey and insights openly to facilitate and accelerate others’ opportunity to change. Here are a couple of graphics to inspire a vision of a different future. So take a deep breath, think about your future and choose to live again.
| Our human centred, mechanistic world is a competitive, survival system which is destructive and killing society and nature.  | We can choose to advance to an integral, collaborative world where society and nature thrive.  |
If you find the world uncomfortable and wonder about your way forward we can help. Please take a moment to read some of our articles on our website which can help make sense of uncomfortable reflections. Have a look at BreatheThinkFlow too, where we share simple tools to liberate thinking.
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