[Oe List ...] Thomas Berry, the Social Imbalance and the US Supreme Court

Sun Apr 18 10:42:27 CDT 2010

Hi Jan,
I just put in an order for this book at the library and discovered  
that Orr is on advisory committee of Obama's climate action project:  www.climateactionproject.com/ 
.   I realize that your email is several months old but I wanted you  
to know this in case you didn't.

Have a good day,

Jeanette

On 25-Jan-10, at 10:38 AM, Janice Ulangca wrote:

> Herman,  thank you for taking the time to share these important  
> segments - as well as those from David Orr's book (see message  
> "Another book").  I wish that President Obama could find the time to  
> read both of these.  Re David Orr's  three tasks of "The Great Work"  
> of changing our framework of thinking:
> 1.       We will need leaders first, with the courage to help people  
> understand and face what will be increasingly difficult  
> circumstances.[4]
> 2.       Second in the “long emergency”[5] leaders will need  
> uncommon clarity about our best economic and energy options.
> 3.       The third quality of leadership in these circumstances is  
> the capacity to foster a vision of a humane and decent future.
>
> It seems to me that #3 needs to come first - and this Obama has  
> often done well.  Then immediately after #s 1 and 2.  (Inspiring  
> vision before contradiction, then proposals.)   He often does this  
> in his speeches - we'll see what he does in the State of the Union  
> address this week.
>
> Meanwhile, clarity and efforts from us at the grassroots level is  
> critical.  Yesterday I attended a good power point presentation  
> titled The Effect of Climate Change on the Northeastern U.S.  It was  
> given by a retired Binghamton University professor who is deeply  
> involved in changing the framework of our thinking as well as  
> influencing policy locally and globally.  I'm pondering how to get  
> some of his important presentation on public access TV.  There is a  
> local sustainability coalition that I support when I can.  My major  
> responsibilities involve providing resources to faith communities in  
> the area via the Peace with Justice Committee of the active county  
> Council of Churches. As the church has full permission to do!, we  
> get involved in all kinds of things that have to do with the welfare  
> of the universe.
>
> Janice Ulangca
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Herman Greene
> To: 'Order Ecumenical Community' ; dialogue-request at wedgeblade.net
> Sent: Monday, January 25, 2010 9:26 AM
> Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Thomas Berry,the Social Imbalance and the  
> US Supreme Court
>
> I have read a remarkable book by Paul Schafer called Revolution or  
> Renaissance: Making the Transition from an Economic Age to a  
> Cultural Age, which I highly recommend. Here is what he says about  
> the economic:
>
> Schafer’s book is about a transition to a cultural age (I would call  
> it an ecological-cultural age). It would be very different from our  
> present age, which he describes as an “economic age.” He writes:
>
> Like every age, the economic age is predicated on a very specific  
> way of looking at the world, acting in the world, and valuing things  
> in the world. It is based primarily, if not exclusively on  
> economics, which yields an “economic worldview” that is by far the  
> most powerful worldview in existence today. This worldview is based  
> on the conviction that satisfaction of people’s needs and wants in  
> all areas of life can be attended to most effectively by making  
> economics and economies the centerpiece of society, and the  
> principal preoccupation of individual, institutional, municipal,  
> regional, national and international development. Through commitment  
> to this conviction, it is believed that wealth can be increased most  
> effectively, the supply and demand for goods and services can be  
> satisfied most efficiently, living standards and the quality of life  
> can be improved most fully, population growth can be curtailed most  
> judiciously, poverty can be reduced if not eliminated, and the  
> natural environment can be managed and turned to humanity’s  
> advantage. (pp. 93-34)
>
> Schafer identifies the fundamental flaw in this conviction as the  
> belief that economics, economies and materialism “cause[s]  
> everything in society and constitutes the basis of everything.” To  
> the contrary, he explains that basing everything on economics  
> defeats the objectives thought to flow from it.
>
> The economic age makes it impossible to achieve balanced, harmonious  
> and equitable relationships between the economic part of human  
> activities and other activities, because everything is reduced to  
> economics, economies, and materials, and made dependent on them. It  
> also makes it impossible to deal with major excesses, imbalances,  
> and deficiencies in the world system and in people’s lives because  
> the emphasis is on means—production, distribution, consumption,  
> profits, products, the market—rather than ends, such as a healthy  
> environment, people, human welfare, sustainable communities, cities,  
> countries and societies, and real fulfillment and happiness in life.  
> (pp. 93-94)
>
> In assessing the economic age he says, on the good side, it “has  
> produced countless benefits for people and countries in many if not  
> all parts of the world and for the world as a whole.” (p. 130) On  
> the bad side, he says that effects of the economic age, which are  
> “almost diametrically opposed to [the good side],” mean
>
> there are real dangers and risks ahead for humanity if the economic  
> age is perpetuated. Material demands will be created that are beyond  
> the capacity of the natural environment to fulfill, and substantial  
> disparities will be experienced in income, wealth, and resources,  
> between the rich and poor countries and people of the world. This  
> will cause real hardships as resources are used up. (p. 130).
>
> With regard to the environment, he writes,
>
> Clearly the environmental crisis will not be resolved as long as the  
> economic age is perpetuated. The economic age is predicated on the  
> production, distribution and consumption of goods and services,  
> rather than on intimate relationship between people and the natural  
> environment. The more economic growth takes place, the more damage  
> will be done to the natural environment and the carrying capacity of  
> the Earth, the more resources will be consumed and contaminated, and  
> the less will be available for future generations. This will result  
> in even more rapid depletion of scarce renewable and non-renewable  
> natural resources, as well as a great deal more pollution, global  
> warming, the spread of toxic substances, the extinction of many  
> species, far more environmental damage, and growing shortages and  
> higher prices for strategic resources such as wood, water, gas, oil  
> coal, electricity, fish, precious metals, and arable land. These  
> problems will be exacerbated whenever consumer demands and  
> expectations are created that are high in material inputs and  
> outputs, as they are in various parts of the world.
>
> The problem here is that no distinction is made between consumer  
> needs and consumer wants in the economic age, because both  
> contribute to economic growth and development. Nevertheless, since  
> consumer wants have a way of multiplying indefinitely, if the  
> experiences of the western countries are any guide, this will  
> aggravate even more an ecological situation that is close to the  
> breaking point. (p. 131)
>
> He concludes,
>
> This is why perpetuation of the economic age into the future is so  
> dangerous and potentially life-threatening. People will not sit idly  
> by while their environments are devastated, higher and higher prices  
> are charged for increasingly scarce resources, living standards are  
> reduced, and life takes on negative rather than positive  
> connotations. This is a recipe for revolution and for global  
> disaster. This acts as an early warning signal that violent outcomes  
> are in store if the problems confronting humanity are not dealt with  
> successfully. (p. 134)
>
> He makes the case for why violent revolutions (including terrorism)  
> will not avert the catastrophe and calls for renaissance, which he  
> says
>
> is best realized by incorporating the economic age and a great deal  
> more, into a broader, deeper, and more fundamental way of looking at  
> living, reality, history and the human condition . . . . The world  
> needs strong economies and the strengths of the economic age if  
> improvements are to be made in material living standards and  
> people’s lives, but it needs them to be counterbalanced and  
> constrained by powerful social, artistic, educational, scientific,  
> spiritual, and human activities. (p. 134-35).
>
> Further, he says renaissance cannot be based on the ideas of the  
> current economic age:
>
> [Some] contend that the problems [confronting humanity] can be  
> solved by developing further the theoretical ideas and practical  
> policies [of the economic age.] However, while making such  
> improvements is imperative, they will not make it possible to come  
> to grips with the demanding and debilitating problems that have  
> loomed up on the global horizon in recent years. The economic age is  
> based on theoretical, practical, historical and philosophical  
> foundations that aggravate these problems more than alleviate them.  
> Take the environmental crisis, for example: It is not possible to  
> incorporate the natural environment into the economic age after the  
> fact. Clearly what is needed now, more than ever, is a body of  
> thought and practice, a world system, and an age that open up a  
> commanding place for the natural environment and for the intimate  
> relationship that people have with it at its very core. (p. 133)
>
> He then identifies these key directions for the future:
>
> 1.       Surely the most important of these is the creation of a new  
> theoretical, practical, historical and philosophical framework for  
> the world of the future.
> 2.       Secondly a very high priority will have to be placed on  
> dealing with the intimate relationship between people and the  
> natural environment. Failure to deal with the environmental crisis  
> will cause severe hardships in every part of the world, as well as  
> even more conflict, confrontation, hostility, and violence.
> 3.       Thirdly a much higher priority will have to be placed on  
> people and matters of human welfare than on products, profits and  
> the market, in order to create the sensitivities and sensibilities  
> that are required to open up many more opportunities for people to  
> live creative, constructive and fulfilling lives, as well as to  
> participate fully, actively and freely in the public and private  
> decisions that affect their lives.
> 4.       Finally, a more effective balance will have to be achieved  
> between consumption and conservation, competition and cooperation,  
> scientism, aestheticism and humanism, economics and ethics, and  
> spiritualism and materialism. This is imperative if nature and other  
> species are to be treated with the dignity and respect they deserve,  
> if people are to be provided with opportunities to realize their  
> full potential and if humanity is to go fruitfully into the future.[1]
>
> It seems to me that the last two (three and four) are dependent on  
> the first two (one and two). Out of this new framework and this new  
> intimacy with the natural environment will come changed priorities  
> and balance.
>
> From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net]  
> On Behalf Of R Williams
> Sent: Sunday, January 24, 2010 9:01 AM
> To: Order Ecumenical Community; dialogue-request at wedgeblade.net
> Subject: [Oe List ...] Thomas Berry,the Social Imbalance and the US  
> Supreme Court
>
> Colleagues,
>
> Many will remember the analysis we did of the imbalance of the  
> social process wherein the economic dynamic dominates, the political  
> dynamic is the subservient lackey of the economic and the cultural  
> dynamic has collapsed into relative insignificance.
>
> An example of the continuing validity of that analysis is seen in  
> the decision of the US Supreme Court this past week to treat  
> corporations as individuals in terms of their ability to participate  
> in and influence federal elections--and this in an environment where  
> already the pandering of the US Congress, both parties, to special  
> interests has rendered it almost totally ineffective.
>
> In that light I ran across this quote from Thomas Berry in his 2006  
> book EveningThoughts, pages 102-103.  The underlining is mine.
>
> The economic corporations--industrial, commercial, financial--now,  
> in a sense, own the planet...
>
> The educational (cultural) establishment functions within the  
> context of a plunder-consumption economy...
>
> Political decision-making is so extensively controlled by economic  
> powers that the democratic principles of personal freedom and  
> participatory government are subverted.  The money needed for  
> elections must come from corporate wealth in some form.   
> Legislatures are controlled by the economic powers.  What needs to  
> be understood is that the legal establishment in the United States,  
> including the judiciary, at an early period, bonded with the  
> commercial-industrial establishment against citizen groups and  
> agricultural interests.
>
> This is as good a summation of the current situation as I've found!
>
> Randy
>
>
> [1] Number 4 will be especially important, if, as David Orr asserts,  
> “under the multiple stresses [described in this book], it is likely  
> that economic contraction, not expansion will become the  
> norm,” (Orr, p. 29) and “economic growth, as presently conceived,  
> cannot be sustained nor should it be.” (p. 31) He reaches these  
> conclusions because (i) on a humanistic level, “economic growth  
> beyond some threshold [, rather than increasing humanistic values,]  
> generates consumerism, selfishness, and egoism, corrodes character  
> and foreshortens concern” (p. 30); (ii) on an ecological level, the  
> faster economies have grown, the greater the cumulative ecological  
> damage”; (p. 31) and, (iii) finally, on a human survival level,  
> because our politics, economy and manner of living do not fit bio- 
> physical realities (p. 33)
>
>
>
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