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

Tue Jan 26 13:16:15 CST 2010

Thank you, Herman and Randy, for this helpful discussion. Our Social  
Process Triangles are such a helpful screen or lens for understanding.

I heard an interview on NPR with Curtis White, author of a book called  The 
Barbaric Heart: Rethinking Environmentalism. I haven't read it yet,  but 
was electrified at his insight. He says our virtues, not our sins are the  
problem. Based on the values of the Roman Empire, western civilization sees  
bringing home the booty as high virtue. It is "violence with a skill set."

Weren't what we call the Dark Ages a  cultural age, with the  church having 
the kind of influence that the corporations have today? I like  Herman's 
term ecological-cultural better, but I think Thomas Berry  was spot-on with 
the term Ecozoic Age, where all decisions are  made and actions taken with the 
highest good for the Whole of Creation  as the reference point.

My two cents,
Jann

In a message dated 1/25/2010 6:27:19 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
hfgreene at mindspring.com writes:

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, sci
entific, 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]_ (mip://01aae860/default.html#_ftn1)  
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.

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