[Oe List ...] CS-I re Herman

Sat Jan 1 23:34:35 CST 2011

Herman,

We all have knee-jerk response moments, and the tragedy with some of us (guilty as charged) is that we do not follow-up with confessional clarifications.  Thank you for doing so.

CS-1, like process theology, taught open-ended methodology.  It was its openness that was liberating, and not just replacing old perspectives with newer ones, and as you are finding out, economic, political and cultural cul-de-sacs get dated quickly.  

The numbers re China's flocking to the cities is horrendous though there is little consolation in the urbanization of formerly one-street towns.   I went to Heihe in the Amur border with Russia thinking that I was heading for Manchurian frontier land, not downtown Toronto!

But yes, the ecological disaster that coal's continuing use is not very comforting.  China's investment in carbon capture is a sign that perhaps, we can mitigate further damage (not too hopeful), but I take the long view of science: that the incidence of Gaia's human specie is but the last 30 seconds of 54 years of existence of the Universe.  The universe will prevail even if homo sapien heads towards its own extinction.

BTW, I wrote On Route 66, in response to your birthday and the beginning of my 66th year.  (http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?newsID=105762&cat=3).  Usual caveat: curious, you are welcome; not, meet you at the bend.

I latch on the cultural wisdom of complementary dualism that even the Chinese are forgetting (and unfortunately, adopting contradictional if not confrontational dualism).  What CS-1 methodologically provided is the practice of and/both  rather than either/or  in addressing the indicative.  The Obama White House seems to be beholden to the thinking patterns of the Pentagon, as exemplified in the recent Korean peninsula incident, and our lassoing the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam v. China on the Spratlys.  Bracevich's Limits of Power need more proponents to counter the insidious influence of American exceptionalism.

My three-cent piece on New Year!

Jaime

-----Original Message-----
From: Herman Greene <hgreene at greenelawnc.com>
To: 'Order Ecumenical Community' <oe at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Sun, Jan 2, 2011 2:19 am
Subject: [Oe List ...] CS-I

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to not be so sharpwith my tongue/pen. Does anybody else have a hangover from our illusion-bustingdays?

I continue to think about urban scientific and secular. Amore complete thought than the one I expressed yesterday is that I think whatwe were trying to do was to bring the church into the 20th century.There was also, however, in my opinion, a stance of celebrating these changesuncritically as well as the general economic development model,. 

Science has given to us the gifts of modernity and at thesame time is laying waste to the world. Berrysaid “Science is not a cosmology. When science thinks it is a cosmologyit becomes destructive. When science functions within a cosmology, it becomes awisdom.”  His effort was to establish a new cosmology. I had manyarguments with him about this because he seemed to think the universe story byitself was such a cosmology. In his followers, the universe story as ascientific story and as a philosophical cosmology has become confused. Berry and Swimme’sphilosophical cosmology that was the heart of their universe story was notconsistent with what we may call “scientism.” For example, they saythere is an intentional or teleological aspect to evolution (“theuniverse is about something”), something that is outside “science”and for many scientists is “heresy” (because for scientists theirtrade has become more than an aspect of reality, it has become the whole ofreality—a scientific and philosophical cosmology).

It is certainly true we are becoming increasing urban. It isalso true that cities have been the source of “civilization” overthe last 3,000 years at least. This is reflected in such ideas as the pagans(in other words those who live in the country) or the heathen (those who livein the heath). Now I think the growth of cities is probably more problem thanpromise. For example in the next 20 years 350 million people are expected tomove into cities in China(more than the entire population of the United States) and this is on top of those who already live incities in China.Just the new settlers in the cities will require the installation of electricalpower greater than the entire installed electrical power in the United Statestoday and most of it will be powered by coal. Further the role of cities as thecenters of global industrial civilization is problematic.

The secular is something I think I understand and then Ithink I don’t. We can call the world secular and yet we can call it morereligious than ever and the effect of religions is having as much impact onaffairs as ever. The secular is part of what allows science to operate as acosmology. The secular is what allows the economic man to exist, the one drivenonly by pain and pleasure principles and utility. The secular is whatrelativizes all moral values, so that nothing is right or wrong, it is only apreference.

So if we were to teach CS-I again, we may still talk aboutthe urban, the scientific and the secular but we would be talking about them asmuch as problem as promise and we would not be looking to them for values assuch, rather we would be speaking to what is the basis of value and meaning inan urban, scientific, and secular-yet-very-religious world.

Herman

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Greene Law, PLLC
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