tom abeles wrote:
>
[snip]
> What the "green" visions hold is not such a possibility but the idea
> that if we all get behind the movement the human race and the planet can
> survive- humans get to live another day. yes, the air will be clean and
> the fields will be green and the waters blue. But what of the human
> spirit? And there is the rub.
>
> Don says that it is time to stop the metaphysics and get with the
> program. But, what the greens offer is not hope but a plan to get us off
> a "sinking ship" and onto some island, an idyllic one, perhaps, but a
> New Age munchkin land, never-the-less. It's that or destruction
[snip]
> One can't argue with Jay's predictions on energy. One can make more
> energy efficient "things" and find alternative paths. But to do that one
> has to see the benefit beyond survival in some world which seems one
> step above that of a Penatante.
>
> Philosophy and Visons are what make us human. If we stop hoping and
> aspiring, then capitulation maybe the path.
>
> thoughts?
My thoughts:
(1) Jay's predictions are probably pretty "right on", and it would
make good sense to act as if we were *sure* they were true, since, at
worst, such a strategy would maximize our chances for survival of the
human species and for minimizing suffering for those of us currently
alive. To *count* on "the human spirit and creativity" pulling
a big enough rabbit out of the hat to meet all our growing(sic!) needs
seems to me a foolish bet -- and highly irresponsible, since
it's a bet on which those who make the bet are staking 5+ billion
*others* lives and not just their own skins.
But: (2) I think that the greens' "island" can, per se, become
our new hope and aspiration. I base myself here on all the
philosophy (etc.) -- e.g., the German "Discourse Ethics" people
like Habermas and Honneth --, who argue that our humanness
finds its fullest realization in a peer community of mutual
respect which shapes itself in dialog. The dialogical
process (including childrearing, being-with those who are
suffering and dying, etc., as well as what Marx called "the
administration of things" which maintains ordinary daily life)
is itself "the goal" --> as, for the classical Greeks, each
citizen strove to achieve recognition in the eyes of their
peers for words and deeds.
The *recognition* -- the being-in richly affirming dialog --
is the main thing;
the particular words and deeds are situationally conditioned
*means*. Human creativity and intelligence, as Sophocles
said in The Ode to Man in Antigone, is indifferently applicable to
any problem. If our culture bestowed the highest honors
on people who solved problems of preventive medicine, minimizing
resources needed for production, etc., then that's what the
brightest minds would eagerly
work on, rather than searching for ever more
elementary particles in physics, devising ever more complex organ
transplant procedures, planning ever bigger corporate mergers, etc.
There is a phrase from medieval Christian monasticism:
"peregrinatio in stabilitate", which was reiterated by one
of the early Jesuit missionaries to China (a "space
traveller" of his time):
To go on an adventure,
one does not need to leave one's native town.
*That* seems to me to be the *hopeful* ideal
for humanity. And it seems to me to be powerfully synergistic
with Jay's and the greens' ideas.
thoughts?
"yours in discourse"
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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