First, thanks to Brian McAndrews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Havel's speech is very long but relevant to recent postings. That speech was very inspiring! The following was passed to me from a friend - also relevant to recent postings.. >Don, >A clip from Ken Wilbur - I think it catches extremely well what strikes >me as the major problem with your group's thinking. >chris Chris was commenting on our gaiapc list. I think, though, the problem is universal. I don't know who Ken Wilbur is addressing. ******* Thank you for your generous comments about my work in general and about A Brief History in particular. Your central question involved this: You first quote Brief History: "Gaia's main problems are not industrialization, ozone depletion, overpopulation, or resource depletion. Gaia's main problem is the lack of mutual understanding and mutual agreement in the noosphere about how to proceed with these problems." You follow that quote with your objection: "While that is an important point and philosophically correct, it seems insufficient given the crisis level we're at.... Our house is burning down. If we wait for that [mutual agreement] to unfold before taking action, it will be too late. Am I missing something?" Well, let's assume that our house in indeed burning down, in terms of an ecological crisis. The crucial question is, Why have we still not taken action? And the answer is: Because we have not been able to reach mutual understanding and mutual agreement about this crisis. And until we do that, the crisis will continue, guaranteed. You see, there are generally two ways that human beings deal with genuine crisis situations. They either foresee it, and take action now to prevent it; or-much more often-they wait until the nightmare actually occurs, which forces them to face the issue-much too late-and then spend their time cleaning up the massive casualties. So far, we (us humans) are following the second course. A collective humanity will not act on this crisis until they actually and collectively perceive it to be a crisis. And the only way they will perceive a global crisis is if they themselves possess a global perspective, which alone is capable of seeing the problem. So my point is that, given the crisis, we will either: work for ways to change perception, or we will have to wait for the disaster to actually and massively strike, at which point people will then agree we have a huge problem. The only other approach is for world governments to force their citizens to take dramatic action, and-given the democratic nature of the one hundred or so industrial nations-this is very unlikely. Morevoer, it would involve various forms of fascist governance, which, no matter how noble the cause, always get into horrendous problems. Notice that I said, in the original quote you gave, that "Gaia's main problem" is the lack of mutual agreement on how to proceed with the crisis. I did not say, "Gaia's only problem." Once we reach a collective, democratic, consensual agreement on the nature and degree of the crisis (the major problem), then a thousand other things need to be done (from regulation to education). But most ecophilosophers focus on the thousand other things that need to be done, and utterly ignore the major and first problem: how to get people to see the other problems and agree on a course of action. And the only way we can do that is by developmental evolution of consciousness from egocentric to sociocentric to worldcentric (or global) modes. From that global perspective, the crisis can much more easily be seen, and thus a consensus on emergency action will start to form around that collective and mutually-agreed-upon perception. So I'm not ignoring or denying the thousand other things that need to be done; I'm simply highlighting the single most important agenda that true ecologists everywhere ought to be engaged in, namely: the growth and evolution and development of interior consciousness itself. To the extent that ecologists ignore the interior (Left Hand) path, then to that extent they make the other course of action absolutely inevitable: a worldwide crisis of nightmarish proportions that will force people to think globally, while all around them will lie millions of casualties and untold suffering. So I am suggesting a balance: let us work for environmental action now, but let us also work just as hard for a culture of encouragement that places at least as much emphasis on interior, transcendental, consciousness development, which alone can prevent the nightmare. Very best, Ken, January 8, 1997