Back Issue - November 2001
It all comes down to what matters to you
most!
This Boiling Point marks a departure from our long-running
theme on Global Warming and Climate Change - though they are
of increasing urgency as time goes by. Why, then? Because
we are able to give them attention in another way, through
the creation of our Challenge page. The topic of this Boiling
Point still includes those issues - with a twist that you
will discover at the end of the piece, yet at a deeper level
through standing back a little and taking a wider view.
It
is stated in our Principles (on the About Us page) that: Our
world is our larger body and our home. No political or economic
strategies and 'solutions' will have any effect unless they
are founded on caring and compassion.
How
come? Well, isn't it pretty obvious that the political and
economic strategies that we see around us are not treating
the world as our larger body and our home? Why not? Some put
it down to sheer greed on the part of power structures, which
it is in the nature of power to corrupt. But if so, this is
a pretty crazy kind of greed which destroys its own habitat
and support system.
I
want to suggest that there is another system at work which
isolates our feelings and natural intelligence from the political
and economic strategies that we devise with our intellectual
minds. This is the persistent belief, which I keep encountering
among educated people, and with its roots in Western rational
philosophy, that governments will naturally take action when
presented with rational arguments supported by scientific
evidence. If only matters were that simple!
Instead we are presented, when we can find the parts of the
media that will report them, accumulating examples of our
and other governments presenting the opposite of the most
rational cases for action. Examples that immediately spring
to mind are: the determination to inflict on the London Underground
railway network the same unworkable financial structure as
has proved economically disastrous and unsafe to the public
in the UK over-ground railway system; the culling of huge
numbers of cows and sheep in the UK in an attempt to eradicate
the Foot & Mouth disease that is generally not in any
case fatal; and Government persistence in conducting research
trials of genetically modified crops which run the very risks
that they are meant to eliminate.
A
number of authors have addressed what they believe to be going
on 'behind the scenes' and which help to explain this apparently
irrational behaviour. They are probably familiar to you: David
Korten's 'When Corporations Rule the World'; George Monbiot's
'Captive State: the Corporate Takeover of Britain'; and, most
recently, David Cromwell's 'Private Planet'. They collate
evidence of connivance between our (and other) governments
with private corporations that effectively usurp the democratically
elected legitimacy of the governments - all in the hypocritically
cited cause of protecting 'freedom and democracy' - whether
it be from 'terrorism' or other 'threats'. Well, we have got
pretty used to George Orwell's predictions of deceitful 'double-speak'
in his book 1984, only most people nowadays call it 'spin'
instead. But we need to take these issues to an even more
basic and general level, as suggested in the Save our World
Principle with which I started. This is the level of what
we most care about.
Let's
start with a few positive examples in relation to the environment.
They
are generally taken from a single UK newspaper, but they cover
a wide range for all that. In the middle of November an article
appeared about the determined efforts and personal sacrifices
of the inhabitants of a small country town in England who
were so furious about having four trees cut down in their
market square that one of them shinned up the remaining one
on a Sunday night (the same day as Mr Bush announced the invasion
of Afghanistan), and was joined by other townspeople in a
vigil for the next eleven days in order to ensure its survival.
The reporter concluded that the threat to cut down their trees
will do more to awaken local people to political action than
any amount of chivvying by politicians to get them out to
vote, in face of what they unwisely choose to spin as 'voter
apathy'.[1]
Another
article was entitled: 'Life on earth is so precious - can
somebody please tell the lunatics running the asylum'. [2]
She referred to 'the tiny probability of life here' and asked:
'what other planet is offering us a home? We forget that we
are the success story, the winning number; what we take for
granted is a miracle ... If Earth becomes hostile to life
- if its forests, seas, mountains and plains are crippled
into toxic heaps - that will not be an accident. Human beings
will be responsible ... I want to live here, on Earth, the
place I call home. I want it to be a safe, beautiful place
to bring up children and teach them to love life and to value
it. How can I do this when our leaders are treating Earth
like a hotel bedroom - to trash it and move on?' She ended
by writing: 'Can somebody tell the guys what planet we're
on?'
So
here we have presented the dichotomy between the logical pursuit
of limited agendas, on the one hand, and all our emotional
survival instincts on the other. Ultimately the former, taken
to the extremes that we are experiencing now, make no sense.
The actions of those in power, whether governments and/or
corporations, become crazy. This is the inevitable consequence
of cultivating the dry, analytical, left-side of our brains
to the exclusion of the instinctive, intuitive, passionate
and compassionate right-side.
It
makes no sense to destroy one's own habitat along with that
of other human beings and species. We know this at an instinctive,
intuitive level, but we do not fully comprehend it. We have
not yet adjusted our mind-sets and heart-sets, but need to
do so pretty damn fast if we are to save our habitat!
In
truth, we are primarily not objective but subjective creatures,
and our values, intentions and motivations are intrinsic to
living as human beings, are the sources of our actions, and
therefore merit our full attention. Without subjective motivation,
what would get us to act at all? Trying to make out we are
merely the accumulations of conditioned responses to external
stimuli, simply removes the question back to the behavioural
psychologist who concluded that. What stimulated him to draw
that conclusion? Did he have no choice? How then is he uniquely
identifiable, and not one of a million clones who could have
done so? And were he to insist that his doing so was due to
the unique combinations of stimuli affecting him, can he convincingly
trace them all? How came he to choose a behavioural and not
another starting point for his philosophy? And what stimuli
can explain the compassion and breadth of vision which is
demonstrated in the last quotation?
I
do not believe these questions are either answerable or need
to be answered. Accepting that values, intentions and motivations
are the keys to action, we do act on what we care most about,
even if we are not conscious what that is. And if people believe
they are disinterested and acting rationally when the outcomes
deny that, there is a lot of self-discovery that needs to
take place. Moreover, once one has discovered what one truly
cares about, the intensity of that caring is going to make
an enormous difference to whether it comes to fruition.
A
flavour of the intensity of caring that at least one author
considers to be essential is given by the following quotations.
They are pretty strong, so I suggest you tighten your metaphorical
seat-belts first! I also need to explain that they are taken
from a remarkable book that draws profound lessons from the
message that the mystic Sufi poet Jalal-ud-Din Rumi had for
his time, 700 years ago, and ours, right now.- though published
in 1994 [3]
"How
can we possibly save the world in 20 years - which is the
most time we have - if we don't, all of us, infuse what
we are doing and what we are learning with sacred fire,
sacred passions, sacred purpose? ... We have to celebrate
that place where our inner qualities are given their most
splendid and their most complete representation. At the
centre of our education, at the centre of our lives, at
the centre of our work lives. Then we can save this planet,
because then we will know what this planet is ... "
"Let us not doubt for one moment that only the
radiant, selfless soul and heart can be of any use anywhere
- whether in the spiritual world, the political world, the
classroom, the office, or on the psychotherapist's divan
- only they will help a situation as extreme as this."
I
could include more of these challenging extracts [4], but
have to move on. If
this degree of passion is necessary, how can it be acquired?
The principle given at the start carries on:
No
political or economic strategies and 'solutions' will have
any effect unless they are founded on caring and compassion
- which are the bedrock of commitment, resolution and endurance.
The
qualities work together. Without the necessary intensity of
the former, one will not develop the latter. But without developing
and maintaining commitment, resolution and endurance, one
will lose heart, and, with it, both caring and compassion.
There are many routes to such essential personal development,
but it is not the purpose of this Boiling Point to discuss
them.
What does remain to be done here is to underline the need
for them by giving some recent examples of outrageous lack
of caring.
About
the worst is the way our society, at least in Britain, is
treating its animals. As soon as the Foot and Mouth epidemic
broke out, I felt impelled to submit the following letter
for publication, under the title 'Massacre of the innocents'
[5]: 'What does it say about our values that we are prepared
to massacre thousands of innocent animals for a generally
non-fatal disease, when we would never dream of losing one
human life for a fatal one? We would not hesitate to vaccinate
our own kind, would we? Have we lost all our feelings of empathy
for our fellow creatures, and replaced them with totally commercial
considerations? Once we have done that, can our true, as opposed
to our professed, feelings for fellow human beings be that
different?'. In other words, can we be sure that human beings
would never be 'culled' in the mind-set of the perpetrators,
if they are as analytical and as cut off from their feelings
and compassionate nature as they appeared to be?
Hearing,
later, that the UK Government decision to cull instead of
vaccinate the animals was made in response to intense lobbying
by Nestle, the world's largest food company, though not a
UK one, I was not at all reassured. [6] Nor were reports comforting
that the 'Foot and mouth cure "was worse than the disease"'
[7] and that 'hundreds of thousands of animals were slaughtered
unnecessarily' [8]. To remind ourselves, let's repeat the
final words from an earlier quotation and make it a refrain:
'Can somebody tell the guys what planet we're on?'
It
gets worse - far worse! It was casually announced in the UK
press on 27 October 2001 that 'a European commission plan
to test thousands of chemicals for toxicity will initiate
the largest animal testing programme Europe has ever seen
and require the death of at least 50m animals, according to
official estimates seen by The Guardian'!!! [9] The announcement
goes on to explain that the plan 'involves testing 30,000
chemicals found in everyday products to make sure they are
safe for human health and the environment ... The rationale
is to protect the public ... The programme would <incidentally?>
boost Britain's contract animal testing industry ... The European
Commission argues that there is no other choice. A spokesman
.. <spare his blushes!> .. said "It's a trade-off.
Do you want safe chemicals or not?"'
Hang
on a minute! There is another choice which I am convinced
would be popular with very many people: cut down the number
of chemicals! We don't want them anyway. They taste horrible
in food; they are already suspected of causing serious diseases;
and knowledge of their effects can anyway be gained from researching
known existing effects on human beings. We suspect that such
research studies have been resisted by food giants in order
for them to be able to claim 'no ill-effects have been found'.
Yes
there is a strong case for organised protest, but the purpose
of this Boiling Point is to address the mind-sets and the
heart-sets of those we might oppose as well as our own in
opposing them. So let us, for the present, tease out what
we can from the above announcement. Once again, the proposers
appear to be totally cut off from their feelings and compassion.
It sounds logical to make sure that 'chemicals found in everyday
products are safe for human health and the environment ' -
but what about protecting the animals themselves? Where do
they come into the picture? We and they and 'the environment'
are all part of one ecosystem, one biosphere - not just sound-bites
for politicians! And, most remarkable of all, this announcement
did not make it to any of the editorial or comment columns
in this, or any other major newspaper! Just a matter of course
announcement! Well, it should give us something to think about
were the UK to join the Euro - if the UK is not acting shamefully
enough already!
Are
you feeling strong, committed and full of resolution and endurance
yet? What does the following do for you: 'Come to Norway and
kill our seals, minister suggests' [10] The fisheries minister
was quoted as saying: "Seal hunting on the wild Norwegian
coast should be sold as an exclusive product to tourists.
This could be a big hit. We cannot just blindly follow the
views of [the French actress and animal rights campaigner]
Brigitte Bardot. We have to take out more animals". I
consider that a healthy response to this is to feel sick -
and then what?
There
are other recent examples that I could use: more on the future
of farming - under licence; total destruction of coral reefs
within 50 years; an all-too-familiar EU fishing deal with
Mauritania which over-fishes its waters in exchange for cash
to pay foreign debts [11], but I think the rationalised exploitative
mind-set is sufficiently well illustrated. As to the qualities
we need to have, and how passionately we need to hold them,
much still needs to be done - and be done quickly.
One
of the other Save our World principles is to: 'state our truth'
about the threats to and means of saving our world, through
the media, publications and campaigning. Taking a stand in
one of these ways can provide a start, for it is, in itself,
a statement of commitment, of which David Edwards writes eloquently
in his book 'The Compassionate Revolution'.
Just
by way of illustration, and for you to develop other ideas,
I recount the following. While attending a conference in March
this year, on preparing for the Earth Summit next September,
I was invited to consider joining a sustainable energy and
climate change working group. It struck me then that it would
be a monumental waste of time and effort for such a group
to attempt to provide technical or scientific advice to which
the Government already has ample access, particularly with
no guarantee that the unpaid voluntary efforts of that or
other working groups would be taken up by the Government or
acted upon.
So
I decided instead to restrict my volunteering to examine the
real intentions, motivations and conflicts of interest that
lie behind Government action and inaction. This seemed to
be a much more suitable role for voluntary groups, and Non-Governmental
Organisations (NGOs) generally, than landing ourselves with
sharing the responsibility for suggesting ways for the governments
to get themselves out of messes, which they need never have
got into, had they heeded the environmental warnings of the
1970's. (A prime example of this is renewed Government interest
in utilising nuclear power as a 'clean' source of energy,
to get it out of the quandary of finding alternatives to fossil
fuel in time to mitigate climate change.)
The
outcome of my decision was to prepare for the working group
a paper entitled 'A Values Approach to Energy and Climate
Change' and try to persuade the rest of the group to pursue
this approach. (It is message 64 in our Yahoo Group which
can be reached from the Links page) I met with very limited
success, mainly, it seems, because most of the people in the
working group adhered to the mindset described earlier :that
this and other governments will naturally take action when
presented with rational arguments supported by scientific
evidence.
However,
in a sub-group which was set the task of raising the awareness
of the Government and the public about global warming and
sustainable forms of energy, I then proposed the Challenge
which now appears on its own page on this web-site. Our sub-group's
strategy was to offer it first for the Government to adopt
as its own contribution (reworded) to the Earth Summit next
year, and then, if it declined, to make it into a challenge
from the public to the Government instead. Having been informed
by the overall group convenor that there was no chance of
the former, here it is in the latter capacity.
There
is still time for the Government to change its mind - with
a little help from our friends! Let
us have your views through the Feedback facility on this page.
(C)
Jim Scott,November 2001
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and air your views,first mentioning the title of the Feature
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If you prefer, you
can email
your comments directly to Jim Scott, Chairperson of Save
Our World.
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