A recent article, well meaning, includes “ ….leaving us all in the grip of a world economic, political and environmental crisis.” I think this leaves out the most important point of leverage - civilization. Civilization is the point where our sense of the universe and of ourselves merge in a large project of science art, families, education, food, architecture, and governance. In fact, nothing is left out of civilization, which means that it is vulnerable to taking parts and ignoring the whole.
Since our educational system has been co-opted by business, finding ways to make slaves of us, the pleasure of exploring the world through science and art has been replaced by a science that is closer to plumbing. (write the equations, and fill in the numbers, don’t think about why it is interesting, even mysterious) and almost no study of the arts, except as hero worship (we teach why this novel is so wonderful and the novel is so brilliant rather than what this story stirs up in you and how to learn and how to explore yourself .)
History is unexplored territory, and the images people have of how we got here are under-developed. Employer says, “You don’t need no history to have a job here you need skills broad skills, hold you in the present, narrow skills are paths into the future.“
The result is that while we are smart enough to cope with the project of integrating humanity with nature, we lack the skills, knowledge, and impulses to cope with the situations we are facing. So we turn our box or maybe it’s like we are all wandering around inside of a big house with multiple screens projected onto the walls, but afraid to go outside into the rain.
The invitation is to gut it out. Come on outside, dare to expose yourself.
Reading this I think that our entire civilization is co-opted by, and for, business. Which, unhappily, looks to me to be business as usual. (“Sir, would you like coffee or hemlock?”, “Coffee, please”, I replied.)