Our social system routinely produces “crises” that provoke fears about the future. These phenomena distract humanity from more urgent problems and enable elites to reinforce their privilege. Some consider this dynamic the result of a conspiracy. I see it as the way “the system” works.
In modern societies, power is centralized. Key organizations, administered by carefully selected elites, administer those organizations. Arrogant, ambitious individuals are attracted to positions of power. Top-level administrators carefully screen those who want to move up the ladders of power. Only those who “fit in” are accepted.
One result is that elite administrators choose not to “rock the boat.” They go along to get along in order to gain status and credibility. If they are lucky, they’ll leave a legacy for future generations.
But no one organization rules, either within any one country or the world as a whole. Rather, countless organizations constantly compete with each other, always trying to gain more power by mobilizing forces in support of their objectives. One easy way to mobilize others is to tap fear and anger in order to defeat “enemies.” Power elites routinely resort to these tactics.
Grassroots activists also reinforce the culture of fear, which is at the heart of our most serious problems. The Internet and 24-hour cable news amplify and quicken this dynamic. People get caught up in the feeding frenzy of the latest crisis, inflamed by voices that get attention (and advertising dollars) by being dramatic.
Whether or not humans can transcend these self-perpetuating patterns remains to be seen. To my mind, our chances will be enhanced if we learn to inspire each other with positive, realistic visions of a better world rooted in reconciliation, rather than tapping anger and fear.
Being worried about future catastrophes is counterproductive. Our current tragedies should be more than enough to motivate us. The future is now. Learning how to be present is an urgent task.
Positive visions will be most effective if they are credible and comprehensible, rather than utopian. If we focus on changing what we can change, today and tomorrow, rather than getting agitated about longer term threats, our prospects will improve.
We may even eventually restructure our institutions so that they are more fully democratic and dedicated to the common good of all humanity rather than greed and domination.
Thank you for this! Your thinking and observations are very akin to Margaret Wheatley's: So Far from Home - Lost and Found in Our Brave New World.
ReplyDeleteShyrl McCormick
Can you substantiate this thesis?
ReplyDeleteBut no one organization rules, either within any one country or the world as a whole. Rather, countless organizations constantly compete with each other, always trying to gain more power by mobilizing forces in support of their objectives. One easy way to mobilize others is to tap fear and anger in order to defeat “enemies.” Power elites routinely resort to these tactics.
--Anonymous
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAs always, you've given me much to think about - and thank you!
ReplyDeleteOverhearing two biologists talking, I was struck by the question: What media
did you grow those cultures in?
Biologist or consumer of culture, we need to ensure the media we ingest are nutritious, not toxic.
Regards,
--Yahya
"The Apocaplypse is here and now and the Kingdom of Heaven is within, blooming without."
ReplyDeleteHave rarely seen a sentence that says so succinctly the Truth that I am perceiving... We are experiencing the most extreme split in our view of the world that I have yet encountered in my lifetime. On one hand, the fall and destruction of the human race and endangerment of the whole Earth - and - on the other hand, the rising up of those who have taken to heart the "be the change" you want to see. If we indeed make a commitment to reach for humanity's potential and turn away from the disastrous habits that mankind has adopted through free will, we can open to our own potential and chart a completely different course.
It is a CHOICE and an INDIVIDUAL CHOICE that must be made by hundreds of millions if we are to succeed to become WHO and WHAT we were meant to be. For me this is the central spiritual challenge of all human beings.
Thank you for linking these several references together. They help point to the examples of the extremes that we are being offered at this time among which to choose. And to call yourself ready to do what is necessary in your own life to move away from Armageddon and towards being a worker that joins with others in actually creating "Heaven on Earth" is what is demanded of all of us who choose to accept the challenge.
Many people reading this offering will not necessarily resonate to this spiritual paradigm, yet will be saying "YES" resoundingly to your post and to the gathering together of all of us who wish to become the ANSWER to the problems of the world. To be the leaven in the loaf, to be the small group that Margaret Mead declared would always make the impossible possible and "turn the world around."
I myself love the reference that calls us to become an evolving Body of the Omega Human: "...Teilhard de Chardin’s Mystical Body of Christ evolving toward the Omega Point, our evolution into the Omega Human."
Makes me want to order Wheatley's book today and begin to read... There are so many voices, growing daily, that support the Awakening of humanity! I am profoundly grateful that I am linked to people, like yourself, who are taking seriously humanity's CHOICE to move beyond the Apocalypse.
linked in service,
--Marcella Womack