The Confluence

 

Have you ever been referred to as a consumer? If you have, then you have been insulted. And worse than insulted, you have also been targeted by powerful men for moulding; socially-engineered into something less than you are. You have been belittled and dehumanized, reduced from a Whole being into a single part. You have been made into a statistic to be scientifically examined, reduced to an ever-hungry mouth for the producer to feed. As the producer is a parasite seeking to profit from you, being referred to as a consumer is not so different to being referred to as prey. Greedy prey, stupid prey - the fly who saw the spider's web but crashed into it all the same.

We must not be satisfied with being a feeder, a mere sucking mouth against the teet of hedonism. Ignorance is never bliss, it is uncertainty and frustration, the inability to see beyond the next fix. Ignorance means being unable to make and understand choices; it is the enemy of freedom. We need truth and enlightenment. There is more to us, which we must dare discover; a balanced being, a whole being, a free being.

It was only when reading the work of the world's first self-proclaimed anarchist that I came to realize all of this. And it starts somewhere extremely simple. How we are addressed shapes how we become, in the same way that being praised or insulted might raise or lower our esteem. Proudhon referred to his audience as 'citizen-reader', and it sent me into an upward spiral of thought and discovery.

The confluence -

A confluence is the point where two or more streams form into a single river. How many confluences make up the whole of us is perhaps beyond categorisation. In fact, even categorising things into neat little sections is suspect, as life and being is never so simple. Nonetheless, I will endeavour to present three large and definite tributaries which make up our totality. Ideally, we would all have an understanding and appreciation of these aspects, rather than being trammelled into any individual one. Understandably, we specialize in various places, and are not equally spread across all aspects of our being.

Economic - There are invariably those who value money above all other things, like Dragons upon their golden hoards. For these sorry people the term consumer might fit extremely well, for the concept of a consumer is a creature which exists wholly in the realm of economic transaction (Homo Economicus). They are the ones who want to get things with absolute certainty and familiarity, moving as the crow flies without appreciating the journey. They are easily malleable, and can be satisfied with any conditions provided they get their reward at the end of it.

They obtain their monetary rewards by doing what they would not like to do because they have the promise of spending it on something they want at the end of it. Monetary gain is the consolation for what is often dreary and unimaginative labour. Perhaps we all need to be cajoled into action sometimes and led along by the carrot on the stick a short distance. But to live exclusively for the weekend is to sacrifice five-sevenths of ones life to the machine.

Money is glorified beyond the sum of its parts and becomes a thing of value of itself, rather than a piece of paper used to promise the bearer such and such a sum. It also becomes the main unit of comparison and competition, such that one can never be satisfied with how much one has, for there is always someone with a little more. Thus the value of money is symbolic, rather than useful, and one's attachment to it is not the attachment to one's tools or actual needs, but a symbolic attachment. It is to build oneself on an imaginary foundation (and we call such people 'realists'!) To be disdainful of such a one-dimensional money-clutching character is not elitism - it is simply being something more than an unimaginative creature!

I should like to think that the hypothetical hoarding Dragon I have described above does not really exist. I should like to think that the bulk of our species is somewhat more subtle, and that economic realities are not the be all and end all of existing on this Earth. To the enlightened, economics is but one tributary leading into the river of totality. Economic calculations are a necessary head-ache but one which we would all rather was done away with it. Spending power might illicit the occasional burst of joy, but this would not be an addiction, but an occasional vanity.

Political - Everyone should be political. Not because there is much gain in it, but rather to prevent suffering losses for it. At least in our present epoch of representative democracy (demagoguery), politics is very much a case of damage control. It is equivalent to self-defence.

What is the value of a voice? What is the value of a vote and a movement? I should answer that these things are as valuable as the 'economic' category above. Just as obtaining things by exchanging currency can cause good feelings, so too can discussing things. The difference of course is that discussing important things is free.

The power is there, waiting to be taken, and it costs nothing but effort and time. We should long to have a share of power in government and public affairs, as it is in our interests to do so. The disillusionment with a crooked system (see any currently existing system) only feeds into that system. One of virtuous and balanced character should strive to create something new if the existing surroundings threaten the virtuous. This also is a political action.

Spiritual - The concept of spirituality is one stained by misunderstanding, misuse, and mistrust. Understandably so! Our first introduction to spirituality often comes through dogmatic religion, which drives the dissatisfied toward atheism. Conventional religion is so flagrantly repulsive that it encourages us to denounce spirituality as dangerously stupid, for the most dogmatic of priests oppose all other aspects of human being (such as scientific endeavour) which they consider threatening to their little bubble of perverse power. This might also lead to rational and open-minded religious people being 'tarred with the same brush'.

The necessity of a specific God, or belief in a certain set of scriptures, is also a problem for spirituality. There is nothing worse than competitive religions. Only tolerant religious groups should be tolerated! For that reason I believe spirituality requires total openness and should be proclaimed as an universal individualism. It is a deeply personal experience where, paradoxically, the personal vanishes - for self and all often become interwined during such experiences. But the personal does not vanish forever, and the individual is still left to interpret and ponder their experience, and that is what makes such a spiritual moment special.

I wish here to purify the idea of the spiritual, including within it things we can immediately identify with: to aimlessly observe a white horse grazing in a gladden field; to be lost in a piece of music and to forget time; to see the logic in the absurd; to be part of the unexplainable life of the city; to use language in a nonsensical way; to create art in luminous splendour; to touch the nose of a cat with your own; to imagine one is a sorcerer of a lost race saving a dying realm; watching smoke rise from an incense stick recognising that it doesn't really go anywhere; these are all spiritual experiences.

The spiritual does not align with what is arrogantly called 'the real world', and it is not just a consolation used to maintain a regimented life. The spiritual must be purposeless when all around us demands 'as the crow flies rationality', and accumulation, and severity, and pretension.

Real poverty lies with those who are incapable of fully appreciating this side of themselves. The spiritual does not need to be mutually exclusive with other more 'practical' aspects of our being; they can all co-exist.

Close -

Like any Virtue Ethicist I stand at the foot of the mountain I have raised, dwarfed by its splendour, cast into its shadow. Is it an impossible task to be a balanced and virtuous creature?

Selim 'Selim' Talat

ECOLOGY: THE SHADOW OF REASON

The destruction of our environment is not intelligent, it is short-sighted and self-destructive. It is demeaning to our common sense and humanity. It is the monstrous dark shadow of our modern materialistic, consuming society; our great 'evil' or whatever name anyone cares to call it. An unstoppable and destructive force, forever desiring more and more, never filling its bottomless abyss. It is a black hole that is devouring the whole earth with all it's creatures, including the human race, who have risen to become the most self-destructive species on the planet.

How can environmental issues be approached in a rational and logical sense? “If you think, you are” said Rene Descartes, meaning that things only exist if you are aware of them, or you exist as a person if you are aware of yourself as a thinking being. This philosophical statement is in opposition to the scientific reality that the universe and the world with it's elements, with the kingdom of flora and fauna, exist and live independently of us as the thinking species of nature.

Has Mankind, in it's own process of evolution and development, cut itself from nature to such a degree that it lost it's place in the world? Since when did humans, as the rational species of the earth, start to over consume and destroy the very environment it needs to survive? It was from the moment humans saw nature's resources as commodity goods to exploit, and not as the earthly components that sustains the delicate balance of life in it's many forms, including ourselves.

Earlier communities had a mystic relationship with their surroundings, following seasonal changes in nature and the annual cycles of sun, moon and stars. As a matter of fact, their view of life was universal, whilst retaining the vital perception that their world and its elements were vulnerable and needed harmony, respect and care. Humans had to fit into this vision of nature, treading carefully so as not to disturb the delicate balance that generates life.

Humans felt that they could balance or unbalance nature through their actions. Their superiority as a rational species was focused on this almost supernatural power that enabled them to establish a connection with the forces of nature, who they saw as Gods. The earth and it's elements were seen as sacred and invested with divine qualities, powerful, mysterious and ever changing. Life was celebrated constantly to help in its continuation. The earth was seen as bountiful, generous, nourishing and sometimes inclement in its dramatic changes.

If life for primitive Man was uncertain as a creature of nature, our lives and the future of our race is already stepping into very uncertain ground. Our mass-consuming society is failing to see the vulnerability of our environment, and life on earth as we know it is threatened with irreversible damage to the oceans, rain forests, water sources and ecosystems that sustain life.

How did humans change from being part of nature, to feeling like masters of nature? A crucial change began when the matriarchal worship of natural deities, changed to patriarchal worship of the God/s of heaven. Humans changed from being the only rational species on earth, to becoming its god-like masters, dominating this “creation” given to them. It's richness became a slave to his own comfort and ever-increasing needs. Gaia changed from being a Mother Goddess that sustained all life over earth, to the dirty soil that heavenly man steps in.

Early Christian philosophy saw earthly things and instinctive nature as the source of evil, eternally in opposition with the heavenly God. The original intuitive wonder of early humans about the mysteries of life, turned into superstition and mistrust of everything in nature, including women, who were seen as mirrors of the earth.

It was not only patriarchal religion which cut humanity from nature in its quest for immortality in heaven. Thinking man also cut himself from nature, when he realised that he didn’t need to worship the earth Goddesses, nor the Gods of heaven. Science, with its pure observational method, free from superstition, found itself the real master of nature. The Earth's secrets and footprints of life became codes to crack and possess. We are astonished daily by its inventions and findings.

Philosophy, as the roots to all science that changed the world and the evolution of human consciousness, is still searching for the true meaning of life. Truth and consciousness are heavy words that cannot be used lightly in connection to the destruction of our environment. If consciousness made humans superior as the rational species of nature, then intentionally and totally in control of its actions, mankind is arrogantly and greedily destroying the irrational world; it's own habitat. Why? Simply, because it has the power to do so and nothing is stopping it's way to self-destruction.

Seen from this perspective, the human race as the superior species appears more mad than rational. Mad and cowardly because we feel incapable to do anything effective to protect our earth, our world with all it's beautiful irrational species, each animal, each plant, each flower.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: to speak the truth, we need a mask or a jester's hat. In the old court of kings, jesters were the only ones who could lampoon their kings without losing their heads. What has gone wrong? Are we all silent witnesses and willing or unwilling participants in the demise of our earthly paradise?

It is the responsibility of rational man to bring a new and humble view of ourselves; to place us in this bountiful world as part of it, and not as its consumers and destroyers. If this is not done, the ethics and moral values that we have always cherished as human beings, necessary for a better society would cease to mean anything and have no purpose.

We don’t need to return to pagan worship to care for our planet. Intelligence and clarity should provide the wisdom necessary to review society’s values. If the vital elements needed to sustain life, like water or air are damaged, making our wonderful planet hostile to life, then everything else becomes irrelevant. Humanity as the rational and thinking species of the planet would have failed itself.

There are still places on the earth that appear like paradises, a habitat to unique species of animals, trees and plants. Beautiful breath-taking places on the summit of the high Andes, full of lakes, sun light and rainbows, sources of water for millions of people. By common sense these places should be protected as world heritage. Together with the rain forest they are the remaining lungs of the world. They are not protected and right now they are at the point of being destroyed in the latest gold rush for El Dorado in Colombia. Here we can see an example of irrational, environmental devastation.

The modern-day conquistadores are multinational gold mining companies, whose sole motivation is pure economic greed. Colombian people are just waking up to the fact that they must protect their patrimony and their right to the basic elements that sustain life. During the next few months, the Colombian government will decide the fate of Santurban Paramus.

Whatever happens in Santurban will determine the fate of nearly half the world's delicate ecosystems. Gold mining opens the mountains apart and contaminates the waters with cyanide, destroying all forms of life around it. The idea that gold mining is at the point of destroying this unique ecosystem is mind shattering. Do we need gold to eat or to live? Why aren't these modern Midas kings being stopped? If we continue, the next wars to come will be fought over clean water and clean air, fertile earth and land to grow crops.

If recycling bottles and cardboard packaging makes people in the first world complacent about our duties to our planet, then we must think again. Africa and Latin America is being torn apart by first world mining companies in their endless search for resources to satisfy the markets. We don’t need to be poets or have brilliant minds just to appreciate the wonder of life itself. What will become of our future, or the future of our children?

Carolina Spellman

 

Photograph by Ruby Morales, ambient journalist of Santurban lagoon systems.