The challenge to the concentrations of ·intellectual power is apparent in various forms.of anti-technology sentiment. Consider the student protests against the universities "sdlout" to the military-industrial complex. The distrust of establishment science. The various radical groups within scientific organizations. The rising public demand for participation in important policy decisions. The charge that the quantitative, materialistic direction taken by even social science, has eroded our value bases and contrjbuted to the present confusio11: regarding individual and societal ·values and goals. More fundamentally, these criticisms amount to a challenge that, however well industrialization may have served 'in the past, the basic pattern of industrialized society itself, in the long run, is ill suited to ·creating a humane and just society. Technological growth and material progress alone are _not enough, and they tend to overpower and push aside .other_ goals, leading to social alienation and estrangement of humankind from Nature. Thus a reaction has arisen against further industrialization of organic and human activities (e.g., agriculture, health care, use of leisure time). The industrial system has immense drive but no clear and satisfying guiding images and goals. Inherent in Perception_C is a reassertion that we have two complementary aspects (mind/body, spiritual/physical, yin/yang, intui~_ional/rational, simultaneous/sequential), . neither .explaina,ble in terms of the other nor to be denied because of lack of evidence for the other. The dominance of the positivistic aspect 'in industrial society has caused ·serious confusion about values and goals and hence the excesses against nature and the physical environment, a:; Lynn White has noted..- Is the view compatible with whatever can ·be discovt;red to be humankind's most fuµdamental nature? • Proponents of the third view are insistent ~hat homo economi-- cus is not our most fundamental nature. Rolling Thunder observes : "The establishment people think they have a pretty advanced civilization here. Well, technically maybe they've done a lot, although we know of civilizations that have gone much further in the same direction. In most respects this_is a pretty backward civilization. The establishment people seem completely incapable of learning soµie o f_t h e basic truths. "The most basic principle of all is that of not harming others, and that includes all people and all life and all things. It means not controlling or manipulating others,·not trying to manage their affairs. It means not going off to some other land and killing people over there-not for religion or politics or military exercises or any other excuse. No being has the right-to harm or control any other being. No individual or government has the right to force others to join or participate in any group or system or to force .others to go to school, to church or t_o war. • "Every 'being has an identity and a purpose. To live up to his purpose, every being has the power of self-control, and that's where spiritual power begins. When some of these fundamental things are learned, the time will b'e right for more to be revf!aled and spiritual power will come again to this land. December 1977 RAJ N Page 21 " ... understanding is not knowing t~e kind of facts that your books and teachers·talk about. I can tell you that understanding begins with l_ove and respect. It begins with respect for the Gr~at Spirit, and the Great Spirit is the life that is in all things-all the creatures and the plants and even the rocks and the minerals. ; All things-and _I mean all things- have their own will and their own way and their own purpose; this is what is to be respected. "Such respect is not a feeling or an attitude only. It's a way of life. Such respect means that we never stop realizing and never neglf!ct to carry out our obligation to ourselves.a_nd our envirdnment." .Of all the teachings I have heard, these words are the most important and the most valuable for the contemporary .aspirant. upon ... the path of action. No teaching for the path of actio_n co~ld be more fundamental or primary than the teaching of love anq respect-for oneself, for one's world, and for the Great Spirit, which is all life in all things. The aspirant can perform no greater service for his world than to be mindful that his acts, even his thoughts and speech, become a part of the condition of that world. I~ light 'of the likelihood of industrialized civilization 's being fundamentally flawed, it is a serious and very hazardous error to allow _major decisions to be based primarily on technological . and economic arguments. The full ran~e of implications of 'these decisions involves • at,a minimum the issues of a healthy, resilient economy with a meaningful livelihood for all, evenly distributed social justice, rapid accommodation to the spread of an ecological • ethic, national responsibility in the.world community, appropriate 'decentralization of i_nstitutions, public regulation of t~chnology, and the orienting of society's activities around a set of democratically chosen goals that inspire commitment instead of sacrifice by the citizenry. In ferms of t_he time span of history, our energy choices -have harrowe~ rapidly. Fossil fuels will soon be a declining source (some already are); public acceptance of major dependence on nuclear energy is problematical. Solar energy is the one energy source for which there are no serious technological gaps, no serious environmental problems, no likelihood of organizeq public-interest opposition, and no implementation barriers except economic and institutional inertia which can be easiJy altered by appropriate legislation and proceduq l changes (e:g., selective energy t~.x. solar subsidy, building code moqificati~ns, changes in zoning laws and loan practices). It is vitally important that the nation's energy policy in these next few critical years not turn out to have been like the judgment of the man who, having fallen from a tenthfloor window, wa.s heard to say as_he plunged past the second floor, "I'm, in good shap.e so far!" It is possible to insure against that eventuality by encouraging a public conversation about the pasic goals of the nation coupled with immediate vigorous ;lction toward increased exploitation of solar energy and toward reduced .:!nergy demand-even if the necessary restructuring of the economy is difficult and special measures have to be taken to avoid the poor and unemployed bearing the burden. The most powerful reason for this course is to avoid. having·the options reduced (by choice or by continued muddling through), to a most unpleasant future. • ' -Jim Benson •Single copies of Energy & Reality, which we highly recommend, are $1 each from the Institute for Ecological Studies, 9208 Christopher St., Fairfax, VA 22030.
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