tribes, villages and such — the state was a hierarchical structure centered in cities and backed by military force. It exacted tribute from its subjects, especially in the coimtry- side, and used that concentration of resources to fortify and extend its own power. The human race has travelled a far journey since the days of Babylon, Nippur and Ur of the Chaldees. Empires and kingdoms, dictatorships and “democracies," republics and reichs have risen and fallen. They have reflected a diversity of cultures and approaches to life. Yet, in a very real way, they have all been the same empire, the same state. For they all have shared the same basic principle: hierarchical integration around points of domination and power. The 20th Century has seen the climax of that old empire. With the conquest of tribal peoples by Europ>ean powers over the past few centuries, the state rules virtually the entire world. Even the former colonies organize themselves by the principles of the state. And the leading states gather godlike powers to themselves. They can muster awesome concentrations of resources and human ingenuity, concentrations that gain them the ability to penetrate the heavens and lay waste to the earth. The power of the state is such that most people cannot conceive of life without it. Within the context of the state are met the most basic of human needs: physical security, sustenance for the body, and that sense of belonging and community that is so vital to our emotional wholeness. The war fever, the rallying to common effort that swept both Britain and Argentina during the recent Falklands War, makes clear the degree to which people identify with their nation-state, almost submerging their personal identity into that of the state. The emotional potency of loyalty to the nation-state, rooting as it does in human needs, cannot be ignored or dismissed by those who seek peace. Instead, patriotism must be understood and real alternatives developed which can channel it in positive directions. The key is to find new grounds of human unity. New structures must be created, structures that provide us with physical abundance and a positive sense of identity and common effort. The old paradigm of the state must give way to a new paradigm, one that is rooted in cooperation as much as the state is rooted in command. The vertical model of power must be replaced by a horizontal model. The pyramid must become the web. The entity known as the state must be given its deserved burial. A new entity, one that might be called "the interaction," must be bom. As states have their identity in jxjwer, the new structures must have their identity in place and the creation of beauty. Furthest along in the development of the new paradigm are the bioregionists. The bioregional synthesis points the way to many of the answers we seek. For physical sustenance, the bioregionist looks to the incredible, untapped abundance of nature. Food, warmth, light, shelter, movement, clothing, all that is needed for survival and comfort is at our feet if we are willing to exercise wisdom and to share with our neighbors. Sun, water, wind and soil combined with our own skills and understandings can create bounty. Scarcity is an illusion, an artificial situation perpetuated through the hierarchical control of resources. If tmth be seen, there is more than enough for all. The bioregional vision transcends the purely physical. It looks back to the days before Babylon when humans drew their inner sense of being from the place in which they lived. Humans were not set apart from nature. They were participants. They understood the care that existed in nature for all beings, a care manifested in the physical abundance it supplied. The old peoples knew that their identity flowed from being part of a band or tribe that was part of nature, and not some remote and abstract system of power and rules. Though their lives were often difficult, they knew the reality of their existence, the reality of people living on and with the earth. They had a sense of belonging. In North America, we do not have to look back 6,000 years to find those kind of people. They roamed free upon this continent as recently as a century ago. What happened to the First Americans when they came in contact with state power reveals fruths obscured in parts of the world where the state has prevailed longer. In a very real way, the entire history of civilization was compressed into a few centuries in North America. People who lived free of hierarchical control were brutally oppressed by hierarchy. That hierarchy rose to become the most powerful state in history. Aug.-Sept. 1982 RAIN Page 17 As states have their identity in power, the new structures must have their identity in place and the creation of beauty. The starkness of the contrast between what was and what is offers North Americans a special opportunity. We can see back to the time when this continent was one, not artificially divided into several spheres of state power. Seeing that, we can look ahead to a time past the state. We can begin to envision a different order on this continent, a new model for world peace. America can be transformed from a kind of nuclear-tipped Mega-Rome into a peaceful interaction of diverse cultures. By working for and establishing new structures of unity and new patterns of belonging, we can create a real continental community. Practically, this means building a new structure of government, one in which authority is vastly decentralized. In tandem, a new economy must be developed in which production is similarly dispersed. This new political economy must root in the physical reality of the biosphere if it is not to become just one more form of abstracted state power. Its models must be biological, rather than mechanical. In such a North America, a sense of belonging would root in self-governing places. The most powerful governing structures would be the smallest. Larger structures would have their existence as voluntary confederations of the smaller. Boundaries would be based on watershed divisions, and the image of boundaries would shift. They
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