We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what was good even for us. We have fulfilled the danger of this by making our personal pride and greed the standard of our behavior toward the world – to the incalculable disadvantage of the world and every living thing in it. And now, perhaps very close to too late, our great error has become clear. It is not only our own creativity – our own capacity for life – that is stifled by our arrogant assumption; the creation itself is stifled.
We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.
~Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace (2002)
Poet/ environmental activist Wendell Berry wrote this is the early 2000’s. We haven’t changed much in the intervening years. There have been attempts and for a while it looked like we were making slow progress in learning to live on this planet as an integrated part of it rather than as a swarm of some alien parasites feeding on it.
Unfortunately, the current powers-that-be are paragons of arrogance and greed. They seem fixated on ruthlessly and spitefully defying any attempts at a peaceful coexistence with our planet. They wish to do away with many alternative/green energy initiatives, especially those having to do with wind. solar, or electric cars. Regulations put in place to protect our water and air are being gutted.
I believe that if they had their way, we would be moving around in coal burning cars and planes. Or that cities would be required to dump wastewater directly into the nearest body of water. Or that our National Parks will become vast drilling and mining reserves. Or that schools would have to put asbestos back in the classrooms. Maybe they would even heat the by burning asbestos logs in each classroom?
There is something in the crazy decisions they are making that goes beyond pure arrogance and greed, though both are still there as the industrialists clap their hands in glee. I used the word spitefully above. There seems to be an element of spite in their actions that defies common sense, or even their greed. Their choice in nearly every decision having to do with the environment is one that reeks of–and I hesitate in writing this–evil. It’s as though they are determined to damage the planet and its inhabitants.
Maybe they see it as some form of punitive action or maybe it is simply an arrogant show of the power which they believe they hold over the world and us.
I don’t know. But I worry that since they are putting so much bullshit in the air right now (adding yet another form of pollution) on so many fronts that many of these environmental atrocities are going unnoticed, barely covered by the media.
But I do know that if it continues unabated, we will all pay a dear price. We will lose that sense of the majesty of creation of which Berry wrote. And from there it all downhill. We’re just beginning to get a taste of what in store for our future living on a planet made hostile.
Can we exhibit the humility and reverence required to keep this planet inhabitable?
It’s not looking good at the moment. But things can change, can’t they? If can if we, the people, decide things must change.
Can we make that decision?
Here’s some Marvin Gaye on this subject.
Redtree Times 