We are what we repeatedly do? — Aristotle
In writing these Current Events essays we are given to outrageous statements or at least statements that seem outrageous in the context that most of us live in. We continue. All problems facing our species on our planet can be traced to our behavior. It then follows that all of our problems can be successfully addressed by a change, albeit a radical change, in human behavior. Is this possible? Absolutely, and thankfully a small number of particularly insightful people over several millennia have demonstrated exactly how to do this.
In the absolute sense, then, there is only one problem, that of human behavior. However, in the relative sense, most of us believe that humanity is faced with multiple problems. It is with addressing those problems that initial strategies for creating a sustainable community must begin and then hopefully our insights will emerge from the darkness of illusion into the light of reality.
For example, the anxiety about global warming is intensifying and it will help if we understand more deeply how and why we created this approaching catastrophe. The Scottish politician James Maitland came up with the astute observation called the Lauderdale Paradox. “The theory says that capitalism undervalues public resources, like air and water and soil, because they are so plentiful, and overvalues whatever is private and scarce.” (1) Lacking insights into our own behavior we could not imagine that those plentiful resources could ever become scarce.
But, of course, they have. And that’s just the beginning. “According to the World Bank, by 2050 some 140 million people may be displaced by sea-level rise and extreme weather, driving escalations in crime, political unrest and resource conflict.” (2)
To find out what is happening today we can look to the “smart” money, the oligarchs. Securitas, the Swedish security giant purchased the Pinkerton agency anticipating dark days to come. “Among their most popular new services is the Pinkerton Dedicated Professional, in which agents join a client’s company like any other new hire, allowing them to provide intel on employees. By 2018, the agency said it could count among its clients about 80 percent of Fortune 1,000 companies.” (2)
What do the world’s oligos (few) arkhos (leaders) know that many of us do not? They are getting ready for a dystopian future. In his book The Uninhabitable Earth, David Wallace-Wells calls it “the Great Dying: a worldwide economic decline, sharply deteriorated living conditions, disruption to basic government functions and widespread hunger.” (2)
However, the oligarch’s will find out that their strategies will be to no avail. Now we turn to the people who have known all along how to respond to the toxic problems of the old story. Click on the link below to revisit this ancient wisdom.
Insight # 108: As humanity continues to express increasing violence, mental illness and a general descent into chaos, we can choose to take responsibility for our role as individuals in this growing socio-pathology or we can choose to change our role and enlist the wisdom of the awakened mind in shifting our story and our identity. Roy C. Henry
Link:
- Conditioning and Behavior Modification in this blog and in print in The ABC’s of Simple Reality: The Encyclopedia of Self-Transformation, Vol I (2018), pages 93-94, by Roy Charles Henry.
References:
- Barron, Jesse. “Hedging Against the Apocalypse.” The New York Times Magazine. April 14, 2019, page 51.
- Shannon, Noah Gallagher. “Inhuman Resources.” The New York Times Magazine. April 14, 2019, pages 54 & 55.
