We express our vitality in three basic ways, found in the energy centers of the false-self survival strategy. Whether we label them security, affection and esteem, or power and control–or with alliteration as plenty, pleasure and power–they explain most of the self-destructive behaviors of our false-self identity in Paradigm-B. They also explain the history of human behavior.
American history reveals how, when discovering a continent of seeming limitless natural riches, Mammon, the so-called devil of covetousness, seized the human imagination and never let go. “So they exterminated, or nearly exterminated, every animal species of value, the beaver and buffalo being the most notable examples. They grubbed out mineral wealth by destroying the countryside; strip mining and sluice mining were commonplace even though they left the countryside an unsightly shambles. They slashed away the timber and moved on. They mined the soils of fertility, leaving behind unsightly fields, gullied and worn. There was no need to conserve; the resources were inexhaustible. There was no compulsion to protect the landscape; moving on to an unspoiled countryside was easier and more profitable.”[i]
By the time farmers reached the Great Plains, although they knew about fertilizers and crop rotation, they preferred to wear out the soil, abandon it and move on to fresh fields. “‘Why son,’ boasted one Nebraska farmer, ‘by the time I was your age, I had worn out three farms.’”[ii]
Clearly a Paradigm-B worldview and resultant behaviors will never support nor sustain the Global Village.
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Supplemental Reading:
Cooperation and Competition, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 1
#35 Mammon
[i] Billington, Ray Allen. “Full Speed Ahead and Damn the Tomorrows.” American Heritage. December 1977, p. 8.
[ii] Ibid.
