Thus far, all of the arguments for a healthy environment are
“Instrumental”, which is to say our attitude towards the Earth is to see it as
an exploitable resource. Which is also to say that we are still thinking
Technologically and not Ecologically. Technological, Instrumental and, therefore, bogus Ecology is
known and recognized by its clichéd slogans: “sustainable growth”, “resource
management”, “renewable resources”, “ green industries”, and so forth. Of course
this is better than nothing, but not by much.
At this point there isn’t a corporation in Europe or the West
or the new Asia that will not pay lip service to “environmental responsibility”
when challenged. The most dispiriting irony of all is the widespread delusion
that we can consume our way out of the ecological crisis through buying and
consuming “green products”.
All Instrumental, ecological debate revolves around arguments
about why and to what extent we should preserve the environment and whether or
not we should treat it as a living being or a thing. But because it is
Instrumental, Technological thinking, the weight of the argument always comes
down on the side of nature, as a resource, which is to say a thing. The context
for all of this hard debate is Technological thinking, which in one way or
another sees the Earth as a mass of survival information, which can be
coordinated into a system of ecological values and governed as a “planetary
ecological economy”. Amid all this technological debate there is the conviction
that this is a new way of thinking about issues. The fact is that it is old
technological thinking discussing a “new” area for technological domination and
exploitation. Calling it “new paradigm thinking” does not change anything but
the mask and image of corporate and government exploitation. This Instrumental,
Technological theory is the guiding master plan behind the reason corporations
have seen and continue to see the “green revolution” as a new marketplace for
unlimited, “sustainable growth”. The reason why this anti-ecological thinking is
failing and will fail drastically is because it perpetuates the delusion that we
can still cook up ideologies which suit the exploitation mentality and get away
with it.
The Instrumental, Technological mentality thinks that it is
in the process of cutting a deal with the Earth. Ideological sustainable growth
environmentalism ought to know that the ecological crisis has been produced as a
result of applying ideologies to the Earth in the first place. There is the
natural and real order to he found in all of life; we constantly impose false
order, which is disorder, which has produced the chaos into which the whole
World is slipping.
The simple truth is that the only ecological thinking that
can prevail is the actual knowledge of Ecology itself. Yet, this is exactly what
remains 'unthinkable', as far as Corporate, State, Public and Media
consciousness is concerned. It does not require much insight to form the
conviction that
“consensus reality” is incapable of engaging the nature of Ecological thinking.
We have become answerable as awareness organisms to the Earth, but we are unable
to comprehend or respond to its call.
We seem unable to escape from the false
dichotomy of economics versus ecology because we leave this assumption
unexamined. Because we leave the fate of the Earth and ourselves unthought, we
remain passive, in a certain way paralyzed. We are all called to think the Earth
as a Whole, this too is part of our fate in time. The generations of natives who
live now are present as the human race at the turning point. What will we decide
here if the vast majority, remain asleep? Now that technology slowly reveals its
real nature we have something real to act upon. The whole Earth is at stake. We
are rethinking our relationship to the Earth. Seeking a new unity ecologically
and globally we have begun to think the Gaia Hypothesis. Most people are, by
now, familiar with the term “Gaia”. The modern discussion of our changing
relationship with, and consciousness of, the Earth would not make sense without
mentioning British biologist and author Rupert Sheldrake, who, in 1981,
published a book called “The New Science of Life” [ in which he explained the
“Gaia Hypothesis”, a highly controversial theory describing how all of the
systems which exist in the World, from crystals to living plants to animals to
societies, function or develop and maintain their forms. Some people have
suggested that Sheldrake is the new Darwin. Others have suggested that his book
ought to be burned, as did the British Science magazine “Nature” in its review
of his book at the time of its initial publication.
Most people are by now familiar with the term “Gaia”, which
characterizes the Earth as a living being. The fundamental concept of Gaia has a
history from the Anima Mundi -- soul of the World -- of Medieval scholasticism
to the Akasha -- memory soul of the World -- of ancient, Vedic religion and the
Theosophical, Secret Doctrine of 1888 (c.e.) Yet, the new paradigm concept of
Gaia has been arrived at in a different and less profound way than these earlier
understandings.
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