Paul Jay of the Real News says we are in trouble
He is right of course but there is more to it…I watch the cars crawling thru the city in the oppressive heat and think how temporary, foolish and illusory all this fossil fuel consumption is: it is just plain stupid. But then I have a car in the garage, and the air conditioner is running so where do I go from here? Besides using the bike and shutting the AC off, my hope lies in the sun, the wind, the trees the hills, the rivers and the indigenous wisdom of the people residing in this natural world. We can respond individually and so we should, but we also have to respond together. Both are difficult: happiness is illusory. We may be entering a new Middle Ages of some sort. Recall that during the collapse of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Constantinian Church some of those who disagreed with all the turmoil retreated to an eremitical life in the deserts and forests, eventually to come together in monasteries.
This is a different time and the threat of anthropogenic climate catastrophe is unique on a global scale. As one person my capacity to alter the trajectory to disaster is limited, nevertheless I keep seeking to live what in indigenous terms is “a good life” or in Biblical terms “righteousness” (hopefully not self-righteousness!). This is not only individual, it is deeply and profoundly social and relational, commingling with all of life – people, animals, trees, water, rocks, suns, stars, atoms – the whole bit. In asking what hinders me in this way I am reminded of a saying I heard years ago and never forgot:
“Most people in the world need just a little more to be more,
A few people in the world need a lot less to be more.”
(Remember the camel and the eye of the needle or as Marx said, “class matters”)
I’m definitely in the latter category. It is the distorted and unjust relation between the “most” and the “few”( exemplified in part today by the financiallization that Jay talks about) that I, and we, have to redress during our temporary sojourn in this world.
Miigwetch
Colin