Is spirituality the key to a regenerative world or the opposite: a meaningless distraction that allows us to continue consuming and emitting? A debate.
I recently read a piece by John Foster that relates to this. He argues that what society, what the world experiences is an addiction:
Addiction, whether individual or collective, is essentially the attempt to fill an unfillable hole in the soul – a radical and unignorable need, for the meeting of which only patently inadequate substitutes are available, so that the hole only deepens with each attempt to fill it, while making repeated such attempts becomes a compulsion. And identifying the unmet radical need which drives commodity-addiction in the majority population must call for a profounder cultural and indeed existential analysis [...].
These are exactly the kinds of debates we need to be having, because I agree with you that you're both right!
I see it as a bottom-up and top-down attitude focused on the same problem, and I think surely the best way is to find a synthesis between the two. We absolutely need concrete action in the here and now, but the need for humanity at large to rediscover spirituality is something that is also at a crisis point. Not only do we need to focus on repairing the world (to the extent that that's possible), but we also have to make ourselves worthy of the world again.
I'm really looking forward to seeing where you take these thoughts going forward!
I think what's missing from this debate is consideration of the matter of SCALE: the number of people holding those beliefs, how that affects their actions, and how those actions change the world. And there is a third position you are both up against which isn't represented here: neoliberal capitalism. And it out-guns you 1,000 to 1. So it doesn't really matter which of you is "correct". Either would be fine, if you could find a way to roll out your beliefs to affect the 1 billion humans who have some degree of agency in this world. But neither position matters so long as you are swamped by the marketing might of the cunning corporations. Considering how to make your ideas "sexy" is a promising line - but I think then we need to consider trying to recruit capital to fund broadcasting of this "counter-propaganda".
Very interesting debate!
I recently read a piece by John Foster that relates to this. He argues that what society, what the world experiences is an addiction:
Addiction, whether individual or collective, is essentially the attempt to fill an unfillable hole in the soul – a radical and unignorable need, for the meeting of which only patently inadequate substitutes are available, so that the hole only deepens with each attempt to fill it, while making repeated such attempts becomes a compulsion. And identifying the unmet radical need which drives commodity-addiction in the majority population must call for a profounder cultural and indeed existential analysis [...].
https://www.greenhousethinktank.org/rethinking-consumerism/
Thanks! Will check it out. I think the analogy between addiction and the predicament we are in is very helpful.
These are exactly the kinds of debates we need to be having, because I agree with you that you're both right!
I see it as a bottom-up and top-down attitude focused on the same problem, and I think surely the best way is to find a synthesis between the two. We absolutely need concrete action in the here and now, but the need for humanity at large to rediscover spirituality is something that is also at a crisis point. Not only do we need to focus on repairing the world (to the extent that that's possible), but we also have to make ourselves worthy of the world again.
I'm really looking forward to seeing where you take these thoughts going forward!
🙏🏻
I think what's missing from this debate is consideration of the matter of SCALE: the number of people holding those beliefs, how that affects their actions, and how those actions change the world. And there is a third position you are both up against which isn't represented here: neoliberal capitalism. And it out-guns you 1,000 to 1. So it doesn't really matter which of you is "correct". Either would be fine, if you could find a way to roll out your beliefs to affect the 1 billion humans who have some degree of agency in this world. But neither position matters so long as you are swamped by the marketing might of the cunning corporations. Considering how to make your ideas "sexy" is a promising line - but I think then we need to consider trying to recruit capital to fund broadcasting of this "counter-propaganda".