Culture

An Ancient Take on a Modern Question: Morality in Our Changing World

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I mentioned in my last post that the question I was raising – how  to respond morally to change when even our moral sources are changing – is an ancient question. Consider the story of the ancient Greek philosopher Cratylus, who was influenced by the philosophical vision of Heraclitus. Though the name Heraclitus may be unfamiliar, his dictum that “you can’t step into the same river twice” is probably very familiar. Heraclitus was one of the original philosophers of process and flux – everything is dynamic, whatever is, is in motion. Cratylus was deeply influenced by this idea and followed it to what he deemed to be some of its logical consequences: he argued that not only can one not step into the same river twice, but one can’t step into the same river once.

Environment

Imperial America and Nature

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By Daniel Schwartz
The United States has a 21st century global imperial design for the future. However, nature presents complex issues for achieving the design. Militarism, technology and economics are seen as far more important to achieve imperial ends than nature or ecological issues. Exceeding the carrying capacity of earth along with chemical and other toxic contamination has led to species extinctions, global warming, degrading of the oceans and atmosphere and a general increase of toxics across all environments. Biodiversity has diminished and the health of the planet is in peril.

Culture

Sabbath Dinner: Cooking With Weeds

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I am beginning to wonder if perhaps Obama was right to tackle health care reform as a first initiative. It is difficult to find health care issues to write about these days…our mainstream and alternative media are rightly wrapped up in the crises of the day, the Gulf oil spill disaster, the Afghanistan War and high unemployment rates. Of these, at least two are directly tied to our inability as a nation to confront Big Oil. Frustrated with tepid Congressional efforts to stem the oil tide, I decided to take a small step to wean myself off of oil. I began cooking locally available food: weeds!

Earth-based Religions

The Information Age? Meet John Michael Greer.

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I am reading The Ecotechnic Future: Envisioning a Post-Peak World, by John Michael Greer, a book I recommend (it has somewhat bizarrely cheered me up) and hope to find time to describe here. Meanwhile, here’s an excellent review. Searching for the author I was astonished to find pics of him as a druid in full regalia — I came across a hint of that in the book but it is otherwise secular ecology, sociology and future vision with nary a Green Man. Trolling his blog I came across this quote which seemed too good not to repost, seeing that I am swamped with words here at Tikkun, and hiking in the hills last weekend was mourning how little I really understood about the lansdcape I was walking through:
Our time, as the media never tires of telling us, is the information age, a time when each of us can count on being besieged and bombarded by more information in an average day than most premodern people encountered in their entire lives. Now it’s important to remember that this is true only when the term “information” is assumed to mean the sort of information that comes prepackaged and preprocessed in symbolic form; the average hunter-gatherer moving through a tropical rain forest picks up more information about the world of nature through his or her senses in the course of an average day than the average resident in an industrial city receives through that channel in the course of their lives.

Culture

An Interdependence Day Celebration for July 4

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Faced with July 4th celebrations that are focused on militarism, ultra-nationalism, and “bombs bursting in air,” many American families who do not share those values turn July 4th into another summer holiday focused on picnics, sports, and fireworks, while doing their best to avoid the dominant rhetoric and bombast. This year that kind of celebration is particularly difficult when many of us are in mourning because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We in the Network of Spiritual Progressives believe that avoiding July 4 or turning it into nothing more than a picnic with friends is a mistake for progressives. There is much worth celebrating in American history that deserves attention on July 4th, despite the current depravity of those who lead this country, though the celebration-worthy aspects of our society are rarely the focus of the public events. We also acknowledge that in the twenty-first century there is a pressing need to develop a new kind of consciousness — a recognition of the interdependence of everyone on the planet.

Culture

Chimps Make War, Bonobos Make Love, and Humans?

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Journalism about biology often tells us more about our cultural assumptions and prejudices than about the science itself. Nicholas Wade’s most recent article in the New York Times about chimpanzees is no exception. After introducing us to John Mitani, the main chimp researcher in his piece, Wade says
Most days the male chimps behave a lot like frat boys, making a lot of noise or beating each other up. But once every 10 to 14 days, they do something more adult and cooperative: they wage war. When I read those sentences, my mouth dropped open.

Culture

Summer Time, When the Living is Easy

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When I was ten years old, I had a dream: I wanted a chipmunk to eat out of my hand. I laid peanuts in a trail that led from 15 feet away to the tip of my toes, with one final nut in my palm. I sat for what seemed like hours before the chipmunk arrived. The small animal scurried around, looked the whole situation over, scampered away, and then quickly returned to pick up the first nut in her mouth. After she tucked it into her pouch, she proceeded to the next, and the next, and then scooted away to hide them in her burrow.