NOT THE INDIVIDUAL OR SOCIETY, BUT THE ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITY

Our great philosophers start with ‘the individual’. We tend to follow their instinct. This sounds logical, except that ‘the individual’ means ‘the self and not the other’.
After all, says the philosopher, there must be some method, and the best place to start seems to be ‘someone’, an individual or a self. So lets think about that individual, his/her desires, fears and potential. We’ll get to ‘the other’, to relationships later.

Later is too late! #1 ‘The other’ is already present to the self, as the meaning-giver for the self’s most intimate and essential desire. If I am not making an oblique reference to others and their hoped for acceptance, I am not really talking about the mind of that child, that young adult, that old man or woman.

Once a philosophy of the self has been constructed without finding the true bridge to the other, a further mistake is made. People say: ‘This self-centred thinking never gets to the other. Lets start with society.’ Go ahead: You’ll find you never reach the self! You’re just making the reverse error.

So I say, ‘Let’s start with the ecological community, the household and economy of all creation.’ Such a starting point challenges the imagination and prevents it from stagnating under creeping and limited vested interests. The ecological community contains all the parts that come into play as we seek to develop a public philosophy and its consequent public policy. Only this way will we start to anticipate and work towards a way of living/being that works for everyone and protects the earth. #2

This requires us to learn early in life that there is a holistic theology close coupled with an earth system science # 3 which would inform our philosophy and press us to seek ‘a Psyche the size of the Universe’ and then humbly find ourselves within that rich immensity. It will free us from species-specific arrogance. We need protection from ourselves. #4

Such wisdom was known 4000 years ago in Taoism. ‘These are my three treasures, guard them well. The first is, compassion. The second, frugality. The third, the desire not to be foremost in all things under the sun’

Such ecological wisdom is represented in all the great religious traditions as submission to ‘God’. It is represented in the close-to-the-natural rhythms of all the traditions of ancient wisdom, but rarely I fear in the institutional protectionism that has grown over time to be a dark side to those traditions. # 5

Recognition of the drift from wholeness to human narcissism will help us to restore the holistic provenance of ‘religion’ as in part the binding in one of all the Ligaments, and in part as the development of Law that supports and retains that wisdom. Religion in this sense becomes part of our pilgrim search for public philosophy, public policy and of a tentative-conviction about the understanding of truth.

Such earth-coupling wholesome religion will also lead us to face up to the evil insidiously permeating all organisations where the cell-to-cell nature of ecological reality is lost to sight. Holistic religion will then also include a comprehensive corporate liberation theology and the understanding that ‘spirit is matter in a stronger light.’ (#)6

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# 1 Sebastian Moore – ‘The Fire and the Rose are One’
#2 Magrit Kennedy – ‘Interest Free Money – creating an exchange medium that works for everyone and protects the earth’
#3 Anne Primavesi – ‘Sacred Gaia – holistic theology and earth system science’
#4 Lynn Margulis – ‘The Symbiotic Planet – a new look at evolution’
#5 Roger Sanders – ‘Engaging the darkness of empire, cell-by-cell’
#6 Arundhati Roy – ‘Corporate Liberation Theology’ Peace Prize Address