Fear of the Present

Some people suffer from anxiety. Amongst the different anxieties is anticipatory anxiety. Anticipatory anxiety is excessive worry about a future event. We could label this as mellophobia – a fear of the future; from μέλλο (mello) meaning future and Φόβος (phobos) meaning fear.

Although individuals in our society suffer from this fear of the future; rather, our culture seems to suffer from a fear of the past and/or a fear of the present. If not a fear of the present and past, then certainly an addiction to the future.

Indeed, we are about to celebrate this addiction with New Years Day. New Years Day: a day on which we resolve to make changes (for the better) in our lives, a day on which last year’s calendar is taken down and a new one hung up, a day on which we look to new beginnings and anticipate the good things to come.

Our culture is almost predicated on the future. It’s called progress. And progress we must. Progress is good, progress is the epitome of modernity. Progress proves the worth of our society and culture. We measure it with growth. Growth in the economy primarily; growth in prosperity, growth in technology, growth in the GDP.

‘Grow, grow, grow’ is the rallying call of progress and our addiction to the future.

But, what are we running from? What are we running towards? Why is the future more important than the past, let alone the present?

Originally progress simply meant to take a forward step. Since the 1600s it has come to attain the sense of moving towards something better.

We must ask though, better than what? Importantly too, we must ask, better for whom?

Our (westernised) sense of time with a past, present, and future is moulded on a seamless, linear concept. Non-westernised cultures, however, conceive time in more circular, or spiral, ways.

Vanessa Machado de Oliviera notes that this seamless, linear concept of time is one of the promises of modernity. But, there is a violence in this promise. It is, states Oliviera, ‘resting on the delegitimation and elimination of other knowledge systems.’ ¹

Our (westernised) concept of time and the notion of progress underpins European colonisation as well as exploitation of nature. Our (westernised) notion of progress too often includes the ideology of defeating nature; the conquest of nature as it has been labelled.

Ironically, our addiction to the future ensures that we are unable to recognise the harms that are done to other people and to nature. We are so focussed on looking to the future that we fail to notice the harms that become manifest in our wake.

Furthermore, our addiction to the future can stymie our individual human development. The human development journey consists of various stages. At each stage there are lessons to learn, skills to be acquired, and concepts to be incorporated into our growing understanding of ourselves and the world.

One psychologist who has mapped this developmental journey very well is the eco-psychologist Bill Plotkin.² Without going into details of his map, Plotkin does note that of the eight stages, most westernised people get stuck in what he calls patho-adolescence. However. Plotkin, and other similar psychologists claim that it is always possible to re-visit earlier stages (even in later life) to learn and incorporate the lessons from earlier stages.

But, our future-addiction inhibits this. The future, in modernity, is always better than the past, it always brings with it improvement. Returning to an earlier time, or stage, is an admission of failure and a worsening of circumstances.

Such future-oriented thinking is a mistake. Ironically, being focussed on the future prevents us from growing as a human.

So, as we acknowledge the New Year let us begin the process of overcoming our fear of the past and present. Let us start to overcome our addiction to the future.

Notes:

1. Vanessa Machado de Oliviera, Hospicing Modernity, North Atlantic Books, Berkely, California, 2021

2. See especially, Bill Plotkin, Nature and the Human Soul, New World Library, Novato, California, 2008

Presenting Time

Where I live (in Australia) at this time of year Christmas is acknowledged, even if not celebrated. For many people and families that means it is a time of giving presents.

Present: to give a gift to someone. This is the sense in which the word present is used in this context.

However, I wonder how many people know that there is a connection to this meaning of present and the temporal meaning, i.e. the present time, as distinct from the past or the future.

The connection may not seem apparent. Let’s trace the etymological roots of the two meanings.

To give the gift of a present literally means to place an object in front of someone – in their presence. It comes from pre meaning before or spatially in front of, and the Latin esse meaning to be. Hence, we get the idea of something being in front of,

Another way in which present can be thought is that of one person being in the presence of another. That is, literally standing before someone else, and in their immediate vicinity. When we think of it this way it is possible to recognise this as being both in the immediate vicinity spatially, as well as being present at the same time as the other person.

How else would someone be in the presence of another unless it was in the same location and at the same time?

When we consider all this then it is possible to recognise the strong connection between giving a gift of a present and that of the present time.

Perhaps the greatest present that we can offer another person, and ourselves, at this time is the gift of being present at this time, now, the present.

In a world that seems fixated on the future – whether hopeful or expect of a better future, or anxious and fearful of what is to come – living in and for the present is a sane way to life.

Let us present ourselves a present of the present moment.

Lest - Book Review

It has been said that the first casualty in war is the truth. Author Mark Dapin in Lest,¹ is keen to ensure that the casualty list grows no longer. Before proceeding further it is important to clarify for readers of this review that Lest is a book about the myths surrounding Australian military actions.

This is not an anti-war book, nor is it a book glorifying war. Even the author himself is ambivalent to an extent. Of Australian involvement in Afghanistan he writes that ‘had I been a bit younger, a lot braver, and considerably more capable, I would have considered joining the military myself.’ A few pages (and two years) later he tells us that ‘I and about 200,000 other people marched in Sydney against the looming Iraq War.’ Dapin’s openness and honesty in this revelation of ambivalence is refreshing and allows the reader to feel an empathy with the author – he is just like us; a bit uncertain, a bit conflicted, and wholly human.

Perhaps the most oft repeated phrase in Lest is ‘it did not happen,’ although he does once, in a pique of anger, use a more emotive phrase. He relates an episode of when he was interviewed on radio and a caller claimed that Vietnam vets were not allowed to march on Anzac Day. ‘That’s nonsense,’ he rails.

Time and time again Dapin cites an event and then shows that it is an entirely imagined happening. Whether it be bands of women handing out white feathers, or returning Vietnam soldiers being spat upon; with meticulous research Dapin shows that such incidents simply did not happen.

Most Australians, and New Zealanders, will be aware of the wars referred to in the book – World Wars 1 and 2, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Dapin devotes a whole chapter to one war that most Australians, and New Zealanders, will have never heard of – the Emu Wars! Yes, it seems that emus (those flightless birds) were declared war upon in Western Australia in 1932. Myths aplenty arose amongst the feathers and dust of this war, although Dapin makes no mention of any myths created by the emus themselves.

Most of the first half of the book deals with myths from the First World War, with particular reference to ANZAC² war myths. Australia and New Zealand both memorialise Anzac Day every year on 25 April, the day in 1915 when troops from these two countries (and others of the Allied forces) first stormed, and then retreated from, the beaches of Gallipoli in Turkey.

Perhaps no other war event in Australian history has generated as many myths as those resulting from that failed campaign. Today, thousands of Australians and New Zealanders also storm the beaches of Gallipoli on 25 April each year to remember the events of 1915, often leaving litter behind. Dapin is bemused by this. ‘Exactly why travellers might choose to do this, more than a century after the disastrous military campaign and the Anzac evacuation, is a source of much faux-bemused debate among scholars,’ he writes.

Yet, as Dapin points out, this failed campaign has come to be so mythologised that many today claim that 25 April 1915 was the birth of Australian character and identity. Yet, many of the stories emerging from the sands and cliffs of Gallipoli did not happen according to Dapin, and ‘What was born on 25 April 1915 was a myth.’

Lest is a reference to a phrase intoned daily in Returned Service League’s rooms all over Australia. The full phrase is ‘Lest we forget’ and follows a reading of the fourth verse from a poem written in 1914.³ The fourth verse refers to the young people killed during the war and ends with the lines: ‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning/We will remember them.’

Mark Dapin has done a splendid job in distinguishing fact from myth, truth from falsehood, in the wars Australia has been involved in.

Lest ensures that the myths are laid bare, lest we forget what really happened.

Notes:

1. Mark Dapin, Lest: Australian War Myths, Scribner, Cammeray, NSW, Australia, 2024

2. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps

3. Laurence Binyon, For The Fallen, first published in The Times in September 1914.

Not A Danged Bit Of Difference

Václav Havel (left) and Thomas Merton

Today I read an article about ecological overshoot.¹ The first sentence stopped me reading further, until I had taken it fully in. It read: ‘I’m writing this knowing that none of the following suggestions will be implemented — and certainly not voluntarily.’

I stopped. I do the same. I write (amongst other things) about ecological overshoot. I also think that none of the solutions (real, imaginary, or hocus pocus) will be implemented, or if they are, none will be effective.

But I had never conflated the two. I had never thought I write knowing it will not make a danged bit of difference.

Until I read that opening sentence.

My next thought followed quickly: So why do I do it? Why do I write knowing that it will not make the danged bit of difference? And why do all those many other writers do the same?

Do I hold out hope for a miracle? Do I suspect that there is a tiny (possibly less than 1%) chance that writing will make a difference? Is my writing simply a projection of my ego into the world? Do I want to be remembered after my death by what I leave behind? Are we writing to support others who also write knowing it to be pointless? Or, do I write simply because it is a creative outlet in an increasingly crazy world that stifles creativity (in its true sense)?

The answer may be none of these, or it may be all of them.

As I pondered my question two quotations came to mind.

The first is from Václav Havel, the last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic (as it was known then.) Havel was also a poet, philosopher environmentalist, and writer. In his 1990 book, Disturbing the Peace, he wrote:

‘Hope, in the deep and meaningful sense… is an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.’

Twenty-four years earlier (in 1966) an anti-Vietnam War peace activist, Jim Forest, wrote to the Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, telling Merton of his despair and complaining that, ‘…we have become insensitive to human life, to the wonders of the world, to the mystery within us and around us.’  In his reply Merton acknowledged Forest’s feelings and suggested that he accept his feelings. He then went on to advise Jim Forest with these words:

‘(Do) not depend on the hope of results… You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea you start to concentrate more and more not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. And there too a great deal has to be gone through, as gradually you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people… In the end…it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything.’

Reminding myself of these quotations I come back to knowing my writing, and that of others, will not make a danged bit of difference. I must ‘…face the fact that (my) work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all.’  Indeed, my writing may have the opposite effect to what I would wish.

None of us can predict the future, none of us know for certain what outcomes will be in the next year, let alone in one hundred years. As a writer I accept that.

I will continue to write. If I may plagiarise Merton, and alter his words, then: I will ‘concentrate more and more not on the results, but on the value, the writeness, the truth of the work itself.’

Notes:

1. The Civilizational Hospice Protocol, The Honest Sorcerer, 2 Dec. 2024. https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/the-civilizational-hospice-protocol?r=2o44x&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwY2xjawG7ayVleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHXKHBFzx3-W6YVpoh4nvoVh1_jOHjhyNHpwYmwOqRHdEG8kmgNyIeZRF_A_aem_zCayolOJGItQWc1OspqnxA&triedRedirect=true  accessed 3 December 2024

University of Unlearning

Al-Qarawayyin University 

Universities are institutions of higher learning and research. They are often the repository of centuries worth of accumulated knowledge. In fact, the world’s first University was established more than 1,100 years ago in Morocco. Al-Qarawayyin University was founded in 859 A.D. in the city of Fez, by a Tunisian-born woman, Fatima al-Fihri. The University exists to this day.

Fatima’s concept and vision was adopted later in Bologna, Italy where Catholic monks established the University of Bologna in 1088. Eight years later (in 1096) Oxford University was founded in England.

Over the following 1,000 years universities spread throughout the world with more than 25,000 now established.

Unsurprisingly, the pace of education has rapidly expanded during this time.

So too has the pace of technology, a direct result of accumulated knowledge. Similarly, the pace of the accumulation of knowledge has expanded, so much so that we can claim that “pace” itself has expanded. With that has come an accelerating pace of change – something that Alvin Toffler wrote of and warned of in 1970¹. Toffler and his co-author (his wife, Adelaide Farrell) defined Future Shock as a perception of ‘too much change in too short a period of time.’  Toffler died in 2016, and most likely was shocked by the acceleration of change that he had seen in the forty plus years of his life following the publication of Future Shock.

In such a world how can universities respond?

That question can be answered in a variety of ways. We could say that the vocational education (training) provided by many universities is out-of-date within just a few years. For example, one of my degrees conferred in the mid-1970s was in a vocational discipline. Before the turn of the century, technology had transformed that industry so much that my learning was no longer relevant.

The question can also be answered by noting that the research carried out in universities is instrumental in introducing new technologies to the world. Ironically, this research makes the previous knowledge obsolete, as my own example above alludes to.

We could also answer the question by noting that the process of learning itself helps to equip students with knowledge and skills that prepare them for the future.

Yet, the future is looking more and more bleak the more knowledge we gain of the workings of the world: its ecosystems, the dynamics of carbon, water, and other life cycles.

Humans have interfered in these ecosystems and cycles without fully understanding how they work and interact. Our universities have abetted this lack of knowledge through a number of means: e.g. by compartmentalising (and silo-ing) aspects of knowledge, by viewing the world in mechanical terms and analysing its parts, rather than the whole, by side-lining, and invalidating indigenous knowledge, by valuing some subjects (such as science, economics, commerce, medicine, law) over others (such as the arts and humanities.)

Yet today, some university subjects are discovering the knowledge of systems, inter-connections, and wholeness – e.g. ecology, systems analysis, quantum physics, meteorology, anthropology.

Yet, even these subjects are still bound to one of modernity’s projects – the accumulation of knowledge and learning.

We are still being future shocked, we are still exploiting and polluting the earth, we are still battling each other, we are still exterminating other-than-human species.

Perhaps it is time for a new University to be established.

We need an University of Unlearning.

Such a university won’t be able to guide us to un-know all the accumulated knowledge of centuries. Such a university won’t be able to help us un-learn skills.

Such a university may, however, assist us in unlearning the ways of being that we have learnt over many centuries.

I wonder what courses could be offered at a University of Unlearning? What would the introductory course of Unlearning 101 consist of?

Do you, dear reader, have any thoughts?

Notes:

1. Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, Random House, New York, 1970

Delusional or Disillusioned

We live today in a world in turmoil. It is difficult to understand what is going on. Then, when we do try to understand, how do we recognise information from misinformation or disinformation? What is real, what is fake?

Depending upon which camp we fit into, fingers get pointed at other camp followers declaring them to be delusional.

Yet, isn’t that contributing to the turmoil? One person, or one camp, accuses another person, or another camp, of being delusional. A wall gets erected. On one side – the illuminated. On the other side – the deluded.

One definition of delusional is a belief that, though false, is accepted by the mind as being the truth.

However, what if the other camp followers are not delusional but are illusioned. That is, have a belief that, though false, is tentatively held by the mind, awaiting confirmation or refutation. Being illusioned is like watching a magician who uses sleight of hand to temporarily play with our mind so that we believe what the magician wants us to believe. Following the magician’s trick our minds usually returns to a realisation that we have witnessed an illusion even if we don’t know how the illusion was carried out. We might say then, that we are now disillusioned – that is, we are free from the illusion.

Perhaps this is closer to what is happening within the minds (albeit at an unconscious or subconscious level) of many within the world.

For years, decades, even centuries, we have been fed the American Dream (even those of us who do not live in the US) and the promises of modernity. These dreams and promises have assured us that the goal of humanity, and our individual lives within it, is an ever increasing upward, higher, and wealthier future. Modernity promises progress, certainty, safety, and predictability.

However, modernity’s promises are illusionary. They fit neither with the individual’s personal journey nor with the whole planet. But, just as the magician can keep us mesmerised temporarily, so we have been able to go along with and live within modernity’s framework. Many of us have been able to live the American Dream.

But, no more.

The Dream is turning out to be a Nightmare. On an individual level, wages are not keeping up with higher prices. Furthermore, for many the dream of a wage is just that – a dream. On a social level lives are being shattered by warfare, incursions onto territory, and tensions between differing groups. At a planetary level, the ecosphere is breaking down, the climate is awry, species are going extinct at an alarming rate.

Even if we do not recognise these in a cognitive sense, our bodies can feel it. It is as if the magician has completed the illusion, and we are left feeling unnerved yet have no idea how the trick was done.

So, here we are – unnerved and disillusioned.

When a magician does this, our usual response is to applaud.

However, when the illusion of modernity is undone (albeit unconsciously,) our response is more likely to be to look for someone or something to blame. After all, the Dream surely cannot be a Nightmare.

Nightmares are frightening, they leave us insecure.

If the Dream of increasing prosperity, social mobility, and greater satisfaction does not deliver then where are the scapegoats? Who is to blame for this? At this point, anyone offering to alleviate the Nightmare, and promise to fix-it, is likely to be embraced.

It is here where disillusion and delusion merge. Disillusion may be the basis for the dissatisfaction with the way the dreams and promises have turned out, but delusion is what compels the search for a saviour, or a leader who will get us out of this mess and back to normalcy. Delusion tells us that such leaders offer the truth and the way forward again. And, of course, leaders will play on this. They will say, ‘Follow me, I know what is wrong, and I can fix it.’

Sadly, the fixes offered, and the saviours offering them, turn out to be illusory themselves.

If this is the case, then pointing fingers at one camp and calling them delusional does not help. More likely it is that they, and we, are disillusioned.

And that is a systemic issue.

The first step in tackling this systemic issue is to see through the illusion. How many of us are prepared to do that? How many of us even know where to start?

I’m not sure that I do.

Next Shiny Thing

Popular myth tells us that magpies are attracted to shiny objects. Research, however, tells us that this is largely an urban myth.

Humans, on the other hand, do seem attracted to the next shiny object. Let’s briefly look at a few examples:

·       Late 19^th century: Oh look, a horseless carriage. I’ve got to have one.

·       1950s: Oh look, a television. We have to have one in our house.

·       Late 1970s/early 1980s: Oh look, colour TV. We have to get rid of the black and white and get a colour TV.

·       1990s: Oh look, a mobile phone. I have to have one.

·       Early 2000s: Oh look, a smartphone. I’ve gotta get one.

·       2020s: Oh look, someone’s driving an EV. I’ve got to have one.

All these shiny objects have mesmerised us, gained our attention, stimulated our dopamine pathways, and satisfied (for a short while) our desire for the next best thing.

Yet, all the shiny objects illustrated above could arguably be said to have created more problems than they have solved. Each, in their turn, have been discarded for the next shiny object. We asked few, if any, questions about what the consequences of each shiny thing might be.

We are addicted to the next shiny thing. This addiction even has a psychological name (although a pop-culture one, not a clinical one) – Shiny Object Syndrome. Appropriately, the acronym for this is SOS!

What is the next shiny thing?

What shiny thing has had the quickest uptake in recent years? When ChatGPT was released in November 2022 it reached its first one million in just 5 days. In comparison, it took Facebook 10 months to gain its first one million subscribers, and Netflix even longer – 3 ½ years.

It looks as though Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the next shiny thing.

Not only is the progression of AI something to be wary of, but already AI datacentres emit around 2.5% - 3.7% of global Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHGs.) That is greater than the whole aviation industry. AI’s carbon footprint will only increase.

ChatGPT is an example of the fourth level (Reasoning AI) of AI progression. Those who develop and think about AI postulate 10 levels of AI. As each level is attained humans lose more and more control over its development.

Level 6, for instance, is identified as Super-Intelligent AI and is claimed will eclipse the intellectual capacity of all human beings combined.

The speed at which AI is developing and the closer we get to self-aware AI (Level 7) the closer we come to humans becoming unnecessary.

There is every likelihood that AI will be our final shiny thing.

Seeking the next shiny thing may be the undoing of humanity.

Too Late! ... But Wait

Climate change is coming. The Earth is warming, now about 1.3 degrees C above late 19^th century average. It is getting closer to 2 degrees higher.

Scientists tell us we have to contain this warming, preferably below 1.5 degrees, certainly below 2 degrees.

Social and environmental collapse is predicted for later this century.

We have to do something.

The bad news is: It’s Too Late!

It all has to do with tipping points. A tipping point has been defined as when change in part of a system becomes self-perpetuating beyond a threshold, leading to substantial, widespread, frequently abrupt and often irreversible impacts.’

There are some keywords in that definition.

·       Self-perpetuating tells us that the process has become runaway, and runs now under its own steam, without need for external force.

·       Threshold tells us that there is a point at which a system changes from one state to another state.

·       Substantial, widespread tells us that the new system that follows the threshold is nothing like the system that preceded it.

·       Frequently Abrupt tells us that the change will be catastrophic and will happen very quickly.

·       Often Irreversible tells us that we cannot go back to the previous state, no matter how much we would wish that were possible.

The Earth systems that control, moderate, and form our climate have been studied for many years. Meteorologists, Earth and Climate Scientists now have a very good understanding of how these systems work, and how they interact. At least 25 tipping points in Earth systems have been identified, with 9 of these being especially crucial.

A recent report (December 2023) identifies a number of these tipping points as likely to tip within the near future. At high risk of tipping the report identifies the Greenland Ice Sheet, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the Amazon rainforest, low latitude coral reefs, Boreal permafrost, and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). All of these are likely to tip soon.

What makes things worse though, is that the Earth’s systems are inter-linked, so that if one point is tipped it is highly likely to trigger the tipping of other points – much like a row of dominoes.

However, climate it just one of Earth’s systems. The Stockholm Resilience Centre has been mapping what it has called “Planetary Boundaries” since 2009 (1). The Centre has identified nine of these – climate change being just one of them. In 2009 the Centre had assessed seven boundaries and found that three of them had been exceeded. Last year, the Centre released its latest report in which all nine boundaries had been assessed and found that six of the nine boundaries had been crossed.

None of this is good news.

It is too late to avert serious climate change. It is too late to pull back from social and environmental collapse.

The systems are now self-perpetuating (with or without human intervention), have exceeded some of the thresholds, and have become irreversible.

Too late, too late, too late!!!

But wait

It is not too late to act. Yes, it is too late to act to stop climate chaos and collapse. But it not too late to act in other ways. There is good news.

There is an old saying (it goes back to at least the early 1800s) and has been attributed to a variety of sources – Indian gurus, Chinese sages, the Roman poet Statius, and the French theologian Hyacinthe Loyson. No matter the sayings precise source, the sentiment expressed in it is of value to us at this time. The saying is often quoted thus:

‘Blessed is the person who plants trees under whose shade they will never sit.’

The nature of chaotic systems, tipping points, and social/environmental collapse is that we have no way of predicting the outcome ahead of time.

The best we can do going into the collapse is to plant the seeds for the trees that may be of use to any (if any) humans that get through to the other side of the collapse. Even though, we – acting today – will never experience the benefit of those trees.

We must be careful what trees we plant though. That means looking back over our history to identify the poisonous trees from which we have eaten, and not planning them. Rather we need to plant those trees that are healthy and provide good shelter.

Let me name some of these trees: kindness, compassion, love, sense of beauty, care, empathy, respect, connection, equity. These trees need to be made available to all humans. and to all the other creatures and plants that share this planet with us.

We must not plant the trees of: exploitation, hatred, narcissism, selfishness, hubris. Most of all we must not plant the tree of human exceptionalism.

Otherwise, any human society that does manage to get through to the other side of the collapse is doomed to simply repeat the same mistakes we made that have brought us to the point of social/environmental collapse.

Notes:

1. https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html  accessed 6 November 2024

History For Tomorrow (Book Review)

On page 2 of History For Tomorrow Roman Krznaric quotes the German philosopher and poet Goethe. ‘He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living hand to mouth,’ wrote Goethe in 1819.

Roman Krznaric’s book is certainly not written hand to mouth. It is meticulously researched and eloquently written.

Krznaric’s essential thesis in this book is to present ideas from the past that may hold keys to how we deal with issues in the present. The historical events that he chooses at first seem illogical and unconnected to the modern-day issue. His comparisons are reminiscent of one of Edward de Bono’s (the Father of Lateral Thinking) exercises in which two unrelated concepts are thrown together to see how they might inform each other.

For instance, the problem of social media might seem like an uniquely modern issue. Krznaric shows how an understanding of the history of the invention and production of the printing press is of benefit when attempting to tackle the myriad troubles of social media. The treatment of witches in the 16^th and 17^th centuries is also presented as having some lessons for 21^st century social media. So too, does the coffeehouse culture in England from 1650 onwards. (England’s first coffeehouse is just down the road from where Krznaric live, in Oxford.)

On first glance, none of these – Gutenberg’s printing press, witch hunts, and coffeehouses – would seem to have much to offer methods to deal with the difficulties of social media. But Krznaric skilfully shows that they can.

History For Tomorrow tackles a number of modern-day issues, from water shortages to genetic modification, from inequality to artificial intelligence. How can we kick the consumer habit, or how do we restore faith in democracy? History, as Krznaric shows, is replete with possible remedies.

Reading this book I was often surprised, and then delighted, to read of the historical events that Krznaric laid in front of a present-day issue.

Towards the end of the book Krznaric quotes another writer, the American author Mark Twain. Twain is often noted for some of his pithy sayings. In Chapter 9 (of 10) one of those sayings is quoted: ‘History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.’

Roman Krznaric has done an excellent job of discovering and presenting to us the rhymes of history.

Note:

1. Roman Krznaric, History for Tomorrow: Inspiration from the past for the future of humanity, W H Allen, London, 2024

Two Arrows

Most of the world’s great spiritual teachers have used metaphors, parables, and allegories to convey their teachings. The use of such devices usually allows sometimes complex concepts to be more easily understood by the listener or reader.

One of the Buddha’s allegories helps to explain how we can often get into self-perpetuating and repeating cycles of pain, harm, and suffering. The Buddha has often been known as the Great Physician because his primary teaching was to teach the mechanisms of suffering: how suffering arises, and how we might heal ourselves of suffering. Indeed, his first Noble Truth tells us that ‘suffering exists.’

Before continuing it is worth taking a closer read of the word that has been translated as suffering in the English language.

Suffering, in the language of the Buddha, does not simply mean the same as pain. It can be better translated as a mixture of English words such as: discontent, dis-ease, dissatisfaction, unhappiness, or restlessness.

The Buddha distinguishes between pain and suffering. One of the best known of his allegories to illustrate the difference is that of the Two Arrows.

Imagine that you have been struck by an arrow. It is painful. The pain may be physical, such as a wound to your leg or arm. It may be emotional, perhaps a loss of someone close to you. It may be psychological, for example, becoming depressed or anxious. In each case the pain of the arrow is real and something we feel.

The key insight of the Buddha was that, having been shot by the first arrow of pain, we then react and shoot a second arrow. This arrow may be directed at someone else, whom we blame for shooting the first arrow. In many cases, too, we shoot this arrow at ourselves. We blame ourselves for being foolish, stupid, or simply careless.

This second arrow is the arrow of suffering.

By taking this second arrow out of our quiver and shooting it we trap ourselves in a snare of which there seems no way out. Shooting this arrow we believe to be capable of relieving us of our pain.

Yet, most often, instead of relief from pain, shooting this second arrow only results in further pain, to ourselves or others. Sadly, all too often when we shoot the second arrow at someone else, the other person (unless they have learnt the lesson of the two arrows) is likely to fire yet another arrow back. The arrows then begin to fly back and forth, inflicting further, and greater pain, with each shot.

The allegory of the two arrows does not try to teach us how to not shoot the first arrow. Nor is it attempting to educate us on how to dodge the first arrow.

The first arrow is inevitable. Being human places us in situations which are painful or hurtful.

The second arrow, however, is not inevitable. This is the teaching the Buddha is trying to make; How to not shoot that second arrow.

Because the first arrow is unavoidable, then we can learn to accept the pain, be open to what it is telling us. Most pain - whether physical, emotional, or psychological – has a message for us.

By shooting the second arrow we do not allow ourselves to hear the message.

Although the Buddha when speaking this allegory was talking about our individual lives, we can clearly identify the shooting of the second arrow also in our collective lives.

The lesson in our collective, social, and global lives is no different.

We must learn to not shoot the second arrow.

Leave that second arrow in the quiver.

Forgotten Forgetting

Every so often I come across two prevailing beliefs in conversations. One is that humans are innately selfish, prone to violence, and/or nasty. The other is that our hunter-gatherer ancestors often beat each other up to steal scarce resources. The two beliefs are linked. They are both highly debatable, and most likely false.

The common imagery associated with the second of these beliefs is that of opposing groups of hunter-gatherers coming into contact and, using clubs, spears, and other weapons, attacking one another. Such imagery supposes that one group may have just killed a deer, and the other group wishes to steal the deer for their own use.

A further image of hunter-gatherers is that of the males going off and taking a woman of another group by force and dragging her (many images show by the hair) back to his own cave.

These images are palpably untrue.

Yet, these images, and the beliefs themselves, are likely to be the source of the first belief – that humans are inherently malicious and horrible creatures - or perhaps stem from that belief themselves.

Over the years these images and beliefs have had their adherents, sometimes advanced by high profile, and influential people. One of the most notable was the 17^th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. In his book, Leviathan,¹ Hobbes curtly and bluntly summed up the belief that humans are innately unpleasant by stating that the ‘life of man (is) solitary, poor, nasty, brutal, and short.’

Hobbes’ solution to this condition was to enter into a social contract by which citizens give up their freedoms to powerful individuals and/or parliaments in exchange for safety. By expanding upon this notion Hobbes became known as the father of political philosophy.

Hobbes’ summary is a very bleak assessment of the nature of humanity, isn’t it?

Yet, I hear and read versions of this assessment constantly from many people; from esteemed authors to those I share a coffee with. Our culture seems to have adopted this view uncritically. Perhaps, more likely, we have simply forgotten how things were before we took to agriculture in a big way. Daniel Quinn calls this The Great Forgetting; the ‘fact that before the advent of agriculture and village life, humans had lived in a profoundly different way.’²

Over the past 10,000 years or so, not only have we forgotten how things were, but we have also even forgotten that we have forgotten. So that nowadays we assume that our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutal, and short’ lives, because that was the way Hobbes and others saw the world of their time. This judgment by Hobbes and others has entered our cultural belief system and worldview, so much so that it goes unquestioned.

Yet, research by palaeontologists, archaeologists, and anthropologists challenges the belief. This research shows that our ancestors roamed over large expanses, yet when they encountered other groups, the contact was not one of distrust or aggression. More often it was to trade, to re-acquaint with friends or relatives, to find mates (outside of one’s own clan), to learn new skills, and to participate in ceremonies and rituals. As the authors of one review paper claim, hunter-gatherers ‘moved because they were part of a mobile society that was large, complex, and distributed.’³

Our hunter-gather ancestors did not live in isolated small groups according to these researchers. Hunter-gather society was complex and interrelated. This is what we have forgotten.

During Hobbes’ time the research techniques of palaeontologists and anthropologists were not available to him; consequently, he was unable to remember life thousands of years before. He most likely assumed that what he saw of British society of his time was how things had always been. His words became explanations without evidence. Today, as I hear and see these same images and beliefs repeated, they sound and look more and more like justification, rather than simply explanation. If not outright justification, then at least tolerant credibility.

Today, we try to find ways to overcome aggression, violence, poverty, and harshness, because we think these arise from our innate human nature. But, if we have forgotten our state of nature as it was for 95% of our human existence, then we do not need to find ways to overcome our nature: we simply need to stop forgetting.

Notes:

1. To give its full title: Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common Wealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil. First published in 1651. (They were prone to protracted book titles at that time.)

2. Daniel Quinn, Have You Heard of the Great Forgetting? An excerpt from his book The Story of B. It used to be on his Ishmael.com website, but with the shift to Ishmael.org it has disappeared. However, the article is still available on the Films for Action website - https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/the-great-forgetting/  accessed 16 October 2024

3. Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias, Why do hunter-gatherers refuse to be sedentary? University of Zūrich, March 2024 https://aeon.co/essays/the-hunter-gatherers-of-the-21st-century-who-live-on-the-move  accessed 16 October 2024

Wisdom Overshoot

On the front cover of his masterful book Overshoot¹ William Catton succinctly defines overshoot as ‘growth beyond an area’s carrying capacity.’  Carrying capacity, he defines as the ‘maximum permanently supportable load.’

William Catton made a coherent and irresistible case for overshoot being at the heart of our present-day environmental disasters. In attempting, via technology, to use our ingenuity and innovative powers to increase the Earth’s carrying capacity we have succeeded only in reducing it. We have way overshot the Earth’s carrying capacity, manifesting that in species extinction, climate chaos, and air, land, and sea pollution as just a few examples.

Behind the technological reasons for overshoot we can also identify another category of overshoot.

Our collective ability to innovate, invent, and fabricate systems, technology, and facilities has overshot our wisdom. What do I mean by this?

When we innovate, invent, and fabricate we ask ourselves questions such as: How can we make this happen? What resources do we need for this?

These are questions that call on our intelligence and our knowledge. These questions are framed within paradigms of progress and human exceptionalism.

They are not questions that ask us to reflect upon the consequences of our innovations, inventions, and fabrications.

They are not questions that call upon our wisdom.

Wisdom would ask, in each and every case: Should we do this?

There are innumerable instances in our past where we have not asked this question, or if we have, have ignored the answers. In just the past 200 years, we have failed to ask such a question of innovations such as: the internal combustion engine, atomic fission, weapons development, artificial intelligence, mobile phone systems, monocultural agriculture, “green” energy, the private automobile, …

Yet, if we were to honestly and robustly look into the outcomes of each of these, we would find disastrous effects and results.

Towards the end of his book, William Catton asks: ‘What must we avoid doing to keep from making a bad situation unnecessarily worse?’

His question has to be answered with – avoid our desire to continuously innovate, invent, and fabricate.

In the place of these we must give greater emphasis upon wisdom and the willingness to seriously consider the consequences of our actions, not just for ourselves, but primarily for future generations. Furthermore, within those future generations must be included birds, fish, mammals, insects, trees, fungi, ferns, rivers, mountains, sierras, and all the other phenomena that go together to make up the natural world.

We cannot afford for our intelligence to continually overshoot our carrying capacity of wisdom.

Notes

1. William R Catton, Jr., Overshoot, University of Illinois Press, Urbana & Chicago, 1982