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I was reminded, hearing Bill Schambra speak concerning the bureaucracies in foundations and government and Jerry Mander speak about global bureaucracy, of a story Fritz Schumacher utilized to tell about three men arguing more than which of them had the oldest profession. The doctor argued that doctors and midwives were the oldest profession simply because they had to see to existence coming into becoming about the earth. The architect said No, prior to existence there had to become a structure towards the earth and also the universe, and it was the architects who, with God, produced that about the earth, creating it out of chaos. And also the bureaucrat said, Ah, chaos. And who do you believe produced that?
I was also reminded as I listened to this morning’s presentations that there is really a marvelous meeting from the correct and also the left when you get down towards the bottom. Whereas Bill Schambra is for self-governance and Jerry Mander is for local empowerment, Chellis Glendinning, as she might presently tell us, is really for the secession and independence from the county exactly where she lives in New Mexico, Rio Arriba County. So you see that you are able to arrive to this business of decentralization from all kinds of political perspectives, and, regardless of which 1, it still may be the bedrock truth.
I have been preoccupied with technologies, which Jerry pointed out this morning threads via nearly all the other ideas and themes which are prior to us within the globe these days, and this is why I’m writing a book about Robert Fulton and also the technologies from the American dream. But of course the point that Jerry created, and others require to make, is that technologies per se isn't what it is truly all about. The French philosopher Jacques Ellul known as it the technological milieu as opposed towards the social and also the natural milieus. The technological milieu has now turn out to be transcendent more than the other two. Schumacher also talked about this, about what he known as industrial society.
In his book Great Function Schumacher asked:
Why ought to industrial society fail? Why ought to the spiritual evils it produces lead to worldly failure? From the severely practical point of view, I ought to say this:
1. It has disrupted, and continues to disrupt, particular organic relationships in such a manner that globe population is growing, apparently irresistibly, beyond the signifies of subsistence.
2. It's disrupting particular other organic relationships in such a manner as to threaten those signifies of subsistence themselves, spreading poison, adulterating food, etc.
3. It's rapidly depleting the earth’s nonrenewable stocks of scarce mineral resources—mainly fuels and metals.
4. It's degrading the moral and intellectual qualities of man while further developing a extremely complicated way of existence the smooth continuance of which requires ever-increasing moral and intellectual qualities.
5. It breeds violence—a violence against nature which at any moment can turn into violence against one’s fellow men .
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Schumacher is talking about technologies, yes, but he’s talking about a technological society and what will occur to it, and that’s the concept we need to keep in front of us, searching for the pattern behind the ideas which are becoming presented to us these days.
So it may be the milieu, the technological milieu, and also the culture as a whole from which it stems, that's the danger for us all, and no 1 understands this much better, I believe, than our next speaker, a brave and dedicated warrior for numerous years within the contest against this deadly force. She’s a psychologist and an activist and also the author of a number of books, including 1 using the wonderful title, My Name is Chellis and I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization (she’s really fortunate simply because most of us aren't yet in recovery).
She is really a actual individual doing actual function about the ground with Chicanos and Indians exactly where she lives in New Mexico, and she has just been appointed towards the Land Authority of Rio Arriba County. She works there daily, bringing her insights to that existence and taking the insights of that existence into her, that is in effect what her newest book is about. She’s consented to bring to us these days her deep wisdom, commitment, and inspiration along with her sparkle and laughter: Chellis Glendinning.