In the course of reading the book Leading Out Loud by Terry Pearce, the author asks three questions which I think are worth giving some thought to:
1) What single value is so important that you would (will) teach it to your children as the most important foundation of a happy life?
2) What condition in chosen industry would you change and how?
3) What is the most important social issue that we have deal with as a community? Ho would you correct it?
Yesterday I discussed question 1. Today I pick up question 3.
I was torn on this issue, as there are two. My initial on is the creeping (or not creeping) growth of Totalitarianism. This transcends either left or right, Liberal or Conservative. The trend of the modern powers that be is only, ever, towards control. This seems to be true of any government at any time, but what makes the round seem so insidious is the push to control the lives of the individual to the smallest letter of detail, even thought and speech. Before you accuse me of choosing sides, think carefully: Name a political movement that is for decentralization and a recovery of rights that is supported by a local, state, or national agency. There are virtually none.
As I said, I was torn. My runner up was runaway environmentalism, the belief that everything must be subsumed to a single movement's belief of what constitutes the "correct" way to save Nature without any sort of use of natural resources - instead of conservationism, the believe that Nature can be card for, managed, and used for resources.
It is funny - identify both yesterday's and today's issues served as a clarifying moment for me. Perhaps an indicator of what path I need to be on.
I would have to agree with everything you said here, TB. Perhaps with the addition of the need to destroy out country with overwhelming numbers.
ReplyDeleteAnd it definitely transcends party lines.
I think the underlying problem with all of our social issues is that we have adopted the wrong paradigm. The more I try to grow our own food, live with livestock, and study soil biology, the more I understand this. I'd say the industrial revolution enabled us humans to exploit our natural resources in ways that continue to take us farther and farther from the natural design and created order of things. Consequently, our "solutions" only seem to create more problems.
ReplyDeleteLinda, I think it goes beyond that for a need for an elite to control anything (it is happening in a number of locations).
ReplyDeleteLeigh, that is a very profound thought - one that I would agree with. It is like swordsmanship: the more you study it, the more you come to understand what one can do with it and how easy it is to destroy things. Those that train with the sword are probably the least likely to actually use one, because they understand the damage it causes.
ReplyDelete