From: lpb@STRATUS.SWDC.STRATUS.COM (Len Bucuvalas x5363)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage
Subject: In Praise of Mother Earth
Date: 7 Apr 92 20:43:13 GMT

I was sent the following piece and wanted to share it with you all. 

Best of Regards In The Light,
Len



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Subject: 37 revolutions around Sol
Cc: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com, ellen@relay.csd.sgi.com,
        ginny@relay.csd.sgi.com
Status: R


  some VERY warm and special raticaljunkies were able to sniff out the fact
  that today at 4:26 pm i will have completed 37 revolutions around Father
  Sun with the bountiful blessings of Mother Earth sustaining me all the
  way.  it's rare that we ever truly give thanx in this culture for all 
  that we have been given.  its even rarer to experience acknowledgment of 
  how fundamentally connected we all are to EVERYTHING.  "All my relations" 
  is a deeply meaningful expression and concept used by many indigenous 
  cultures to emphasize how interrelated every thing in the universe is to 
  every thing else.  
  
  i am currently experiencing a VERY DEEP opening up in my life.  exploring
  the book "In The Absence of the Sacred, The Failure of Technology and the
  Survial of the Indian Nations" (by Jerry Mander (author of "Four Arguments 
  for the Elimination of Television"), (c) 1991, Sierra Club Books), has
  contributed to this.  it has enabled me to consider the impact of 
  technology upon the society and culture we all find ourselves living out 
  our lives within in a way *i* have not conceived of or confronted before 
  now.  i have not yet completed it, but when i do, i will be writing up a 
  more thorough "book review" to post.  in the meantime, i urge all of you 
  to scan it at the bookstore and consider challeging yerselves as well to 
  possibilities of alternative visions of the way we could somehow, someway 
  consciously choose to live our lives in relation to our Mother and all:



      213               IN THE ABSENCE OF THE SACRED

         The relationship between grandparents and grandchildren is one 
      of the most critical elements in the maintenance of Indian culture.
      For young people, the elders are windows to the roots of their own
      identity, to the visions of Earth and life that came before modern
      times.  The sharing of knowledge between elders and the young is 
      what makes survival possible.
         For the elders, the notion of a Mother Earth is totally 
      integrated into their beings.  And young activists today realize 
      the importance of that perspective.  So they verbalize such 
      concepts, which, even if new to them, are ancient nonetheless.  
      They recognize that Indians are the authentic guardians of such 
      ideas, and they are ensuring that the lineage of understanding is
      preserved.
         That white folk have a hard time accepting this is logical, 
      since the concept is alien as the people who speak of it.  And yet
      it behooves us to at least entertain the possibility that the idea
      of a living planet, a concept that has endured for millennia, just 
      might be true.
         Lately some scientists have emerged who are ready to argue on 
      behalf of the whole planet as a living system.  Notable among them
      are bioligists Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock, authors of "The
      Gaia Hypothesis," which describes the planet and the atmosphere as
      a unified biological entity.  Their work in particular became the 
      focus for numerous conferences on the issue, including the one
      organized by James Swan titled "Is the Earth Alive?" in Mill 
      Valley, California, in 1986, which considered the point from both 
      traditional native and Western scientific perspectives.
         However, it will take many such conferences and many more books
      before there is any change in the dominant Western view of the
      issue, since such change could prove subversive to our culture.  If
      such an idea were taken seriously, the United States would be
      hard-pressed to continue existing in anything like its present
      form.
         Many authors, notably Carl Jung and Aldous Huxley, have stated
      that Western societies fear, hate, destroy, and also revere
      Indians, precisely because they express the parts of our personal
      and cultural psyches that we must suppress in order to function in
      the world as we do.  How could present-day America possibly exist
      if great numbers of people believed that the minerals in the
      ground, the trees and the rocks, and the earth itself were all
      alive?  Not only alive, but our equals?  If our society suddenly
      believed it was sacrilegious to remove minerals from the earth, or
      to buy and sell land, our society would evaporate.  Nor could it
      exist if Americans believed in an economic life organized along
      steady-state, collective-subsistence forms, as most Indian
      societies are.  Therefore it is logical, normal, and self-
      protective for Americans to find the philosophical, political, and
      economic modes of Indian culture inappropriate and foolish.


                        TABLE OF INHERENT DIFFERENCES

         The concept of an organic female earth is basic to native
      societies, and is also a basic difference between native peoples
      and the people of technologized societies.  Believing that the
      earth is alive leads to a world view utterly unlike the one that
      emerges when you believe the planet is dead, or that it is a
      "machine."  Is it possible, then, for the two societies to coexist?
      To look at that issue, I thought it would be helpful to create a
      chart that compares the two societies in various aspects of life.
      The more detailed the comparisons, the more obvious it becomes that
      in almost every category Indian and Western societies are at
      virtually opposite poles.  Beyond "opposite," they are in
      contradiction.
         During the years I worked on this book, I kept an informal list
      of various characteristics that seem to be inherent in all (or
      most) native societies.  Though it is by no means complete, and
      does not pretend to be scientific, I think it reveals the near
      impossibility of assimilation.  The two cultures are profoundly at
      odds.  To attempt to merge them does not produce co-existence or
      integration, but death for one or the other, which is already
      happening.
         The following chart is not universally applicable to all Indian
      societies or all Western societies.  There are differences among
      Indian tribes just as there are among Western societies.  For
      example, though the Aztecs and Incas were Indians, they were more
      like modern Americans than the majority of other Indians.  In fact,
      it is because of the ways in which the Aztecs and Incas were
      similar to us--they created a "state," they had hierarchical
      authority (which most Indian societies do not), and their
      architecture was built for permanence--that we speak of them as "an
      advanced civilization."
         In fundamental ways, however, Indian tribes and aboriginal
      peoples, whether they live in the far north or in tropical forests,
      are more alike than not.  The Inuit, the Navajo in the southwestern
      U.S., and the Aborigines in Australia all share very similar
      attitudes toward nature.  To the degree that they have not been
      overtaken by Westerners, they still engage in collective
      production, share commodities, and live in extended families.  They
      have similar ideas about art, architecture, time, and dozens of
      other dimensions of life.  Their religions are nature based;  they
      believe in a living planet.  Also important, they share the fact
      that Westernized nations are behaving toward each of them in
      exactly the same fashion.  This in turn is because despite all our
      differences, most Westerners are also more alike than different.
      In both the Soviet Union and the U.S., we wear ties and
      wristwatches, drive cars, live in nuclear families in permanent
      structures alongside pavement walkways.  We work for fixed hours of
      the day for years at a time for a person we call "boss."  We use
      money to purchase commodities.  We share an attitude about our
      level of superiority to nature and to non-technological humans.
         What follows, then, is a rough description of tendencies,
      loosely comparing technological cultures on the one hand and native
      cultures on the other.  It is meant as a vehicle for exploration
      and discussion. (Some of the points will be amplified in later
      chapters.)



      Technological Peoples                        Native Peoples
   ____________________________             ______________________________
 
                                 ECONOMICS
   _______________________________________________________________________
 
   Concept of private property a ba-         No private ownership of re-
   sic value:  includes resources,           sources such as land, water,
   land, ability to buy and sell, and        minerals, or plant life.  No
   inheritance.  Some state owner-           concept of selling land.  No
   ship.  Corporate ownership                inheritance.
   predominates.
 
   Goods produced mostly for sale,           Goods produced for use value.
   not for personal use.
 
   Surplus production, profit mo-            Subsistence goals:  no profit
   tive essential.  Sales techniques         motive, little surplus
   must create "need," hence                 production.
   advertising.
 
   Economic growth required, espe-           Steady-state economics:  no
   cially in capitalist societies,           concept of economic growth.
   hence need for increased produc-
   tion, increased use of resources,
   expansion of production and
   market territories.
 
   Currency system--abstract value.          Barter system--concrete value.
 
   Competition (in capitalist coun-          Cooperative, collective
   tries), production for private            production.
   gain.  Reward according to task/
   wages.
 
   Average workday, 8-12 hours.              Average workday 3-5 hours.
 
   Nature viewed as "resource."              Nature viewed as "being";
                                             humans seen as part of nature.
 
 
                             POLITICS AND POWER
   _______________________________________________________________________
 
   Hierarchical political forms.             Mostly non-hierarchical:
                                             "chiefs" have no coercive
                                             power.
 
   Decisions generally made by               Decisions usually based on
   executive power, majority rule,           consensual process involving
   or dictatorship.                          whole tribe.
 
   Spectrum from representative              Direct participatory democracy;
   democracy to autocratic rule.             rare examples of autocracy.
 
   Operative political modes are             Recognizable operative political
   communist, socialist, monarchist,         modes are anarchist, communist,
   capitalist, or fascist.                   or theocratic.
 
   Centralization:  most power con-          Decentralization:  power resides
   centrated in central authorities.         mainly in community, among
                                             people.  (Some exceptions 
                                             include Incas, Aztec, et al.)
 
   Laws are codified, written.               Laws transmitted orally.  No
   Adversarial process.  Anthropo-           adversarial process.  Laws
   centrism forms basis of law.              interpreted for individual
   Criminal cases judged by                  cases.  "Natural law" used as
   strangers (in U.S., western               basis.  Criminal cases settled
   Europe, Soviet Union). No taboo.          by groups of peers known to
                                             "criminal."  Taboo.
 
   Concept of "state."                       Identity as "nation."
 
 
                 SOCIOCULTURAL ARRANGEMENTS AND DEMOGRAPHICS
   _______________________________________________________________________
 
   Large-scale societies;  most socie-       Small-scale societies, all
   ties have high population density.        people acquainted;  low
                                             population density.
 
   Lineage mostly patrilineal.               Lineage mostly matrilineal, with
                                             some variation;  family property
                                             rights run through female.
 
   Nuclear two- or one-parent families;      Extended families:  generations,
   also "singles."                           sometimes many families, live
                                             together.
 
   Revere the young.                         Revere the old.
 
   History written in books, por-            History transmitted in oral
   trayed in television docudramas.          tradition, carried through
                                             memory.
 
 
                            RELATION TO ENVIRONMENT
   _______________________________________________________________________
 
   Living beyond nature's limits             Living within natural ecosystem
   encouraged;  natural terrain not          encouraged;  harmony with na-
   considered a limitation;  conquest        ture the norm;  only mild alter-
   of nature a celebrated value;             ations of nature for immediate
   alteration of nature desirable;           needs:  food, clothing, shelter;
   anti-harmony;  resources exploited.       no permanent damage.
 
   High-impact technology created            Low-impact technology;  one-to-
   to change environment.  Mass-scale        one ratio even in weaponry.
   development:  one-to-millions ratio
   in weaponry and other technologies.
 
   Humans viewed as superior life            Entire world viewed as alive:
   form;  Earth viewed as "dead."            plants, animals, people, rocks.
                                             Humans not superior, but equal
                                             part of web of life.  Reciprocal
                                             relationship with non-human
                                             life.
 
 
                                  ARCHITECTURE
   _______________________________________________________________________
 
   Construction materials trans-             Construction materials usually
   ported from distant places.               gathered locally.
 
   Construction designed to survive          Construction designed to even-
   individual human life.                    tually dissolve back into land
                                             (except for pyramids built by
                                             minority of Indians);  materials
                                             biodegradable in one lifetime.
 
   Space designed for separation             Space designed for communal
   and privacy.                              activity.
 
   Hard-edged torms;  earth covered          Soft forms;  earth not paved.
   with concrete.
 
 
                             RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
   _______________________________________________________________________
 
   Separation of spirituality from           Spirituality integrated with
   rest of life in most Western cul-         all aspects of daily life.
   tures (though not in some Muslim,
   Hindu, or Buddhist states);
   church and state separated;
   materialism is dominant
   philosophy in Western countries.
 
   Either monotheistic concept of            Polytheistic concepts based on
   single, male god, or atheistic.           nature, male and female forces,
                                             animism.
 
   Futuristic/linear concept of time;        Integration of past and present.
   de-emphasis of past.
 
   The dead are regarded as gone.            The dead are regarded as
                                             present.
 
   Individuals gain most information         Individuals gain information
   from media, schools, authority            from personal experiences.
   figures outside their immediate
   community or experience.
 
   Time measured by machines;                Time measured by awareness ac-
   schedules dictate when to do              cording to observance of nature;
   things.                                   time to do something is when
                                             time is right.
 
   Saving and acquiring.                     Sharing and giving.


         It is important to note that the characteristics on each side of
      this chart form an internally consistent logic.  In politics, for
      example, hierarchical power makes a great deal more sense for
      operating a large-scale technological society in widely separated
      parts of the world than does a consensual decision-making process,
      which is much too slow to keep pace with machinery, electronics,
      and the need to grow and expand.  In relation to the environment,
      the notion of "humans above nature" is more fitting for
      technological cultures, and for capitalism in particular, than
      "humans within nature," which throws wrenches in the wheels of
      progress.




--
                                             daveus rattus   

                                   yer friendly neighborhood ratman

                               KOYAANISQATSI

   ko.yan.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language)  n.  1. crazy life.  2. life
       in turmoil.  3. life out of balance.  4. life disintegrating.  
         5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
--
                                             daveus rattus   

                                   yer friendly neighborhood ratman

                               KOYAANISQATSI

   ko.yan.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language)  n.  1. crazy life.  2. life
       in turmoil.  3. life out of balance.  4. life disintegrating.  
         5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.


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