The more we have treated each other and the natural world as objects, the more we have lost empathy and meaning and become alienated from nature, from each other, and from ourselves. In fact, today's crisis is the outcome of a long process of increasing domination of the emergent qualities and suppression of the ground qualities. We are paying the price for losing our original vitality and wholeness, and it is quite high. Not only do the emergent qualities suppress the ground qualities, there is an increasing split between the qualities. Men tend to be rational and women tend to be emotional and intuitive.
Corporations tend to be powerful economically and devoid of human connection and meaning.
Those ethnic groups that have retained a sense of community tend to be oppressed and kept out of societal power. Those peoples who are closest to the earth have the least economic and political power. It seems that we must choose between the power of the emergent or the vitality of the ground. However, it is possible to integrate the ground and emergent qualities. It isn't easy, but it is possible.