blinded by progress: breaking out of the illusion that holds us
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BLINDED BY
PROGRESSBREAKING OUT OF THE
ILLUSION THAT HOLDS US
Lee Van Ham
The One Earth Project:Book I in the Series: Eden in the 21st Century
BLINDED BY PROGRESS
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Blinded by Progress: Breaking Out of the Illusion Tat Holds UsLee Van Ham
Published by OneEarth Publishing
3295 Meade Ave., San Diego, CA 92116http://www.theoneearthproject.com
Author contact inormation:lee@jubilee-economics.org
Copyright 2013 by Lee Van Ham. All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-0-9911554-0-8 (print)ISBN 978-0-9911554-1-5 (eBook)
Cover design: Marcelo RadulovichEditor: Nikki Lyn PughIllustrator: Hannah Johnson
Indexer: Catherine BarrPublishing Services: http://www.Sellbox.com
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part othis publication may be reproduced, scanned, distributed, stored in orintroduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any orm or by anymeans (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise),
without the prior written permission o both the copyright owner andthe above publisher o this book.
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Praise for Blinded by Progress
Blinded by Progressis a work o keen observation, a great deal o scholarship and
an abiding care or living beings. Tere were many paths that we might have taken
in the past that would have led to a better world than the one we inhabit. Lee VanHams writing delineates a path going orward that does not repeat the illusions o
progress. I hope it opens many eyes.
Paul Hawken,entrepreneur, environmentalist, and
author o Blessed Unrest and Natural Capitalism
Lee has written a book that is a hair-on-fire call to action to ree ourselves rom
our olly o only looking at Me and moving us to We...Pronto.
Will Marr,Founder, Te American Dream Project
Blinded by Progressis an eye-opening look at our current economic and social
system that is both heart-centered and intellectually accurate. Its one-o-a-kind
perspective, based on deep research as well as first-hand experience, takes the
reader quickly to the very oundation o what is wrong with our current world
situation in order to fix it.
Nikki Lyn Pugh,published author and journalist and
2011 USD Women Peacemaker Project Selected Peace Writer
El mundo que queremos es uno donde quepan muchos mundos We want
a world where many worlds can coexist. Tese words spoken by the Maya
Indigenous people in resistance add color and meaning to the important
and timely message o this book. Tis book is a must read or people and
communities committed to collectively raise consciousness. It is a guide in creating
concrete steps toward being responsible citizens o one earth.
Marco Tavanti,PhD, International Sustainable Development Pro.,DePaul University, Chicago; Pres. o World Engagement Institute (WEI).
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System thinker Lee Van Ham has brought decades o reflecting about the dynamics
o our predicament and gifed us with this book. Blinded by Progressis our
wake up manual, our guide to deprogramming ourselves rom the limitations o
MultiEarth vision. (Excerpt rom the Foreward)
Chuck Collins,senior scholar at the Institute or Policy Studies, author o
several books on wealth inequality and the transition to a new economy.
Blinded by Progressdemonstrates that aith can lead humanity into re-visioning
ourselves and our relationship with the planet. Based in extensive research,
Lee Van Ham has ound a way to hold and maintain a generous view o people
and our shared utures. Tis book challenges the reader and provides hope at one
and the same time.
Lisa Spaulding,Ph.D., Proessor o English and
Humanities, Penn Valley Community College
In Blinded by ProgressVan Ham creates a work o great integrityan integrity
that comes rom his bringing sound theological and economic thinking together
with visionary consciousness, deep commitment, and illusion-breaking stories.
Te result is a clear and powerul message that the author does not dilute with
checklists o minor eel-good actions we can take on our own. Instead, Van Ham
dares to call us all to nothing less than a radical change o consciousness, breaking
through the illusions o our dominant MultiEarth economy in order to embracethe alternative OneEarthism. And contrary to what many claim, there are real
alternatives. Tere is much truth and wisdom to be ound in these pages.
Barry Shelley,PhD, Political economist; Global Agriculture
and Climate Change Advisor, Oxam America
Tis book makes it crystal clear that, i the dominating system o linear
progressbuilt on the necessity o limitless and greedy money growth
continues, lie on this planet will become impossible. Already now the West isusing up more than one Earth which we do not have in reality. Tereore, it is not
a question o choice but o survival to break through illusionary consciousness and
embark toward a culture o lie. Lee Van Ham shows the way this is possiblemay
many people ollow him.
Ulrich Duchrow,Proessor o Systematic Teology at the University o
Heidelberg, Germany, ocusing in theology-economy issues; books include
ranscending Greedy Money (2012) and Property for People, Not for Profit (2004)
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Dedication
This book is dedicated
to the memory
of other species who have died unnecessarily
because of the excessive predation by our species,
a result of the blindness of our progress;
and
in recognition
that, when we become students of how they
and surviving species fulfill their evolutionary,creational purpose within Earths life community,
we seek to do the same.
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The frog does not drink up the pond
in which it lives. Sioux proverb
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Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Notes to the Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiTe Birth of the One Earth Project and the Series,
Eden in the 21st Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
What to Expect in Tis Book and Its Sequels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv
Section One: Te MultiEarth Complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
MultiEarth Ecological Footprints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
MultiEarth vs. OneEarth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Moving Beyond Footprints to Worldviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Contrasting MultiEarth and OneEarth Worldviews (able I) . . . . . . . . . . . 8
How My Early Paradigm Was Formed, Ten Changed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Mythology of the MultiEarth Paradigm: Living East of Eden . . . . . . . . 16
Cain and Abel: Mythology of Clashing Worldviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
How Genesis Mythology Protests MultiEarth Ways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
How Cain Lives in Us through the MultiEarth Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Where MultiEarth History Seceded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Are MultiEarth Ways Good? What Does Earth Say? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Section wo: Five Big MultiEarth Practices Holding Us In Illusion . . . . 29
BIG Practice #1: Giving Primary Religious Devotion to Economics . . . . 31
BIG Practice #2: Creating Economic Frankensteins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
BIG Practice #3: Shrinking the reasure of Humanness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
BIG Practice #4: Disguising Corporatocracy as Democracy . . . . . . . . . . 121
BIG Practice #5: Neglecting Population and Species Imbalance . . . . . . . 141
Section Tree: Progress Tat Blinds Or Illumines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159Breaking Out of the Illusion Tat Holds Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Progress as Deity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
How the MultiEarth Paradigm Understands Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
How the OneEarth Paradigm Understands Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
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Progress as Seen Trough MultiEarth and OneEarth Lenses . . . . . . . . . 167
Myths of Cain, Abel, and Sysiphus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Is Living East of Eden Our Only Choice? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Glossary of erms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Related Reading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
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ForewordBy Chuck Collins
We are in deep shif.
We humans are either going to figure out how to make a transition to a new
way o living or were going to undermine our lie support systems.
Spaceship earth is pressed up against the planetary boundaries thanks to our
U.S. ueled perpetual motion mode o economic growth.
Te Sufi poet Rumi writes,
Sit, be still, listen
For you are drunk,
And we are at the edge o the roo.Indeed, we are at the edge o the roo. A century o recklessly burning ossil
uels, mostly in the global north, has altered our planets climate, unleashing weird
weather including droughts and deluges across the planet.
Te earth has been degraded by crude extraction, dumping and out o sight,
out o mind approach to waste. Our resh water reserves are increasingly depleted
and contaminated and the worlds oceans are acidiying. Radioactive toxins rom
the 2011 Fukishima nuclear accident in Japan have contaminated fisheries in the
Pacific and sent radioactive plumes drifing toward the west coast o the U.S.Weve been behaving as i we have a back-up planet to use afer we deplete this
one.
Our global economy has been turned into a speculative casino, still distributing
goods but also unctioning as a mechanism to extract wealth rom our communi-
ties and unnel it to a tiny cluster o global millionaires and billionaires. Te U.S.
middle class standard o living is imploding, as wages continue to decline and the
social contract between asset owners and wage earners is in tatters. Meanwhile, the
widening gul between the lush quality o lie or the planets wealthy and the utter
deprivation o the bottom two billion o our global citizens is grotesque.
We are encouraged to accept these realities as a new normal, an age o dimin-
ished expectations and austerity. In exchange, we are offered abulous distractions
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in the orm o digital entertainment and techno-communication gizmos that even
science fiction writers couldnt have imagined a generation ago.
Te blinding progress o the 20th century, however, celebrated in affluent cor-
ners o the world, is now revealing its shadow side to even its principal beneficia-ries. Extreme inequality and ecological degradation is bad or everyone, even the
wealthy.
But what can be done? So many o our contemporary challengesextreme
wealth inequality, ecological destruction, the climate crisis, imperial domination
cannot be fixed with a ew policy tweaks and interventions.
Te blessing in this moment is that the unraveling illusions o progress and per-
petual growthand the religious and political worldview that we have constructed
to believe themhave cracked opened the possibility o a new way o thinking.Tere is a deep public unease and recognition that something is undamentally
broken. But it is hard to put a finger on the undamental root cause. Is it human
greed? Ecological hubris and overshoot? Are these problems inherent to capital-
ism?
Tankully system thinker Lee Van Ham has brought decades o reflecting
about the dynamics o our predicament and gifed us with this book. At the heart
o our challenges, Van Ham observes, is the way we see the world and our under-
standing o our place in it. At the root o our problems is how we think.
Some historians have labeled the time we are living in as the Anthropocene
Era, the period when human activity is the primary driver o the earths evolu-
tionary process. We operate, in Van Hams words, with a MultiEarth perspective, a
worldview that considers humans as undamentally separate rom and superior to
other species and distinct rom nature.
We are aliened rom our natures and disconnected rom Creation and other
humans.Charles Eisenstein writes in Sacred Economics that we are living between two
ages, the Age o Separation with our deep alienation rom one another and na-
ture, and the new world that is being born.
o survive, we must quickly evolve as a species, adopting a OneEarth vision o
ourselves as part o the earth. We have to rewire ourselves to tap into our mutuali-
ty, empathy and deep interconnectedness.
Step back and we will see that all o us alive today, particular in the United
States, have lived a lie buttressed by cheap, easy-to-get ossil uels, stored sunlight,and a model o consumption that has overshot planetary limits.
Our dominant cultural religion is the market. In this cosmology, wealth accu-
mulation is the purpose o existence and consumption is a sacrament. As Harvey
Cox observes in his Atlantic magazine piece, Te Market as God,
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For all the religions of the world, however they may differ from one
another, the religion of Te Market has become the most formida-
ble rival, the more so because it is rarely recognized as a religion.1
We accept the powerul role o transnational corporations and their usurpa-tion o our democracy and political system. We ail to see the invisible commons
around us, blinded by our extreme individualism and property systems.
Blinded by Progressis the first book in an anticipated trilogy devoted to un-
packing the MultiEarth and OneEarth ways o thinking. We are so steeped in the
MultiEarth worldview we are akin to fish that do not know what water is.
Te good news is the ragmentation o living with a MultiEarth vision is com-
ing to an end. Tis period o alse separation and division has run its course. We
have arrived at the limits o our way o living and looking at the world.
Many people around the world are already coming to a OneEarth perspective.
Indigenous people worldwide have protected the embers o sacred earth wisdom
traditions. And within all the great religious traditions and sub-denominations,
there are now branches o what one could consider a sacred earth or OneEarth
worldview. Such a way o looking may soon be the primary religion on earth,
serving as a global common ground or transormation.
We are capable o great transormation. Brain scientists are now revealing howwe are hard-wired or mutuality and community, i we can reinorce this different
way o thinking in our communities and culture. Te signs are everywhere.
A growing sector o living economy businesses has emerged, pointing the way
toward a new sustainable and equitable economy. Tese enterprises view them-
selves in a place-based web o relationships, undamentally interconnected and
accountable to all their stakeholdersnature, communities, customers, sharehold-
ers, and workers. Tere are bioneers applying the lessons o natures design to
systems design, architecture, agriculture and human relations.Blinded by Progressis our wake up manual, our guide to deprogramming our-
selves rom the limitations o MultiEarth vision. Lee Van Ham weaves in his own
personal narrative and invites us to reconsider our own stories through the lens o
how we were raised in a ragmented MultiEarth worldview.
With these new glasses, we will be able to see aresh the matrix o lie that sur-
rounds us and our part in the whole. We will be able to reposition our lives to live
within natures boundaries. We will be able to be reborn.
HHHHH
Chuck Collins is a senior scholar at the Institute or Policy Studies and author
o several books on wealth inequality and the transition to a new economy.
1Harvey Cox, Te Market as God, Te Atlantic Monthly,March 1999, 23.
Foreword iii
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Introduction
The Birth of the One Earth Project and theSeries, Eden in the 21st Century
Throughout the time I have been writing this series, I have not been alone.
Many have helped, but my riend and colleague Michael Johnson has been
with me rom the start. It all started one March evening in 2009. Michael,
an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker1, heard me speak to a group
meeting at San Marcos Lutheran Church in San Marcos, Caliornia. A riendship
emerged soon aferwards as we learned how our missions in lie were strongly
aligned. What I wanted to write about, he wanted to produce films about. We
became supporters o one anothers commitments to move out o MultiEarth living
and soon ormed the OneEarth Project2together. I would write; he would produce.
We agreed to do all we could to contribute to the conversation happening around
the globe on how to change to one planet or OneEarth living.
Te proverb rom the Sioux People that has its own page at the ront o this
book is a wry, succinct statement on what this book, Blinded by Progress,is about.
Michael and I see how the Sioux and other Native American Peoples who stay trueto their traditional ways have been more aithul than most other Americans to
OneEarth living. When the Sioux experienced the devastating invasion o Europe-
an settlers that peaked in the 19th century, ravaging their wild game, mining their
sacred lands, and turning the prairie lands they relied on or survival into crop-
lands, they were in disbelie. How, they wondered,could these white folks be so out
of balance with Nature, so disconnected from Creation?Tey could see that rogs
were wiser about living on our one planet than these civilized settlers were.
All o us caught up in modern civilization not only those o us who are oEuropean descent and other immigrant groups, but even First Peoples who have
lef their traditional ways are drinking up the very pond that gives us lie. We
have only a short time to make the BIG changes Earth requires o us to survive.
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And to get there, we have to make truly BIG choices, ar bigger than just recy-
cling our trash and conserving water. Tats why Part II o this book is, Five BIG
MultiEarth Practices We Must Change. Te word Weis very important here. Te
more we allget on the same page about what weneed to change, the better ourchances become at turning things around. I we are going to get our species to the
point o OneEarth living, were going to have to do it together or it wont happen
at all. Earth hersel will, o course, not disappear rom her planetary orbit. But
many beautiul bioregions, and millions o species she created through millennia
o evolution, are already decades into dwindling and dying out. We are the only
species that is drinking up the water in this pond in which all lie lives. As the
Sioux people saw long ago, we cant finally avoid the consequences o meeting our
thirst so irresponsibly.Te 20th century, into which so many o us Homo sapienswere born, over-
flowed with technological progress. Tis prosperity resulted in radical changes
regarding how lie was shaped and how it was lived. Te word progress gradu-
ally came to mean technological progress and upward linear progress. In both
contexts, the word progress meant progress without limits. Troughout the
1900s, the ups o our society were constantly and consistently rising above any
downs we may have experienced. We were alwaysadvancing. Troughout the
20th century, every new baby grew up amidst technologies that their parents had
never dreamed o as children. Tat new technological baseline impacted how each
generation thought and acted in the world. My parents were born into a world
where owning a car was not assumed. I, on the other hand, assumed that I would
eventually have one and drove a 49 previously owned Hudson by age sixteen. On
the other hand, I knew nothing about computers, the worldwide web, or smart
phones when I was a kid. My grandchildren, on the other hand, assume them.
Troughout our modern history, invention afer invention has been heraldedas having improved human lie. Even the setbacks o economic depression and two
world wars, both ought on other than U.S. soil, seemed only to stimulate evermore
technological progress. Following World War II, western civilization rose to new
heights, an ascent partly symbolized by the word super which came to preace
one item afer another, but none more telling than the word superpower, a name
the U.S. began wearing as a badge o honor at that time. o be an American during
this America-centric century was to constantly hear about how greatly things were
improving. Progress was worshipped, unrestrained rom deep questioning. Teconcept became so hyped by those benefiting rom it that many o the darker costs
o Progress were dismissed as having little consequence. Progress rose like the
sun, ascending as a deity with such great illuminating wattage, such brightness,
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that we did not see the shadows underneath our technological advances and linear
thinking.
One such shadow that continues to get longer and darker is cast by car-
bon-based products their production, consumption, and disposal. We nowknow that we have not been paying anything close to the ull costs o our carbon
use. In 1998, the International Center or echnology Assessment calculated the
ull cost o a gallon o gasoline to be roughly $9 more than what we paid at the
pump. It turns out that the pump price, excluding taxes, goes mostly toward the
costs o pumping oil, refining it, and delivering it to service stations. But it does
not ully pay or huge tax subsidies to the oil industry, the military costs to pro-
tect the supplies, and the health costs to people and the climate.3I we add the $9
(more at todays prices) to the $4.00 per gallon I paid or my last fill-up, it wouldmean $130 or each 10 gallons added to my cars tank. Had all o us been paying
the ull costs o gasoline since the invention o cars, trucks, trains, planes, and all
petroleum derived products, we would have necessarily designed a very different
society during the 20th century. Instead, we have unctioned socially and econom-
ically according to what we pay at the checkout as we hand over the cash or credit
card. Tese pervasive dishonest prices are what much o MultiEarth Progress is
based on.
Te disconnect between the checkout price o the products we buy and the ull
cost challenges the praise or ree market capitalism proclaimed throughout the
20th century. Te handling o carbon-based products in the marketplace illustrates
how markets can be masterully and mischievously designed by financial institu-
tions, corporations, and governments to achieve Progress. Tough such handling
o the markets assures profits to the handlers, the ull cost o using carbon-based
products is being largely paid or by the environment, poor health among people,
and the displaced species. Without these unevenly imposed sacrifices, most o theU.S. population would not be able to afford the products and, as a result, many
liestyles would be materially lower and corporate profits would be significantly
less. Te act that so many are able to buy the products, and generally want them,
effectively blinds huge sectors o the population to the shadows being cast by the
bright light o Progress.
But the lack o consciousness regarding the shadows o Progress and manipu-
lations in the marketplace has been changing. By the end o the 20th century and
into this current one, more o us have come to see what beore we were blind to.Its in this kind o coming to see that the OneEarth Project was born. For Michael
and me, the OneEarth Project ocuses our resolve. Such a ocus is essential, as we
understand it, to move ourselves out o what we entered through birth and then
blindly adopted as the accepted way to do things.
Introduction xiii
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With eyes opening, we accept Earths invitation into greater consciousness and
a more sustainable way o living. We at OneEarth believe humanity canchange.
We also believe that our destructive practices mustchange in order to live within
our planets capacities. Being Blinded by Progressis not an inevitable ate o ourhumanity any more than near-sightedness is. Nor does the solution to the problem
lie in abandoning the notion o Progress altogether. Te solution is to redirect our
gaze away rom technological and linear progress that blinds us, and to turn our
ocus to OneEarth Progress, i.e. Progress that we can see unolding in the grand-
est and smallest cycles o the Cosmos and Nature where OneEarth lie abounds.
Tough I consider much o what is spoken o as Progress to be mostly illusion
promoted by the spin o MultiEarth ways, I have no such doubts about the evolu-
tionary Progress in the great Cosmos or our own planet. In the final chapter o thisbook I will have more to say about the cosmic and natural Progress that describe
where our planetary home appears to be evolving. Our wisest choice is to be alert
to that evolution, revere it, and get into step with it. For unlike the Progress herald-
ed by civilization, OneEarth Progress that ollows Earths evolutionary processes is
not under our control.
What to Expect in This Book and Its SequelsTis book and the two that will ollow are journeys into my perspective as to what
is happening on our planet at this critical time in history. Tey are punctuated with
my emotions love, wonder, ear, hope, anger as I tell how other authors and
experts influence me, give examples o new ways o living, and ponder and ques-
tion my own process o evolution rom MultiEarther to OneEarther. o get a quick
overview o the size o change involved in moving rom the MultiEarth worldview
to the OneEarth worldview, I urge readers to review able I Ive created contrast-
ing these worldviews (See Section One, where the table ollows the introduction
o worldviews). Te difference between these two worldviews is oundational to
understanding what ollows.
I am ervently devoted to the OneEarth quest, but I know that I will not be able
to get there alone. Do we as a species have enough collective resolve to get there
together? Afer all, weve tripled in number in my lietime alone and the global
economy continues to want all o us to want more. Will we permit ourselves the
deep conversion o consciousness and action that is needed in order to live within
Earths generous bounty? Tough Ive been a conqueror o Eden at times in my lie,
I am also reshaping my lie today to join with so many others in a rediscovery o
Eden. Te good news is that Eden isnt necessarily gone orever, as I once thought.
All three o the books in the series describe the process o repositioning our
lives insideo nature, instead o above it. Tis means, or example, that when I
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talk about the well-being o our human species, I am talking about the wellbeing
o allspecies on Earth as well as the wellbeing o our planet as a whole. Tough
this Earth-based perspective is growing, most o the conversations underway on
sustainability and survival are sadly still ocused solely on humans. I see no wayor such human-centered conversations to get us to where we need to go since our
uture is connected so intimately to Earths entire community o lie. Te unolding
story o our planet is not just about Homo sapiens. It is about all living things.
While Book II o the Eden Series will ocus on how we can come to the con-
sciousness we need in order to get into a OneEarth rame o mind and Book III
will flesh out some strategic ways to live the OneEarth worldview, this first book
ocuses mainly on five BIG problems caused by us humans, how theyre affecting
our planetary home, and why they must change.Some o you will be impatient or meaningul actions as you read Blinded by
Progress.
I know were in a terrible mess, you may say, just tell me what I can do.
Believe me, that impatience is in me as well. Yet I know that the first thing that
must be done or any significant change to occur is to go deepwithin the question
raised early in Part I: How am Ia MultiEarther? Unless our doingaligns with
OneEarth living, all the energy and time we spend making changes will still be
within the MultiEarth paradigm and we will make no difference where it matters
most at the level o changing that paradigm.
Breaking loose rom the strong ties that bind us to the MultiEarth worldview
is as difficult as it is important. For example, every election cycle we ervently hear
rom Democrats, Republicans, conservatives and liberals, Libertarians, indepen-
dents, and others. But at the end o the day, no matter who gets elected to office,
both the winners and losers continue to advance the goals o MultiEarth living.
We must rerame our actions so that they all within a OneEarth consciousnessand paradigm no matter who gets elected. Unless what we do embraces our one
planets embedded wisdom, we will not get to where we now need to go in order
to turn it all around. Getting to that point requires that each o us know where our
respective starting point lies.
Following the opening paragraphs on calculating the size o my ecological oot-
print and how that eels, Blinded by Progressis all about the specifics o why the
MultiEarth worldview grips us so captivatingly. I personally want to get ree rom
the clutches o MultiEarthism. Diving into its mythology, religion, economics,psychology, politics, and neglect o species balance helps me to better understand
the powerul hold it has on us all, and how to get out o that grip. I hope it will do
the same or you.
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By the end o Part One: Te MultiEarth Complex, it will be clear where I
stand personally in my efforts to leave the MultiEarth paradigm and become a
ull-fledged OneEarther. When you come to that point, please take the time to do
your own inventory, using the o Ponder and Discuss questions. ry to com-plete them even i it seems difficult or you. Be honest and specific as to how your
liestyle lines up with MultiEarth living as well as how it does not. And remember,
we are all in this together as we all live within and benefit rom the MultiEarth
paradigm in one way or another.
Finally, there is another reason why I chose the Sioux proverb that I did or
the opening page o this book. It provides a stirring biological metaphor or
MultiEarth living. Frogs are an indicator species or the planet. Because o their
thin skin and amphibious liestyle, they are highly sensitive to every toxin in bothair and water. Pesticides and pollution enter their bodies directly through their
skin. Because o this, they are like canaries in a coal mine they tell us early on
when an environment has gotten out o balance and to what extent it has done so.
In the early years o the 21st century, a precipitous die-off o rogs is underway.
Biologists see it as a warning to humankind. Frogs signal that action needs to be
taken quickly to avoid the unraveling o the very ecology in which we all live.
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Section One:
The MultiEarth Complex
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and not just or myamily or mycountry not even just or humans but or all
living things. A share o that abundance, in a perectly sustainable amount, belongs
to each o us. It is that share that I want to know more about. I want to learn how
to live with my one share on our one planet, the only one we have.My sadness deepens when I learn that i all seven billion people on Earth lived
according to how the averageAmerican does, humanity would need a total o five
planets to sustain us. Check it out or yoursel and calculate your own ootprint!6
Everything that ollows in this book will have added relevance once you know your
own ecological ootprint.
O the many ecological ootprint calculators on the web (calculators that allow
you to determine your own unique ootprint), the Global Footprint Network sets
the standard.7Te Network goes on to tell us that in order or all o Earths peopleto achieve the standards o current European societies, our planets would be re-
quired. Currently, according to the Network, our human species globally, rich and
poor together, requires 1.4 times rom Nature what she annually regenerates. Tis
unsustainable demand o human use began exceeding Earths yearly generative
capacity in the early 1970s. It has grown every year since.
As scientists continue to assess human impacts on our planet, many o their
earlier conclusions are being revised, ofen to explain that the results o our im-
pacts are accelerating aster than their earlier calculations showed. One shocking
study published in 2011 in the Marine Ecology Progress Series8determined that
we will need 27 planets by 2050 i we cannot greatly improve how our living prac-
tices impact our oceans. My mind stumbles to grasp the size o our impact on the
Earths ecosystems. Our species, so capable o enormous good, continues to play a
high-stakes game with our environment. It seems that we remain willing to gamble
everything we have, even when continuing what were doing will result in sel-de-
struction.Snap out of it, Lee!my practical nature says. No more aint it awful. Enough of
these statistics that overwhelm you. Face them and move on! Afer all, it is better to
see mysel as the MultiEarther that I am, than to pretend otherwise, is it not? So,
impatient with putting all my energy into whats wrong, Im eager to rerame these
daunting problems into challenges that I can engage. Its an axiom o finding our
power that when we recognize how all o us, individually and collectively, are part
o the problem, then we have taken the first step toward working with the Earth to
shape a new relationship with her. But i we see all thats wrong as someone elsesproblem, then we have less power to make change.
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MultiEarth vs. OneEarthMultiEarth livingrequires more than one planets resources. OneEarth living
requires all species to live within Earths abundant resources. (See able I on
page 8)
For much o my lie, my state o mind remained too undeveloped to have
veered rom MultiEarth living anywhere near the degree that I now believe is nec-
essary or sustainable living. Moving my ecological ootprint rom 3.7 planets to
1.0, I now understand, means more than daily dissent rom MultiEarthism. It re-
quires that I learn to live using only my 1.0 shares o this planet; in other words, to
be a OneEarther.And its not enough to do it individually i real change is going to
occur. I must join with others who, as entrepreneur, author, and environmentalistPaul Hawken says, are generating the biggest movement or change in the history
o humanity, even though it remains outside the awareness o many leaders and
citizens even many o those in the movement itsel.9
All that being said, the question plagues me: Why, given my greatly increased
awareness and my earnest desire to live at 1.0, have I not been able to shake loose
rom the grip that MultiEarthism has on me? And why, all around our spin-
ning globe, does MultiEarthism attract so many into loving money and desir-
ing increasingly more? As I asked mysel such questions, I realized that being a
MultiEarther is about much more than having an ecological ootprint the size o
Godzilla.
Moving Beyond Footprints to Worldviews
A MultiEarther lives an entire worldviewthat is bigger than our planets ability to
sustain it. Worldviews connect many smaller components into a big overall pic-
ture,like the picture an aerial photograph gives o a orest dotted with meadows.
Seeing the big picture in this way can be enlightening. I we limit ourselves to
clicking our camera only at ground level, then we get snapshots o trees and wild-
flowers. We may get great images, but we do not have the same perspective that
an aerial photo would provide. Similarly, a worldview gives us the big picture,
showing us countless interconnections between the distinct parts o our lives that
make up the greater whole o modern lie. It is at this point o interconnections
where the MultiEarth worldview is now ailing us.While ecological scientists and researchers continually take worldview-size
pictures o the changes currently underway on our planet, those whose power and
wealth depend on MultiEarth ways shoot pictures only at ground level. Tey then
arrange those snapshots into the worldview they want us to see. Why? Doing so
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best rewards their interests. And the result is always predictable: a worldview that
does not fit with what is truly happening to Earths ecosystems and lie orms.
All o this leads me to the point where, despite my MultiEarth ootprint, I know
I am not a MultiEarther. I clearly do not share the MultiEarth worldview. As I seeit, the MultiEarth worldview urges us to live outside o nature, rather than within
natures rich democracy o lie; it is a map or conquest and domination, not co-
operation and interconnection; and it is a recipe or threatening lie on the planet,
not sustaining it. With the discovery that I am not a MultiEarther at the worldview
level, I breathe a deep sigh o relie.
While pausing to take that breath, I also want to say what an important discov-
ery it was or me when I came to see that a worldview is much larger than many
o the rames through which we see the world. So, or example, we may rameourselves and others as Republicans or Democrats, Americans or Mexicans, Jews
or Hindus, socialists or capitalists, liberals or conservatives, developers or environ-
mentalists, riends or enemies. But these rames, while sometimes creating useul
groupings in daily lie, do not differentiate between MultiEarth and OneEarth ways
o thinking and being. Indeed, most such groupings, even when they are adver-
sarial on some issues, can have both MultiEarthers and OneEarthers within them.
My quest has taken me to defining how the MultiEarth and OneEarth worldviews
differ rom one another. (Te result is the table that ollows this discussion o
worldviews.) When we can distinguish the MultiEarth and OneEarth worldviews
rom one another, we have a key tool to help us separate ourselves rom MultiEarth
living and enter urther into OneEarth ways. Such a tool helps us transcend even
major differences among OneEarthers by showing us where to find the common
ground or living on one planet.
Another word I like to use to talk about worldviews is paradigm.10In the
1960s, Tomas Kuhn used the word paradigm to name large-scale changes inthe scientific world scientific revolutions he called them. In his extraordinary
book, Te Structure of Scientific Revolutions, he states that a paradigm is an entire
constellation o belies, values and techniques, and so on, shared by the members
o a given community.11He understood that paradigms are strongly built arrange-
ments in our minds based on how we perceive the world. Tey are held not just
by me as an individual, but reinorced by a community o like-minded people. For
example, in the community o physicists, Isaac Newton (1642-1727) brilliantly
described the law o gravitation and laws o motion. As a result, or the next threecenturies Newtonian physicswas the paradigm by which the scientific community
understood the universe. During those centuries, bits o data that did not fit with
the Newtonian paradigm were ignored or rejected. But then came Albert Einstein
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ways. Tese orces, in turn, radically question the viability o the MultiEarth
paradigm. As a consequence, the OneEarth paradigm becomes more credible,
even inevitable, as more people recognize that it more accurately includes the
Big Picture inormation that Earth is currently giving us about how to live in asustainable and balanced way (remember our aerial photograph?). But the death
and birth that is taking place as our global community shifs into the OneEarth
paradigm dramatizes why MultiEarthers and the MultiEarth tendencies in all
o us will hold onto this paradigm as long as possible. Millions depend on the
structures that have been created within this paradigm, perhaps the most import-
ant o which are our current economic structures (see Part II). Afer all, it is hard
to turn rom the supposed source o our economic survival. Te miracle is that
hope and creative invention ofen thrive in the midst o the drama that a majorparadigm shif inevitably brings.
Contrasting MultiEarth and OneEarth Worldviews (Table I)
This table shows that worldviews impact all of our structures and behaviors
throughout society. The table is not comprehensive, but illustrative. The six con-
trasting points in the first section give a general Overview, followed by subsections
that elaborate on how the two worldviews contrast with one another.
MULTIEARTH WORLDVIEW ONEEARTH WORLDVIEW
OVERVIEW
Human species strives or lifestyles
that use more resources than available
on one planet
Human species aims or lifestyles
within the abundant resources o one
planet
All systemsrom ood production tofinance, commerce, and government
designed to extract more and more
despite creational order and limits
All systemsrom ood production tofinance, commerce, and government
designed with a sense o abundance
within creational order and limits
Ecological footprint exceeds one
planet
Ecological footprint fits within one
planet
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MULTIEARTH WORLDVIEW ONEEARTH WORLDVIEW
Emphasis on individualism socially
and economically reflects the effort in
physical sciences to understand all oreality by finding, separating, and ex-
amining particles o matter in search o
the basic building block or the whole;
energy, community and spirit/Spirit are
in a sidebar to essential reality
Emphasis on the entire community of
life socially and ecologically reflects the
effort in lie sciences to understand allo reality by observing the interdepen-
dence o all things, and the energy and
spirit/Spirit that holds all systems in
vibrant, evolving interconnection
Timeframes shaped by rewarding
those who act most quickly to gain
advantages in economics and power
Timeframes shaped by rewarding
those whose actions consider other
species, uture generations, natures
seasons, and Earths eco-region cycles
Technology brings convenience, speed,
improvement, health, wealth, and
scores o advantages in overcoming
obstacles to human lie and progress;
optimism abounds because o wealth
created by new products and how theyfix and save human enterprises
Technology brings benefits when it is
to scale within the parameters o plan-
etary and species wellbeing; scepticism
comes rom destruction o the planet
and people that result rom manuac-
ture and use o many technologies
RELIGION AND THE SACRED
Godis believed in, usually as the God
or deities o a religious tradition, is
restricted to the private sphere; is
invoked to address personal needs and
bless human endeavors
Godis the experience o Te
One beyond and behind all religious
traditions inherent in and beyond
the evolutionary processes o Earth and
Cosmos and seeks co-creativity romall lie
Gods of civilizationreceive daily de-
votion and are the deities o unctional
religion
Gods of civilizationare relativized to
the cosmic God o continuing Creation
Sacred and secular have separate
realms; sacred reduced to religious
sphere and absent as a living Spirit
or Mystery rom economics, politics,
business, and elsewhere
A deep sense o the sacred so inus-
es everything, everywhere that even
the termsecularloses meaning; no
realm is separate rom sacred presence
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MULTIEARTH WORLDVIEW ONEEARTH WORLDVIEW
Growth is the primary indicator that
an economy is healthyand unction-
ing or the greatest good o all; whenstock exchanges and GDPs o countries
are growing, the world is a better place
or all
Growth indicates health in an econ-
omy only when it fits within eco-sys-
tems o a region, generates a stronger,locally integrated economy, and serves
the wellbeing o all people and species
there; steady state economy
Economic structures designed or
export-import flow of moneyas
managed by non-local, large, and
multinational corporations, most ofen
weakening local economies
Economic structures designed or
money to flow through local enter-
prisesostering strong, local econo-
mies
Debtis an instrument o economic
growth and may be structured or
whatever terms serve the lenders
growth goals; some regulations apply
Debthelps a community only i
structured or the short term such
as seven years; longer terms quickly
shape wealth hierarchy and undermine
community; economic growth cannot
be linked to debt
Landis real estate, a basic tool owealth creation, and held by title to
give primary decisions or its use to the
private owner; considerations o use by
other species are ofen overridden
Landis sacred and must be held inways that steward it as commonwealth
or all lie; primary decisions regarding
it are made by community structures
with a view that includes generations
to come
Distribution o wealth moves to where
power concentrates and more wealth
accumulates leaving behind areas o
poverty both among people and Cre-
ation
Distributiono wealth moves through-
out local regions as power purposeully
remains decentralized and cooperative,
acilitating widespread sufficiency
among people and Creation
Consuming, owning, accumulating,
and saving are core economic activities
shaping the lives o people and driving
the economy
Sharing, giving, cooperative hold-
ing, and stewarding wealth of the
commons are core economic activities
shaping the lives o people and driving
the economy
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MULTIEARTH WORLDVIEW ONEEARTH WORLDVIEW
GOVERNMENT
Decisionsmade as egos and ego-sys-
tems vie or power, influence, control,
and dominance
Decisionsmade as people live out o a
deeper sense o Sel than ego and with-
in the context o eco-systems, seeking
cooperation and the common good
Power and assetscontinually central-
ize and structure into hierarchies
Power and assetscontinually decen-
tralize and structure into cooperatives
and conederations
Hierarchies arrange value, concentrate
power, and determine control
Hierarchiesassure ulfillment o
unction so that all parts exercise theirpower and ullest value o each part
benefits all
Corporations shape corporato-cracies
in which they rule; democratic orms
are maintained but so controlled that
people are denied real power; control
remains in the most powerul, richest
corporations
People shape democraciesin partic-
ipatory orms so that we the people
exercise real power within a worldview
to protect all lie orms as the real
wealth o a region
Corporate modelis best model, not
only or business, but also or educa-
tion, healthcare, ood supply, incarcer-
ation, and other social and economic
sectors; its track record o productivity
and efficiency have benefited all
Corporate model is one model among
others to use in organizing business,
education, healthcare, ood supply,
incarceration, and other social and
economic sectors; its track record
is marred by ecological and human
exploitation that counterbalances itsbenefits
NATURE AND MATURITY OF HUMAN SPECIES
Development o human conscious-
ness gets stunted and thus unctions
primarily as ego-centered, ethnic-cen-
tered, and imperially oriented
Development o human conscious-
ness encouraged to mature and thus
unction primarily as world-centered,
cosmos-centered, and spiritual
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MULTIEARTH WORLDVIEW ONEEARTH WORLDVIEW
Humans have evolved to the apex o
all Earth orms; our capacities separate
us rom other orms and equip us togovern and rule all Earth lie and sys-
tems, assuring lie rises above savagery
and is civilized
Humans have evolved inter-depen-
dentwith all Earth orms; our capac-
ities equip us or deepening the livingconsciousness throughout all Earth lie
and systems, seeking the deepest ex-
pressions o wellbeing already inherent
throughout evolutionary, creational
wisdom
Achieving strong independent individ-
uality and sel-reliance are praised as
essential to thrive as persons
Achieving deep interrelatedness with
all lie is the context where individuali-
ty matures and we thrive as persons
Securityexperienced through accumu-
lation o private assets
Securityexperienced through relation-
ship with all o Earths community o
lie
Higher capacities of humans seem
too weak to compete with capacities
such as greed or more power and
wealth so social and economic powerssuch as markets must be designed to
control base behaviors, bringing into
play such sel-regulating dynamics as
competition to acilitate positive results
Higher capacities of humans can
prevailover such capacities as greed
when systems are designed to reward
higher capacities o interdependence,love, and cooperation and conscious-
ness is encouraged to mature to where
we is more important than I, us,
and them
Meaning and significance of life
defined by our roles and success in
civilizations ways
Meaning and significance of life
defined by our interdependence with
Earths entire community o lie
ATTITUDE TOWARD NATURE
Tevalue of naturelies in whether or
not it is useul; does it have resources
that can produce commodities
Tevalue of natureis inherent in what
she teaches us, or the evolutionary
wisdom she holds, or her capacities
to bring essential inspiration to the
human spirit
Nature is an it,subservient to hu-
mans in a hierarchy with humans at the
top (males at the apex), living species
arranged in descending order with
inanimate matter at the bottom
Nature is a she,a Great Mother
with creational energy and Spirit; each
animate and inanimate part inter-con-
nected and ulfilling its purpose in her
community o lie
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MULTIEARTH WORLDVIEW ONEEARTH WORLDVIEW
Sacredness of natureis confined to
certain areas established as parks;
elsewhere sacredness is excluded andnature is a resource rom which to
extract products or sale and profit or
owners, including the land itsel
Sacredness of nature is everywhere re-
vered and celebrated in seasonal rituals
and estivals; extraction o resourcesproceeds only as needed and with
respect or the wellbeing o all species
and uture generations
Wildness (wild-erness) is savage,
filled with dangers to the human
species and needs to be taught, tamed,
ordered, civilized
Wildness (wild-erness) is a great
teachero the evolutionarily successul
ordering o Creation, keeps us connect-
ed with our own urges or reedom
How My Early Paradigm Was Formed, Then Changed
I was born in 1940 in an old Iowa armhouse during the early stages o recov-
ery rom the Great Depression. As my amily rented land to arm and raised us
children simply, we had just enough to get by. At the same time, I was also born
into a country vigorously committed to MultiEarth ways. At age six, I was playing
with sugar rationing stamps lefover rom World War II, unaware that my countrywas asserting itsel into world dominance. Soon, the Cold War was underway. In
that conflict, two MultiEarth systems, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, aced off in
several decades o a deadly game o geopolitical chess.
When I studied world history in school, it was, truthully speaking, not the
history o the entire world. It was the history o Western Civilization only. In class
we ignored the history o much o the Far East and the southern hemisphere. We
studied those large regions only in so ar as Europe and the U.S. were involved
with them. Intentional or not, that view o world history built in me the con-sciousness that the West mattered most and that my country was the leader o the
world. Te schooling that I went through as a young person shaped my worldview,
even though I was unconscious o it at the time.
Neither my parents nor most o the others in my extended amily had gone to
high school, but my sisters and I did. I continued on and went to college and then
graduate school, ollowing a path o education that prepared me or a proession
and led me straight into middle class America. In the process, I came to accept
that capitalism was superior to socialism, that my country was morally superior in
general when compared to other global powers, and that America did democracy
like my civics book said. It never occurred to me that my upbringing and educa-
tional path had also taken me into the middle o MultiEarth living.
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At midlie, my eyes began to open to what I could not see beore. During the
1980s and 90s I connected with many people who had been deeply changed po-
litically, economically, and religiously by what was going on in Latin America. All
had come to believe that the U.S. and MultiEarth interests in these countries weremostly wrong, sometimes desperately so. My growing relationships with these
individuals offered a sae and sacred place or my own deep changes. Much o what
Id regarded as true in the first hal o lie, particularly about my country and the
norms o the American liestyle, were turning into alsehoods or me. Conversely,
what some in America elt threatened by were becoming core belies in my lie.
Not long afer I moved rom Lincoln, Nebraska to the Chicago area in 1989, I
ound other people or whom experiences in Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador
or other Latin American countries had similarly been a turning point. One othem was Juanita, a member o the congregation I pastored. She had been deep-
ly impacted when she participated in a two-week delegation to Nicaragua and
Guatemala, seeing and eeling firsthand the injustices o U.S. interventions in those
countries and the consequent suffering inflicted on the lives o already-struggling
people.
Juanita and I were married in 1996. wo years later, at age 58, I took early re-
tirement, having pastored in three congregations in Nebraska and Illinois over the
previous 32 years. I was eager to leave the ecclesiastical structures that had become
too corporatized or me. Te previous year, Juanita had chosen early retirement
rom Amoco Corporation (now BP), unable to continue in what was or her a
toxic environment. We moved rom the suburbs into the city o Chicago where we
continued to be involved in riendships, organizations and activities that nurtured
our evolving commitment to live more justly in the world.
Gloria Kinsler, who had been the leader o the delegation to Latin America
through which Juanita had her lie-changing experience, re-entered our livesthrough a book she co-authored with her husband, Ross. In 1998, Grace and om
Gyori, who had been mission workers in Guatemala with the Kinslers, and who
had also been transormed there, brought a draf copy o the Kinslers book to the
attention o a group we were in that met to seek deeper understanding o events in
Latin America. Te Gyoris explained that Ross and Gloria were asking or eed-
back prior to sending the manuscript to the publisher. Te book responded to the
grim economic and political struggles the Kinslers had witnessed during their
many years o living and teaching in Guatemala and Costa Rica.Would our grouplike to take a look at it? the Gyoris wondered. We eagerly accepted the challenge.
Te book, Te Biblical Jubilee and the Struggle for Life,12had an immediate im-
pact on all o us who read it. It led some o us to orm an organization dedicated to
the economic model the book described, a model that challenged the global capital
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not we can escape the trap set by all that is part o what I am calling MultiEarths
blinding progress. Steinbecks conscious awareness o how paradoxically pro-
ductive, yet limiting, our non-Eden paradigm is makes his wrestling all the more
gripping and authentic.wo quotes rom Steinbeck illustrate his consciousness o the struggles between
the Eden vs. non-Eden dichotomy at the paradigm level:
We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the nev-
er-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me
that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immor-
tal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable
as nothing else in the world is.14 John Steinbeck, in East of Eden
It has always seemed strange to me, said Doc. Te things we admire
in men kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understand-
ing and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And
those traits we detest sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness,
egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men
admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the sec-
ond.15 John Steinbeck, in Cannery Row
At first blush, these quotes seem to be about the struggle between good and
evil, virtue and vice. But what makes his stories resonate is when we look at them
on the macro, the paradigm, level. Steinbeck sees how a paradigm rooted in virtue
is venerable even i evil can appear in it. On the other hand, when a paradigm
is rooted in vice, it needs to continually reinvent or respawn itsel in the ace o
virtues immortality. In this observation, Steinbeck identifies the main difference
between the MultiEarth and OneEarth paradigms. Tough both paradigms are
mixtures o virtue and vice, the MultiEarth paradigm, as we shall soon see, is root-
ed in vice and must continually show a new, resh ace. Te One Earth worldview,
on the other hand, is rooted in virtue and will consistently reveal its immortal,
distinguished venerability.
Cain and Abel: Mythology of Clashing Worldviews
o reresh our memories about the story that inspired Steinbeck, Cain and Abel
were brothers who lived two sharply distinguished worldviews. Abel was a no-madic herder; his brother Cain was a armer.16Tough these ways o living may
not seem so different to city-dwellers today, the difference between the two reveals
a major divide within the history o our species. Te movement rom nomadic
herding, hunting, and gathering to settled, more intensive arming that produced
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surpluses represented a major shif in livelihood and liestyle. In the story, Abel
and Cain each brought an offering to YHWH, their deity, rom their respec-
tive liework. Abel brought some premium cuts o meat rom his herd and Cain
brought some o his produce. YHWH liked Abels offering, but not Cains a clearapproval o the nomadic, herding worldview and disapproval o the agricultural
worldview. Cain was not happy. He became angry and depressed. YHWH asked
him why he elt this way and assured him he could be accepted i he did right, but
also warned him to be on his guard because evil desired to master him.
Soon Cain invited Abel to go out into the field. Tere, in the fields that he
armed, Cain killed his herder brother. YHWH approached Cain and asked where
Abel was. Cain shrugged, I dont know. Ten he added the words or which hes
best known: Am I my brothers keeper? But Cain was unable to escape account-ability. YHWH surprised Cain by telling him that the ground he tilled was also a
whistleblower that disclosed Cains murderous act:
Listen! Your brothers blood is crying out to me from the ground! And
now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth
to receive your brothers blood from your hand. When you till the
ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugi-
tive and a wanderer on Earth. Genesis 4:10-12
Tese were heavy words or Cain to hear. It was a greater punishment, he said,
than he could bear. Te soil, the very oundation o the lie choices he had made,
would not yield at ull strength or him any longer. Furthermore, his relationship
with YHWH would be less immediate and personal. He would be less connected
with the land than he desired to be. Furthermore, he elt threatened by others,
especially herders, hunters, and gatherers, earul that they would want revenge.
YHWH, not wanting to see reprisal or Abels murder, put a mark on Cain to send
a clear signal that violence by herders and hunters against agriculturalists could
not make things right not or Abel and not or anyone. In this way, YHWH
rejected the notion that one act o violence could be made right by committing an-
other. Despite this clear rejection o redemptive violence by YHWH, MultiEarthers
continue to espouse that wrongs can be brought to justice through violence. Retri-
bution and war continue to be chosen as a primary way in MultiEarth thinking to
end conflicts and bring about peace. Cain, having received his divine mark, went
away rom the presence o YHWH and settled in the land o Nod, east o Eden.When storytellers first told the Cain and Abel story, they were grappling with
a world undergoing the disruptive changes that came with the evolution o settled
agriculture and growing cities. Te new liestyle, economy and worldview that
embodied these changes had begun emerging around 10,000 BCE. During our
previous 200,000 years, human beings had never beore lived in cities or armed to
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produce surplus or market. Te nomadic herders, hunters and gatherers who de-
clined the new agricultural ways were chagrined by how such arming was chang-
ing the landscape. Privately protected fields increasingly blocked their migratory
patterns across commons which they had tended as stewards but never tamed orsettled on as producers. Nor did the nomadic herders consider these new ways to
be signs o progress. Communities, even members o the same amilies, developed
conflicts between the two worldviews. Some gravitated to the modernizing views
o land use and city living, seeing a pathway to improving their lives. Others were
grieved by such disconnections rom the land and the ways o Nature. Tey simply
couldnt trust a way o lie that they saw separating people into economic and
social classes which arrayed themselves against one another. Stories such as Cain
and Abel emerged to express their eelings and protest what they saw happening.Despite their protests, MultiEarthism continued to expand their version o im-
provement and Progress.
None o these underlying dynamics o human history were ever included in
the story o Cain and Abel as I learned it. I had no idea that it was not until afer
587 B.C.E., the year Jerusalem and the emple o Solomon were destroyed by the
oreign empire o Babylon, that the Cain and Abel story became part o the biblical
book o Genesis. By then, the tensions between the people o the land and the
people o the cities had been developing or millennia. Te Jews, who had been
orcibly relocated rom their city, Jerusalem, to the capitol o the Babylonians,
disagreed with and resisted their unamiliar culture. None who taught me this
story apparently knew how it met the needs o the Jews captured in Babylon to
create and pass on stories such as this in order to counter the ones they heard their
captors tell about how the Babylonian empire was established by the gods and
governed by divine right. Genesis was the Jews answer. In the Cain and Abel story,
they saw Babylon, and other dominating centers o power that grew out o settledagriculture, as represented by Cain. Teir ingenious creation o Cain olded into
one cultural, mythological character what they had come to regard as two major
negative developments in the human story increasingly intensive arming and
increasingly complex cities.
I was well along in my own paradigm shif rom MultiEarther to OneEarther
when I began to eel the power that the story o Cain and Abel had originally.
Once I could listen to the story with an awareness o its original intent, I realized
that I was coming to a deeper truth with it. As Id heard the story taught, preached,and misused throughout my lie, Cain was presented as the first murderer, a dark
example o allen human nature and nothing much more. But Cain and his brother
are so much more. Tey were and are representative characters o a drama that
changed how our species lives on Earth because they represent the great divorce
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between those preerring decentralized power to those eager to concentrate it
in cities. Tinking o them simply as historical offspring o Adam and Eve could
never deliver that truth.
With this new way o understanding the story, I began to make other connec-tions as well. Te more I learned about the two worldviews represented in the
story, the more I recognized how Abel represented those who saw Earth as a Great
Commons that provided enough or all through the highly cooperative human
work o herding and the nomadic, migratory liestyle. Cain, on the other hand,
represented those who believed that improvement came when humans worked the
soil to produce a surplus so that settlements and markets could happen. Villages,
and then cities, ollowed. Increasingly, these settlers enclosed the commons, evolv-
ing practices that eventually allowed or private ownership. Teir gains competeddirectly with the interests o migratory communities. Enclosing the commons
continued as a historic trend, increasing over centuries into the present. oday,
the wealthy, corporations and rich nations ollow in this centuries-long pattern o
bringing commonly held land and water into private, highly profitable ownership.
Doing so has been essential to MultiEarth success. Te worldview o Cain has
thrived through countless incarnations into the present.
Te storytellers who conceived o the Cain and Abel story show dazzling un-
derstanding o how worldviews create sharply contrasting worlds in physical reali-
ty. Just as they understood Abel and Cain to represent the two, distinct, big-picture
stories o their time, so also today, lie on our planet is defined as a choice between
two macro-stories MultiEarth and OneEarth. When Cain killed his brother,
Abel, it also expressed the deep and murderous separation that happens every
time the MultiEarth story splits anew rom OneEarth ways, believing itsel to be
superior. I we keep these brothers locked up in history, then Cain will be only the
prototype o murderers, the ones we criminalize. But reed to be understood myth-ologically rather than historically, Cain represents the kind o violence with which
all o us MultiEarth practitioners kill lie on our planet.
How Genesis Mythology Protests MultiEarth Ways
My assertions about the Genesis storytellers come rom scholars whose writings
I have sought out to answer my own questions about the comparative attraction
o MultiEarth versus OneEarth living. One such scholar, Wes Howard-Brook,
distinguishes between what he calls empire religion and creation religion, rough
equivalents o MultiEarth and OneEarth worldviews. It was while reading the
Catholic Agitator, the newsletter o the Los Angeles Catholic Worker,17that I read a
highly affirming review o Howard-Brooks book, Come Out, My People! Gods
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Call Out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond.18 I quickly recognized that this book
was important to my quest or OneEarth living.
Howard-Brook addresses the question that was as yet unresolved or
me Who werethese storytellers who told the tales o Eden, Cain andAbel? and does so with the conviction that the question must be answered in
ull detail i we are to understand the importance o these mythological tales or
modern times. Going beyond my shorter answer that these first biblical storytell-
ers were Jews living in Babylon in the 6th century BCE, Howard-Brook explains
how not only the Cain and Abel story, but the whole book o Genesis as we read
it today, came together in Babylon among Jews whom the Babylonian military
had removed rom Jerusalem, marched orcibly to Babylon, and put into settle-
ments designed or captives o war. Tey needed stories that gave meaning to theirugly situation. Living as Jewish reugees in the capitol city o the empire that had
conquered them and their beloved Jerusalem, Genesis was their answer to what is
otherwise the oldest written book o origins known to humans, the Enuma Elish,
the Babylonian book o origins. Enuma Elishtold how Babylon had been estab-
lished by the gods. With that kind o lofy, sacred heritage and divine authority,
Babylonian MultiEarthers justified their right to bring their superior ways to the
world around them, using orce as necessary. Teir expansionist plans included the
land to their west which was controlled by the monarchy o Judah, a weak monar-
chy that was in considerable disarray at the time.
Te people o Judah attached their identity to two anchors: Jerusalem and
Solomons emple. It was inconceivable to them that YHWH would permit these
two sacred sites to be destroyed. But it proved to be a alse sense o security. When
Babylons army pulled up these two anchors, they humiliated the Judeans. Teir
disbelie and shock simulated what ours would be i Washington, D.C., and New
York City were demolished, along with all o the U.S.s major economic centers,national shrines and houses o religious worship. Furthermore, imagine all o the
ruling elite o these cities being taken captive and sent to Beijing, ehran, or some
other oreign city o power.
old in protest o what they saw in Babylon, the stories o Genesis plotted a new
direction or the Jews at the time. Living under Babylons MultiEarth worldview
and rules, the Jews saw anew the wisdom o the OneEarth worldview and creat-
ed stories to carry that wisdom. How had they gotten so ar away rom it? they
wondered. Shunning the Enuma Elishcreation story in which humans and empiresrise out o acts o violence among the gods, the Jews told stories that reconnected
their own origins to an incredibly good Creation brought orth by the powerul,
nonviolent words o their Creator. Tey compiled these stories as theiranthology
o theirorigins, including the origins o what went wrong.
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Once I knew how the Adam and Eve (i.e. Eden), Cain and Abel, and Genesis
stories came to be, I recognized them as tales that speak about our situation today.
Te authors had lived deeply in the bitterness o MultiEarth conquest. Tey knew
what it elt like to be living in the culture o a superpower, Babylon, and having tolisten to its own sel-justiying stories. Te stories they created in protest energize
my turning rom the MultiEarth stories o today and uel my desire to make and
stand behind stories that advocate OneEarth living. Reflecting back on their own
history, the Jews in Babylon knew that their own MultiEarth experiments seen
in the monarchies o David, Solomon and their successors ended horribly.
When they heard their oreign conquerors stories, those conquered Jews knew be-
yond a doubt that they needed stories to help them understand how humans were
being repeatedly tricked into believing the shining lie o MultiEarth living. Toseare exactly the stories I look or today. I want stories that expose MultiEarth ways
and speak truthully about the possibility o OneEarth living.
My search or such stories and practices has been all the more challenging
because o the many voices Ive heard over my lietime whove taught me to think
o Eden more as something that existed only in a ar off biblical history. When
made into a story o the past, Genesis tells how we humans ell into sin and how,
rom that point orward, weve been in a weakened state. In our allen condition,
human greed and MultiEarth ways have become too mighty to be mastered. Cap-
italism is partly based on this idea. Since greed cannot be ully mastered, markets
must be designed to make the best o greedy urges. Over decades, however, many
teachers and authors have invited me to look at human nature, greed, and capi-
talism through different lenses. As a result, Ive come to have a healthy distrust
o MultiEarth stories. Instead, I seek out the stories that express the OneEarth
paradigm stories that evoke reverence and respect or the Great Commons o
our planet.
How Cain Lives in Us through the MultiEarth Paradigm
Mythology reveals what is inside o us as well as whats in our culture. So it makes
sense that to understand the grip o MultiEarth ways on me, I need to be aware
o how Cain lives in me too. Not that I like to think about this act much. Afer
all, who doesnt preer being the good guy in the story rather than the bad guy?
But its not much o a stretch to see Cain alive in me in many ways. Te jealousy
and envy that are so ertile in MultiEarth culture live in me ar more than I admit
publicly. I have sought revenge to varying degrees, whether directly or by employ-
ing passive-aggressive behaviors. In addition, Cains notion that he could improve
on OneEarth ways gets conused with my healthy aspirations to improve mysel,
my amily, and any work or organization Im part o. Improving onesel without
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crossing over into the realm o MultiEarth excess takes a high amount o aware-
ness on how the two paradigms differ. o be clear, there is nothing about Edenic or
OneEarth living that thwarts healthy growth and creativity. What is needed is the
capacity to recognize the undamental difference between improving while stayingwithin the creational order o the universe as opposed to thinking we can improve
upon those orders themselves. My Cain-sel, ull o ego and grandiose ambition,
either doesnt know the difference between these two objectives or believes it can
revise those orders or my own benefit and the supposed benefit o others.
A riend once reerred to such egocentric views o the world as the illusion
o the central position. Cains MultiEarth worldview is distorted by that illusion.
When immersed in that illusion, we repeatedly see ourselves as having better ideas
than those who came beore us. Nor do we stop there. We can convince ourselvesthat we have better ways than what Creation itsel has set orth. Our current eco-
logical ootprints show the results o our attempts to improve on Creations order.
We can also see this illusion o the central position on a national and orga-
nizational level, as well as on an individual one, whenever being first or on top
matters most. Psychological maturity is, in part, about going beyond this illusion.
It is about coming to know that who we are includes a greater Sel that is capable o
seeing a world larger than what the ego sel can see. It is this maturity o the great-
er Sel that brings us into the ullness o OneEarth living. Essential as a healthy
sense o I or ego is, the sign of maturity comes in having a strong sense
of that which is not Ibut rather that which is of the Self,connected to all life.
When we act rom this greater Sel, we can have a ar larger impact on the world
than we can in the egocentric illusion o the central position. Cain in me does
not have such abilities.
When we live in the Cain-like illusion o the central position, we see humans,
including ourselves, as the culmination o our and a hal billion years o evolu-tionary processes and conclude that everything until now has been a prelude or
our arrival! We see Nature as being here to serve us. Seeing ourselves as the wisest
species o them all, we presume that we know how to use, manage and control
more o the powers o Nature than we actually do. Our egocentric view o the
world immaturely underestimates and understates Natures wonderul wildness.
Shaped by this egocentric illusion, we consider Natures wildness in need o our
civilized ways o living in order to make Nature serve its true purposes. But our
egos are too small to truly assess all that Nature is doing.Looking through MultiEarth lenses, we are unable to see the lie-generating
biodiversity o our planet. In the illusionary, MultiEarth bubble, we do not suffi-
ciently value the intricate interconnections which vigorously interact across our
planet day and night to generate the cornucopia o lie. We value, rather, the short-
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term profit that we can extract rom this cornucopia through new technologies
such as happens in racking rock shale ormations to harvest natural gas and oil.
Tese carbon resources remained saely sequestered in the rock until new tech-
nologies made access affordable to companies. Our egos love profits too much toweigh the ull impacts on other people and species, the environment, and uture
generations. Tese profit decisions, made inside the ego bubble, show another way
that Cain walks the Earth today.
Ironically, those ego selves rom which the MultiEarth project o civilization
emerged also release the seeds o its destruction. Multitudes o those seeds have
now grown up to bear ruit toxic to Earth. Cains antagonism toward Abel persists
today, and unleashes its greatest global impact yet.
Where MultiEarth History Seceded
Tough the Cain and Abel myth is not history, the history to which the myth
points involves the centuries-long emergence o settled agriculture, the connection
between such agriculture and urbanization, and the antagonisms o that history
that continue to this day.
In Daniel Quinns book, Ishmael,19a gorilla teaches a human about a way o
viewing the world in which humans are part o Nature, along with gorillas andall species, not above it. Ishmael, the gorilla, explains to his human student how
Homo sapiens,who treat Nature as i its there or their use, have usurped that role.
He also details an important challenge to how his student understands history.
As Juanita and I read the book aloud to one another, I quickly realized that my
own view o history was the same as Ishmaels student. I, too, had been schooled to
equate the history o human civilization with all o history. Even more narrowly,
most o what was called world history in my education was, as I mentioned earli-
er, no more than the significant, but limited, story o Western civilization. Whatev-
er came beore the history o human civilization was simply lumped together as
prehistory. And prehistory was, o course, inerior to history. One o the reasons
that I came to think o us humans as an advanced species was because we have
ascended rom prehistory into history by way o one long, continuous storyline
that has led us to the shining present. Tis progression, Ishmael explained, can
be diagrammed as a straight line with Prehistory at the lef and then inserting
History in the line starting around 10,000 BCE.
But Ishmael taught his student about a great separation that happened in the
storyline. Beginning around 10,000 BCE, some o our human species became so
sure that there was a better way to live than what had sustained us in Earths com-
munity or hundreds o thousands o years that they went their separate way and
began a completely different storyline. Te result o this separation was that now
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