blinded by progress: breaking out of the illusion that holds us

8/13/2019 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:[email protected]

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

i


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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

xiv Blinded by Progress: Breaking Out of the Illusion That Holds Us


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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.

Introduction xv


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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.

xvi Blinded by Progress: Breaking Out of the Illusion That Holds Us


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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.

4 Blinded by Progress: Breaking Out of the Illusion That Holds Us


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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

MultiEarth Ecological Footprints 5


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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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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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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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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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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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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



35/44

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



36/44

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

24 Blinded by Progress: Breaking Out of the Illu

blinded by progress: breaking out of the illusion that holds us

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