The Answer is 42

fritz-kahnnew.jpgWe love our humanness but we need to contain it. Our beautiful structures, shiny and grand, our desire to manicure everything, the need to build, and build, and build. Our ant nature. We are related to chimpanzees and bonobos. Closely related. This is contrary to our habit of seeing ourselves removed from the natural order. We’ve engineered our surroundings on a scale so grand we’ve impacted other species and the climate.

Is it possible to be different? I can’t see it. I can’t see us, all 6 billion of us, renouncing materialism and consumer culture and living humbly. We pity the people who now live as humbly as we maybe should. Third world people living subsistence lives.The wealthy around the globe who’ve accumulated the most don’t want to give an inch. Our chimp nature. Monkey hoarders. No one wants miss out, to be left behind.

Truth is, no one is really sure where we’re going. Why do we accumulate? Scarce resources? That thinking leads to wars and shortages and survival of the fittest. Or the smartest. Or just the most brutal. It’s exclusivity as its best. It’s “better me than you.” But that mentality is bringing us all down.blueman-lg.jpg

Here in the “western hemisphere” (a complete construct) we have traditionally frowned on proscriptive politics where someone or some group seeks to steer the masses in a concerted effort toward some heroic goal. We call that communism or tyranny. We think it’s bad, unnatural, and leading to no good. At what point do we reconsider that idea? What if the plan of action is solid and improves the quality of life for everyone? Self-serving all-natural competitiveness is ruining the world as we know it. We need leaders who are anti-Cheney with his hunting, discompassionate, hatred of things that should be sacred like human rights, environmental stewardship, and peaceful coexistence. We need to become fundamentally different. We’ve got good people: Christians who can love more and protect less, business people who can first do the right thing, parents who accept that two children is enough, farmers who refuse to poison the soil they know gives us almost everything we need.

Who are we today? How can we be different? We can start by getting off the hate bus. We are all one together, not a threat to each other. If we want to make it so, we can have paradise on earth. Less people, plenty of food, plenty of space. Less people is key. More trust is essential.

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July 13, 2008 | Filed Under Thinking Too Hard 

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