One from the archives...

A post from one of my previous blogs - June 2006



I couldn't have said it better, myself...

"Western culture is still relatively uncivilized, focused on the external conquest of other civilizations, violence, war, imperialism, and a rampant need for material possession and self-aggrandizement. Contrary to its inflated self-image, it is NOT the most advanced culture the world has yet seen. Its very developed material technology is, in fact, put to childish uses of violent destruction and thoughtless consumption. Its worst problem is its foundational confusion, which leads those of us under its thrall to feel disconnected from nature. Hence we tend do be not responsible for the consequences of our actions, and distract ourselves from the extreme danger of destroying everything in our path by the irrational promise of either a blissful salvation by an absolutely disconnected omnipotent "God" or else a blissful oblivion.

Hence our babarous culture - I do not call it a "civilization" - poses the ultimate threat to planetary life, to all the human beings of other more ancient and better balanced cultures, all other life forms, and the eco-system itself. We are deploying the five horsemen of our imminent man-made apocolypse; population explosion, epidemic disease, unlivable pollution, resource depletion, and wars of mass destruction. The urgent need, therefore, is for we bearers of this imbalanced, disconnected culture to rediscover our interconnection with the rest of life, our infinite responsibility to ourselves and all other living beings, the extreme negative danger of our continuing on the path of destruction and consumption, and the positive potential for us to find a reliable happiness within our own souls, to conquer our own inner negative habits, and to cultivate our infinite capacity for love and joy."
-Robert A. F. Thurman (The Way of the White Clouds)


In other words: "Pull your heads out of your sheltered, ignorant, American asses and wake up to the reality that (a) WE are responsible for the impending demise of this planet, (b) we don't know shit about truth, justice, freedom, or what's right and wrong, and (c) we should probably do something about it.

*steps off soapbox*
:)