SEP 8 WB -218 (Two Minds... Faustian Economics)
- With the 9/11 anniversary coming soon, what do you think it should have taught us about what WB calls the cultural landscape? Have we learned anything valuable from it?
- WB offers strip mining as an example of disregard for the cultural landscape that leads directly to destruction of the physical landscape. What other examples come to mind? 178
- COMMENT?: "The dominant faith of the world in our time is rationality." 179
- WB distinguishes Rational Mind from Sympathetic Mind. 180ff. Does he mean Rationalist and Empiricist? Does he neglect to distinguish Rationalism from rationalism? Is Rationality as he characterizes it a caricature? (Or a description of Vulcans?)
- Do the "optimists of scientific rationalism, which is scornful of limits" (183) sound more like the relatively marginal techno-utopians and trans-humanists who want to live forever?
- Can we properly balance our "creatureliness" (184) with scientific inquisitiveness, and thus achieve a Rational AND Sympathetic Mind?
- Do you see significant similarities between WB's worldview and Buddhism? 187
- In light of the "implicit contradiction between tall buildings and airplances," how can we manage the contradiction, still fly, and still have tall buildings? 192
- Is there no "good use of destructive power"? 193
- Are rationality and spirituality compatible? 197
- Is the idea of "nature preserves" anti-environmental? 198
- Is WB a Luddite? Are country people generally? 201
- "The idiocy of rural life" was not originated by The New Republic, but by Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto: "The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. " COMMENT?
- COMMENT?: "The real names of global warming are 'waste' and 'greed'..." 207
- COMMENT?: "The world-ending fire of industrial fundamentalism may already be burning in our furnaces and engines..."208
- COMMENT?: "For those who reject heaven, hell is everywhere..." 211 (My comment: you coulda fooled me.)
- What do you think of "community economy" and the "sharing of fate"? Is it socialism? 214
COMMENT?: "The real names of global warming are 'waste' and 'greed'..." 207
ReplyDeleteI agree with Berry's statement that the real names of global warming are waste and greed. Waste primarily can be witnessed in industrial/commercial agriculture. Big agribusiness farms have large machines that require fossil fuels and are used daily. The food yielded is either sent to grocery stores or restaurants where if not consumed/bought within the shelf-life is thrown away- not given to soup kitchens or given away on the side of the road or preserved, but wasted, thrown away.
Greed is often connected with technological advancements rather than agribusiness (though some may say agribusiness farmers trying to grow as much as possible constantly represent a greed with natural resources and capacity of land they're using). Thinking of celebrities that have their own private jet that they use regularly, or even companies like Apple that come out with new products every year and as soon as a new product is released the previous version of the same product starts having bugs and not working properly forcing the consumer to buy a new product.
Then there are the hyper-rich that have the ability to buy island, visit space for fun, or host yacht parties every weekend that are greedy for status but the methods in which they're trying to achieve a higher status or detrimental to our environment.
In short, yes, greed and waste are the the reason for global warming. Greed to advance and to possess excess; waste of natural resources and opportunities to lift up those that need help in the community.