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The Earth Party Narrative
Chapter 2:
The Two Cosmologies
In order to navigate Life, human beings create models of the world. We give it a shape, and a story of how it came to be.
This is called a cosmology, and it gives us a way of understanding the Universe and our own place in it.
Every culture, on every continent, in every time period, has (and has had) a cosmology. And this includes the "modern" world. We have a cosmology too.
While cosmologies do vary greatly across the world, there are nevertheless some general patterns that repeat. And there are two specific categories that every cosmology falls into: the circle and the pyramid.
Although the content varies from culture to culture, and you will find wild differences in surface-level details, the shape remains one of these two.
We will now explain what each is about. After explaining them, we will compare their products - the effects and consequences that flow from each.
The Circle Cosmology
Originally, the human race had a concept of the world that went something like this:
Life is a community.
Man is a member of it.
We share this world with all of the other members.
No member is better than any other.
From the largest creature to the tiniest... plants, animals, even the Earth itself and the stars and the space within it: everything is conscious, and all are members of the Community.
The Universe is conscious, and consciousness pervades the Universe.
(Interestingly, the physicist Niels Bohr came up with the same theory, identifying Consciousness as the "Source Field" from which all space, time, matter, and energy arises, and this theory is gaining acceptance in the particle physics community).
And since there's Life everywhere, everything is sacred. No matter where you look, you're looking at Life. The whole world is sacred.
And therefore, everything around us deserves respect. The environment we're in, our ecosystem, all the creatures, plants and animals, around us: all are Life, all are sacred.
A community is a collection of individuals, in which each individual recognizes their connection to all other individuals, and doesn't think themselves above or better than the other individuals - and so, therefore, the other individuals have just as many rights, entitlements and privileges as they do, and no one's whims or desires should go above anyone else's needs. Everyone owes respect to everyone, and everyone deserves respect from everyone.
The community has no top and no bottom.
No beginning, and no end.
There are no superiors or inferiors. (Such a concept doesn't even exist yet, in Circle societies).
Everyone is a member of one interrelated Community.
The Community of Life is a living spirit - a consciousness, an intelligence, a Being in its own right, more than just the sum of all its individuals.
This belief system leads to a World Model that's shaped like a circle.
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In the minds of aboriginal peoples (and all peoples if you go back far enough in time), this is what the world looks like. This is the world's shape.
But then...
Everything changed when some people came up with a different story...
The Pyramid Cosmology
Somewhere along the line (and archaeology does have a pretty good idea of where), some humans came up with a new model of the world.
And it goes something like this:
The universe is not alive, or conscious. Only Man is conscious.
The universe is an object. Not a who, but an it.
The entire natural world: the planet we live on, and all the plants and animals in it - are not "who"s, but "it"s. They are nothing but resources for Man to use and exploit.
Their entire purpose is to serve Man - and they have absolutely no purpose outside of that, and no value beyond their usefulness to Man.
And they are all subordinate to Man. Nature is subordinate to Man. The entire ecosystem, and all Life within it - indeed the land itself, and every living being who lives in it or upon it, is the property of Man. Man owns Nature. Man has the right to do whatever he wants with "it". Whatever he sees fit.
Man has dominion over the land, the waters, and the skies, and all plants and animals. And maybe Woman too. And occasionally his fellow man.
This is hard to even say, or write. This sounds like violence, doesn't it? This is an ideology built out of violence - can you feel it?
Anyway, let's get it out on paper, so we can inspect it, and see what kind of insanity is really lying at the root of all these problems.
While individual men own individual chunks of the planet, all such ownership claims are ultimately derived from a chain of succession reaching back to one very Big and Powerful man, whose name is "God", who owns the entire planet, and doles out chunks of it to men and nations as his vassals.
Since He has the right to use the land, and all living beings within it, in whatever way He sees fit, He also has the right to pass along that same authority to his vassals.
And thus, Man has the same authority, to do whatever he sees fit, to the land, and to every living being within it, in the name of his sky-throne-dwelling Lord and Master.
This belief system leads to a world model that's shaped like a pyramid:
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Man at the top.
Woman right beneath him.
Next, other species whom we directly exploit for economic benefit (such as sheep, goats, cows, and horses).
Finally, all other species, which we don't have a need for.
Actually, that last statement is not true. And it's so not true, it's actually what's leading us towards our downfall.
In reality, we need every species.
We might not notice or understand our need for all of them, but they're all part of the ecosystem, and are all vital to its optimum functioning.
But, of course, our dependence on an animal that we have a direct economic use for, such as a sheep or a cow, is more easy to see than that of, say, an ant or a dandelion, upon whom our dependency passes through several other inter-species relationships before it reaches us.
But we do depend on them - on all of them.
We forgot that. And we started treating all forms of life that we didn't see any immediate value in, as if they were completely expendable - an annoyance, an obstacle, or a resource at best.
Think about that. Nature used to be a community - a universal field of sacredness. Then it became a commodity, and/or an outright adversary - something inconvenient, to be replaced with our "better" and "more orderly" order of things.
Can you start to see the violence that happened to the human mind in order to produce our current civilization?
And thus we have the two world models:
The circle model, wherein Life is recognized as a community, and the pyramid model, in which Life is a hierarchy of dominion.
These are the Two Cosmologies.
The Community Cosmology...
...and the Dominion Cosmology.
Here's a quick comparison:
Universe: Animate
Life: Community
Man's place: Member
Species: Interrelated
Purpose: to Exist, to Live
Value: Intrinsic
Positions: Equal
Outlook: Sacred
Beings: Beings
Attitude: Respect
Universe: Inanimate
Life: Hierarchy
Man's place: Owner
Species: Causally Isolated
Purpose: to Serve Man
Value: Insofar As Useful
Positions: Superior/Inferior
Outlook: Economic
Beings: Things
Attitude: Exploitation
Now here's the important question:
Which one is better?
Which one is more closely aligned with the truth?
Which one leads to healthier societies?
Well, first let's identify who has each.
Who uses the Circle model?
We generally call them "indigenous peoples."
Or "aboriginals."
Or "bushmen."
And they recognize Life as a community, of which they are members - not masters.
These cultures can still be found in Africa, Australia, the jungles of Central America, the High Andes, the Amazon, the Arctic Circle, the American West, upland Southeast Asia, the high mountains of Inner Asia and the Tibetan Plateau, remote pockets of Siberia, the interior of Papua, the smaller islands of the Indonesian Archipelago, and a few islands in the Pacific Ocean.
People with recent aboriginal ancestry can be found everywhere, but intact aboriginal cultures are only found in those areas, because those areas are some of the last remaining un-colonized lands, with the largest tracts of un-developed wilderness, due in part to their remoteness, along with other factors.
They all share the Circle cosmology. They use different names, and different stories, but the shape is always the same.
And the Pyramid cosmology is the "modern" world. What we refer to as "civilization."
Every culture in the world is a Circle culture... until "civilization" colonizes it.
Most people who are trained in the Pyramid model believe that colonization brings an improvement. They say things like:
"We brought them civilization..."
"Before us, they were living in grass huts..."
"Before us, they were savages..."
"Before us, they had no modern conveniences..."
"Our ways are better than their ways."
But is this really true?
Is the Pyramid model more accurate than the Circle model?
Is it healthier?
To answer this question, we will borrow a line from the Bible:
"By their fruits ye shall know them."
If you don't know what kind of tree you're looking at, look at the fruit.
If you want to know the true nature of a social system, or a belief system, then look at what kind of results it produces.
What follows in its wake?
How does the world look, in places where the cosmology in question holds sway?
"Oh, I know what you're doing!
You're about to start ROMANTICIZING indigenous peoples!
You're going to portray them as if they're all super-spiritual, nature-loving, "enlightened ones"!
That's a classic Leftist ploy! It's a mischaracterization! It's designed to make Western Civilization look bad! And it's not true! The indigenous people that the West conquered were just as horrible towards Nature as anyone else!"
It's no ploy. It's the truth.
"And how do you know that?"
We can verify it with our own eyes.
"How?"
In places where aboriginal peoples live (or lived until very recently), there are old-growth forests. Virgin forests. Forests that have never been cut down.
"OK, maybe those forests are nice and mature NOW... but how do you know they were always like that?
I mean, I read a theory that the Native American tribes were cutting and burning their forests all the time, and the only reason the European settlers found mature forests when they pushed into the interiors of the continents, was because the natives had all died from plagues (like smallpox) that the Europeans introduced. So by the time they went westwards, the natives had been gone for a century, and the forests had regrown."
Nope. It takes far longer than a century to produce a mature, old-growth forest. It takes many hundreds of years. Thousands, even. Far longer than the time-frame in which colonization has been going on.
And how do you explain trees being 1000+ years old?
In order for a tree to be 1000+ years old, humans must never have cut or burned it.
And in order for a forest to be filled with such trees, humans must have never cut or burned the forest.
There's our proof, staring us right in the face.
3000 years old - South Africa
800 year old oak tree
3000 years old - Mexico
2000 years old - California
3000 years old - Botswana
1000 year-old Yew trees - Wales
This proves that aboriginal peoples had a fundamentally different relationship with Nature, compared to the cultures that conquered and replaced them.
The conquering cultures even documented the spectacular abundance of Life that they found in the places inhabited by the aboriginal peoples.
Columbus wrote: [quote needed]
[Author's note: I remember reading quotes from the explorers about abundant life in the Americas... but I can't find the quotes now. If you know where to find them, please email me at arbordragon@yahoo.com Thanks!]
Varazzano wrote: [quote needed]
Cartier wrote: [quote needed]
Cabot wrote: [quote needed]
Lewis and Clarke wrote: [quote needed]
This is the kind of abundance the aboriginals were living with.
"Well, sure, because they had such small populations!"
No they didn't. North America had a native population of over 100 million people!
They managed to preserve all this Life, even with fairly large populations.
It wasn't their population numbers - it was their methods.
"How do we know those quotes weren't made up? Maybe those explorers were embellishing - perhaps even lying - because they wanted to drum up interest in their patron countries, to validate their expeditions, and continue receiving funding!"
All of them? They were all lying?
"Hmm... Well, it's a possibility, isn't it?"
We know they weren't lying, because these abundances were clearly visible to us (or to our ancestors).
We know, for instance, that they didn't drive species to extinction - because those species existed when "modern civilization" showed up!
For instance, they obviously didn't hunt the dodo bird to extinction, because dodo birds existed in the 1800's, when "modern civilization" arrived on the scene.
15,000 (perhaps as much as 30,000) years, with the dodo bird, when the aboriginals were in charge.
Then, 100 years of "modern civilization" in charge, and no more dodo bird.
Same for the passenger pigeon.
Flocks of this bird used to be so large they darkened the sky for days at a time, as they passed. Observers mistook the sound for thunder.
Passenger Pigeon Migration, 1800's
The passenger pigeon went from such abundance, to zero, in less than 100 years.
Same with so many other species, who once walked roamed, swam, and flew all across the continents, only to be winked out in an instant, relative to the total time-span of human history.
And those that remain, do so in drastically reduced numbers.
From the author Derrick Jensen:
The Tolowa Indians lived [in the Pacific Northwest]
for at least 12,500 years, and when the
dominant culture arrived, salmon still ran so
thick they turned entire rivers “black and roiling”
with their bodies.
Can you imagine so many whales
that the air looks foggy, just from their breath?
Can you imagine fish in such abundance
that they slow the passage of ships?
Can you imagine entire islands so full of
great auks that one European explorer said
they could load every ship in France and it
would not make a dent? Well, they did, and it did,
and the last great auk was killed in the 19th century.
How did the world get to be so full of life in the first place?
Source: Derrick Jensen: "As the Amazon Burns, It's Time to Roll Up Our Sleeves"
All across the world, the original cultures preserved their environments. They preserved such an abundance of Life, that people from the "modern world" marveled at it.
This proves that aboriginal peoples had a fundamentally different relationship with Nature, compared to the cultures that conquered and replaced them.
"But... They still did SOME damage, right? They still cut down SOME trees, didn't they? Perhaps there are 1000 year old trees in some parts, but not in every place. They still practice agriculture (some of them at least), and agriculture means replacing the original ecosystems, doesn't it? They weren''t 100% perfect non-harmers of Nature. They caused some damage, sometimes, in some places."
We can't prove that every aboriginal culture took perfect care of their ecosystem, and none of them ever cut down any trees. We can't prove that. In fact, it's true that some of them did practice farming.
And some even had urban centers:
But they never, ever destroyed the land itself.
Even in the few cases where they may have caused significant damage to the ecosystem, they didn't destroy the land. They didn't remove the land's ability to regenerate.
They didn't strip mine. They never did this:
They didn't do mountaintop removal.
The entire top of this mountain has been chopped off, and the land scoured down to the bedrock. Nothing will grow back, because all of the soil is gone. It will take tens of thousands of years for trees to break the rock down into soil and recolonize this area.
They didn't do this:
Or this:
The didn't create garbage landscapes.
They never made land so poisonous that a person could never set foot in it.
Or toxic waste dumps.
This proves that aboriginal peoples had a fundamentally different relationship with Nature, compared to the cultures that conquered and replaced them.
"OK, maybe they had a healthier society, in lots and lots of ways. OK, all this is well and good, and good for them! But there were also negatives, no? They had no modern medicine. Imagine what that musta been like! Everyone getting sick all the time, with no medicine at all! It makes me shudder to think of!"
Contagious diseases were not as widespread as you're assuming. They are nowadays - but you're assuming nowadays = always. And that's not true.
For instance:
When Europeans arrived in the Americas, the native population caught the Europeans diseases, and were decimated by them. But it didn't work in reverse. The European colonists didn't catch native American germs and drop by the millions. Ever notice that?
"Hmm... Why was that?"
Because there weren't any to catch.
"Sure there were! There must have been!"
Like what? Give an example.
"Smallp- uh... no, that was the other way. Hmm... So then why was it in only in one direction? Was it because the Europeans lived in cities, and cities are breeding grounds of disease - whereas, the aboriginals didn't have cities, so the diseases never had a chance to breed and evolve and become epidemics?"
That's a good theory, but it can't account for the phenomenon, because there were cities in other continents too. Mesoamerica and the Andes had some of the largest cities in the world. North America had some too, in the Mississippian civilization, for instance. Africa had the civilization of Great Zimbabwe and others. The Amazon rain-forest is estimated to have been home to over 50-100 million people, before colonization. And if any place is hot, wet, and fecund enough to have diseases, it ought to have been there.
But it wasn't. We know it wasn't, because the transfer of epidemic diseases only went in one direction.
It's not just population density that creates diseases - it's the way in which the population is living.
And somehow, the way in which aboriginal peoples were living did not result in the breeding of contagious disease epidemics.
"OK, but what about other diseases?"
Those too did not exist with the same frequencies that they do nowadays. It's well-documented that aboriginal peoples have no cancer, no heart disease, no neurodegenerative diseases, no back pain, and no dental problems, and they only start getting these things when they adopt "western" diets, work patterns, stressors, and lifestyles.
This provides even more evidence that aboriginal peoples had a fundamentally different relationship with Nature, compared to the cultures that conquered and replaced them.
"I have an objection! I found a flaw in your reasoning!
The "aboriginal peoples" didn't destroy their environment, NOT because they were more enlightened, or more spiritual - but rather, simply because they didn't have the TECHNOLOGY to do so! They didn't have the machines and chemicals that we have! It's not that they "wouldn't" - it's that they just couldn't!"
But why didn't they develop the technology to do so?
"Because they were slower at developing. Maybe they didn't have the optimum conditions. Maybe they just weren't as smart."
But why is it "smart" to develop technology to destroy the world?
If a culture doesn't develop such technology, wouldn't that mean they're more smart than the ones who do?
The indigenous cultures never developed the power to destroy the world. That's a good thing. It doesn't make them "primitive" or "stupid" - it makes them smart. The fact that anyone could take pride in having developed the ability to put all life on the planet at risk, proves just how sick the malignant civilization has trained us to be.
"The ability to destroy the world is just a byproduct of technological advancement itself. Any culture that advances is going to develop these capabilities."
Then why advance? If advancement inevitably leads to ecological degradation, mass mental-illness, alienation, torment, and the possibility of planetary self-destruction, then why do it?
"Umm... because even though it's bad now... and it's been bad so far...EVENTUALLY there will come a point in time when it starts becoming good. And all the pain will have been worth it."
Supposing we don't destroy our entire planet first.
"Right. Supposing that."
And when will this point in time be? When will technology, which has corroded, corrupted, and eliminated the natural systems consistently for 6,000 years, suddenly turn around and start making things better?
"Hmm... I don't know. Eventually?"
It sounds like you're falling for technocracy's false promises.
"Maybe. But it's not like we can "do" anything about this. This is just how it goes. This is the march of technology. It always advances. You can't stop it."
So you're saying that self-destruction (or at least the ability to self-destruct) is a natural and automatic feature built in to the process of evolution itself?
"Well clearly it is, because that's where technology leads."
That's where YOUR technology leads.
"What do you mean "my" technology? Are you saying there's other kinds of technology?"
Yes.
This whole question frames technology as if it were a random occurrence - something that just "happens."
Technology doesn't just "happen." People invent it. And they do so according to their desires, values, and priorities.
Our belief system - our cosmology - determines what kinds of technology we invent.
Who says there's only one direction that technology can develop in? Who says there's only one type of progression?
Just because our culture has a particular type (dominionist, self-destructive), doesn't mean ALL cultures are "bound" to have that type. Technology could have more than one direction of progression.
It could be a 360 degree panorama of directions to choose from.
The idea that there's "only one" direction, and that this direction is "inevitable", is part of a larger philosophy called technocracy, which we will explore in Chapter...
The lack of destructive technologies among aboriginal cultures provides even more evidence that they had a fundamentally different relationship with Nature, compared to the cultures that conquered and replaced them.
Some how, they were able to coexist with Nature - and do it healthily - even with quite a large population.
Clearly, they must have been doing something right.
They must know something... something most of us don't.
"Come on. It's not like they were enlightened saints. They still had problems, didn't they?"
Sure, all humans have the potential for good and evil, and indigenous people aren't/weren't exceptions. But here's the difference: When they did evil, it was normal evil - it fell within the normal range of evil behavior. Yes, there was jealousy. There was covetousness. And sometimes, it led to violence and bloodshed.
But they did not do the things shown in the pictures above. They did not make water undrinkable or air un-breathable. They did not destroy entire ecosystems or threaten the continuity of life on Earth. They did not create any crises even close to being on par with this one.
"Well I guess you're right about that."
So the problem is not our species. We have the potential to be sane and healthy. We have the ability to heal our hearts, reconnect with our innate awareness of the unity of all Life and shift our society's paradigm. We can become a benign civilization.
So, considering that they know...
...perhaps they can provide clues to help us understand.
Maybe they can show us where we went wrong - how we got sick - and how to get better.
"Ok. Great! So... how do we obtain this vital knowledge from them?"
Well, what do you normally do, when you want to gather information from someone?
"Ask them?"
Good idea! That would be the logical thing to do!
"Well I don't really know any jungle tribesmen... it's not like they hang out in my neighborhood, ya know?"
That's OK. Plenty of other people have asked the questions and gathered the knoweldge. And even today, many aboriginal people are coming forth and sharing the konwledge.
And whenever they're asked, they all say the same thing. No matter what tribe, no matter what skin color, no matter what continent, they invariably give the same reply:
"You've lost your connection with Nature."
"You've forgotten who you are."
"You forget that Nature is a community,
and you're a member - not a master."
"Hey. Back up a minute. My society might have some problems, I won't deny that. But it's still the best society that's ever existed!
There's more prosperity now than ever before! We've lifted more people than ever out of poverty! We've cured diseases! We have phones and internet and cars that go really fast! We have so much cool stuff! We even put a man on the moon! No one's ever done that before! Our civilization is the very first to achieve such heights of success!"
To this we say...
"By their fruits, ye shall know them."
What are the fruits of these two systems?
Let's examine them one by one.
1. Water
Once upon a time, every lake, river, and stream on Earth was clean, pure, and potable.
We know this, because pollution didn't exist.
There was no oil drilling, so no oil spills or slicks.
There was no mining, so no mining tailings.
There was no plastic, so no plastic pollution.
There was no industrial effluent, because there were no factories.
There was no household product pollution, because there were no detergents, or other such chemicals.
But there were people.
Humans lived during that time. And they did it without polluting the water.
Any of it.
From the time of Creation, all the way up until the "industrial revolution", all water was drinkable.
"Nuh uh! You couldn't drink from the ocean! It's salty!"
All freshwater. Nice try though.
"Hey now, wait a minute! Places with indigenous peoples do have polluted rivers! Look at Africa! Look at Indonesia! There's plenty of pollution there!"
Aboriginal cultures have polluted rivers only if there are non-aboriginal economic activities nearby.
Wherever you find uncontacted tribes (cultures that have had no direct contact with "the modern world" as we call it), you find absolutely pristine ecosystems, with no pollution whatsoever. No oil slicks, no toxic dumps, no plastic. That stuff only shows up when Dominion Cosmology show up.
Whenever a Dominion society shows up in a new place, that place's water starts becoming dirty and undrinkable.
And the only time water becomes dirty and undrinkable is when a Dominion society shows up.
Community Cosmology
Dominion Cosmology
"And how exactly do these cosmologies lead to their respective outcomes?"
Well... think about it.
If water is alive, and has a spirit (and perhaps even a deity with some sort of power), then you're going to respect it, aren't you? No way you'd pollute a living spirit of Nature.
But if water is just a "thing", then you can pollute all you want - if it suits you.
Perhaps you won't, because perhaps it doesn't suit you - perhaps the cost of polluting is higher than the cost of not polluting, and it's in your self-interest to keep the water clean. Perhaps. And if that's the case, hurray.
But there are problems with this:
What if polluting does affect you more than you realize, perhaps in an indirect way that passes through several other inter-species relationships before it curves back around on you? What if it affects you, but you just don't have enough ecological wisdom to foresee that consequence?
What if there's no cost to you, but there is to someone else?
What if the cost isn't being felt now, but will be felt by future generations?
In Dominion Cosmology, you might pollute, or you might not. It all depends on whether it suits you, because it's up to you. Because you have "dominion" over the land and waters. They're "yours", whether "you" are an individual with an individual plot of land, or a nation with a whole region of land. If you want to pollute, it's your prerogative. Polluting might be dumb, and self-sabotaging - but it's your prerogative.
But in Community Cosmology, you'll never pollute. Not under any circumstance. Because it's not your prerogative, to do so in the first place. You recognize that you have no right to pollute - no matter how much it might suit you.
Community Cosmology is a fail-safe against pollution. And the fruits bear this out:
Community Cosmology
Dominion Cosmology
The civilization currently in control of the world is the very first to make WATER UNDRINKABLE.
2. Air
It's also the first to make AIR UNBREATHABLE.
For the same reasons as water: If the sky is a living being, you won't feel comfortable polluting it.
And if it's just a "thing", then... why not?
Community Cosmology
Dominion Cosmology
3. Food
The first to make FOOD INEDIBLE.
Community
Dominion
And this unnatural diet leads to the universe of health problems unique to modern society - and absent from aboriginal ones.
This is widely accepted in the field of anthropology: Indigenous peoples don't suffer from the diseases of the modern world. And they only start suffering from those diseases when the "western diet" gets introduced to them.
Before
After
And it applies to teeth too.
One of the common arguments in defense of the Dominion society is: "Yes, but we have modern medicine and dentistry!"
The implication is that the human body is "naturally sickly", and just gets sick all the time - and that the teeth get rotten automatically. And before "dentistry" came around, no one could do anything about their rotten teeth, and these masses of poor hapless tribes-people just had to sit around in horrible dental pain without relief.
But this is a myth.
Dental problems are nearly non-existent in aboriginal societies, following their original, natural diet:
"Across the world, Dr. Price witnessed the same story being told again and again. Groups of people who avoided modern foods made from sugar and white flour were able to maintain the optimized health of their ancestors. These people were uniformly robust and strong, with wide dental arches that adequately housed all of their teeth, allowing them to grow in straight without orthodontic assistance. Their lack of cavities ensured they enjoyed good dental health for life.
From Dr. Price’s observations, it can be hypothesized that crooked teeth are an unfortunate symptom of multi-generational sup-optimal nutrition. Crooked teeth – in turn – suggest a higher risk for disease infection, respiratory issues, tooth decay and possibly other skeletal issues. The implications are extensive."
Before <-----------------> After
Before <-----------------> After
Community <-----------------> Dominion
"And exactly how does cosmology determine diet?"
Community Cosmology treats the entire living world as one organism, inconceivably complex, and deeply interconnected.
When this is recognized, we don't want to needlessly "mess around with" the systems that are part of that organism.
We won't mess around with our food. We won't mess around with our nutrition.
Food is sacred. The body is sacred. In this outlook, there is no room for junk food or GMO's.
But if the world is not a living organism... then it's not deeply interconnected - it's just a "machine" with easily understandable components that don't affect one another (unless we specifically want them to).
In this outlook, we can fool ourselves into thinking we "understand how it all works", and that "messing around" with the system won't have any adverse consequences.
So why not condense mildly toxic laboratory chemicals into a solution of pure sugar, and then market it to children?
4. Land
The first to make LAND UNINHABITABLE.
Community
Dominion
If the Land is a living being, you're not going to assault her.
You're not going to strip-mine someone you revere and possibly worship.
You're not going to chop down trees if you pray to them.
How in the world could anyone take an axe to the sacred?
But if the trees and the land are just "things", then you can do whatever you want, if it suits you.
Community
Dominion
What happens when "modern" civilization shows up?
The trees start falling... immediately.
They don't fall until this civilization shows up -
- and as soon as it shows up, they start falling.
In less than 100 years, this:
turns into this:
Yet the aboriginals have coexisted with the natural world around them for thousands of years. Tens of thousands. And they have no such problem.
5. The Night Sky
The first to make the STARS INVISIBLE.
Before
After
6. Our Ambient Environment
And the first to make SILENCE IMPOSSIBLE.
Before
After
7. Our Mental State
Wherever this civilization shows up, madness and misery follow it.
Mental illness increases exponentially:
Not that --->
Before
After
Community falls apart.
Huge swaths of the population live in severe loneliness:
Not that --->
Before
After
Suicide becomes an epidemic:
Not that --->
Before
After
People live in such severe alienation that they snap and start killing random bystanders indiscriminately.
Definitely
Not that --->
Before
After
And the misery has spread beyond our species, to the entire living world:
7. The Experience of Animals
Cages:
Definitely
Not that --->
Community
Dominion
Landscapes of torment:
Definitely
Not that --->
Community
Dominion
Literal lakes of feces. Seriously, it's a thing, and it's standard practice in industrialized meat/dairy production. Lakes. Of feces.
Definitely
Not that --->
Community
Dominion
Mechanized slaughter factories:
Definitely
Not that --->
Community
Dominion
Gruesome experiments on living beings:
Definitely
Not that --->
Community
Dominion
The Dominion society has turned our planet into a torture chamber.
Billions of tormented beings cry out for justice, for an end to the cruelty. At any given time, trillions of souls are praying for the collapse of this so-called "civilization."
And their prayers might be answered, if we don't change course. In fact, we're the ones answering them. The Dominion Society is not only filthy and cruel, but it's self-destructive. It's chopping away at its own foundations.
8. The Omnicide
Wherever Dominion Cosmology shows up, green turns into gray. It erases Life and replaces Life with non-biological material. Wherever it shows up, Life shrinks. It literally eats the land.
Community
Dominion
No prior civilization has EVER done this.
Just look at this:
If this was happening on your skin, you'd know you were sick.
Well, it's happening to our planet.
Our planet has a serious illness.
And the illness has the potential to be terminal.
The society of Dominion Cosmology is the first society to create nuclear radiation, nuclear waste, and nuclear weapons. The first to put the entire human species - indeed, all life on Earth - at risk of total annihilation.
The first to create the ability to sterilize the entire planet - to erase a billion years of evolution - within seconds.
The verdict is in:
Symbiotic
Benign
Sane
Life-Affirming
Sustainable
Parasitic
Cancerous
Self-Destructive
Homicidal/Suicidal
Unsustainable
...
"Are you calling humans a disease? That's not very... uh... nice... It's misanthropic..."
No, humanity is not a disease. There are humans - human cultures - who do not do the kinds of things in those pictures. They do not carry the sickness.
Since there are humans who aren't sick, then humanity itself cannot be the disease.
We might carry it - but it isn't who we are.
And that means...
WE ARE CAPABLE OF HEALING.
"OK, I concur that we should restore our original cosmology. "Community Cosmology", as you're calling it.
So... what now? How do we do that?
How exactly does one... um... change one's cosmology?"
With knowledge.
It's time to learn about how we changed the first time.
If we understand how we changed from Community to Dominion, then we'll be better prepared to understand how to change back.
"So, how did that happen? How did it start?"
Well first let's identify some simpler things:
When did it start?
Where did it start?
Continue to the next page:
Chapter 3: The Lie of History
To solve problems,
understand how they started.
The purpose of this series is to address the question of Why.
Why is all of this happening?
Humanity has problems. Everyone knows that. Humans are messed up.
We can see it in the ecological crisis: We're behaving like an invasive species, at total odds with the planet that hosts us.
Even those among us who don't understand ecology still notice that something is "off" about Man. Maybe they refer to it as "the Fall." At one point, we're living in a Garden, in harmonious coexistence with the rest of the Living World - all the other plants and animals. And then something happened... and here we are.
So everybody knows something is going on.
The purpose of this series of dialogues is to figure out why.
Why is humanity like this?
How did we get this way?
Have we always been this way?
Was there ever a time when we weren't this way?
If so, when did we change?
How did we change?
Why did we change?
If we can learn the answers to these questions, then we'll be able to know how to go forward. If we can identify the source of the illness, then perhaps we can find a cure.
"So. Where should we begin our inquiry?"
Here's an idea:
We know that there are some people - some cultures - that don't have the sickness.
Perhaps if we learn from them, they can provide some clues?
"What cultures?"
So, considering that they know...
...perhaps they can provide clues to help us understand.
Maybe they can show us where we went wrong - how we got sick - and how to get better.
"Ok. Great! So... how do we obtain this vital knowledge from them?"
Well, what do you normally do, when you want to gather information from someone?
"Ask them?"
Good idea! That would be the logical thing to do!
"Well I don't really know any jungle tribesmen... it's not like they hang out in my neighborhood, ya know?"
That's OK. Plenty of other people have asked the questions and gathered the knoweldge. And even today, many aboriginal people are coming forth and sharing the konwledge.
They point to the belief structure of our civilization. To how we don't consider ourselves part of Nature, but rather "masters" or "owners" of Nature. They point to the arrogance of thinking we could do whatever we wanted to our ecosystems, without having to face any consequences.
But why does our civilization behave so arrogantly?
Well, we built it on the wrong beliefs.
Beliefs are the foundations of society. Any society. No matter where, or when. Every society is constructed from beliefs. Specifically the big beliefs. The beliefs that answer (or attempt to answer) the Big Questions, like:
"Who are we?"
"Where did we come from?"
"What is this universe? Who made it? What's it made of?"
"What is our place in this universe?"
"What is our relation to the other inhabitants?"
"Do we have a purpose? If so, what is it?"
However a culture answers these questions, determines what kind of society they will build.
The sum total of these beliefs is what's known as a "cosmology." And, according to the aboriginal peoples, modern society has a false cosmology.
From the Greek:
cosmo: world
logy: the study of
Every man-made structure you see around you - all buildings, layouts, devices, all social and economic systems - all reflect the cosmological belief system of the people who made it.
When one's cosmology aligns with the truth, one will act in ways that harmonize with the natural world.
When one's cosmology contradicts the truth, one will design systems that are incompatible with the natural world at a fundamental level. And that's what our "modern civilization" has done.
And all the aboriginal peoples point to our cosmology as being the source of our sickness.
Originally, we all shared the same cosmology. But at some point, some of us changed, onto a different path.
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