I've been in conversations about the ecological situation, and the fate of the planet, at least since I started college 20 years ago. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say something like this:
"You know, the Earth will be fine; It's humans who will be extinct."
Or "The planet will survive just fine, it's just that humans won't be around." Or something like this.
I'm sure I must have heard this 45 times or more. In fact, I think I've even said it myself. Year after year, it keeps getting repeated as if it's a clever, insightful, or accurate rejoinder.
But it's not.
Just last Saturday night I heard it said by a noted environmental thinker, Stewart Brand. Brand is the visionary who created The Whole Earth Catalog and called for a photograph of Earth from space. Brand is also a bit of a contrarian. He's not afraid to advocate a controversial idea, such as nuclear power or GMOs. But even knowing the contrarian side of Brand, I was stunned to hear him repeat the old canard about how 'the Earth will be fine..."
Here's the context:
This was a panel of ecological folks that followed a screening of an excellent new documentary, "Climate Refugees." Brand and others were discussing the immense threat that climate change poses to humanity and civilization. This is, of course, a clear and compelling point that we all need to understand. But to my mind, Brand stretched the point too far when he implied that the only threat or primary threat was to civilization. Specifically he said "Life will be fine." And later, "The planet's OK."
This was more than enough to send my pet peeve sensors into high alert.
But it doesn't matter who's recycling this golden oldie, because whether it's an environmental legend, your earnest college roommate, or an annoying co-worker, here's why it's totally wrong.
"The historical mission of our times is to reinvent the human--at the species level, with critical reflection, within the community of life-systems, in a time-developmental context, by means of story and shared dream experience."
"It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality."
"The earth community is a wilderness community that will not be bargained with; nor will it simply be studied or examined or made an object of any kind; nor will it be domesticated or trivialized as a setting for vacation indulgence, except under duress and by oppressions which it cannot escape. When this does take place in an abusive way, a vengenace awaits the human, for when the other living species are violated so extensively, the human itself is imperiled."
Along with the scientific and technological revolution, we have also witnessed a world-wide freedom revolution over the last few decades….In one sense the civil rights movement in the United States is a special American phenomenon which must be understood in the light of American history and dealt with in terms of the American situation. But on another and more important level, what is happening in the United States today is a significant part of world development.
We live in a day, said the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, “when civilization is shifting its basic outlook; a major turning point in history where the presuppositions on which society is structured are being analyzed, sharply challenged, and profoundly changed.” What we are seeing now is a freedom explosion, the realization of “an idea whose time has come,” to use Victor Hugo’s phrase. The deep rumbling of discontent that we hear today is the thunder of disinherited masses….All over the world like a fever, freedom is spreading in the widest liberation movement in history. The great masses of people are determined to end the exploitation of their races and lands. They are awake and moving toward their goal like a tidal wave….For several centuries the direction of history flowed from the nations and societies of Western Europe out into the rest of the world in “conquests” of various sorts. That period, the era of colonialism, is at an end. East is moving West. The earth is being redistributed. Yes, we are “shifting our basic outlooks.”
--Martin Luther King Jr.
"Chapter V: Where Are We Going," pp.169-70, from Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community, (1967)
Here's a quote someone sent me recently, from a talk I gave at Esalen in October.
"To look at the worldview that has brought us to the current planetary moment, we have to look at racism, systemic racism, as well as misogyny and patriarchy, classism, militarism. But I think we really have to take a long, hard look at systemic racism in order to understand the worldview that we're in right now, and the transformations that are happening. So I think that looking at a wider range of voices and looking at the history of genocide and oppression and slavery and segregation and the struggles of resistance against that, to build liberty, compassion and justice, is integral to the work of [the] Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness department...."
--Drew Dellinger,
Oct. 26, 2009- presentation with RichardTarnas on "Martin Luther King Jr.: Life and Transits." Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA.
I think it is true, as someone said recently, that as brilliant as Obama is as a communicator, the administration has too often lost control of the narrative in this first year, or ceded control of the narrative to others.
It's been distressing to see the most lunatic narratives gaining power in these fearful and anxious and economically desparate times. And to see the right wing's rabid sway over the corporate mainstream media. Right-wing fearmongers have had far too much control of the narrative, from health care, to climate change, to Van Jones, to ACORN, and on down the line. All to the detriment of our discourse and democracy.
The concluding paragraph to this piece by Robert Reich illustrates the president's struggle to sculpt the story:
"But our President is not comfortable wielding blame. He will not give the public the larger narrative of private-sector greed, its nefarious effect on the American public at this dangerous juncture, and the private sector's corruption of the democratic process. He has so far eschewed any major plan to get corporate and Wall Street money out of politics. He can be indignant- as when he lashed out at the "fat cats" on Wall Street - but his indignance is fleeting, and it is no match for the faux indignance of the right that blames government for all that ails us."
--Robert Reich
Obama, following his often noble, sometimes futile, instinct toward reconcilliation, has thus far failed to craft a compelling narrative with the emotional, rhetorical and spiritual power that animated the campaign and electrified the world.
The success of his policies and his presidency, as well as the hopes of so many struggling people, depend on Obama's ability to wield the power story and activate a narrative that will motivate the nation.
If we could speed up time we’d see that the universe is an insane flashing blossom; a fireworks burst of light-stars-galaxies-planets-oceans-life-awareness, in the blink of an eye, like a deity winking.
A friend recently emailed me asking for a simple definition of "cosmology." Below is my reply.
--Drew
It's not always easy to find a simple definition of cosmology that covers it fully, so when I present, I generally throw out a flurry along these lines (and some of these definitions are influenced by the ones used by Brian Swimme and Miriam MacGillis over the years):
Most simply, "cosmology" is the study of the cosmos. (Or the study of the universe.)
In terms of modern science, "cosmology" is the study of the origin and development of the universe as a whole ("in its totality" also works, and avoids any confusion that could arise from the fact that "whole" and "hole" are homonyms.)
Swimme would add this: "Cosmology" is the study of the origin and development of the universe in its totality, and the role of the human in the universe. Science would tend to ignore that last part about "the role of the human in the universe." To a 'new cosmologist' like Swimme, that dimension is crucial.
But the scientific study of the origin and development of the universe (the "Big Bang" theory; the study of the galaxies, and the large-scale structure of the cosmos; astronomy and astrophysics) is only half of a full definition of "cosmology."
"Cosmology" is also a worldview or 'cultural story.' (A paradigm or "cosmo-vision")
To capture this sense, I say, "cosmology" is the story that a culture tells itself about how the world came to be, and how we fit into it.
So I think that a complete definition of "cosmology" (even a simple one) should include these two major aspects: the 'scientific' and the 'cultural'. "Cosmology" is both 'scientific study' and 'cultural story.'
So to reiterate,
"Cosmology" is the study of the origin and development of the universe as a whole, and the role of the human in the universe. It is also the story that a culture tells itself about how the world came to be, and how we fit into it.
(One last wrinkle is that the mainstream definition of "cosmology" and particularly "cosmologist" leans toward the 'scientific study' part, so almost any time you hear the word "cosmologist," it would be in reference to a physicist, astronomer, astrophysicist, scientist, etc. The 'cultural story' aspect of "cosmology" is less understood, though that is changing.)
"If we are to have peace on earth…we must develop a world perspective."
--Martin Luther King Jr., December 24, 1967
"Oh, my God! Look at that picture over there! Here's the earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!"
--Commander Frank Borman, Apollo 8, December 24, 1968
Forty years ago, on Christmas Eve 1968, an astronaut orbiting the moon took a photograph that changed the world. As we near the end of the 40th anniversary of one of the most heart-breaking years in our history, it is worth remembering that the year of trauma ended in triumph.
As '68 dawned, the Tet offensive dispelled illusions of easy victory in Vietnam. Later that spring, in the early evening of April 4, one of the world's most visible and visionary activists for justice was shot down in Memphis, triggering waves of outrage and sadness, as more than 100 cities burst into flames of despair and rebellion. Two months later, Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed in Los Angeles.
Throughout '68, student protests and general uprisings broke out in Europe, the Americas, and elsewhere. In Mexico City, the Summer Olympics set the stage for the raised-fist defiance of John Carlos and Tommie Smith. In August, police and demonstrators clashed violently at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
This was the troubled world that the crew of Apollo 8 left behind in December, as they became the first humans to journey around the moon. Just as it seemed the world was falling apart, the astronauts on Apollo 8 took a photograph that would bring us all together, and forever change our image of the planet and ourselves.
Thomas Berry at the Temple of Minerva, Assisi, Italy, 1991
Thomas Berry at the Temple of Minerva, Assisi, Italy, 1991 (Photo: Drew Dellinger)
The Center for Ecozoic Studies has published a special issue of their journal, "The Ecozoic," focused on Thomas Berry, the influential environmental writer and thinker. Over 150 of Berry's friends, students, and appreciators contributed reflections on Thomas and his work, including noted activist Joanna Macy and Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai.
I was grateful to be able to contribute the following piece, "Travels with Thomas Berry," in honor of Father Thomas and his immensely significant work and profound cosmological vision.
--Drew
Travels with Thomas Berry
By Drew Dellinger
Thomas Berry can shift your worldview with a single sentence.
For example, imagine that one minute you are just a simple person, thinking simple thoughts, and then the next minute you hear Tom Berry say: "The universe--throughout its vast extent in space, and its long sequence of transformations in time--is a single, multiform, celebratory event." And furthermore, Berry says, you, as a human, "are that being in whom the universe reflects on and celebrates itself."
(Say what? The universe is a celebration . . . and I am the universe thinking about itself?)
Tom Berry -- Greensboro, North Carolina (Photo: Drew Dellinger)
This weekend, the Sophia Center in Oakland, CA, hosted a wonderful conference called "Thomas Berry and the New Cosmology," honoring and exploring the work of Father Thomas.
Brian Swimme opened the gathering with a great talk, chronicling his personal journey with Tom and elucidating the remarkable experience of being in the presence of a sage. One of the signs of a sage, said Brian, is that, in their company, you recognize who you are. They awaken in you a fuller, deeper sense of self.
Swimme told a story of eating at Thomas' favorite spot, the Broadway Diner in the Bronx. As the waitress refilled their coffee cups and walked away, Thomas said to Brian, 'There's no way you can repay her for that act. That isn't a monetary transaction. That's an infinite act of kindness. She has just poured her life into our lives.' Like Dante, perceiving the Divine in the person of Beatrice, Thomas Berry had the ability to see the infinity in an ordinary instant.
Drew Dellinger is a spoken word poet, professor, activist, and founder of Poets for Global Justice. He has inspired minds and hearts at hundreds of events in many countries, performing poetry and keynoting on justice, ecology, cosmology, activism, democracy and compassion.
[Full Bio]
"There is both grandeur and intimacy in these poems of Drew Dellinger. We are children of the Milky Way, children of a mythic magical world wonderful beyond our dreams. Drew Dellinger brings us graciously into these experiences with the quiet yet insistent rhythms of his verse." - Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work and The Dream of the Earth
.jpg "Drew at the Whidbey Institute, delivering the Thomas Berry Legacy lecture, October 2008")
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