Defining a Path One useful step in building a path is to first understand what path our culture provided as a starting point. If this step is omitted we often find ourselves following the suggested cultural path without knowing it. In other words, we need to know our starting bias and history. Here is one view of the path provided by industrial society: 1. Culture creates scarcity of essential goods. Land is owned by a few. Food is connected to money. Opportunity to work, learn, and find security is used to manipulated people. 2. All these culturally created needs can be resolved by having money. 3. People become obsessed with money and those with money have more rights and comforts. 4. People begin to think happiness is something money can buy. They forget that money is a cultural creation and has no value in a forest or in a natural environment. 5. In the late 20th century the power of advertising and mass communications was discovered. This created a new and effective tool for culture. This path of empire is associated with many useful occurrences and also it supports wars, prison, ecological destruction, and institutions that sublimate human feelings. Corporations are currently enjoying new levels of power and this is becoming a major problem. OK, if we explore these ideas and understand how culture works... then what? The first reaction of some people is to fight the existing culture and reject all of it. From watching this struggle i see a lot of anguish and paranoia. It doesn't produce a path i would want to follow. Another option is to embrace exploration, education, learning, and associate with others who also want to build new ways of living. In this environment we can watch to see what works and share ideas. Our path becomes a positive event and accepts other diverse paths as valuable. Even paths we don't understand are valued for the experience they provide. In other words, we become thinking beings, responsible for our actions and happiness. We are more difficult to manipulate because we understand and have other viewpoints. For many of us this results in some form of a ecopath. The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn... and change. -- Carl Rogers The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts. -- Charles Darwin Everyone is ignorant, only in different subjects. -- Will Rogers ---- jeff owens, [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://www.xprt.net/~jko underground house, solar power, self-reliance, edible landscape eco lifestyle discussion: subscribe ecopath -> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
