On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 9:00 PM, Tom Walker <[email protected]> wrote:
> Say what you will about "human nature" it does seem to me that "the earliest > customs of people" at least had a healthy regard for limits, however > mythically and allegorically it was expressed. Capital -- having discovered > the magic of compound interest and the charm of the exponential function -- > has no use for the old superstitions. ===================== If the earliest customs had a healthy regard for limits, then why the stories of Icarus and Prometheus which were/are clearly indicative of a significant behavioral issue? Shakyamuni would have had no inkling to renounce great wealth and opulence if it wasn't produced in the first place. Ecologically, the history of deforestation across the planet prior to capitalism also points to a desire to overcome, transform and displace limits. The use of myth, allegory, metaphysics-theology to rationalize/come-to-terms with such behaviors goes on with ever greater belligerence in our own time with the denialists: Eliason: Senator, we’re going to talk about your book for a minute, you state in your book which by the way is called The Greatest Hoax, you state in your book that one of your favorite Bible verses, Genesis 8:22, ‘while the earth remaineth seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease,’ what is the significance of these verses to this issue? Inhofe: Well actually the Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that ‘as long as the earth remains there will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night,’ my point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous. - http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/james-inhofe-says-bible-refutes-climate-change Bateson took on the Inhofe's of his day [when I was a just a kid] "The hardest saying in the bible is that of St. Paul, addressing the Galatians: "God is not mocked," and this saying applies to the relationship between man and his ecology. It is of no use to plead that a particular sin of pollution or exploitation was only a little one or that it was unintentional or that it was committed with the best intentions. Or that "If I hadn't done it somebody else would have." The processes of ecology are not mocked. "On the other hand, surely the mountain lion when he kills the deer is not acting to protect the grass from overgrazing." [Steps...p. 504] _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
