interesting poll in EU
Philip Vergragt
Jean Boucher
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Ruben Nelson
There are no surprises here. The results of this survey are the results I expect from persons/societies formed within and by the stories, myths and metaphors of MTI cultures.
The MTI story is one of salvation by the rational, empirical and logical ways of science and the technology which science makes possible. Before the Enlightenment, the story goes, life was poor, nasty, brutish and short, to use Hobbs summary. There was no economic growth or progress. We could not reliably distinguish between real (scientific) truth and village gossip and the myths of religion. Medicine was mostly holding the hands of the dying. After the Enlightenment, we began to see, and in time expect, economic growth, social progress, literacy, rational decisions, longer lives, better lives, etc., etc., etc. … This is a powerful story.
This story is now told and reinforced hundreds of times a day in every MTI society. This is the dominant meta-message that is routinely and openly told and taught in most newscasts, in most media, and to most students in most universities around the world. It is the promise of release from the bondage of ignorance and unjustifiable power. A highly skilled, now global, Advertizing industry which spends almost $1,000,000,000,000 each year is dedicated to telling and reinforcing this story. By the way, Advertizing has become the largest missionary movement in human history. (The beauty of its situation is that almost no one sees it as the new church with the new story of salvation, including the implied threat of what will happen to us if we do not worship its god – money wed to power. We will be dammed to a life of hell on Earth.) This blind spot in MTI cultures is not an accident.
It follows that if we read our resistance to giving up much of our MTI ways of living as merely selfishness, then we will focus on changing the behaviour of individual persons, either by coercion or enticement. And by such actions we will stay well within the MTI frames of reference. The MTI ways of being will sail on largely untouched. What we miss is that the MTI ways we live by are sacred to us. This is why they are “non-negotiable.” By protecting them, we are being faithful to the god of MTI ways of being. The source of our resistance is far deeper than mere selfishness. But we are taught not to see this. We are taught that discussions about lifestyles and their impacts are economics, not religion. So of course, the “scientifically-trained” researchers in SCORAI do not examine the “hidden religion” of MTI cultures. They are still distracted by the official MTI definitions that Islam, Buddhism and Christianity and the like are religions, while money is economics, which by definition is science, not religion. And in a secular culture, religion has no place in the marketplace.
If there is much of a grain of truth in this understanding, then do not expect todays’ strategies to cope with “overconsumption” to succeed. Any successful strategy must take on the sacred nature of MTI cultures and its (false) god and its false promises.
Or so it seems to me.
Ruben
Ruben F.W. Nelson
Executive Director
Foresight Canada
Courageous Leadership for Transforming Change
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