To Question is not to Reject but to Seek to Make Better

To question is not to reject, but to seek to make better, thus I question science, engineering, technology, religion and free market capitalism, noting that:

• Science on the one hand helps us, while at the same time, destroys us; we have not yet acquired the knowledge, the sophistication, and the wisdom to achieve the former without the latter.

• Technology on the one hand helps us, while at the same time, destroys us; we have not yet acquired the knowledge, the sophistication, and the wisdom to achieve the former without the latter.

• Engineering on the one hand helps us, while at the same time, destroys us; we have not yet acquired the knowledge, the sophistication, and the wisdom to achieve the former without the latter.

• Religion on the one hand helps us, while at the same time, destroys us; we have not yet acquired the knowledge, the sophistication, and the wisdom to achieve the former without the latter.

• Free market capitalism on the one hand helps us, while at the same time, destroys us; we have not yet acquired the knowledge, the sophistication, and the wisdom to achieve the former without the latter.

A typical counterargument against all these statements, that would be put forward by those who adhere to the particular dogmas that each of the above gives rise to, is that: “No alternatives are possible for these are the way they are because … and only minor improvements are possible. Therefore I will not discuss this further, as you are obviously lacking in right-mindedness, for mine is the truth.” Or put another way, my mind has closed in on a fixed opinion, and whatever happens, whatever you say, I have no intention of changing this, regardless of the madness that comes forth as a result.

This, I am sure, you will all find of great comfort when you sit among the ruins of your civilisation.

Time to begin to understand the reasons for choosing a mind that has closed in on fixed opinions, and the collective denial that is necessary to maintain this perspective, and to discuss what to do to change science, technology, engineering, religion, and free market capitalism; this is what I call the journey. And all this questioning is relevant to the matter of sustainability, for if you have not yet realised this, sustainability does not begin and end with climate change. This is just the cherry on the cake, the final piece of lunacy, which just exacerbates existing challenges and problems. And yet few want to see it like this. Denial and delusion are to the found everywhere, and as so it will be that our children will be overwhelmed by the legacy that we leave them.

We have therefore, here and now, at this moment in our history, to choose whether to let this happen, and when I say we, I mean you! This is a matter for all and must not be left in the hands of politicians, for most of them have no intention of doing anything significant to address the challenging circumstances that we now face. For many of them, the scenario is business as usual. And many of those to be found operating in the worlds of science, technology, engineering, business, and religion also think that it will be business as usual.

So I here ask a question: are we here and now, at this moment in time, perpetrating a crime against the unborn; engaging in a criminal act that speaks of a folly never before witnessed in the history of our species? You should take note of this, for what today might seem unreasonable could quickly become a lament along the lines “why did we not listen when it was possible to change our trajectory?” And this is a theme that has found its way into a short story that I have just written. It is called Enigma and is a sequel to A Tale of Two Deserts. And it is also an underlying theme in my forthcoming book, Moments in Time.

To question is not to reject, but to seek to make better. This is the journey …

More about the Meaning of Sustainability

Following on from my previous two blogs, both of which dealt with sustainability, a central concept that I have not yet mentioned is the one that states that we should not do today, that which leaves for future generations an unwanted legacy. It is a fundamental principle which is rarely to be found in those things one sees presented as being sustainable.

In the case of the Scottish Farmed Salmon industry (the subject of my previous blog entry) and their counterparts in other parts of the world, the extinction of wild salmon would be such an unwanted legacy. But honestly, do you really think that when confronted with the issue of economic development and the expansion and growth of the farmed salmon industry and the extinction of wild salmon, the wild fish stand any chance? Another example of an unsustainable activity is what is called fracking (the extraction of shale gas). It is unsustainable because we as a society have already taken more than our fair share of oil and natural gas deposits and taking the shale gas is robbing future generations of what rightly belongs to them. This they will not thank us for – another unwanted legacy. But honestly, do you really think that when confronted with the issue of economic development and the expansion and growth of the oil and gas industry and the matter leaving deposits for future generations, our children’s children stand any chance?

I believe, based on observations of what has happened over the past few decades, that all we are going to witness in the future is a lot of talk about sustainability, but no substantial actions to deal with what is at the core of the problem - us and our collective delusion that we can go one doing that which we do now, and that only minor changes are needed to become sustainable. It is now evident that governments, and most politicians and businesses, have no intention of dealing with this issue in a way that correctly represents the enormous dimension of the challenge that we now face. Therefore, we the people must now act, peacefully, to bring about a massive transformation. This is why we need to use our wallets, lifestyle choices and our votes, to apply the pressure that will change the climate of thought. It is time to build a new civilisation and to begin the gradual transition away from our present one, and to do that one must simultaneously start to disengage from the old and build the new. An interestingly this is already happening, because people are beginning to understand that if they do not act, then there will be no change, for the establishment has no intention of acting, and politicians are starting to become worried about this quiet revolution, for it involves people turning away from existing institutions and processes. The reasons for this are clear – these are failing and becoming increasingly irrelevant.

Now the scene is set for what will follow in my blogs over the course of 2014.

Why Do Industry Body Representatives Tend to Make Fools of Themselves?

You will have seen this many times on television, the person who is speaking for an industry, typically someone appointed by the industry’s trade body to answer questions from the media. There he or she stands and faced with profound questions about damage to people, society, or the environment, resulting from the actions of companies in the industry concerned, come the stupid responses. Usually there are only two variants on the stupid answers offered: denial that there is any problem, or, that the industry is only offering what customers want.

On the BBC’s programme Countryfile, broadcast on Sunday December 1st 2013, it was the turn of the Scottish Salmon Industry to engage in making stupid remarks and on quite a grand scale, coupled also with a chilling arrogance that highlights why we need to change the global free market economic system.

The interview began with some bragging on the part of the industry – lots of information about its economic importance in terms of people employed in the industry and also those working in sectors such as fish processing, agriculture, and logistics that provide products and services to the salmon farming industry. Later we were to learn also, that people in the chemical industry are also partly dependent on the salmon industry as well, as you will discover as you read on. We were told how impressively big the industry has become, and about the large number of countries to which Scottish farmed salmon is exported. We were also informed that fresh salmon can be on someone’s plate in New York within three days!

Those readers with insights into sustainability will recognise here an industry demonstrating all the signs of being unsustainable and in need of significant restructuring and a different business model. Interestingly, sustainability was mentioned during the interview, but the industry representative did not provide a rational explanation of how an industry using large amounts of chemicals, consuming significant amounts of energy, and no doubt also with a carbon footprint to match, could be made sustainable in its present form. Is this not always the case?

The interview became disturbingly interesting when the question was addressed of farmed salmon being responsible for the increase in sea lice that are believed to be responsible for the drastic reduction in populations of wild salmon. When asked about this, the industry representative said, “there is no empirical evidence that this is the case (that sea lice from farms are killing wild salmon).” What we did learn however is that sea lice have become a serious issue for the industry and large amounts of chemicals are being used to kill the sea lice, so much chemicals in fact, that there are now concerns that the presence of these chemicals in the environment around some fish farms is excessive. That there is a problem with sea lice is unquestionable, but this was downplayed by the industry representative – was this because he had no sound and rational answers to the questions raised?

The BBC did not enlighten viewers about whether there is any evidence that the problems of sea lice created by having large concentrations of farmed salmon in relatively small spaces is in fact causing problems for wild salmon. But we quickly learned that we were not going to hear from anybody about this, for the Scottish Salmon industry representative had refused to appear in the programme if a representative from an organisation called Protect Wild Scotland was interviewed. When the Scottish Salmon industry representative was asked why he had taken this stance, given that he was so confident about his case, his response was “I am not prepared to discuss (this)”.

But the arrogance and contempt on display was to continue, when the representative said, “I am willing to discuss anything on a rational basis with anyone with a rational argument.” The implication was clear – Protect Wild Scotland do not have a rational argument, so therefore they are to be ignored and this from a person who has no rational basis for believing that the Scottish Salmon industry as currently structured and with its current business models, can be made sustainable.

I describe what was on display in this programme as arrogance and contempt, chillingly so, and it is reminiscent of bees and neonicotinoids. The attitude in the latter case was let the bees die, for we are making lots of money out of neonicotinoids. This attitude also seems to apply to wild salmon as well – let the wild salmon die for we are making lots of money! And if you think about it carefully, this is often the attitude for money comes before environment, which is not what sustainability is about.

Here now is my (ir)rational response to this. I expect people to show more concern about the environment and the natural world and to adopt a more responsible position and to be willing to accept that there might be problems that point to the need for changes in industry practices and structure. This I did not see in the person. In fact I found the person’s attitude, as I have mentioned, not only arrogant and contemptuous, but chillingly so.  To this I felt a need to respond.  Normally over Christmas in my household, smoked Scottish Salmon is consumed – none was over the Christmas 2013 period. I will in future not be buying Scottish farmed salmon, unless I can find fish that comes from a farm with a responsible approach. And this is an example of what I have previously referred to as using the wallet to bring about changes. Mine may seem to be an insignificant gesture, but if enough people do this, then change will happen for there are few things more powerful than the market, which is why we must use it to change the way that businesses behave.

I also here provide for you the web link to Protect Wild Scotland (http://www.protectwildscotland.org/) so that you can assess for yourself whether they do have a rational case for concern about the affects of salmon farming on wild salmon populations.

In my previous blog about the meaning of sustainability, I mentioned the matter of the need to change the economic system. The Scottish Salmon industry well illustrates the problems of vested interests, of people chained to the rock of the past, who will fight to maintain the status quo, and who are looking, at best, only for incremental improvements, while what is really needed is a massive change to the way the industry operates. This focus on defending what is, what exists, when all the indicators suggest that this is inappropriate is one of the reasons industry body representatives tend to make themselves look foolish when interviewed. Whether they realise this I do not know, but the value of them doing so is that it provides that can be used to stimulate a consumer revolution that can help bring about a significant step forward towards a sustainable civilisation.

I look forward to the day when one of these industry people just openly admits that their industry needs to change and in a significant way. We will not see such a massive change however, until we start thinking about and experimenting with radical alternatives that offer the prospects of real sustainability. This is why individuals need to start using their votes, wallets and lifestyle choices to create the circumstances whereby politicians and business people realise that business as usual is no longer an option.

The Meaning of Sustainability

Over the Christmas period I saw a Tweet from Oxfam. It stated that the richest 1% hold more than 46% of the world’s wealth, and the poorest 90% have just 14%. This is not only unjust, but unsustainable, for the suffering inherent to this circumstance will surely lead to strife and conflict and provide further justification to the misguided and dangerous people who wage war on the western world through terrorism. And how does the west respond to this gratuitous violence? Answer: with more gratuitous violence as they seek to protect their vested interests and to maintain the status quo.

It is evident that our current economic system is failing in the sense that it has not provided the means of resolving global inequalities in the distribution of wealth. Socialist economic thinking has faired no better. Therefore we need to start considering how to change free market economies to achieve a global economy that does not perpetuate, as the present system does, these inequalities. And now is a good time to start thinking about this matter, given also that I have yet to encounter anyone who can rationally explain how the present growth and consumption driven free market system can be made environmentally sustainable. And the present economic system is also contribution to the fracturing of society, as it constantly seeks to encourage our animalistic tendencies to focus on material matters, often at the expense of that which truly matters: our inner wellbeing; relationships with the people in our lives that should matter most; and our wider sense of being part of a community.

Sustainability you see is about social, economic and environmental matters taken together as a whole, not in isolation. And how to do this in a world that works on the basis of fragmentation and reductionism is one of the greatest challenges of our time. And we are back once more to the great flaw in scientific, engineering and technological thinking, all of which are founded on fragmentation and reductionism. Here also, once more, is that thing I referred to in my 2013 blog entries – the Prometheus Syndrome which I will soon explain in more detail.

And so 2013 Comes to an End

The year is nearly over and also coming to a close is my first year of blogging, which is an activity that in 2014 I will continue, for I have much to say about many things of importance to the sustainability of contemporary civilisation, both in terms of that which makes it unsustainable, and that which needs to be done to make it sustainable.

In 2014 I want to continue with my analysis of aspects of science, engineering and technology that need to change, particularly concerning values and beliefs that lead to processes that are no longer fit for purpose. There are matters too relating to what I have called the Prometheus syndrome that I want to explain from a theoretical perspective. I also intend to start introducing that which is being done to transform scientific, engineering and technology development processes into ones fit for the circumstances that humanity now faces. And when I encounter more nonsense from these worlds, and that also of free market capitalism and religion, then these too will find a place in my commentaries. I will also be dealing with matters, such as the meaning of the risks can be managed, that I mentioned in blogs during 2013.

I repeat here that the process of understanding what sustainability truly means is a journey of discovery, and the more people who begin to see the wider meaning of sustainability, the more those that only have an incremental change agenda will be seen to be out of touch and irrelevant – people to be ignored.

Have a good new year – one that is better by not having to put up with the same old tale of woes that those in power have clearly demonstrated themselves as being unable to resolve. Through the power of the vote, the wallet, and lifestyle changes, make 2014 the year that you send a powerful message to these people, that the time when they could maintain the status quo, is over.

Another Mind that has closed in on Fixed Opinions

Our conversation was going well. We agreed about some quite radical thoughts, until I touched upon sacred ground. Then …

The conversation started with a condemnation of Russell Brand for encouraging young people not to vote as a way of protesting against current political systems. Neither of us accepted that this was the right way forward. We both agreed that we should be using our vote to protest, by giving our votes to (reasonable) parties that are closer to understanding that the current system is broken and needs reinventing.

I also suggested that people need to use their wallets and life style choices to start building a different kind of civilisation because the one we have now has no future. And there was full agreement about this. Modern free market capitalism, controlled as it is by large global corporations who seek domination and are driven by greed, is destroying us and our planet – agreed. We need to build a new system within the structure of the old, because we need something to replace the old – agreed.

Then I mentioned science, and the need for this too to change. Here I found the sacred ground, that subject which the mind does not want to discuss – it seems that everyone has such a topic, sometimes even more than one. And the reaction was just like that which I wrote about in a previous blog, when I encountered, via Twitter, an atheist whose mind had closed in on fixed opinions.

There is apparently nothing wrong with modern science, and given all the problems in the world, science is the last thing we should be questioning. No thoughts here that science may be partly to blame for these problems, that it has become the servant of a destructive global free market system, that it has highly questionable ethics, that scientists have dangerous and damaging delusion. And worse, there was no desire to explore the matter and to consider that science can easily go wrong, for science is but an invention of human mind, from which come all the woes of the world.

I could see now that the shutters were coming down and that the person, just like the atheist I wrote about, no longer wanted to continue with the conversation, so the person with whom I was speaking, made an excuse, and walked away.

This reaction I could have encountered with someone whose sacred ground was free market capitalism, or religion, or something else, for it seems there are countless ideologies and dogmas that clutter peoples’ minds, and lead them to having minds that are closed in on fixed opinions. The only difference would have been the subject matter that would trigger the walk away. And, while we might think that this is harmless, it is only so if the social, economic, and political circumstances are such that the dogma remains within the cage where it needs to be kept. The problem is that globally we are creating the social, economic, and political circumstances where cages are opening, and the wild beasts of dogma are beginning (once more) to bring hatred, misery and suffering into the world. Do not be deluded into thinking that science is not among these.

This we must stop, which is why there should be no sacred ground, why we should begin to address those aspects of our civilisation that are creating the conditions for its destruction. We must not allow people to declare subjects like science as being something not open for critique and questioning and reform. One can also say the same thing about free market capitalism and religion. And what if we cannot reform that which our modern world is founded upon? Would we not then end up discussing and improving nothing? And the metaphorical gates of hell that I refer to at the end of my book Encounter with a Wise Man would indeed be closed and we would be condemned to live in a world where no improvements would be possible.

My focus is on questioning science, engineering and technology, but also free market capitalism and religion. I do this, not because I want to see these things abandoned or because I am opposed to them, but because I want to improve all of them, for all are in need of such. And it we do not address these matters now, future generations will condemn us for not doing so, for they are the people that will have to live with the consequences.

A Tale of Two Deserts

A Tale of Two Deserts, which carries the sub-title, Enigmatic Christmas Fables for the Modern Age, is the fourth of my Christmas books. Here I want to explain how I came to write it and its relevance to contemporary civilisation.

I began this work in December 2012 and I actually wrote first, the second story in this book, the one that is called Another Desert. And at that point in time I had no intention of writing what eventually emerged as A Tale of Two Deserts, being only concerned to write a story that moved beyond my previous Christmas tales, which are all based on Father Christmas. Once more I was experimenting with writing a different type of story, one somewhat strange in character, but which makes a powerful point about contemporary civilisation.

Just before starting this book, I had read Arthur Koestler’s thought provoking book, The Sleepwalkers, which is a history of man’s changing vision of the universe, starting in ancient times and ending with Newton. It is a well researched book that debunks a lot of the myths that have developed around people such as Copernicus and Galileo. And is was with Galileo’s words “yet it moves” in mind – those words that people believe Galileo uttered at his trial, but actually did not – that I set about turning these words around and back on the modern scientist. Thus I began writing what was to become the tale Another Desert. And the phrase I dropped into the story was “Yet they watch”, and what the tale does is demonstrate the ridiculously stupid beliefs of many modern scientists as well as exposing how in fact they operate. You can observe in the story, why simultaneously so smart yet so dumb. If you read my blog entry from a few weeks past (The God Delusion or The Science Delusion?), you will recognise that the story is very much related to matters covered in that blog, although at Christmas 2012, I was not aware that The God Delusion book well illustrates the points I was trying to make in Another Desert.

I can say here also that Another Desert is strongly linked to the theme of another book, Encounter with a Wise Man, building on this by exploring in more detail the damaging attitudes of scientists that are mentioned in Encounter with a Wise Man.

My writing of Another Desert was interrupted just before Christmas 2012, when my elderly mother died, and you can see this sad event reflected in the story. And there it lay for several weeks untouched, but in early February a change took place, for I became fascinated with answering the question that I had posed, about exactly what I was able to do as a writer. A vague idea of writing two stories then started to develop, which suddenly took on a final form while speaking to a friend in Brussels, the same person in fact who I had spoken with in 2011 about The Alchemist, which was an important step towards conceiving the story in Encounter with a Wise Man.

This is the moment when I realised that there would be a book consisting of two tales, both set on Christmas Eve, but separated by 2000 years, with the first taking place in a desert literal, and the second, in a desert figurative. And thus one book, two tales, one story was born, but it did not happen immediately, for I was busy with other matters. I actually wrote the book over Easter 2013, and like Encounter with a Wise Man, it just appeared on the pages, and once more, I could see that it did not need further work, and here too was the answer to the question about what exactly I was able to do as a writer.

Now I turn to the matter of its relevance to contemporary civilisation. Here I am not going to say much. I will point out that the book is highly allegorical and also spiritual in nature. It is also a book full of obfuscation.

I do not want to say too much about the meaning of the tales because the book is an invitation to people to begin to reflect upon their lives, what they believe, and what those beliefs are doing to our world. The book is also an invitation to people to begin to walk a different path, one where their minds have not closed in on fixed opinions, where there is room for mystery, and where there is an acceptance that they have not found the sole source of truth, nor has anybody else, and it is not just destinations that are important, but also the journey – life’s journey, one of discovery and adventure, a journey of the soul and the mind. And this, finally, leads me to make one more comment about the stories in A Tale of Two Deserts: they both deal with what I call the battle between the soul and the mind, and when the mind wins you know what follows.

The book is available open access, which means that you can read it for free, online, via my web site – A Tale of Two Deserts: EnigmaticChristmas Fables for the Modern Age.