Effort ?
It is criticism that demands an effort.
The assertion stopped me cold while reading the chapter entitled Static Religion in Henri Bergson’s book, Two Sources of Morality and Religion.
Is it not painfully clear than things are badly off kilter in our world? Never before have we had the capability of news awareness 24×7, world wide. It is incredulous to think that conditions have always been so tenuous, so fragile, so on-the-cusp-of-disaster as they appear to be today. It is reasonable to think that the same technology that makes globalization possible, — unprecedented transfer of knowledge and know-how, proliferation of seemingly infinite social media options with instant, immediate communication with masses of people, also is at root of the ecological degradation, the slide toward dictatorship in many of the world’s democracies, and the general unrest that we are now aware of.
Living in Batavia on the west side of the Fox River I have occasion to pass over the river. Batavia in particular was founded and thrived due to the power provided by the river for manufacturing. A number of the old factories have been repurposed, and stand as mute testimony that the living current of Nature was and is the source of life for the human community. The river is swollen now, and word has come over the past several days of flooding in the communities up stream that were lashed with violent storms. The Fox and the Des Planes river are above flood stage.
These weather events are happening locally, are more frequent and are more violent than in the recent past. No longer a news clip about drought in Bangladesh or protracted sub-zero cold in Europe, — the panic of calamity comes home: flooding along the Mississippi this spring, Puerto Rico wrecked by a hurricane, devastating fires in California, and a few days ago, hurricane Dorian raked the outer banks of North Carolina unleashing a seven foot storm surge up Pamleco and Albemarle Sounds.
Two responses to such events leave me stunned speechless, unable to grasp the non sequitur. One response is that weather events are cyclical, and there is no need for concern as we just need to patiently wait until the climate patterns change. That is the “what me worry attitude” and yes, I immediately imagine Alfred E. Neuman, the mascot of Mad Magazine. The other mind numbing response is: “I’m sure that ‘They’ll’ figure something out.” Such a response is a juvenile deferral of responsibility to “the adults”, the great lords of technology, think – google, facebook, and the other global technology corporations. Never mind that those companies only care about issues that have favorable odds of returning big profits in the short run. Both responses are an abject refusal of responsibility, an absence of will to criticize our way of life as possibly being causal in these upheavals of Nature that roil us.
“And so it goes,” as Kurt Vonnegut often said.
