A
feature which distinguishes us from the animal world is our innate ability to
tell stories about ourselves.
But
it is only over the past 20 years we have realised the extent of the severe climatic
instability and uncertainty that underpinned our evolutionary journey over the
past few million years. What we can say with a high degree of certainty, is we
prospered due to an extraordinary ability to alter the landscape and adapt.
In
turn, that shaped us in our evolving identity, in the sacred practices, values
and expressions of what it is to be human. That is; ‘the sense of self’.
So
here we are in the Age of Humans, known as the Anthropocene, a new era with
attendant greater risk for sustainability requiring another narrative.
The
questions we need to ask of ourselves is as empathy requires imagination, does our biological evolution make it hard
for us to have empathy and to identify with those outside the tribe?
What is it that can lead us
to a new moral sense of meaning in this new world?
Is there a link between
culture and our survival and if so what is it? Does our moral sense of empathy
need to change?
If it is essential we
develop new values away from the old tribal values, to ensure we might engage
in a meaningful way? Ultimately that comes down to politics and behaviours because
the Anthropocene is of our making. We have, in the past, changed ourselves, in
tandem with adaptions to the new environment, so in this age that needs to be
repeated with a greater sense of urgency.
2 comments:
I like this, Lindsay. If I can put this post side-by-side with my most recent post, I would say we have a need for radical re-thinking about the world, the environment, and our place in them. We can no longer take the view that this-is-how-it-is simply because we choose to think that way. Thinking it doesn't turn the thought into fact. Unfortunately, too many of us are still addicted to old, outworn ways of thinking that prevent us from facing reality.
Did you read the recent comment by one world leader who said that we could do with more global warming to offset the Arctic Vortex? From anyone else, that might have been amusing, just about. From him? Oh no.
Hi Tom,
Well said.
I did read the recent comment, and another by press secretary Sarah Sanders who told a religious television network that God "wanted Trump to become president".
Best wishes
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