Bankrupting the Idiocracy

Bankrupting the Idiocracy

by Anodea Judith
 

I hate to write about money. It’s not my thing. And I’m tired of reading about it, hearing about it, and having it be the center of every newscast. It’s given far too much importance on every issue, and it overshadows anything resembling real value. But there’s some things that must be said.

Now real value is something I do like to hear about. The real value of an education, (instead of robbing school budgets) the real value of caring for your health (as opposed to arguing about how to pay for over-priced, ineffective health care), the real value of a robust environment (instead of a robust economy that depletes the environment). 

But this isn’t the topic of conversation these days. It’s how to pay for things we don’t want, like wars and bailouts, and how to not to pay for things we do want, like public services, social security, the EPA, and programs that serve the common good.

I’m tired of hearing how we have to boost the economy by getting more jobs doing what we’ve always done: raped the environment to make and sell useless products no one needs; manufacture weapons to be sold to other countries so we can “protect national security” from their violence; (80,000 of the weapons confiscated in the Mexico drug wars were made in the U.S. of A, a figure heard on NPR, with the cost of the border fence $6.5 billion over 20 years; or spending trillions on pointless and immoral wars (watch the numbers move here) while letting our bridges, highways, and national morale rot here at home.

I’m sad to see looting in the streets of London, but let’s get real. That’s not where the real looting is happening. It’s in the banking and mortgage industry, and they’ve looted the foreclosure of more than 3 million homes in 2010 and nearly a million in the last quarter here in the U.S.

I’m tired of people saying they didn’t see the recession coming, when we have another bigger recession looming on the horizon that we’re too scared to face: the impending bankruptcy of water, oil, trees, topsoil, fish, clean air, and truth. These are not things you can save with a bailout. They are not so easily replaced. They’re not even computed on the balance sheet.

We’re not in a recession. There’s plenty of money in Iraq and Afghanistan where it costs a million dollars a year per soldier, to say nothing of the government contracts to rebuild what we destroy.There’s plenty of money to keep people in prison, where serving five years for a $300 theft costs the public more than $100,000 and the cost of a life sentence averages $1.5 million.

There’s plenty of money spent on political campaigns, ($5.3 billion in 2008) paid for by lobbyists to keep even more money running through their special interests. When you add that $5.3 billion to the $8 billionbudget of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA, there to make sure you don’t blow up a plane with your toothpaste, and you’ve got more than enough money to satisfy the entire world’s sanitation and hunger requirements (estimated at $13 billion).

We’re not broke, we’re developing a blood clot. Money is currency and should describe a circulation system whereby goods get to wherever they’re needed. In the body, our blood circulates to bring oxygen and nutrients to each and every cell. If we were to keep all the blood in one place, we’d call it an aneurysm and would soon be dead.

The good news is that we can’t afford this Idiocracy any more. The monetary system we know and don’t love is collapsing and proving itself to be a false representative of real value.  It’s not going to work when we reach a critical mass of people out of work, out of their homes, unable to buy goods or pay taxes, and 45,000 people each year dying for lack of health insurance (compare that to 3,000 who died on 9/11 and $8 billion spent in response by TSA).

The good news is this kind of money will bankrupt itself. The bad news is how many innocent people will suffer in the process. However, life will go on without it, just as it always has, after we wake up and end the nightmare. And then maybe we’ll start talking about real things again. 

We could start with integrity.

 

"Things fall apart," wrote William Butler Yeats. "The centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity."

-Anodea Judith, August 2011

How Do We Make Change?

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Photo from Chapter 8 of Anodea Judith's Waking the Global Heart

How Do We Make Change?

One way that change happens – and certainly not the fun way -- is the path of adversity. That’s when we get beaten so far down that we surrender. An alcoholic hits bottom; we run out of money; the sea level rises, oil sources dry up, the economy tanks, or civilization collapses. There’s lots of  “doomers” out there who say that’s how it’s going to happen, that humans don’t change anything until they absolutely have to. From this perspective, humanity is headed straight toward its collective dark night of the soul.

Such dark nights are a time of deep listening. So many people I meet these days are in a state of confusion, not knowing quite what to do right now. The “I don’t know” means we are open to ideas, instruction, guidance. A collective “We don’t know” would mean we have to listen to each other, to the earth, and to the divine intelligence that is actually running the place. Dark nights lead to deep systemic change.

There’s another way change happens that’s a lot brighter and easier. It’s simply having a better idea. We didn’t need a failure of the typewriter industry to switch to desktop computers. Nor did main frame computers have to self-destruct for us to buy laptops or smartphones. We just self-selected for superior performance. When small groups of people get together and start doing things differently -- and are successful at it --  people around them start taking notice. They look over and say: “I want what she’s having!”

The yoga movement that’s sweeping the world is a case in point. You go to a party and run into a friend you haven’t seen in five years. She looks great, fit and shining with light. You ask: “Wow, you look good. What have you been doing?” It might be yoga, or it might be a good diet, meditation, or a new kind of snake oil, but it’s the success that makes you want to try it. As new ideas form on the edge and people find benefit, these ideas grow into movements. What works expands and evolves. People want to join. 

In Tapscott and William’s book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything they show how companies that collaborate are making more money than those that have full time R & D personnel. Wikipedia out-performs the old encyclopedia sets. Countries like Germany are shifting their taxes from income to ecotax and have created a green industry with 250,000 new jobs. 

What if there were a subset of the UN called the Union of Peace Nations?  If a nation was willing to get rid of nuclear weapons, keep their military down to a small fraction of their national budget, agree to human rights principles, and other such things, they could have protection from other countries. Meanwhile these countries could balance their budget, rebuild their schools, give their citizens healthcare, develop green technologies. They could prosper and be a model for others who would then want to “get in on the club.”

What it takes is showing that something works better, then getting more people involved. As it grows, we get better at what we’re doing. We get more visible. We’re not knocking anything down, we’re simply galloping beyond it.

Photo/Artwork by Will Zero

As Mark Gafni said at the World Spirituality Center opening, we’re transcending, which is ending the trance.

Anodea Judith
April 8, 2011

FROM YANGXIETY TO YINSIGHT: THE BALANCE OF THE EQUINOX

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FROM YANGXIETY TO YINSIGHT:
THE BALANCE OF THE EQUINOX

Well, friends, here it is. The long-awaited beginning of spring and the point of sacred balance between the dark and the light. As Uranus leaves Pisces, where it’s been lurking for the last seven years in Neptunian formlessness, it now moves into Aries, the start of the zodiac, signifying the start of a whole new cycle, with new fire and focus. No wonder we’re getting earthquakes and threats of meltdowns. The fires of transformation are upon us. But how do we ride all this energy with balance and equanimity?

Too much fire can be too much yang, and with all the radiation panic, it seems the whole culture is suffering from yangxiety. Most people are yanged out – too much to do, too much stimulation, moving too fast, and face it, too much masculine paradigm superimposing itself on the natural world.

Isn’t the threat of nuclear radiation pouring into the air, water, and earth near one of the largest and most productive cities in the world enough cause to make us all stop and think about what we are doing and where we are going? (as if we didn’t already have enough reasons). If this doesn’t do it, what will it take?

What we need for balance is a little yin-sight. Slow down, take some quiet time to reflect, have a nice long bath and think things through. Emptiness softens, informs, allows new things to come into being, and creates ease. And who couldn’t use just a little more ease in their life as we head round the bend into the future? If Springtime signifies rebirth as well as balance, it may be that balance is necessary for rebirth.

There are many things out of balance in our world, but none quite so long-standing and globally pervasive as the imbalance between masculine and feminine. Here at the Spring Equinox, the Greek Goddess of the Underworld, Persephone, returns to the light and brings back the flowers and greenery—and with them, food for the people and hope for the future. She’s had a long hard winter, birthing the souls of the dead back to life again and living under Hades rules.

So let’s give Her some room to distribute her magnificence. Let’s take time to smell the flowers and remember the miracle of spring. Let’s combat global warming with some chill space – less driving, less doing, less stuff. Let the feminine lead a little more in your life – your own feminine side, or the women in your life. You may be surprised that your life gets a little easier as corners turn to curves, hard edges to softness, and that dry job gets a little juicier.

If this yang civilization collapses, we won’t be able to go anywhere or do much of anything. The yin will then predominate, and we’ll be out of balance again in a different direction. So we may as well do it now, while the Divine Partnership that gives birth to all possibilities is still possible.

At birth all people are soft and yielding.

At death they are hard and stiff.

All green plants are tender and yielding.

At death they are brittle and dry.

When hard and rigid

We consort with death.

When soft and flexible,We affirm greater life.

Lao Tzu

Anodea Judith

March 24, 2011

Using the 12 Steps for Global Recovery

The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous have been used by millions of people for addressing a variety of harmful addictions, not only with alcohol and other drugs, but gambling, sex, food, and the enabling behavior of those who deal with addicts, called co-dependents. The phenomena of addiction – using a substance or a process to the degree that it threatens the functionality and stability of your life – is widespread.

As a society we have a collective addiction. We are addicted to consuming the Earth. This addiction is threatening our health, our economy, our political stability, and the future of civilization as we know it. Our addictive consumption is deeply embedded into our economic system, which is wholly dependent on exploiting natural resources to produce goods. Economic prosperity means more shopping malls, car sales, and home building. As we pollute the biosphere with industrial waste, drive up global temperatures, and fight wars over resources, this addiction is life-threatening. It is even part of our identity: we are called “consumers,” continuously urged by advertising to consume as much as possible.

What if we adopted the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous to address our addictive consumption of the Earth? Here’s what it might look like:

1. Admitted that we were powerless over the culture’s addictive consumption and destruction of the planet, and that our environmental crises had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that the divine power of Gaia, the living Earth, could run the biosphere correctly and heal the destruction over time.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and the legislation of our behaviors over to the balance of nature, as we understand it through our sciences and spiritual practices.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of the extent of the damage we have done to the planet.
5. Globally admitted the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to let the needs of Gaia override these destructive policies and behaviors.
7. Humbly returned to simpler ways of life, allowing our connection to Gaia to guide our habits.
8. Made a list of all systems we had harmed, and realized the need to make amends to them all.
9. Created direct policies, legislation, and practices to address such harm wherever possible.
10. Continued to monitor the way we live upon the Earth, and when wrong, promptly exposed it.
11. Sought, through appropriate activity and spiritual practice, our conscious connection with Gaia, seeking knowledge of Nature and the power to live collectively in harmony with Her.
12. Having experienced a global awakening as a result of these steps, celebrated and sought to help other people and nations find their way to a healthy relationship with their environment and fellow beings.

Anodea Judith, Ph.D.

Download PDF version of Using the 12 Steps for Global Recovery

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Read Anodea’s latest book Waking the Global Heart.

Waking the Global Heart articulates a guiding vision for the transformational passage of our time. Positing that we are an adolescent culture in search of our future humanity, our maturation into the next era of human civilization will occur through an initiatory process that is at once both personal and collective. The agents of our initiation are the very by-products of our culture––from population expansion and environmental degradation to scientific breakthroughs and the blossoming of the World Wide Web. Such rites of passage force a shift in identity and awaken a fundamental change in values. A new identity must emerge that is based on planetary stewardship and global community, rather than ego-based individualism.

This requires the enchantment of a new myth––a fundamental awakening to an inspirational vision. Lasting transformation cannot be generated by fear, guilt, or control, but must be motivated from the heart. This comprises a shift from our current values based on the love of power to those motivated by the power of love. What awakens the heart is the soul of the world itself and the very real possibility of a wondrous future.

The primary focus of the current era, oriented to power, aggression, and personal ego must change. The old story of warring empires struggling for power must give way to a new myth of interdependent reciprocity. An era of the heart, based on values of integration, compassion, human rights, and environmental sustainability, is essential if we are to survive into the future. This shift takes us from opposition to synthesis, competition to cooperation, separation to integration, markets to networks, and most importantly: from power to love.

Waking the Global Heart chronicles the story of this passage. It takes the reader through an examination of three basic questions: Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? The answers take us on a tour through 30,000 years of the human story, examining the mythic themes that guided past eras. Each era is compared to stages of individual psychological development from birth to adolescence, and correlates these stages of collective evolution to the levels of consciousness related to the chakra system and to masculine and feminine archetypal dynamics.

The book then describes the elements of a new organizing principle based on self-organizing networks, values of compassion and cooperation, synthesis of divorced polarities, and the awakening of both transcendent and immanent forms of spirituality. Through a fundamental shift from seeing our world as an object to embracing it as a complex and divine subject, we can fall back in love with the world once again, and join together in balance and respect with the original partner in our evolutionary journey. By this act we can send the message through the global brain that it is time to awaken the global heart.

Buy the Book