Progress That Illumines: What Progress Looks Like in a OneEarth World

One of the most difficult matters to face up to is that the Progress we work hard to attain can result in advancing an illusion—the illusion of MultiEarth living. As such, that Progress strikes us blind to what it really takes to live on one planet. But if we can be blinded by Progress, can we also be illumined by Progress?

Yes, I believe we can.

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The Spirituality of Geographical and Economic Conquest in the U.S.

I’ve come to realize that assessing an economy’s spirituality is essential to determining whether that model works on our one planet home. For example, the conquest of the First Peoples on our continent by Europeans has become only more abhorrent to me the more I have realized the spirituality that was used to justify this conquest and expansion into other people’s land. The “wild West,” the invading European settlers claimed, was like the Promised Land that the Hebrew people headed for after their exodus from Egypt.

I have visited some of the Spanish missions along the West Coast of the U.S. Each time my gut aches about how European Christians enslaved First Peoples to build the mission complex. In crass violation of Indigenous ways, the European, MultiEarth expansionists, forced their technological worldview on the First Peoples. The sustainable agriculture of Indigenous people was scaled up through technological enhancements for greater productivity in the short run. Children of the First Peoples had their culture and language schooled out of them even as they were indoctrinated with Christianity by missionary teachers completely unable to appreciate or comprehend the sacred worldview they conquering.

Just as the spirituality of conquest undergirded those early events, it has continued in U.S.-Native American relations into the present. The OneEarth ways of Native Americans do not fit with the MultiEarth views of Progress, Growth, and The Market. But any path of Progress that so genocidally excludes the First Peoples and their OneEarth worldview is no path I want to walk. I ask, “What moral and spiritual authority make such behaviors over centuries okay?”

My desire, still not achieved, is to walk a OneEarth path as well as traditional First Peoples do.

The Market, Mammon, and the Multi Earth Pantheon of Deities

The Market is the supreme deity, a modern Zeus. Mount Wall Street is today’s Mount Olympus. Traits of The Market deity include being sovereign, unfettered, and omnipotent in power. The Market, with its mysterious, “invisible hand,” knows most and best, approaching omniscience. The logic of The Market has reasons of its own. It is self-regulating and knows what is good. When The Market expands, it is embodied as a Bull deity, a golden calf evoking dance and excited, cheering worship. But when The Market contracts, it behaves in the minds of investors like an untamed Bear. It’s best to be cautious with her; leave her alone in her bearish-ways lest she destroy you. 

Another deity of the pantheon, Mammon, is wealth — especially accumulated wealth, the amount one trusts in for security, or the family wealth of one or more previous generations which one is obligated to protect and expand so as to build a financial dynasty of whatever size. Returning it to strengthen the commonwealth, i.e., the economy of the great commons from which much of it came, is as rare as siting a mountain lion in the wild.

Devotion to Mammon extols maximizing profit and accumulating without limits. It is devotion to “More!” without any sense of “Enough!” The devotion often equals what we see in addictive behavior. Publicly-traded corporations have a legal responsibility to their shareholders to serve Mammon. It is within the global activities of The Market where Mammon’s worshippers are blessed or chastised. Loving Mammon motivates one toward “More!” and is a virtue in the marketplace.

Other important deities in the pantheon include Progress, Growth, Profit, Productivity, Consumption, Technology, and War. The divinity of each of these in economic religion becomes known through the unquestioning devotion they are given. In a Multi Earth economy, doubts that these deified entities are for the wellbeing of life or even the good of civilization are rarely heard. All these deities deeply stir the human spirit. We project upon them our own soul desires for more, better, and success. Even peace. As a result, spiritual energy inhabits them. The energy we give them builds and builds until they take on a life of their own. 

Which Title Would You Choose?

If you read this blog regularly, you already know that for the past couple of years, Michael Johnson and I have been working on a joint project, the One Earth Project. We now have a book manuscript completed and a blogsite, as well as projected plans for film. The manuscript is even with a second publisher, awaiting their thoughts. But we are still settling on a title for the book — that despite that one title was previously announced on this blog. You can see that we’re still mulling it over. So we thought it would be both fun and enormously helpful if you would help us pick a title. 

Of the following three titles and subtitles, would you rank them in order of which appeal most, hook you most, make you most curious, or whatever criteria you wish to use? Please mix and match the titles and subtitles if that helps you vote. Please rank the 3 from first to last and leave your comment soon.

Know that your reply will help Michael and me proceed on self-publishing as well as in our conversations with conventional publishers. Thanks for your participation in the One Earth Project. And now, to the voting! Here are the titles/subtitles waiting for your action.

1. Blinded by Progress: Five Earth-Destroying Practices We Can Change
2. The Frogs Are Drinking Up Their Pond: Five Earth-Destroying Practices We Can Change
3. The Eden We Can Choose: Correcting Five Choices Keeping Us Out of Earth’s Renewable Garden