From “Inherit the Wind”
‘Gentlemen, progress has never been a bargain. You’ve got to pay for it. Sometimes I think there’s a man behind a counter who says ‘All right, you can have a telephone; but you’ll have to give up privacy and the charm of distance. Madam, you may vote; but at price; you lose the right to retreat behind a powder puff or a petticoat. Mister, you may conquer the air; but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline.’
In contemplating the ‘˜advance of technology in the present and the ‘˜progress wrought by The Industrial Revolution in distant past, meanings of both words become skewed and questionable in light of today s experience of outcomes. It is apparent that the words are due closer scrutiny and more narrowly qualified definitions.
There is most certainly some cosmic entity behind a celestial counter that exacts a bitter price for what we have so cavalierly called progress and advancement. The ‘˜balance due is reliably presented in all aspects of our world; corporeal and inanimate. Think about it.
Looking at our hierarchic social, commercial and industrial landscape, the most glaring price tag for which payment is delayed and passed to our progeny, is nuclear waste. In return for exponentially superior production of raw energy we get by-product that will kill us if not securely stored away.
There are parallels.
For fast transportation we pay with tens of thousands of lost lives each year. For efficient, societal order we afflict our children with crippling, sex negative family and religious doctrines and abuses, making each generation sicker than the last. The price is exacted by contributing more human by-products to prisons, mental hospitals and chemical modification. Like so much dangerous human waste, many are also securely stored away. Others run about free creating even greater societal toxicity and pathogenesis.
We have learned to trick our senses with incredibly sophisticated artifice. Sweeteners, virtual reality, pornography, artificial fat, ‘˜winning in casinos, pharmaceuticals and other drugs chemically destroying our brains in diminishing returns of endorphins via every means we can devise. We have reached a time when many artificial products cost more than the real thing.
If we bring about substitute protein to go with the phony fat and carbohydrates, we could gain the dubious ‘˜advancement of eating ourselves into starvation.
This is called progress and it is a point to which we ve ‘˜advanced.
The benefit of that which is natural and genuine is satisfaction of healthy, rational cravings. Enough can be enough.
However, there is never enough of a substitute. One is condemned to chasing after emptiness falsely promised by our intentionally hoodwinked senses. Satisfaction is impossible no matter how much product or activity is experienced. This is at the root of all addiction.
Our generations of today are epicurean consumers of that which is counterfeit. From lying politicians to religious ‘pie in the sky,’ we are so addicted to illusion that we d rather knowingly chase what we know to be false than be discomforted by the truth of our investments. We have become like wives who don t want to be told what they already know about philandering husbands.
The celestial price tag on an entire life of artifice is shattering of illusions by inescapable starvation and ruin.
This world has no chance of ever recovering reality without a mass cognitive realization and shift of direction. Our kind would have to voluntarily abandon all artifice in the same way an addict or alcoholic must resist that one drop, the one cigarette, the one card game or horse race. Awareness of painful withdrawal and deprivation of endorphins is just beneath the surface of conscious reality for every addict. Addictions have a life and consciousness of their own. They alter brain chemistry, affect and occupy centers of reason, becoming part of the character structure of the addicted. This is why the promise of an addict is worthless. He/she is not in charge; the addiction does the reasoning; inflicting terrible anxiety in a battle for self-survival. Like an inner bureaucracy with an ever growing budget, addictions are independent inner personalities attached to the host; the chief executive at the bottom line.
Prospects for change on the societal level without transformative changes in individuals who comprise society are small beyond a point worthy of contemplation.
Pointing out in this snapshot of only one of the roots of our modern dilemma is like running a movie trailer. Many more weak cross threads in the fabric of our times aren t even touched on. We have had solutions suggested and researched in recent history.
In a similar fashion to stories written in the Bible, we destroy our prophets. We ve persecuted scientific pioneers who would give us truth. We’ve spurned leaders who refuse to tickle our ears.
In about six thousand or so years of recorded history, we have achieved so tragically little in terms of genuine progress and advancement.
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Power is a drug on which the politicians are hooked. They buy it from the voters, using the voters’ own money.
- Richard J. Needham
Got interrupted. Also wanted to a that you hit it out of the park again, S.
Ultimately, the path we have set ourselve on is not sustainable. We do not have the luxury of staying where we are. Change has come to us and the longer we dely, the more costly and difficult it will be. That is on top of the cost of our continuing inaction.
Issues like health care, energy use, the environment and education are of vital importance and will only reach crisis level if nothing is done. The fact that we are living in a world that looks nothing like the one of the past means that we have to find new solutions and cannot rely solely on the methods of the past. While we need to heed history, it should be to learn what we can from it and use that knowledge in crafting future actions, not to repeat it so that we make the same mistakes.
If the past worked, we’d still be living in it. The fact that we are not shows that it hasn’t. Change should never be made solely for the sake of change, but we should not allow caution and due diligence to excuse lack of action and play into fear of change. This is where clarity, knowledge and rational debate become paramount; heaven knows it is a vital and missing necessity in what is happening today.