Is Nature Important?

Highlights from our meeting on 05/28/03

1. Why do we seem to be acting in a way that is so destructive to nature?
2. What is nature?
3. Are national parks, city parks, and gardens, maintained by man, nature?
4. Isn't nature really just inhospitable wilderness?
5. But isn't everything, including man, a part of nature?
6. Shouldn't we distinguish between "Nature" as all inclusive and "nature" as that part of all-inclusive Nature which is independent of man?
7. Isn't it arrogant of man to assume that he actually has the power to control nature and to destroy nature?
8. Won't man destroy himself before he can ever succeed at destroying nature?
9. But isn't it also true that man can destroy large parts of nature before he destroys himself?
10. Isn't that, in fact, our greatest fear, that we will destroy ourselves by destroying those parts of nature that are vital to our own survival?
11. Does nature even "care" if we destroy ourselves?
12. Does nature care if we destroy all life on this planet?
13. Is there really anything unnatural about a dead planet?
14. So if it is our own survival that is at stake, why are we acting so recklessly toward nature?
15. How can we know for sure which parts of nature are vital to our own survival?
16. Is it a question of long-term versus short-term planning?
17. Isn't it short-term thinking that is responsible for the rapid depletion of our natural resources?
18. Is our economy structured in a way that rewards short-term profits over the long-term welfare of the planet?
19. Isn't a more "native" lifestyle more respectful of nature and therefore more sustainable?
20. Wasn't that the argument of Rousseau and others of the Romantic Movement who advocated a return to the way of the "Noble Savage"?
21. Hasn't that philosophy been discredited as being no longer feasible?
22. Isn't the world population already too large to allocate sufficient land to each individual to live that lifestyle?
23. Isn't the population growing fastest in the underdeveloped countries?
24. Aren't these countries already in crisis over insufficient natural resources to sustain the Noble Savage lifestyle?
25. Hasn't agricultural technology made it possible to feed a much larger world population than was previously possible?
26. But is this technology sustainable?
27. Aren't we losing top soil at an alarming rate with our modern agricultural techniques?
28. Aren't we also becoming more and more dependent on chemical fertilizers and pesticides?
29. Don't all these chemicals have long-term destructive consequences on our environment?
30. Isn't our industrial pollution destroying whole fishing industries in some locations?
31. Can newer and newer technology compensate for the destruction it itself has caused?
32. Is the problem in the technology or in the culture?
33. Isn't the problem that our culture rewards short-term thinking?
34. Is the reign of the patriarchal power structure to blame for emphasizing acting on the environment as opposed to relating to it?
35. Wouldn't a feminist, matriarchal system be better at relating to Mother Nature?
36. But don't we need both the masculine and the feminine?
37. Isn't either one, in isolation from the other, destructive to both?
38. Don't we want and need the best of both the masculine and the feminine?
39. Isn't this best achieved by the union and integration of the masculine and the feminine?
40. Isn't vertical integration also essential to any new nature-friendly culture?
41. Wouldn't such an "integral world-view" emphasize stewardship rather than exploitation?
42. What does it mean to have an "integral world-view"?
43. Doesn't it mean recognizing that everything is inter-related and inter-dependent?
44. Is that what some call the "great web of life"?
45. Does that put humans on the same level as other animals?
46. Doesn't man occupy a special position in relation to the rest of nature?
47. Isn't man in a position above other animals, and other animals above plants?
48. Isn't there a special responsibility that goes with that special position?
49. Isn't that responsibility a kind of stewardship?
50. Doesn't that kind of stewardship include a responsibility to treat other animals humanely?
51. So does that then mean that the web has a hierarchical structure?
52. As we become more conscious, don't we also become more powerful and more responsible?
53. Are hierarchies necessarily bad?
54. Wouldn't an enlightened, integral hierarchy bind power with responsibility and willing stewardship?
55. Wouldn't such willing stewardship, not only protect those parts of nature vital to our own survival but also promote the mindful, humane, treatment of all living things for its own sake?
56. Wouldn't such a culture, for instance, seek a humane alternative to the "concentration camp" method of raising cows and chickens used by agribusiness today?
57. But where does our culture come from?
58. Does it come from Hollywood?
59. Does it come from Madison Avenue?
60. Didn't it use to come from parents?
61. Is there a long-term process currently at work that will change our culture?
62. Isn't culture always changing?
63. What determines where culture will go in the long-term?
64. What will our culture look like 30 years from now?
65. Isn't it in large part determined by who teaches our children and what they teach them?
66. Won't those who plan for the long-term be more influential in the long-term, than those who only plan for the short-term?
67. Does that mean that a minority of long-term thinkers can steer the course of long-term change, despite the sea of short-term thinkers?
68. For that to be true, isn't it also necessary that the long-term thinkers act in synchrony and not in isolation?
69. Is it possible that such a critical mass of mindfully aware individuals acting in synchrony could represent the beginning of a collective global consciousness?