Who here either saw or read "The Sacred Balance" by David Suzuki?

[IrateCitizen]

I missed the series on PBS, but picked up his book at the store Saturday. I've read about half of it thus far, and I have to say, it is one of the most amazing perspectives on environmentalism that I have ever read!

The central argument is that, over the past 200 years or so, we have increasingly separated ourselves from the environment, which is a false impression. The reality is that we are all part of the environment, and the environment is part of us. In fact, ALL life on this earth is intertwined together, from the smallest bacteria in the topsoil to the largest whale in the ocean. Anything that affects one eventually ripples to affect the other.

It's an incredible perspective, and one that I have come to in many ways over the past few years -- although I could never explain it as well as Dr. Suzuki does! He mixes science with history and native spirituality to articulate a revolutionary worldview, one that the environmental movement needs to adopt for the long-term, IMHO.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. *kick*

the TV series is great.

[IrateCitizen]

2. I know that subjects like this aren't "sexy" in GDF...

... but I'm really interested in what others who are familiar with this have to say about it.

[Kusala]

3. I saw some of the TV series

and it was great.

I meant to go get the book and now this post has reminded me. Thanks!

Classic eastern philosophy. It should be common sense but(and i mean this in the most buddhist way), we as humanity are, have been, and probably always will be blind to what should be obvious.

[sangha]

4. I saw bits and pieces on PBS

Suzuki impressed me with his description of how we have come to forgotten so much about our nature, an idea which coincides with a number of things I've read, and thought about lately, a few of which stick out.

For one thing, our need for nature is not the only aspect of our human nature. Another aspect is ability and tendency to group and categorize all things --and ALL things, not just physical things, but ideas, concepts, values, etc too-- according to their perceived qualities. This is light, that is heavy. This is good, that is bad. Nature vs. Nurture and Liberals vs. Conservatives. This tendency contributes to our perception of "This is me, that is the universe."

I also think that the Biblical portrayal of our dominion over the earth, and it's portrayal of us as being divine and in possession of a "covenant" with The Lord, also contributes to the perception that we are somehow unique, and therefore apart from the rest of the universe.

There's a book I've been reading that you might be interested in. It's called 'The Blank Slate - Man's Denial of Human Nature' by Steven Pinker. Actually, Pinker is an ass who repeats the conservative straw man whine about how various intellectual elites --the examples he gives are psychologists, philosophers, etc though what he really means is "liberals"-- deny that genes affect our behavior or our nature or much of anything besides our physical features. And i've barely begun the book. It's going to be a tough slog, but is you ignore the bad attitude, he does provide some interesting information.

For one thing, he does a decent job of describing what science has learned about how our brains and our minds operate. Basically, there are various areas in our brains that are responsible for particular and specific mental tasks. Some areas are responsible for storing long-term memories, some are responsible for processing the perceptual data thats coming in from our sense organs, while still others are responsible for making a particular muscle move.

In addition to these, there are other areas that are responsible for coordinating two or more of those other tasks. One area uses the incoming perceptions, such as sight, and analyzes them by it's attributes (ie. sharp edges, rounded, shape, color, etc) and another area that uses that analysis and organizes a search of long-term memory to match them to an object or objects. Another area ueses the info about the object to search in memory for the "rules" which help inform our response to said object(s), and this response is not limited to the physical. It can physiological, emotional, metabolic, etc. This response is the result of another set of areas of the brain, all working in concert in a continous mental and physiological ballet.

The point of all this is that not that the end result of this is a response on our part. It's that in the process of continously processing of all this information, both incoming and internally generated, we create our consciousness. The sum total of all these various activities; what we see and touch, whether we're hot or cold, happy or sad, is WHAT WE ARE. That is our "self", as envisioned by the secular definition of a self.

The "rules" that we apply, the patterns that we see, and the very laws of the physical universe that we assume to be true, are nothing more than the result of this orchestra of mental activity. The idea of patterns and rules is a work of Art. It lies at the heart of Creation.

Adam and Eve were banished from God's Garden because they had eaten from the tree that taught them Right vs. Wrong. Until that moment, all had been One, and it was All Good, and after that, they were condemned to spend life making distinctions.