12/02/2022
Very insightful reading.
“A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels…” ~Albert Einstein, N.Y. Times, 1946
- The Wisdom Deficit: Crisis of Disconnection -
The root cause of humanity’s problems is a crisis of disconnection, where most people do not understand (or care about) how they are connected to Nature and how our global economic system has a destructive influence on the lives of others on the planet that we share.
This "wisdom deficit" within high-technology civilizations has created wars, poverty, great suffering and environmental destruction for centuries. As Einstein tried to explain, we need to use our imaginations to connect knowledge together, otherwise we become blind to the interconnected wholeness of life and our connection to the Universe that surrounds us.
Decade after decade problems keep arising that cannot be solved with knowledge (or technology) alone, but only with a creative re-imagining of the systems of economics, cultural values and wealth distribution that dominate now.
Wars, poverty, economic crashes, wealth hoarding, street gangs, addiction, drug cartels, suicides, gun cultures, street children and environmental destruction are not disconnected problems. They are all rooted in the fractured and materialistic worldview of dominant cultures, where (for centuries) money, economics and material things have been valued more than people, nature, spiritual wisdom, love and community.
Martin Luther King Jr. tried to share this understanding with us by pointing to the inter-related structure of reality, what Thich Nhat Hanh called "Inter-being." Desmond Tutu talked of the wisdom of "ubuntu" - the African value of community, equality, balance and sharing.
Indigenous peoples (and most of our distant ancestors) have understood this for thousands of years, their cultures valued wisdom, community and an integration of knowledge with compassion and love. If we want to create a survivable future for our children and all future generations, we need to do the same.
~Christopher Chase
Systems Thinking: Seeing How Everything is Connected
https://creativesystemsthinking.wordpress.com/2014/11/22/systems-thinking-seeing-how-everything-is-connected/
From Globalization to Localization (The Economics of Happiness) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyQaUDLW6ts&t=235s
All Life is Interrelated - Martin Luther King, Jr.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zD0qHUAiwo&t=7s
Paradigms are Made for Shifting
https://creativesystemsthinking.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/paradigms-are-made-for-shifting/
Inter-being (Thich Nhat Hanh)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuVqp4KmNWk
Indigenous Wisdom – Chief Dan George, 1972
https://creativesystemsthinking.wordpress.com/2021/10/12/indigenous-wisdom-chief-dan-george-1972/
The Time of Renewal -Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman
https://creativesystemsthinking.wordpress.com/2021/09/11/the-time-of-renewal-floyd-red-crow-westerman/
How We Learn to Compartmentalize
https://creativesystemsthinking.wordpress.com/2019/06/08/how-we-learn-to-compartmentalize/
Awakening from the Cult of Ignorance
https://creativesystemsthinking.wordpress.com/2015/07/16/awakening-from-the-cult-of-ignorance/
