So I feel like all of my posts will have some angle of capitalism in it, so I’m just going to embrace it.
After the discussion we had today about the four noble truths of Buddhism and the focus on the first truth, it dawned on me that the central ideology of Buddhism can be used as a telescope into why capitalism has been as ubiquitous and as insidious as it is. It all comes from the following flow chart:
Suffering <—— Attachment <—— Desire <—— Emptiness <——- Suffering <—— And so on…
If we come to the enlightenment that human beings are empty and we’re in a constant state of filling that emptiness, then I think the easiest was to fill that void (or the way in which we’re conditioned to fill it) is by material gain or material wealth. Also, if we’ve been led into this belief of duality, that you have and I do not and therefore I must have, the “goal setting” model of success can also be the easiest way to fill that emptiness.
Advertisements pinpoint this everlasting emptiness and our desire to attach ourselves to something and barrage us with ways in which we can be better, or have more, or not feel lonely. We only need to look at Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook for examples of this. On the consumerism side of things, more money, better cars, bigger houses, more material gain gives us a feeling of success and (fleeting) satisfaction that corporations can abuse. I think this is at the core of the ecological crisis. The fact that we can abuse the human condition of emptiness and turnover a profit from it. We can ordain trees, but at some point, someone is going to want that lumber to make houses or bridges, and at some point someone else is going to want that and so the person who cut down the tree is going to find a lucrative business out of it, unless we re-engineer humanity to find satisfaction in something outside the material realm.
Strong viewpoint. I think it’s radical. And I’m not sure people want to be that radical.
Dear Isaiah, et al., I wonder what you thought of the following passage from Bauman & O’Brien in their concluding chapter?
“Consider the question of whether our globalizing capitalist economy is good for the earth or not. In Chapters 8 and 15, Lois Lorentzen and Laura Hartman both raised the possibility that this economic system has taken on the role of religion in the contemporary world, that economic growth is a spiritual value for many people on earth today. Is this good news, providing hope that the world can unite around a coherent system, valuing the kinds of innovation that might solve environmental problems? Or is this bad news, a cause to despair that the resources of deeper and more enlightened religious traditions are being drowned out by the cheap thrills of the market? When we see the emerging religion of the market, should people concerned for the environment feel hope, despair, or both at the same time?” (273)
I don’t think we read either chapter he cites here, but I found it a fascinating idea–economy is the new religion–especially because I was so repulsed by it at first ! On the one hand, I’m doubtful that the current economic system has the moral capacity to be a source of hope for humanity. However, as noble as revolution is, perhaps it is more productive to work with what we have for the time being? I am obviously dubious of this strategy, but I think it could provide a way to meet people halfway, so to speak. If capitalism is structural, i.e., informing our political system, culture, individual values, etc., wouldn’t it be most helpful to speak to that in the fight for the environment? Is it possible to reappropriate capitalist views to serve the ecological crisis?