Blinded by Progress: Breaking Out of the Illusion That Holds Us

ISBN-13: 9780991155408 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 488 str.

Lee Van Ham

Opis

Blinded by Progress is a work of keen observation, a great deal of scholarship and an abiding care for living beings. There were many paths that we might have taken in the past that would have led to a better world than the one we inhabit. Lee Van Ham's writing delineates a path going forward that does not repeat the illusions of progress. I hope it opens many eyes.
- Paul Hawken, entrepreneur, environmentalist, and author of Blessed Unrest and Natural Capitalism

Lee has written a book that is a hair-on-fire call to action to free ourselves from our folly of only looking at Me and moving us to We... Pronto. - Will Marre, Founder, The American Dream Project

Turning the pages of Lee Van Ham's new narrative nonfiction book, Blinded by Progress, releases that "ah-hah" feeling we have when truth breaks out of illusion.

Blinded by Progress shows why MultiEarth living-living as if we have more than one Earth-grips us so tightly despite the inevitable apocalyptic consequences of living beyond our planet's capacities. It addresses the seemingly simple, yet elusive question, "Why do we continue to pursue economic growth as if it is economic health when continued growth is ecologically impossible?" Are proponents of continued growth sinister or unconscious? Do we prefer blind faith to the obvious eyes-open truth?

The author discloses how he unwittingly came under the spell of MultiEarth living and then, as his consciousness shifted, how he began reshaping his life to OneEarth living-a project in process. Readers will follow along with the personal quest of the author, and come to new, life-giving decisions about their own MultiEarth vs. OneEarth choices.

Blinded by Progress makes special contributions to the global conversation now underway about sustainable living. The author clearly delineates the contrasts between MultiEarth and OneEarth worldviews. The chapter on the religious devotion given to MultiEarth economics and practices contains perspectives and content often left out of conversations on the themes treated in this book. The power that myth has to keep us practicing the illusionary MultiEarth worldview is revealed using John Steinbeck's magnum opus, East of Eden. That novel's use of the Cain and Abel myth provides bold guidance for our own MultiEarth-OneEarth choices. The concluding distinction between MultiEarth and OneEarth progress shows us how we got into our illusionary bubble and leaves no doubt that we have the power to choose differently. The personal journey of the author weaves in and out of the chapters, serving to illustrate the book's themes, the subtleties by which MultiEarth progress blinds us, and the power to choose OneEarth's satisfying ways.

Lee Van Ham has been working on ecological economics since 2000. This work follows three decades of experience in leading congregations where his writing and teaching gifts developed. In 2009, he met Michael Johnson; the two came together around their common interest in ecology and economics. Out of their relationship the OneEarth Project was born to partner their interests in writing and filmmaking. Johnson is an Emmy-award winning filmmaker who has begun work on a documentary related to themes in Blinded by Progress.

Why does so much human activity continue in the illusionary bubble where lifestyles and societies require the resources of more than one Earth? In his first book, Blinded by Progress, Lee Van Ham contributed to a deeper understanding of that question. This book takes us on the heroic journey to relocate outside of that illusion.

With a 1.5° Celsius temperature rise above pre-industrial levels now certain by 2026, we must immediately and massively scale-up many excellent ecological efforts in order to have any chance of avoiding 2° by mid-century. It requires we take a heroic journey on which our most challenging choices are met with new thinking, aroused imaginations, and a greater consciousness where we live out our truest human capacities.

From Egos to Eden guides us on this journey, moving from ego to Self, from civilization to Earth-size living, from smaller topographies of consciousness to transforming ones. We metamorphose into our fuller capacities as humans—people eager to leave MultiEarth living and join Earth in co-creating OneEarth societies. The powers of our imagination help us crossover into a world in which we take our place with other species in Earth’s interdependent community of life—a OneEarth livable world.

The author reclaims Eden from a morality tale of human failure and returns it to the cutting edge it had when its creators told it in protest of the coercive, over-sized ways of empires. In their case it was the Babylonian Empire of the 6th century BCE; in our case, Eden turns its spotlight on the United States superpower, China’s rapidly emerging super-status, and the globalization driven by transnational corporations. All are revealed as flawed, MultiEarth models that need to unravel or be radically re-imagined to fit with nature’s demands.

Guides on this heroic journey include First Peoples who have resisted for millennia the Civilization Project of MultiEarth living; Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, who gives a psychological-spiritual basis for believing we can be new humans; and David Korten whose map shows us five topographies of consciousness through which we can and must journey.

Coming to see clearly that living with the thinking of a MultiEarth paradigm can never get us to OneEarth living, we can undergo the metamorphosis to the greater OneEarth standards of thought and choice that the current context requires of us.