On his way back to Earth, having just walked on the moon, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell experienced a radical transformation in perspective and thus consciousness. As he approached our planet from beyond it’s sphere of influence, “he was filled with an inner conviction as certain as any mathematical equation he’d ever solved. He knew that the beautiful blue world to which he was returning is part of a living system, harmonious and whole—and that we all participate, as he expressed it later, ‘in a universe of consciousness.’”
Namit Arora suggests that: Perceptions of culture, history, and identity are necessarily subjective and selective. There’s no impartial and omniscient chronicler of events, no ‘scientific’ history. Facts are one thing, their interpretation another.[1]
Accepting this idea, really screws things up however, as it implies everything learned in school and early adulthood, about oneself and the world, might have been through the skewed collective lens of a society that could not possibly see beyond it’s own ideological identity. Hence imperialism and the notion it is right to educate ourselves, and the people of lands we “influence” to fit our model (particularly if those lands happen to be rich in spice, oil, tantalum or any other resource that “feeds” us.) We know what’s best for them and we reign by virtue of superior technology. Thus only the technology and commensurate resource has changed since the earliest times. We continue to globally garner what we believe we have a right and a need for, not to mention the moral authority to impose over (human resources, land, mineral and water rights, along with incumbent environmental and human rights degradation – you know the story by now.)
You might ask who is this “we” you are talking about? Continue reading »
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