Every person is well-served by continuous reminders of the consistent and larger story within the various and variable smaller stories that we all tell and hear. Such ethical/intellectual prompts help keep the story rooted in reality and the story teller entrenched in the awareness that humans have always lived by stories and that those stories help shape the world. On the tiny desk in my office on which I write are three such reminders, two poems and a platform. Their size and significance are too large for this small space, but I encourage the reader to track them down for contemplation and, if inspired, action.
The first plank in The Deep Ecology Platform reads, “The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: inherent worth; intrinsic value; inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.”
Thich Nhat Hanh’s poem, “Please call Me By My True Name” includes,
“I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons
to Uganda.”
And in “…Not Man Apart…” Robinson Jeffers writes,
“In the white of the fire…how can I express the excellence
…I have found, that has no color but clearness;”
These are reminders that everything is connected in the natural (real) world, that the material well-being of the ‘developed’ nations is built upon the poverty of what the Cold War termed “Third World Countries” but modern PC labels “Less Developed Countries,” and that the task of the story teller is to continue to express life’s inexpressible excellence that has no color but clearness.
My desktop reminders are not random.
Deep Ecology is a term (and now a foundation) introduced in 1973 by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess to differentiate between two different but not necessarily incompatible forms of environmentalism—deep ecology, which involves deep questioning, addresses root causes and calls for changes in basic values and practices of industrial civilization’s “business as usual,” and shallow ecology (think Sierra Club), which favors short term often technological fixes to the earth’s human caused environmental crises. That is, the shallow environmentalism of recycling, fuel efficient automobiles, organic farming and other worthy practices are beneficial but do not go far enough or sufficiently include values independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.
Thich Nhat Hanh is likely the best known Buddhist alive besides HH Dalai Lama. He was born in Viet Nam in 1926 and now lives in France. He is a Zen master, writer and poet and a world leader in peace activism. When war came to his native country he founded the engaged Buddhism movement which encouraged both laymen and monks to apply the personal insights of meditation practice to the larger social, political, environmental and economic and injustice issues of the world. Martin Luther King called him “An Apostle of peace and nonviolence.” Thich Nhat Hanh is a constant reminder that we are all connected to and part of both the starving child in Africa and the profiteering merchant of deadly weapons which, in turn, are connected to each other.
Robinson Jeffers is one of America’s great poets and was rightfully recognized as such during the 1920s and 30s, including being on the cover of “Time” magazine in 1932. He was always controversial and expanded both the form and content of American literature in the tradition of Walt Whitman. He studied medicine, forestry and literature and graduated from college at the age of 18 by which time he had determined that poetry was his passion. Jeffers developed a philosophy which he termed “inhumanism.” He explained it as “…a shifting of emphasis from man to not man; the rejection of human solipsism and recognition of the transhuman magnificence… It offers a reasonable detachment as a rule of conduct, instead of love, hate and envy.” His work fell out of favor in the popular media during the 1940s in large part because of his opposition to America’s entry into WWII. One of his books included a publisher’s warning about the potentially “unpatriotic” poems found inside. In 1965, three years after Jeffers died, the Sierra Club, at the time under David Brower, published a book of photos of the Big Sur coast interspersed with Jeffers’ poetry. The book’s title “Not Man Apart” is from these Jeffers lines:
“…the greatest beauty is organic wholeness
the wholeness of life and things.
the divine beauty of the universe.
Love that, not man apart from that…”
That’s the best reminder of all.