Here are some videos I found with Jerry Mander on the topic of sustainability of our way of life on this planet.
Mander is the author of “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television”, a very well thought out and well organized book on, not just television, but capitalism, and our widening separation from the natural world through technology.
Based on my comments from my last post, I wanted to include these videos as well. The first two are only a few minutes long. The last one is around 50 minutes long.
If these embedded videos don’t work well, you can also find them on FORA.tv.
As wit my last post, I’ll write my take on these videos in the comments section.
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While my sentiments are very strongly in favor of what Mr. Mander says in these videos (and, really, in the first two videos he’s speaking a hard reality), his thoughts on looking towards indigenous peoples’ way of life as a way out, logistically, will be difficult, if not impossible for our culture as a whole.
Two points I’d like to make to support my reasoning.
1. In my experience living in other countries (in other cultures), I learned that no matter how long I stayed there, I never became a member of that culture. Now this may only speak of my own inflexibility, but it seemed I wasn’t the only one who found this to be the case. Although, ex-pats have certainly found a way to escape their former lives.
2. When I mention ideas to rational, intelligent people in this culture (American/developed world) about the reality that we can’t escape the laws of nature through our man-made devises as described in Daniel Quinn’s “Ishmael” and that we will eventually and inevitably need to abandon our current economic model (described by Mander in these videos), they become angry with me and insist that no one (in this culture) will ever go back to living the way indigenous people did and do now. (As if we’ll have a choice.)
So my conclusion based on these two points is this. We can admire indigenous cultures for their way of life, but as a population we’ll never adopt their culture. We won’t even know how to because we’re so tied to our technology. We’re too tied to our culture.
Well, that’s all I’ll say for now. I think after about a week or so, I’ll probably post this comment and my comment in the last posts as separate entries instead of as comments.
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