Max Frisch said that technology is the knack of arranging the world so that we don't have to experience it. That's why modern technologies fit so well with consumer capitalism, which works to transform the whole biosphere into consumer goods. Together they are making Mother Earth into a gigantic Walmart.
This system is unsustainable because it involves a growth obsession that, left to itself, will not cease until the whole of the biosphere has been converted into profit -- which, of course, will then be useless. Capitalism made more sense a couple centuries ago when the Earth seemed infinite and capital was relatively scarce. Today the obvious metaphor is cancer on a planetary scale. Cells become cancerous when they mutate into uncontrolled growth and spread throughout the body to disrupt its healthy functioning. Unfortunately, that is not a bad description of our collective situation now.
Ultimately, does it come down to a choice between our present economic/financial system and the survival of the biosphere? Our current system is doomed no matter what, in the same way that a cancer is always doomed: if it's successful enough to kill its host, it kills itself. If the biosphere gets sick, we get sick. When ecological systems collapse, so will human civilization as we know it. Despite what the Presidents Bush declared, the "blessed American way of life" is negotiable -- or it becomes a suicide pact.
This means that the financial meltdown is actually a wonderful opportunity to address a much deeper problem. No one should make light of the economic pain that we can expect to continue and deepen over the next few years. Many, perhaps most people are also disgusted with the present system, and becoming more open to possible alternatives. Such a crisis would be a terrible thing to waste because this sort of opportunity does not happen very often. There is no better time to address the fundamental challenge of our times: the intimate relationship between an out-of-control, self-destructive economic system and the ecological crisis.
No other nation is in a position to begin reforming that relationship, which is why Obama's leadership on this issue is so important to the whole world. Admittedly, this is an extraordinary challenge. According to the Center for Public Integrity, in the last year more than 770 corporations and interest groups have hired an estimated 2340 lobbyists to influence federal policy on climate change. That number is more than three times what it was only five years ago, and means that Washington now has more than four climate lobbyists for every member of congress. The Center also estimates that lobbying expenditures on climate change topped $90 million last year, a figure that will no doubt be much higher this year.
That puts the onus on the rest of us to emphasize the nonduality between ecology and economy. So far, at least, Obama's economic appointments have not been encouraging. Some of the people most responsible for the financial crisis have been appointed to fix it. No wonder the only solution they can think of is to try to patch up the present system. But they only represent a much bigger problem: the people who benefit the most from our present economic system -- and who therefore have the least incentive to change it -- are the ones who control it, and (through their lobbyists) much of the political process as well. As Will Rogers put it some 80 years ago, we (still) have "the best congress money can buy."
Nevertheless, Obama has given us reasons to hope that he might rise to the occasion and grow to meet the challenge. Yet even with the best will in the world, this is not something Obama (or anyone else) can do by himself. Very little will happen without broad public pressure, based on a new understanding of our perilous situation. This does not mean a Buddhist movement, but there is need for a Buddhist voice in such a movement, to emphasize our nonduality with the earth, and the karmic effects of greed and delusion, both individual and institutionalized.
The Lotus Sutra speaks of bodhisattvas springing forth from the earth, to preach the dharma. Is it time for new types of bodhisattvas to rise up from the earth, to manifest the dharma that defends her?
David Loy is Besl Professor of Ethics/Religion and Society at Xavier University in Cincinnati. His work is primarily in comparative philosophy and religion, particularly comparing Buddhist with modern Western thought. His many books include The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory, and Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution. A Zen practitioner for many years, he is qualified as a teacher in the Sanbo Kyodan tradition of Japanese Buddhism.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In