What's in a name?

Lots of treasures in the latest issue of EnlightenNext (July/Aug 2009). My favorite pontificators are all there. Jim Garrison talks about his State of the World Forum on global warming coming up in November, the fierce urgency of the situation. It was an article about him and Paul Ray exactly one year ago that gave me hope that the movement's leaders are becoming more aware of the need for all of us to unite under a collective identity so that we CAN solve problems like global warming. But there is nothing about that in this particular piece. A bit disappointing that.

My favorite piece was about DVD called the Dalai Lama Renaissance. About how the Dalai Lama himself tried to get all the "new paradigm" leaders of the 1990s together to lay the intellectual foundation "for a whole new form of secular spirituality." The gathering degenerated into a battle of egos and run amuck narcissism tragically typically of New Age types. Even the Dalai Lama could not overcome it. This is exactly what I argue in my book, in my Web pages. The New Age movement was undone, made impotent, by the narcissism born of excessive individualism.

And what do you suppose this article calls this gathering? Not New Age. Here is the decription: "The spiritual-but-not-religious, science-meets-spirit, and New Thought movements... plus cultural creatives." Wouldn't it be easier to say New Age?

In a profile on Jean Houston, the magazine calls it "the movement to awaken humanity to its higher individual and collective potential." Wouldn't it be easier to say New Age?

News and philosophy

The news on the environmental front seemed to perk up a bit these past few weeks. A cap and trade bill narrowly passed in the House. Some conservatives actually stood on the floor of the House to say global warming was a "myth. Meanwhile, my own liberal representative voted against the bill because it wasn't strong enough.

It feels as if my children's future is going to be determined by the unpredictable outcome of a school yard scuffle. Our leaders cannot even agree on the meaning of basic terms or what represents the good, so how can they solve the problem? It drives home to me that it only a change in philosophy-- a change in our understanding of the nature of reality and our place in it-- can save the future.

I used to have a knee-jerk reaction to capitalism, evil money-grubbing capitalism was the enemy. But that's not true. From the right mindset, capitalism can be our savior. But we need the right mindset, an accurate mindset, a holistic mindset that takes in the whole, that understands the good and the just. If we want to save the world, we need to promote this perspective, vote from this perspective, legislate from this perspective.

Human evolution should lead more of us to this perspective over time. But it seems to me that especially with global warming, there is a big hill coming up, and we don't have enough speed, and for just a little while, we are going to have to get out and push.