For centuries artists have used light and dark shading to create three-dimensional effect or shadowing to introduce contrast creatively in a technique called “chiaroscuro” (Italian oxymoron combining “light” and “dark”). Beyond fine art applications, pop art embraced a technological oxymoron in the 1960s—“black light” (UV bulbs)—used to illuminate fluorescent painted posters and make-up cosmetics. Of course, there are many common examples of oxymorons, terms that combine two usually contradictory terms in a compressed paradox, e.g. “bittersweet”, “jumbo shrimp”, “less is more”, “virtual reality”, “holy war”. Throughout history philosophers and thinkers recognizing the duality and paradox of our world and existence found meaning in uniting opposites for balance and harmony: “male/female”, “young/old”, “sickness/health”, “rich/poor”, “rural/urban”, “public/private”, “global/local”, “artificial/natural”, “simple/complex”, “wax/wane, “thick/thin”, “haves/have-nots”, “life/death”, etc. Sometimes they expressed these insights of finding balance and harmony in common examples of oxymora such as “yin/yang” (see several illustrations below).
With baseball season now underway, I recall the sagely Yogi Berra’s universal truths expressed through paradox: “if people don’t want to come to the ballpark you can’t stop ‘em”; “nobody goes to that restaurant anymore, it’s too crowded”; and “if you come to a fork in the road, take it.” As a prescient oracle, Yogi’s words seem to ring true in the “ballpark” of politics and politicians nowadays as, “if people don’t want to vote, you can’t stop ‘em [because the artificial choices and “business-as-usual” outcomes don’t address core problems, voter turn-out in America is abysmally low, especially as the professed leader of democracy worldwide]. Yogi’s prophetic words appear to hold meaning for an overpopulated and underfed world, including in many underprivileged, underserved communities within America and poor neighboring nations such as Haiti, “nobody eats in that neighborhood/nation anymore, it’s too crowded.” And Yogi’s practical bent in retaining implements of potential use later as, “if you come to a fork in the road, pick it up”, I think of pitchforks useful in organic farming, permaculture, and gardening on the much needed local foods pathway in urban and rural communities everywhere reconnecting us to the land restoring food security, health, and happiness.
The planet is now under siege by unbridled greed, “green-washed” with corporate oxymoron. “Corporate oxymorons are a vivid and dangerous part of the contemporary world. Think of the safe cigarette myths of big tobacco, the calculated repositioning of big oil amidst climate change debates, and questionable claims about sustainability made by mining and other extractive industries. Across various industries multinational corporations have strategically turned to a language of social responsibility in order to legitimize capitalist activities that entail very clear negative human and environmental consequences” (Benson and Kirsch, 2010). These authors “examine the promotion of corporate oxymorons that conceal the harm caused by corporations to people and environments. They are part of a larger set of strategies used by corporations to manage or neutralize critique. They often pair a desirable cover term such as safe or sustainable with a description of their product, for example cigarettes or mining. Repetition of the resulting contradictions—safe cigarettes or sustainable mining—renders the terms familiar and seemingly plausible” (for more information, see link:http://www.springerlink.com/content/x04666510753242r/fulltext.pdf).
Out of kilter, disconnected, and dangerous, the present course of ever increasing ME not YOU competition and conflict over finite resources leads the ME (My Ego leads to Mass Extinction) generation down a dark path to oblivion. How about embracing a different ME (Mother Earth) through Seven Generations thinking to re-build community and to respect, protect, and honor our home and all of its interconnected inhabitants? To do this, ME actually becomes WE (Web Echo-systems), as together we close the circle, restore harmony and meaning, cooperation and affirm life.
Many wisdom keepers have issued clear warnings that the Industrial Age “business-as-usual” model leads to death and destruction. There are thousands of Industrial Age examples serving to demand adoption of a universal Precautionary Principle. Among many clarion calls for action, here are a few for starters:
- Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962)
- Barry Commoner’s The Closing Circle: Nature, Man & Technology (1971)
- Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie’s Slow Death By Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things (2009)
- Vine Deloria Jr.’s We Talk, You Listen: New Tribes, New Turf (1970)
- Daniel Wildcat’s Red Alert! Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge (2009)
- British Petroleum’s litany of environmental disasters:
- Tokyo Electric Company’s Daiichi Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant continuing release of radiation following a tsunami at Fukushima, Japan (March 2011)
- An educational activity tour of chemical toxicity.
More conflicts and wars between “haves” and “have-nots” in global battle over the Earth’s resources continue. More frequent and intense storms, dead zones, coral reef bleaching, desertification, urban sprawl, toxic wastes, air/water/food pollution, loss of biodiversity, radiation poisoning, increased morbidity and mortality due to compromised immune and endocrine systems from acute and chronic exposure of our bodies and brains awash in synthetic chemicals accelerates. “Me” individuals continue competing to become rich at any expense (motive: GREED) and with no limits in an “artificial universe” is the “business-as-usual” approach advocated by the rich and powerful. In reflecting on this year’s Earth Day, a video of renewed hope and action by rejecting “Greed” is athttp://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?p=earth+day+2011.
How about embracing a different ME (Mother Earth) through Seven Generations thinking to re-build community and to respect, protect, and honor our home and all of its interconnected inhabitants? To do this, ME actually becomes WE (Web Echo-systems), as together we close the circle, restore harmony and meaning, cooperation and affirm life. “We” are the aggregate of common people cooperating to build harmonious communities, healthy environment, humans, and peace (motive: BEAUTY, JOY, HAPPINESS, SURVIVAL) connected, interlinked limits and nurtured by Mother Earth. Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers versus the G-7?
It boils down to decide in which camp to belong and to embrace fundamental Seven Generations environmental values articulated by Oren Lyons, Jr. and other tribal faithkeepers, not get-rich-quick politico-economic values. I choose to follow the indigenous pathway of the world’s tribal peoples who are the caretakers of Mother Earth. First Nations wisdom keeper Albert Marshall’s “two-eyed seeing” takes the best of both Western and indigenous insights merged together. Indigenizing the future can restore sense of community, togetherness, reconnection with Mother Earth, following a Seven Generations approach to living life in balance, harmony, and with limits.
Together at the crossroads let’s embrace WE, not ME on happier trails,
Prof. Victor D. Phillips, GEM Director
GEM Education Center Blog 