Panic

The media, prompted by actuarial reports from insurance companies, has whipped up a panic over a storm in the Caribbean. Government, inept at doing anything about climate change, has taken to panicking citizens with drastic predictions of flooding and high winds. Big sales are predicted at grocery chains and home-improvement stores. This is what our so-called civilization has come to with all its technology and communication.

 

My humanist perspective frames all this as more of the same old paradigm. Obsession of those who have with what they have. Ignoring those who don't have and what they need. Making an enemy of Nature without acknowledging the human responsibility for all this stress.

 

Learning to plan responsibly for the contingencies of Nature's turns should be a routine part of human life. Respecting the planet by curbing the selfish needs of human beings should be a lesson woven through all forms of human education. Having the predictable funding and systems to provide public safety with understanding of natural sciences should be the constant role of government.

 

Overpopulation at a time of increasing technological efficiencies has made the provision of services for pubic safety and general human welfare unsustainable. This may sound absurd, but it is what I see. Fewer people are needed to do the actual work of human society, as it now sets its priorities. Meanwhile, capitalists preach a gospel of increasing population as the basic engine of economic growth for those who make money off the labor and consumption of others. This gospel assumes that natural and technological resources are limitless. It also assumes the benificence and generosity of the wealthy. These are medieval assumptions.

 

Ignoring panic and finding reliable information to act wisely are parts of my own practice. I am confident that whatever happens I will cope. This is the result of learning through a lot of coping in my life. The most extreme outcome of any natural event in my life is my demise. In accepting my inevitable death, I am freed to face life's contingencies without panic and with scientific curiosity. This an outcome and benefit of humanist practice.