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Living within a living, loving planet
Social Infrastructure
Recognizing Reality
Nov 25th
Question Beliefs
“We live in a culture that is embedded in unquestioned beliefs passing as truth. These beliefs are the source of our current crisis. We attempt to solve the problems of degradation of our environment and climate disruption, but we do not look at these core beliefs. We hold on to the idea that capitalism is the only right way to organize an economy, that democracy is essential to our freedom, that freedom itself is a core ingredient to our happiness. We believe corporate slogans such as “Progress is our most important product” (General Electric), and subscribe to the belief that technology will solve whatever problems we have, even the ones caused by technology.”
The Need for a Greater Vision: Recognizing Reality
By Norton Smith, originally published by Resilience.org
November 19, 2019
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-11-19/the-need-for-a-greater-vision-recognizing-reality/
Beliefs can go stale. A belief that one incorporates at one stage of intellectual/spiritual development may not serve a person as they grow older and perhaps wiser. That’s why beliefs should be reviewed from time to time. No need for a schedule, just practice staying in the present and one may find an uncomfortable feeling with a particular behavior. That’s the trigger to question the belief structure behind the action. We are creatures of habit and may find that we have become a slave to a few unquestioned behaviors that do not serve us any longer. No good blaming the devil!
Social Infrastructure
Aug 14th
Britain’s Social infrastructure is breaking down
Wed 14 Aug 2019
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/14/britain-social-infrastructure-money-national-grid
Aditya Chakrabortty
“Britain is being stripped of the buildings and spaces that host friends and gently push strangers together”
“Britain is being stripped of its social infrastructure: the institutions that make up its daily life, the buildings and spaces that host friends and gently push strangers together. Public parks are disappearing. Playgrounds are being sold off. High streets are fast turning to desert. These trends are national, but their greatest force is felt in the poorest towns and suburbs, the most remote parts of the countryside, where there isn’t the footfall to lure in the businesses or household wealth to save the local boozer.”
“Politicians bemoan the loss of community, but that resonant word is not precise enough. A large part of what’s missing is social infrastructure.”
“In ripping out our social infrastructure, we are outraging a wisdom that goes back centuries and spans countries.”
“But parks and libraries don’t generate cash. Social infrastructure has no lobby, no registry of assets and certainly no government agency. No Whitehall official monitors how much of it has closed or withered away – that relies on civil society groups to file freedom of information requests or badger town halls with survey.”
“The library really is a palace. It bestows nobility on people who can’t otherwise afford a shred of it. People need to have nobility and dignity in their lives. And, you know, they need other people to recognise it in them too.”
“Our people deserve palaces.”