The story of Easter Island, the statues (called moai, of which there are about 900) and the fate of the forests there may have lessons for our society. The warring and competition between the two factions of people on Easter Island were constant, even as the island became denuded of forests and other resources. Perhaps one lesson from the history of Easter Island is about violence.
Some writers have offered the same argument about the whole of humankind, world-wide. Its woes can be traced to its acceptance of violence. In some religions we learn that there was a Golden Age when the earth was abundant and relations between people were benign. This is the story of the Garden of Eden. The theme occurs in Chinese writings too – the ancestors understood the balance of yin and yang, leaders were noble and wise, and nurtured the well-being of the people, and the earth gave of its plenty.
At a certain point the connection was lost, and ever since we have (collectively) pursued power and greed. Societies have been stratified, and some people use their power to oppress others (like the slavers who visited Easter Island), and garner far more of the earth’s abundance than they need. The converse is that a stratum of people is created, who suffer lack of the basic necessities, including security and freedom. It is not nice. In our current society, the under-class (which still constitutes the majority of the population) persevere and tolerate their condition.
So, one theme of change is the role of violence in the deterioration of life, and this is seen as the destiny of humanity. As one might guess, this theme takes us back into the past about 10,000 years. Perhaps we are living in the wake of 6,000 to 10,000 years of madness. A related theme is the dominance of economics in life. What was once a legitimate examination of the economic aspects of life and societies has become an existential perspective on life itself. You could call it misguided, or ludicrous. You could certainly call it galling, or you could call it Neo-Liberal poison.
Another theme is the role of technology in life, given that the remaining source of optimism is the new powers that technology will give us to address the intractable problems of climate change. Technology is the new god. It sounds like science, but it has all the characteristics of religion. Rather more rests on faith than on evidence. And, as we currently see, even if technology does deliver the capacity for environmental breakthroughs, it has to get through the existing power structures of the Neo-Liberal economists.
This may seem Luddite. The Luddites were considered to be anti-machinery in principle, and most people today would still think this is an unacceptable stance. Machinery and technology are considered to carry an historic inevitability, which, apparently, is a moral argument. The Luddites were a secret, oath-based organisation of English textile workers in the early 1800s, and the myths that arose around them are larger than life. But from the standpoint of today, machinery won and it will always win. The Luddites smashed machines. No one does this now.
But, to make another moral argument, the point on which we ought to be focused is the point at which an argument over-reaches itself. There is a point at which technology over-reaches itself. Once again we have to ask, what is the point of human life – to serve the machines? To make life better for the machines? Let’s remind ourselves that machines have no feelings; they will do what we instruct them to do. There is a place for the sanctity of life. What price are we prepared to pay? Perhaps it will mean everything. Logic eventually is predatory; if you take something to its logical conclusion, you have probably taken it too far.
In the time of The Dreaming, when the land was being formed and natural ecologies were being laid down, and when rulers of (small) human societies were noble-minded, the costs of defying nature were known. It was not superstition; it was an acute knowledge of the natural way. For us to accept this, we would have to accept that our life up until now has been crazy, and we have lived all our life in unnatural toleration and obeisance.
(This is Chapter 5 of my book, “FUTURE: The Spiritual Story of Humanity”. Am I being too harsh or extreme? Or not? Perhaps what I am saying is a jolt, a correcting perspective that calls us to come out of our state of sleep.)