Gaia's main problems are not industrialization, ozone depletion, overpopulation, or resource depletion. Gaia's main problem is the lack of mutual understanding and mutual agreement in the noosphere about how to proceed with those problems. We cannot rein in industry if we cannot reach mutual understanding and mutual agreement based on a worldcentric moral perspective concerning the global commons. And we reach the worldcentric moral perspective through a difficult and laborious process of interior growth and transcendence.
Ken Wilber Connected to the Carolinas
Source
No citation is recorded for this quotation.
- work
- A Brief History of Everything (1996)
- year
- 1996
no citation recorded
Cite this record
“Gaia's main problems are not industrialization, ozone deplet…” Ken Wilber. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-59A2ED40C2. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/59a2ed40c2
More from Ken Wilber
There is intersubjectivity woven into the very fabric of the Kosmos at all levels.
"Saving the biosphere" depends first and foremost on human beings reaching mutual understanding and unforced agreement as to common ends. And that intersubjective accord occurs only in the noosphere. Anything short of that noospheric accord will continue to destroy the biosphere.
Let me start with a short and simple list. This is not the last word on the topic, but the first word, a simple list of suggestions to get the conversation going. Most of the great wisdom traditions agree that: 1. Spirit, by whatever name, exists. 2. Spirit, although existing "out there", is found "in here", or revealed within to the open heart and mind. 3. Most of us don't realize this Spirit within, however, because we are living in a world of sin, separation, or duality—that is, we are living in a fallen, illusory, or fragmented state. 4. There is a way out of this fallen state (of sin or illusion or disharmony), there is a Path to our liberation. 5. If we follow this Path to its conclusion, the result is a Rebirth or Enlightenment, a direct experience of Spirit within and without, a Supreme Liberation, which 6. marks the end of sin and suffering, and 7. manifests in social action of mercy and compassion on behalf of all sentient beings. Does a list something like that make sense to you? Because if there are these general spiritual patterns in the cosmos, at least wherever human beings appear, then this changes everything. You can be a practicing Christian and still agree with that list; you can be a practicing Neopagan and still agree with that list.