Hello I'm a new reader I was introduced by Paul Kingsnorth reading list. I enjoy learning more about D. H. Lawrence and your work.
This first (to me) issue had this perplexing line: "Even modern medicine itself is necessary and a human right." I do not understand how this could be. Medicine is not naturally occurring as are air, water, sunlight, etc. how can anyone be born with a right to it without compelling someone else to produce it?
Thank you for your comment. Modern medicine should not exist, just as modern anything should not exist. In many, even most cases modern medicine does far more harm than good. But, one needs to have compassion, and the technologists need to clean up their mess so to speak. An example: Nuclear power is a great evil; it is man trying to be God, with disastrous consequences. But, nuclear power is here now. We should try to end nuclear power, and even all electrical power, but it is here now, so there will be horrible, evil consequences, such as those resulting from Three Mile Island, Fukushima, and Chernobyl. Since there are these evil consequences, in the name of compassion, there needs to be medical help using all available means, for the people who suffer egregiously at the diabolical hands of the Machine.
I was shocked to learn about the nuclear power plants that require constant electrification barring catastrophic results. If this is true, to design and build something like that with no recourse seems unconscionable.
Unconscionable is the correct word. I aim to prove that most of technology is just as unconscionable. Now, I am not against hand tools, since they conform to the person, not the person to the tool, but all modern machines make the person conform to it, which is a great evil. Even things that may seem good at first, such as pasteurization and antibiotics have had terrifying and initially unforeseen consequences.
And regarding rights, it is the right of restitution. Most diseases today are caused by pollution, poor diet, and modernity in general. Our entire way of life is toxic. If a person punches someone in the face, the injured party has the right to demand and receive help from the person who injured him or her. In the same way, technology injures all people and the entire world, so people have the right to demand medical care for the injuries technology has inflicted upon them.
Quite right, especially so long as the current depraved systems continue to exist. So long as governments, which in themselves are corrupt, are beholden to corporations, nothing will change on a global scale. I do aim to speak of the kind of politics that would be needed to change things, but I also speak about the kind of monastic retreat that may be needed if the technological onslaught continues. Most of all, I will emphasize that though we must try to bring down the Machine, and doubly must try to create centers of peace and silence, we must change our very selves. As Rilke stated: "You must change your life!" The only way to do this is to rediscover a sense of the sacred.
Also, from one of the Desert Fathers, as translated by Thomas Merton: "A BROTHER asked one of the elders, saying: There are two brothers, of whom one remains praying in his cell, fasting six days at a time and doing a great deal of penance. The other one takes care of the sick. Which one’s work is more pleasing to God? The elder replied: If that brother who fasts six days at a time were to hang himself up by the nose, he could not equal the one who takes care of the sick."
Hello I'm a new reader I was introduced by Paul Kingsnorth reading list. I enjoy learning more about D. H. Lawrence and your work.
This first (to me) issue had this perplexing line: "Even modern medicine itself is necessary and a human right." I do not understand how this could be. Medicine is not naturally occurring as are air, water, sunlight, etc. how can anyone be born with a right to it without compelling someone else to produce it?
Thank you for your comment. Modern medicine should not exist, just as modern anything should not exist. In many, even most cases modern medicine does far more harm than good. But, one needs to have compassion, and the technologists need to clean up their mess so to speak. An example: Nuclear power is a great evil; it is man trying to be God, with disastrous consequences. But, nuclear power is here now. We should try to end nuclear power, and even all electrical power, but it is here now, so there will be horrible, evil consequences, such as those resulting from Three Mile Island, Fukushima, and Chernobyl. Since there are these evil consequences, in the name of compassion, there needs to be medical help using all available means, for the people who suffer egregiously at the diabolical hands of the Machine.
I was shocked to learn about the nuclear power plants that require constant electrification barring catastrophic results. If this is true, to design and build something like that with no recourse seems unconscionable.
Unconscionable is the correct word. I aim to prove that most of technology is just as unconscionable. Now, I am not against hand tools, since they conform to the person, not the person to the tool, but all modern machines make the person conform to it, which is a great evil. Even things that may seem good at first, such as pasteurization and antibiotics have had terrifying and initially unforeseen consequences.
And regarding rights, it is the right of restitution. Most diseases today are caused by pollution, poor diet, and modernity in general. Our entire way of life is toxic. If a person punches someone in the face, the injured party has the right to demand and receive help from the person who injured him or her. In the same way, technology injures all people and the entire world, so people have the right to demand medical care for the injuries technology has inflicted upon them.
Thank you for clarifying.
It's difficult to see how the institutions and individuals that produced these conditions would accomplish or even attempt restitution.
Quite right, especially so long as the current depraved systems continue to exist. So long as governments, which in themselves are corrupt, are beholden to corporations, nothing will change on a global scale. I do aim to speak of the kind of politics that would be needed to change things, but I also speak about the kind of monastic retreat that may be needed if the technological onslaught continues. Most of all, I will emphasize that though we must try to bring down the Machine, and doubly must try to create centers of peace and silence, we must change our very selves. As Rilke stated: "You must change your life!" The only way to do this is to rediscover a sense of the sacred.
Also, from one of the Desert Fathers, as translated by Thomas Merton: "A BROTHER asked one of the elders, saying: There are two brothers, of whom one remains praying in his cell, fasting six days at a time and doing a great deal of penance. The other one takes care of the sick. Which one’s work is more pleasing to God? The elder replied: If that brother who fasts six days at a time were to hang himself up by the nose, he could not equal the one who takes care of the sick."