Globalization
Trade, information, finance, culture are all becoming more and more global phenomea; and as they globalize, their relevance to ourselves as human beings becomes less obvious and more distant. More than ever before, despite our hubris, we are controlled by instuments which we have created but do not understand. A physicist or a person who can buy and manipulate physicists can get radiation poisoning as easily as a hobo. (Corporations, which are not people, do not die just because their stockholders die.) Pope Francis has called for us, in this globalizing word, to create a globalizaation of compassion. That prompted the following:
Almost everything is global now. Should it be? No matter! It is what it is.
Compassion still seems mostly local. It shouldn't be. No matter. It is what it is!
We are still responsible for what we do.
But the consequences of our doiing is more doing,
which produces more doing ad ininitum.
Soon we can no longer be accountable for that for which we are repsponsible.
It is called trade, or finance, or information, or something equally general
that does not have relevance for me.
If i could see its relevance, i would fix it.
or at least try. It would the only humane thing
the only human thing
to do.
Terror, drugs, and violence are also global.
Serial homicide is not longer confined to the United States
or to the English speaking world
(Though it must be called someihing else in Russian or Chinese or Spanish or Arabic)
Terror seems to spread more readily than compassion.
Is that just bad perception?
Is there something in our natures that respond more readily to fear than to love?
Or is it something in our experience, our training?
The wise say "Fear not." (They usually add other, less important words.)
Perhaps compassion is our natural state if we can avoid fear.
More natural than trade
More natural than drugs
More natural then finance
More natural than war
More natural than information
As natural as moving when the grass looks greener (or the poison less poisonous) somewhere else.