International Workers Alliance of Rank and File Committees (IWA-RFC) an international strategy for World Socialist Revolution.
While our collective consciousness of it varies mostly according to the prevailing social dynamics, the development of our human race has been and continues to be severely hindered by class antagonism and struggle.
Increasing exploitation of the international working class by a capitalist ruling class and its subsequent social inequality is now being exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the effect of which has intensified class antagonism to the point where our collective human consciousness of it is now rapidly spreading throughout the entire planet.
The contemporary social dynamic of increasing exploitation and social inequality must be resisted by the international working class if our race is going to survive and be able to continue developing our full human potential. Capitalism and its ruling class owners has long since morphed into a profit crazed and increasingly fascistic forms of governance and productivity.
Democratic forms of governance and productivity are no longer capable of containing the present level of social inequality and class antagonism, let alone increasing levels of it. Hence the re-emergence and spread of fascistic forms of state power and governance. This level of class antagonism and struggle has now reached a global social dynamic that is ripe for revolution, hence the recent launch of the International Workers Alliance of Rank and File Committees (IWA-RFC).
The IWA-RFC is an important new component cum strategy of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and its international branches of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), a program and party of World Socialist Revolution. The ICFI/SEP is the only political program and party preparing the international working class for the eventual overthrow of a capitalist ruling class and the replacement of their forms of state power and governance with Federations of United Socialist States throughout the entire planet.
The IWA-RFC will form and develop rank and file committees in work places, on campus and within local communities where and when desired by a growing number of working class people seriously wanting such revolutionary change. The eventual replacement of a profit crazed and increasingly dangerous capitalism with federations of united socialist states will enable more sophisticated, science based forms of governance and productivity to meet the basic social and cultural needs of societies, thereby materially and spiritually liberating the international working class throughout the entire planet. As our political leader and mentor said –
“Once he has done with the anarchic forces of his own society, man will set to work on himself, in the pestle and the retort of the chemist. For the first time man will regard itself as raw material, or at best as a physical and psychic semi-finished product. Socialism will mean a leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom in this sense also, that the man of today, with all his contradictions and lack of harmony, will open the road for a new and happier race..”
Leon Trotsky – ‘In Defence of the October Revolution’ 1932.
We are not a party like other parties. … Our aim is the full material and spiritual liberation of the toilers and exploited through the socialist revolution. Nobody will prepare it and nobody will guide it but ourselves.
For the last decade of my career in conservation and resource management 1990-2000, I lived and worked among the Anangu traditional owners of Central Australia. For me this was a time and place where and when I was literally re-minded about the importance of my relationship to Self, other and all-that-is. On returning to live within non aboriginal society my Anangu inspired curiosity took me to a week-end retreat where I was introduced by Miriam McGilles to the ‘Canticles to the Cosmos’ 1990 and ‘The Universe Story’ 1994, works authored by Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry. These works further inspired me to undertake a Masters degree in Social Ecology, majoring in Environmental Education at the University of Western Sydney. My partner Glenys Livingstone and I graduated at the same time and place in 2003, me with a Distinction and Glenys with a Ph.D., we were both passionate about journeying together.
My earlier life changing experience in Central Australia followed by my academic study and ongoing practice of seasonal celebrations that are informed by ‘PaGaian Cosmology’ 2005, authored by my partner Glenys Livingstone, has enabled me to experience and deepen my appreciation of cosmic creativity in general and planet Earth’s Biosphere in particular as an awesome physical event that is a beauty to behold. ‘Canticles to the Cosmos’ is based on Thomas Berry’s ‘twelve principles of a functional cosmology’, principle number twelve convinced me that if we are to develop our full personal and human potential, we will need the emergence of what Thomas describes as an ‘Ecozoic era of Earth development’, an era during which we ‘activate the inter communion of all the living and non living components of the Earth community..’
Such was my new found experience of creativity and beauty throughout an otherwise increasingly troubled world, that it prompted me to search for a compatible political story. I had almost given up on my search and politics in general when I came across these two particular passages –
“In this world, at this point, no political revolution is sustainable if it is not also a spiritual revolution – a complete ontological birth of new beings out of old. Equally, no spiritual activity deserves respect if it is not at the same time a politically responsible, i.e; responsive, activity… The only meaningful political direction left now is synonymous with the only meaningful spiritual direction left now: towards the conscious re-fusion of the spirit and the flesh… This time it will be a global consciousness of our global oneness, and it will realize itself on a very sophisticated technological stage; with perhaps a total merger of psychic and electronic activity.”
Barbara Mor – ‘The Great Cosmic Mother’ 1987.
And
“Once he has done with the anarchic forces of his own society, man will set to work on himself, in the pestle and the retort of the chemist. For the first time man will regard itself as raw material, or at best as a physical and psychic semi-finished product. Socialism will mean a leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom in this sense also, that the man of today, with all his contradictions and lack of harmony, will open the road for a new and happier race..”
Leon Trotsky – ‘In Defence of the October Revolution’ 1932.
The above quotes – among others, inspired me to revive and pursue the development of my political consciousness, eventually referring to myself as a born again Trotskyist who now firmly believes that the only way we can manifest such ‘a new and happier race’ is via the ICFI/SEP program and party of World Socialist Revolution. I am now convinced that providing we survive global capitalism, a global socialism could enable the emergence of Thomas Berry’s ‘Ecozoic era’, and eventually a global communion.
Never before has the time and circumstance been so ripe for revolution. A profit crazed capitalism owned by an insane ruling class with an insatiable appetite for material wealth and power, has finally brought our human race to the brink of extinction. Whatever threat one considers, be it the increasing exploitation and impoverishment of the working class, be it the increasing level of geopolitical tension between nuclear armed state powers, be it the destructive impact of climate change, be it the disruption of artificial intelligence or the increasing threat of pandemics such as Covid19, the social circumstances of the vast majority of the human race is now rotten to the core and ripe for world socialist revolution.
Anticipation of and preparation for this period of world socialist revolution has been in the making for many decades, with the likes of Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky laying the foundations of scientific analysis and political leadership for such a revolution. Leon Trotsky in particular is nowadays again being valued by a growing number of the international working class as a revolutionary mentor and leader, his comparison cum political lesson of the 1871 Paris Commune with the October 1917 Russian revolution indicate why this is so.
Quote.
‘It is only with the aid of the party, which rests upon the whole history of its past, which foresees theoretically the paths of development, all its stages, and which extracts from it the necessary formula of action, that the proletariat frees itself from the need of always recommencing its history: its hesitations, its lack of decision, its mistakes.. In the midst of great events, moreover, such decisions can be adopted only by a revolutionary party which looks forward to a revolution, prepares for it, does not lose its head, by a party which is accustomed to having a rounded view and is not afraid to act.. The entire working class, while preserving its cultural originality and its political nuances, can act methodically and firmly, without remaining in the tow of events, and directing each time its mortal blows against the weak sectors of its enemies, on the condition that at its head, above the wards, the districts, the groups, there is an apparatus which is centralized and bound together by an iron discipline.’
End of quote.
In 1938 Leon Trotsky launched the International Committee of the Fourth International the IFCI, a revolutionary program and party ‘bound together by an iron discipline’, with these words –
Quote.
‘We are not a party like other parties.. Our aim is the full material and spiritual liberation of the toilers and exploited through the socialist revolution. Nobody will prepare it and nobody will guide it but ourselves.’
End of quote.
‘The socialist revolution’ Trotsky refers to is about a working class overthrow of the ruling class and the replacement of capitalism with socialism, this via the formation of federations of united socialist states throughout the entire planet. From an international socialist perspective, one of ‘the weak sectors of its enemies’ that Trotsky refers to is the insatiable appetite of an international ruling class for material wealth and power. It is this weakness that will be key to enabling the working class to overthrow the ruling class.
The international working class produces, operates, maintains and defends everything, including and especially the privately owned wealth and infrastructure of the ruling class. Without the working class, the ruling class has nothing. Without the ruling class, the working class and for that matter the whole human race will be a lot safer and a lot better off, possibly avoiding premature extinction and moving on to fulfil our human potential, at both the species and personal level. The withdrawal of its productive force, laying down the tools and weapons used to produce and defend the privately owned wealth of the ruling class, this is how the working class will overthrow the ruling class. Again we are guided by the words of Leon Trotsky
Quote.
‘In the midst of great events, moreover, such decisions can be adopted only by a revolutionary party which looks forward to a revolution, prepares for it.. Those fighters of 1871 were not lacking in heroism. What they lacked was clarity in method and a centralized leading organization..’
End of quote.
Such preparation is now well and truly advancing under the guidance of the ICFI program and its international branches of the Socialist Equality Party the SEP, with affiliated democratic rank and file committees of workers, students and others forming and preparing for revolution. Such rank and file committees independent of a mostly corrupted union movement, will continue to spread throughout the entire planet until such time as a critical mass of the international working class is ready to down tools and weapons, leaving all but the most essential of services on hold pending the essential change of power.
For those of us who are serious about joining and preparing for the only political program and party of World Socialist Revolution the ICFI/SEP, all the necessary information is made available on a daily basis via the pages of the World Socialist Web Site – WSWS.org
How communist China’s Socialism with Chinese characteristics’ adapts to being the largest economy within a capitalist world is a pertinent question for any politically conscious participant in the International Committee of the Fourth International and Socialist Equality Party (ICFI/SEP) program and party of World Socialist Revolution.
As such I am an interested casual observer of what the communist party of China nowadays refer to as Socialism with Chinese characteristics, when describing their socio-economic form of governance and productivity. Given that China is most likely to become the worlds largest economy within the present decade of the 2020s, what will China do to address the subsequent growth of social inequality now taking place throughout its relatively large population? The fact that communist China decided to adapt to a globalising capitalism, presumably in order to develop its productive force is understandable, and it can be well argued that its relatively rapid economic and productive growth over several decades justifies China having made such a decision.
Among the many political lessons to be learned by students of International Socialism is how China’s experimental modern socialism deals with the inevitable growth in social inequality that comes with having adapted to capitalism. With China having reached the worlds second highest number of about 390 billionaires, it can be argued that they represent a Chinese capitalist class that is now emerging out of a relatively fast growing Chinese middle class. In Marxist terms, the emergence of a so called capitalist class in China is in effect the emergence of a Chinese ruling class. A Chinese ruling class will by any Marxist interpretation become more and more dependent on the exploitation of the Chinese working class in order to continue maximising profit and thereby further the accumulation of their privately owned wealth. However, unlike most capitalist states The People’s Republic of China the PRC, forms Socialism with Chinese characteristics by retaining a significant amount of state owned finance and industry, as a form of socialism this too has enabled China’s relatively fast growth of GDP.
The Chinese communist party may not be able to, or even want to, reduce the profit driven exploitation of its working class productive force. Be this as it may, the Chinese communist party is at least placing a lot more emphasis on meeting the social and cultural needs of its vast population than most so-called democratic states. How China controls an increasing emphasis on profit making and the accumulation of privately owned wealth, while improving its capacity to satisfy the social and cultural needs of more than 1.4 billion people must now surely be one of China’s greatest challenges.
It will be interesting to observe what the Chinese communist party will do about an increasing social inequality within its own state borders and how it manages the inevitable geopolitical antagonism that comes with it’s rise to becoming the worlds largest economy. In addition to a profit driven exploitation of working class labour – the productive force, capitalism also brings with it the need for individual nation states to compete against each other for limited resources in an effort to maximise their GDP. This is what the two world wars were fought over and this is why China must now spend an increasing amount of its GDP on building its military industrial complex and force.
China is already the worlds largest population, soon to reach the 1.5 billion mark, probably well within the present decade China will also become the worlds largest economy. Never before has there been a major state power with so much potential to influence the rest of the world, for better and for worse. Previous major world powers such as Rome, Britain and the USA, all arrived at their world pinnacle via imperialism and warfare. Providing the present so called world hegemon the USA can tame its fear of and belligerence toward the economic rise of China, thereby hopefully avoiding an imperialist nuclear war, China could be the first and largest ever state power to provide the rest of the world with an example of what can be achieved without resorting to imperialism or warfare. Moreover, Chinese world leadership could also provide an example of how and why the socialist principle of placing a higher priority on satisfying the social and cultural needs of society, rather than on the accumulation of privately owned wealth, is in the best interest of humanity as a whole.
The main lesson to be learned from Socialism with Chinese characteristics is that it does not begin with the premise of socialism being or becoming international, consequently it is a socialism that is confined within a single nation state and as such it will never be able to achieve socialism’s full international potential. Hence Socialism with Chinese characteristics can be regarded by students of International Socialism as being counter-revolutionary. However, Socialism with Chinese characteristics could present the first, largest and possibly the best yet example of how and why International Socialism should replace international capitalism throughout the entire planet, sooner rather than later.
As part of our preparation for world socialist revolution, students of International Socialism should observe and consider how and why the science based International Socialism advocated by Marx and Trotsky is indeed a far more sophisticated and sustainable socio-economic form of governance and productivity than that of socialism within a single nation state, as advocated by Stalin and Mao and now being adapted to a global capitalism by China.
“This used to be an area of old ice,” says Polarstern captain Thomas Wunderlich. Now, however, in just a few days the Polarstern was able to advance practically unhindered to the North Pole. Since the 1980s, Arctic ice coverage has decreased by roughly half. The remaining ice is thin and thawing. The expedition has documented a collapsing world’ –WSWS.org 19/10/2020.
What a mess we have made of our life giving Biosphere in general and our human social circumstances in particular. Just imagine how much better off we might be if and when we replace what have now become mostly dysfunctional, profit driven, capitalist socio-economic forms of governance and productivity with a more sophisticated science based international socialism. International socialism in the form of democratic Federations of United Socialist States throughout the entire planet would necessarily replace capitalism’s emphasis on the accumulation of privately owned property and material wealth, with an emphasis on meeting the ecological, social and cultural needs of the Biosphere in general and human society in particular.
For human development to proceed, it must be sufficiently compatible with the natural evolution of our Biosphere’s life supporting ecosystems. Thanks to scientific understanding it is now well argued that the less compatible human development becomes with natural evolution, the sooner we are going to become an extinct species.
The science of physics also informs us that every single atom throughout space time is and always has been moving in the direction of maximising manifestation cum complexity (Vladimir Vernadsky – ‘The Biosphere’ 1927). So too human imagination and development, including the development of our socio-economic forms of governance and political consciousness. Hence for human development to proceed, it can and should be argued that – among other things, our political consciousness must also be compatible with the natural evolution of the Biosphere in general.
In these days of relatively quick and user friendly search engines, I for one have only been able to find one political program and party that I can regard as being compatible with the evolution of the Biosphere and the continuation of human development, namely the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and its international branches of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), a self proclaimed program and party of world socialist revolution. The ICFI/SEP demonstrates a very disciplined, long term commitment to the replacement of international capitalism with international socialism. The ICFI/SEP program and party of world socialist revolution now enables us humans to not only rescue our ‘collapsing world’, but to take our next evolutionary step by preparing to manifest it through a world socialist revolution.
“In this world, at this point, no political revolution is sustainable if it is not also a spiritual revolution – a complete ontological birth of new beings out of old. Equally, no spiritual activity deserves respect if it is not at the same time a politically responsible, i.e; responsive, activity… The only meaningful political direction left now is synonymous with the only meaningful spiritual direction left now: towards the conscious re-fusion of the spirit and the flesh… This time it will be a global consciousness of our global oneness, and it will realize itself on a very sophisticated technological stage; with perhaps a total merger of psychic and electronic activity.”
(‘The Great Cosmic Mother’ – Barbara Mor 1987 p:418)
When considering the ramifications of the AI enabled mass surveillance of world populations – similar to the app now being developed on behalf of the Australian government to track cases of the COVID-19 pandemic, we should keep in mind the fact that such technology is for the most part designed, built, operated and maintained by waged and salaried workers, better thought of in the context of international socialism as a working class IT productive force. With this in mind and in the context of what might be in the best interest of the international working class as a whole, it is reasonable to assume that such surveillance technology – in theory at least, could work equally well on behalf of populations being enabled to survey future socialist governments as it now does for capitalist governments surveying their populations for purposes of control and exploitation. The said same surveillance technology used to monitor populations and vice versa governments, could enable more sophisticated socio-economic forms of governance and productivity based on better informed and less policed populations throughout the entire planet. Just imagine having a socialist government provided app that enables the general public to participate in more frequent feedback and referendums for the purpose of ensuring that their government remains focused on meeting all of the population’s social and cultural needs etc:
We are not a party like other parties. … Our aim is the full material and spiritual liberation of the toilers and exploited through the socialist revolution. Nobody will prepare it and nobody will guide it but ourselves.
Now that political leaders have decided to put most of the world population under house arrest supposedly for our own good to protect us from the coronavirus COVID-19, they have in effect achieved a new and unprecedented level of power and control over the rest of us. Politicians tell us that their new measures of control and surveillance are only temporary and that they will be lifted or at least appropriately regulated as soon as the virus is defeated. Be this as it may, the precedent has been set and it is probably enough to make some of our more dictatorial politicians wet themselves with excitement.
The story of international rulership has changed significantly and we -the world population, must change with it, otherwise the new (post COVID-19) normal could be significantly worse that the old (pre COVID-19) normal – with a capitalist form of socio-economic governance and productivity that is clearly not good enough to protect us from the emergence of such pandemics in the first place.
Closing state and regional borders, restricting our movement and interaction with each other, bringing non essential industry and commerce to a standstill, compensating financial institutions to a great extent and individuals to a lesser extent, our politicians will claim to be putting our safety and well being first and foremost and that we should therefor trust them. The thing is, if we couldn’t trust them before COVID-19 why should we trust them now and into the future when they will have experienced having more authoritarian control over us than at any previous time in modern history.
Now that we are well into a coronavirus – COVID-19, pandemic and judging by the ad hoc panic like responses of most governments, surely it has never been more obvious why and how capitalist forms of governance and productivity inevitably fail to provide the most basic ecological, social and cultural needs of the vast majority of life on planet Earth. In short, it is because capitalism now places far too much emphasis on profit and the accumulation of privately owned wealth, it is a social dynamic that is clearly out of control.
Even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic the international ruling class and their political servants are already revealing their profit driven priorities – ‘The choice, according to the Economist, is clear. The consequences of a prolonged regime of factory shutdowns and social distancing are, from a sober-minded business point of view, too terrible to contemplate: “Markets would tumble and investments be delayed. The capacity of the economy would wither as innovation stalled and skills decayed. Eventually, even if many people are dying, the cost of distancing could outweigh the benefits.” [Emphasis added]WSWS.org 6th April 2020. Because capitalism places so much emphasis on the accumulation of privately owned wealth, it has inevitably morphed into being a totally dysfunctional social dynamic that must be replaced with a more sophisticated, scientific and sustainable socio-economic form of governance and productivity. So, how do we – the vast >99% majority of the world population, now change our story so that a post COVID-19 world is an improvement on where we are now? With this question in mind I wasrecently inspired by a discussion between Yuval Noah Harari and Amanpour & Co’ on CNN, it was based on the theme – ‘life after COVID-19’, here is a pertinent quote from it –
‘When people are told the scientific facts, and when people trust public authorities to tell them these facts, citizens can do the right thing even without a Big Brother watching over their shoulders. A self-motivated and well-informed population is usually far more powerful and effective than a policed, ignorant population.’
So, what will it take for the human population to do away with ‘Big Brother’ like regimes and be able to trust our political leaders to give the ecological needs of our planet and the social and cultural needs of us humans a higher priority than that of private property and the accumulation of privately owned wealth? My short answer is – nothing less than a world socialist revolution. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only exposed the inability of capitalism to provide our basic social and cultural needs, it also reveals to the human productive force – better thought of as the waged and salaried working class, what potential power and influence it can have on our future well being. The so called ruling class is best thought of as those who own and pay the wages and salaries of the productive force. To all intents and purposes, in the context of world socialist revolution, unless one owns the means of production and enough privately owned wealth to be listed among the wealthiest <1% of the world population, one might as well regard oneself as being one of the >99% working class.
For reasons that should by now be obvious, the working class can rest assured that the ruling class will not transform let alone replace capitalism, nor will they reduce let alone stop their exploitation of natural resources – including that of human labour, without a fight. The ruling class and their capitalist systems of governance and productivity will have to be overthrown. The only force capable of this is the international working class, the force that does all the work. The waged and salaried working class designs, builds, operates, maintains, protects and defends everything. Moreover, nowadays working class taxes are being used to bail out and rescue failed international corporations and banks, this is a warped kind of socialism. Hence the ruling class cannot survive without the working class, whereas the working class can not only survive without the ruling class, it has the potential to actually realise it’s full potential and thrive without them.
A political program and party of world socialist revolution not only exists but is also well prepared to lead the working class in the fight to rid our world of the ruling class and capitalism. Thanks to this program rank and file committees of workers and students are organising themselves from the ground up, independent of main stream politics and unions that are subservient to the corporations. To join this preparation for world socialist revolution and a better post COVID-19 normal, contact the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and its Socialist Equality Party (SEP) or the International Youth and Students for Socialist Equality (IYSSE) via the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS.org)
NB: better still if you are eligible to vote in the 2020 US Presidential elections, you could support and vote for theSEP candidates – Joseph Kishore for President and Norissa Santa Cruz for Vice President and thereby help get the revolution underway.
‘A major human adaptation has been the creation of stories (beliefs) that trigger and guide emotions; the emotions are real, the actions are real, but the stories are only coded devices to attach motive force to action.’
JAMES KEYE – Politics & Emotion
The human species has long since become an inventive story telling productive force, a capacity that for better and for worse has given us an enormous advantage over all other species that inhabit planet Earth. However, as our scientific story of biology informs us, in essence we continue to be no more or less natural than any other species on planet Earth, all of whom are thereby subject to the natural checks and balances of planet Earth’s primary productive force, also storied by the scientific story of geophysics as the biosphere.
The human productive force is now artificially disrupting the Earth’s atmosphere to the point where global weather patterns are producing more intense climate variations, resulting in more severe droughts, floods and wildfires. The observable, measurable and thereby scientific rate of ‘climate change’ – particularly that of measuring the average surface temperature of planet Earth, is a relatively recent phenomenon that can be storied as a predictable response on the part of planet Earth’s biosphere to a disruption of it by a lesser – albeit significant, human productive force. It can also be storied that the capacity of the human productive force to artificially alter the planet’s atmosphere is now being subjected to the sort of natural checks and balances that have consistently taken place throughout planet Earth’s biosphere for millennia. Planet Earth’s capacity to respond to significant disruptions to the biosphere has evidently survived the test of time – about 4.5 billion years of time. We humans now have good reason to story planet Earth as simply doing what she has always done, she is responding in this case to a human induced artificial disruption of the atmosphere in particular and thereby Earth’s biosphere as a whole.
In the context of our human disruption of the biosphere, according to some of the more reputable scientific storying of the atmosphere eg; The Woods Hole Research Institute, we now only have three realistic options left ie; mitigation, adaptation and suffering. While we already participate in all three options to some extent, each depends upon the other, for example, the extent to which we experience the ‘suffering’ option depends entirely on the extent to which we act on the other two options.
Such climate related damage, loss and suffering is now (Jan 2020) being felt on a new and more terrifying scale throughout SE Australia.Unusual refugees escaping wildfire on a beach in SE Australia Jan 2020.
Planet Earth’s biosphere as a whole is the primary productive force that has enabled the seasonal cycle of life and death to flourish for billions of years, it should therefore be regarded – even celebrated, as being the essential pre-requisite for the emergence and continued development of our human productive force. Conversely, our effort to dominate planet Earth’s productive force for material gain is proving to be a serious human mistake, a mistake made possible only through some of the tall stories we have invented to convince, motivate and justify such stupidity.
If we are to better understand and manage the relationship between our human productive force in the context of planet Earth’s primary productive force – the biosphere, then some of us may need to change our stories, especially our most influential religious, scientific and political stories.
For better and for worse all three religious, scientific and political stories influence each other to some extent. For example, the more influential religious and political stories that persuade – even convince, many of us that the human productive force is superior to and should have ‘dominion over’, the natural resources of the biosphere, while such hubris has indeed inspired many a great invention, such stories are now proving to be delusional life destroying stories. Particularly misleading can be such religious, scientific and political stories that persuade some of us humans to regard certain artefacts and entities as sacred – even sacrosanct, including the artefacts of deity, money, private property and wealth. The time has arrived when we need to question our most influential religious, scientific and political stories, with a view to replacing them with stories that will help us to avoid destroying ourselves and possibly the entire planet.
I know that this is easier said than done, requiring as it does some serious attention and rigour, but my advice is that we look for religious, scientific and political stories that are at least compatible with the health of our biosphere and less contradictory with each other. For example, rather than being confined to some imagined, theist pie in the sky superstition, it is easy enough to find animist type religious stories and or spiritual practices that are more down to Earth, observable and thereby more available to our physical senses, even measurable.
Lucky me, I have ‘PaGaian Cosmology’ authored by my partner Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. in 2005. PaGaian Cosmology is an Earth based spiritual story and practice that celebrates the Earth, Sun and Moon relationship, a relationship that enables and sustains planet Earth’s biosphere. PaGaian Cosmology is a spiritual practice based on scientific observation, with no need for superstition. Human induced or otherwise and irrespective of what happens to our weather patterns, the Earth, Sun and Moon relationship enable a cosmic seasonal wheel of the year comprised of solstice and equinox moments that are fixed, observable, measurable and consistently determined by the angle of Earth’s axis and the rate of Earth’s rotation around the sun. This cosmic wheel of the year together with our Moon’s equally consistent 28 day cycle of waxing and waning, makes for an awesome phenomenon and story that is not only critical for the health of our biosphere, it is also worthy of our admiration and celebration.
Given that we are all now participating in an information technology (IT) revolution that is in turn enabling the development of artificial intelligence (AI), the search for and choice of scientific stories is all the more critical and deserving of careful scrutiny and some rigour. The inevitable and relatively rapid advance of IT and AI is already having a huge impact on our human well-being. For better and for worse, scientific research and development is often influenced by our religious and political stories with a view to exploiting planet Earth’s natural resources including the human productive force – waged labour. To the extent that the scientific story is being influenced by religious and political stories, makes the task of finding scientific stories that are more compatible and less contradictory even more challenging. My thoughts on the search for scientific stories that can have a positive influence on the wellbeing of life in general and us humans in particular, is that they should at least have been subjected to serious peer group review and thereby able to demonstrate a level of scientific integrity that can be trusted and valued.
While the world wide web and its variety of search engines now make it possible for us to do more thorough searches for the best of scientific stories, it should also be their compatibility with our personal world view and values that ultimately lead us to decide to what extent we are prepared to be influenced by the story of science.
‘Climate change, and other manifestations of environmental degradation, are the product of a social and economic system that is incapable of organizing global production in a rational and scientific manner, on the basis of social need—including the need for a healthy environment—rather than the endless accumulation of personal wealth.’
(WSWS.org ‘Perspective’ 3rd Jan 2020).
Given that we are now confronted with the twin threats of catastrophic climate change, and war between nuclear armed states, looking for a political story that is capable of mitigating these threats and thereby worthy of adopting and being influenced by, is probably our most urgent and challenging search.
As a species we obviously have the capacity to move beyond the fear based, antagonistic nationalist programs that place such a disproportionate emphasis on protecting and defending the accumulation of privately owned wealth within their respective nation states. Most of our religious and scientific stories including the sacred, the good and the bad, are not constrained by nation state boundaries. Unfortunately, this cannot be said for our political stories, most if not all of which are deliberately confined to looking after the interests of their respective nation state, particularly the ruling elite of the nation state.
My own life experience includes having sailed around the world in the British merchant navy (1965-67), having been a forest overseer in Victoria (1976-90) and having had my mind properly adjusted while living and working among the traditional aboriginal Anangu owners of Uluru in Central Australia for eight years (1990-98). Following my introduction to a more indigenous and traditional Australia, I was motivated to study for and gain a Master of Applied Science (Social Ecology) with Distinction (University of Western Sydney 1999-2003) – in a somewhat vain effort to cross the cultural bridge between an indigenous and a colonised Australia. For me this is still a work in progress.
On the strength of what I now regard as a relatively privileged life experience, I eventually found a political story that genuinely cares about and places an emphasis on the wellbeing of planet Earth and the human as a whole. After several years of searching and frustration and having almost given up on politics – particularly the Australian variety, I found the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) through its Sydney NSW Australia branch of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP). What attracted me most was a political story whose founder Leon Trotsky made it clear in 1938, that his programme and party was different to any other in that ‘the aim of our party is the full material and spiritual liberation of the toilers and the exploited’. At last I had found a political story and party that placed a deliberate and genuine emphasis on our human wellbeing, by uniting and liberating the human productive force to achieve its full potential ‘throughout the entire planet’. If you have not already done so, I can highly recommend you visit the World Socialist Web Site – WSWS.org, where you will find a relatively rare political story that is indeed compatible with the well being of the biosphere in general and us humans in particular.
‘For peoples, generally, their story of the universe is their primary source of intelligibility and value. The deepest crises experienced by any society are those moments of change when the story becomes inadequate for meeting the survival demands of a present situation.’
Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park is a World Heritage Area listed for both it’s natural and cultural values, yet many living outside Australia still only know it by its European name – Ayers Rock. Here, even during a brief stay of only a few days, visitors can and do experience a profound sense of being in a sacred place. For the Anangu traditional owners of Uluru and for others who are fortunate enough to live in its presence, and who choose to dwell there in a receptive manner, it can be a place for deepening awareness of the manta – the Earth, as sacred.
Most of Uluru’s quartz-like mass is buried to a depth of almost 6 kilometres beneath the surface of the desert. It’s awesome above ground appearance presents less than one percent of its total mass, but is nevertheless unlike any other natural feature throughout the vast landscape of Central Australia. Located about 400 kilometres South West of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory it is not an easy place to get to. From any major Australian city it requires either several days travel by road or a flight, usually via Alice Springs, then onto the Yulara tourist resort situated just 30 kilometres from the great monolith.
I was fortunate enough to be one of those piranpa – non-Anangu, ‘whitefellas’ – who got to live at Mititjulu, a community that emerged in response to Uluru’s growing popularity as a tourist attraction. As an employee of the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service I lived close enough to be able to see Uluru from our kitchen window and I drove alongside it to work most mornings for about five years. I lost count of the number of times I climbed Uluru, in the course of my work. On one occasion I climbed it during the light of a full moon, looking for so-called ‘new age’ trespassers, but I soon lost any desire of meeting let alone apprehending trespassers: being on top of Uluru that night was as close as I could imagine to actually walking on the moon itself. On other occasions, as part of a rescue training program I landed on and took off from a helipad on top of Uluru, and once I accepted an invitation to fly with the camera crew that filmed a Qantas promotion, wherein one of their commercial passenger jets does a tight and dramatic turn over the top of Uluru. These were amazing and unusual interactions for anyone to have with Australia’s most popular icon.
One evening while on what we called the sunset patrol, I had a most exhilarating interaction with another species. The last tourist had long since reached the bottom of ‘the climb’ and headed off to one of the sunset viewing areas or back to Yulara and I was alone on top of Uluru watching Sun slowly disappear behind Kata Tjuta – “the Olgas” as they are named by Europeans, about 30 kilometres to the West. I first heard the flapping of its wings then a few seconds later it took my breath away and my knees began to shake, I was being circled and focused on by the greatest of Central Australia’s hunters walawuru – the wedge-tailed eagle. It had swept up from a gorge behind me and as it circled directly above me it came close enough for me to see the brown of its eyes. I dropped onto my knees as if wanting to worship such an awesome creature, but it was more a case of deep respect, as well as the awe and a tinge of fear that I felt. I also thought that being there in walawuru’s domain after sunset was not what the great eagle wanted. Some months later a similar, more awesome interaction took place between walawuru and I. On this occasion I was sitting, again alone at the top of Uluru and watching Sun setting – Earth turning: walawuru circled, without moving in for closer scrutiny, and this time I didn’t feel unwelcome – it felt like an amicable interaction.
These walawuru and other air-borne Uluru experiences were for me, doorways into gaining a far more embodied and profound consciousness of the other-than-human. There was also an opening to a particular cave at the base of Uluru wherein much awaited me: a remembering of my childhood ways of knowing and being – a remembering of the sense that everything belonged to me and anything was possible. I found there what I called my ‘Selfplace’. Nowadays I reflect on that time and space as my desert pilgrimage, the beginning of a new way of relating to other and all- that-is.
After living at Uluru for five years as Park Manager, I left that position and was able to enjoy the relative freedom of a less formal and demanding role as Senior Project Officer on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands, about 300 kilometres south of Uluru. During the following three years on these AP lands I was able to ritualise my return visits to Uluru and seriously cultivate a deeper relationship with what I now understand to be one of Gaia’s most sacred places.
These ritualised return visits to Uluru in general, and to my chosen cave in particular, were for me the beginning of a lengthy and intense process of remembering how to listen to the manta – to Earth, and it is where I found my ‘Story Stone’. Ngayulu puli tjukur(pa) – ‘My Story Stone’, appeared to me decades after my Welsh mother Dilys first introduced me to stone consciousness using fossils on Penarth beach – my favourite childhood playground. I received my Story Stone as an act of generosity made available to me by the subtle realms of a cosmic consciousness. I share this story in the belief that the first act of ngapartji-ngapartji (Pitjantjatjara for a deep reciprocity) is that of receiving.
The experiences with my Story Stone were instrumental in leading me to find both the strangest, and the most beautiful, attractors in my life: the first – my strange attractor – was my arrival at the University of Western Sydney, where I was able to make some sense of the cultural interface from which I was emerging. There I met my beloved Glenys Livingstone – my beautiful attractor: together we are greatly inspired to carefully listen to teachers such as Thomas Berry when he says –
“The dawn and sunset are moments when the numinous source of all existence is experienced with special sensitivity. …Living things come into being, flourish then fade from the scene. This ever-renewing sequence of sunrise and sunset, of seasonal succession, constitutes a pattern of life, a great liturgy, a celebration of existence” (1999:177-78).
My Story Stone and the tjukurpa – the religious philosophy of Central Australia, opened new ways of knowing and being for me. It continues to be a great source of wisdom and guidance, as I deepen with my beloved, into our ‘PaGaian Cosmology’ a new and homely Earth based Goddess religion. The Central Australian religious observances have been described as showing
“ a generous diversity in their outward patterns from group to group, and from person to person. More importantly, the very nature of the religious beliefs prevented the rise of that particular kind of religious fanaticism which could have swept a small, but well organised body of men into a position of authoritarian power over a large community.”
(Strehlow 1978:47).
Such religious practice of the people of this Land inspires me, and undergirds my observance of the seasonal celebrations of my own ancestors – re-created in this place.
Our time to celebrate Eostar – Spring Equinox approaches. It is the season for a particular kind of “deepening down under”. As my beloved Glenys would say –
“This is the time of Spring’s return… The story of Old tells us that Persephone beloved daughter, returns from Her journey to the underworld. Demeter stretches out her arms – to receive and rejoice. The beloved One, the Lost One, returns with new Wisdom from the depths”
(Livingstone 2005:210).
References:
The Great Work (Thomas Berry 1999).
Central Australian Religion (T.G.H. Strehlow 1978).
Pitjantjatjara / Yankunytjatjra to English Dictionary
“A permaculture way of life empowers us to take responsibility for our own welfare, provides endless opportunities for creativity and innovation, and connects us to nature and community in ways that makes sense of the world around us.
We generally don’t articulate permaculture as a political strategy or movement but reflecting the principle of multiple functions, permaculture strategies have powerful political impacts that have several advantages over conventional political action that focuses on getting those in power to pull the right levers.”
(David Holmgren 2013)
While I have known about the concept of permaculture and have been positively influenced by some of its practitioners for several decades, it is not until now that I have come to more fully appreciate its value to our planet in general and to us humans in particular.
From my PaGaian perspective, permaculture is a very significant Spiritical – spiritual and political, activity that is already providing a growing number of people with daily improvement to the quality of their lives. I find the three ethics at the centre of permacultures twelve design principles namely ‘earth care’, ‘peoplecare’ and ‘fair share’, to be spiritually, politically and ecologically compatible.
While the number of practitioners is still relatively small and growing, if and when the twelve principles of permaculture are practiced by a large enough critical mass of humanity, then we could eventually find ourselves enjoying an ecologically sound and socially just global economy. Permaculture really is a social revolutionary struggle worth participating in.
No matter where one is placed on the socio-economic ladder, no matter what religious or political persuasion one is currently being influenced by, we can and should seriously consider joining the permaculture community, learning its twelve design principles and applying them daily to the best of our ability.
Permaculture is clearly already one of very few viable, sensible livelihood options remaining open to us during what is shaping up to be a geopolitically dangerous, ecologically devastating and socio-economically difficult period for most if not all working families.
Take a few minutes to visit permacultureprinciples.com and see for yourself what it might do for you and your relationship with all-that-is.
As with our spiritual vision, so too with our ecological and social visions, they are planetary by nature and PaGaian by name.
