Survival in a world gone mad
March 7th, 2008 by Jim JustCarolyn Baker at Speaking Truth to Power has posted a deeply provocative review of Mike Byron’s The Path Through Infinity’s Rainbow: Your Guide To Personal Survival and Spiritual Transformation In A World Gone Mad.
It’s pretty lengthy, so I’m just going to quote a bit. I urge you to visit her site and read the whole thing.
“It is now far too late,” he says, “to prevent our looming petro-collapse and all of its environmental consequences. Like the Titanic approaching the iceberg, collision with our attractor is now both inevitable and imminent. The difference is that, unlike the Titanic, we are actually speeding up as we approach our ‘iceberg’.” (34)
“This paragraph is so momentous, so poignant that the reader must ponder it carefully. Please let it sink in: We cannot prevent catastrophe, the pace with which we are plummeting toward it is accelerating. When the impact of these two statements sinks in, how can anyone reading these words assume that his/her own or the planet’s “business as usual” can continue?
“But the author does not leave us there because he quickly adds:
“However, it is possible for many of us to survive the catastrophe and to sow the seeds for civilization to be renewed with all of the learning of past ages relatively intact. This is because at the very center of it all are the ordered patterns of memes from which our minds emerge and interact with the minds of others. We can ensure that the lessons learned from this impending collapse are firmly incorporated into the minds and culture of our successor civilization’s citizens and into their institutions and laws.”