---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A parable for a new paradigm Convergence Festival, Dublin, 2001 Richard K. Moore 27 April 2001 http://cyberjournal.org Once upon time there was a tribe of people who lived in a happy land called Eden. In this land the people could find everything they needed. When they wanted to eat they might kill an animal, just like a lion or a hawk would do, but otherwise they left the other creatures alone to live their own lives. For a million years, for thousands and thousands of generations, the tribe lived this way - in harmony with nature and the creatures around them. Then one day a tempting spirit came to them and whispered a new paradigm in their ears. The seductive voice said, "The world is yours to conquer. Go forth and multiply, and subdue the creatures of the earth, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea." Most of the people said "No, we cannot do this, for only the gods are wise enough to rule the earth. Such is not the business of man." Had not a wiser spirit told them that they would surely die, if they ate from the tree of the gods? But there were a few who were greedy, and short-sighted, and they adopted the new paradigm. They set out to subdue the world, as if they were gods. They said why should I hunt, when I can keep animals in fences, and kill one whenever I'm hungry? They cut down forests, and planted fields, because they had learned to always want more - they could no longer be satisfied with enough. Always they thought of subduing, and conquering, and before long they began subduing other people, along with the birds, the fishes, and the creatures. They invented slavery, and sent their slaves out to tend the animals and sow the fields. Soon they had storehouses full of food, and they were pleased, because they didn't need to work themselves, and they always had food to eat. But they could never be content, because they always wanted more, and they were always growing in number. They trained some of their slaves to be soldiers, and they fed them from their storehouses of food. In this way they conquered and subdued neighboring tribes, and soon they invented kingdoms, and then empires. The evil new paradigm spread like a cancer, until only a few remote corners of the earth were free from it. In a mere 10,000 years - only a few hundred generations - they had built empires that covered the globe, and they had made slaves of everyone except for a few wealthy rulers. They had become very sophisticated, and they no longer needed chains and whips to control their slaves. Instead of whips they invented something called capitalism, and instead of chains they invented propaganda - by which they fooled everyone into thinking that slavery was freedom. Finally, the top rulers got together and combined their empires into one. They called it globalization, and they said it was good. They began to recreate life itself, to their own design, and thus conquered even the last domain of the gods. They had been warned that if they became like gods they would surely die, but they had never believed it. For 10,000 years they escaped the prophecy, and there always seemed to be more to conquer and to subdue. But then, in their triumphal era of globalization, the truth of the prophecy was becoming apparent. The fish were disappearing from the sea, the fields were turning to desert, and famine and disease were destroying whole populations - on the very continent that gave birth to humanity. The Earth itself began to heat up in anger, which it expressed with hurricanes and floods. And then one day the wiser spirit returned again to the land, and began whispering a very old paradigm in people's ears. Her voice could be heard everywhere, from Seattle to Prague, from Brazil to Quebec, and even in fair Dublin City. She used new phrases, like sustainability and building community, but her message was a primordial one: Return to the Garden - learn once more to live in harmony with the world and with one another. Only the rulers were unable to hear this voice, for they listened still to the other spirit, with his old siren song of 'subdue and conquer'. They sent their troops into the streets, and built walls around their gatherings, but they could not silence the voice of the wiser spirit. Finally people everywhere set down their tools and said enough is enough. The rulers retreated in dismay, everyone returned to the garden, and they all lived happily ever after. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
