The Tao of Ecology and Religion

 

Thirty spokes join one hub.  

The wheel's use comes from emptiness. 

 

Clay is fired to make a pot.

The pot's use comes from emptiness. 

 

Windows and doors are cut to make a room. 

The room's use comes from emptiness. 

 

Therefore, 

Having leads to profit 

Not having leads to use 

Wu chih i wei yung 

 

-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching 

(Translated by Stephen Addiss & Stanley Lombardo, 1993, Hackett Publishing)

 

    So far, on these blogs, I have mused a great deal on the need for humanity to use their ability to transform their world in a responsible way. However, I have not offered any ideas as to how that might be done. I do not think our problem lay in the way we approach the mountain, for we have everything we need in order to preserve that which is not ours: don't touch it! We know how to keep nature humming along, we have simply made a habit of choosing to do the opposite. Our problem lay in the 'Tower' which is, as far as I am concerned the center of the cosmological 'Polis' (i.e., the human social world). What is the problem? Namely that our Polis is, from time immemorial, predicated on slavery and over-consumption. Thus, we run from the Polis (as fugitive slaves) or seek more people to put under its boot (as hegemon of our respective age). There can be no healthy relationship between the Mountain and Tower so long as (to borrow from J.R.R. Tolkien) the Tower is that of Barad-dûr, i.e., destruction, malice, and corruption. We cannot control the party represented by the Mountain, because our presence contradicts its existence (I'd argue that humans contain culture within themselves and cannot help but to bring it to any wild space). We can, therefore, control only the party of the Tower, which must not be such an intolerable place to be that we must escape it by flight or by expansion. Can we control our appetite? Can we attain humility such that we need not rule over other people? Can we willingly take on the self-denial necessary to make culture something other than a circus of power? 

    One cannot blend the Mountain and the Tower, for these blend on their own, as a result of their being only able to occupy a limited portion of shared, finite space. Thus, any attempt at  creating 'Arcadia' is delusional, as we have explored so far in our class readings. We may only ever sojourn on the Mountain, probably never reaching its heart. When it is such that our Polis is not possessed of a quality which drives its citizens mad, we may for the first time begin to have a dialogue with nature as a species, and not as individuals. When we can sit still and be content with who we are, that is, when we can live without making demands of every Other which we encounter, we can begin to love nature and to make contact with it. The journey to Arcadia is an inner journey through a spacial self. 


The wilds flow with life 

Empty of culture, full of delight 

 

The Polis sings of community

Empty of wildness, full of art 

 

Arcadia's children dance and sing 

Empty of care, full of mirth 

 

Therefore, 

Build your tower with skill and beauty 

Climb God's mountain with reverence and fear  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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