When we were in Scotland two summers ago, we drove north along the east coast. We came to the great estate of the Earl of Sutherland, a classic stone British aristocratic manor house on a bluff. Large formal stairways swept down the slope to many acres of formal gardens extending to the edge of the North Sea. We continued north. A half hour later, we drove by an empty small parking area on the right with what looked like a marker. We circled back and read that at the end of about a half-mile walk were the ruins of Badbea. It was a beautiful, high latitude summer late afternoon. We walked out over a rise to a beautiful view, looking down towards high cliffs rising straight out of the waves of the North Sea. The trail dropped down to where the rocky terrain steepened towards the tops of the cliffs. On the occasional level spot stood the stone wall remnants of the few small cottages that had been Badbea.
If I understand the history right, the clan system was the Scottish version of feudalism. The land belonged to the laird but the laird’s power derived from how many warriors he could muster. Therefore the laird governed in a way that kept the population on the land as large and healthy as possible. For centuries England tried to conquer Scotland with various successes and setbacks. Scottish history got tangled up with the religious wars of England (and the Continent). Bonnie Prince Charlie (who sounds like a schmuck) came to Scotland to raise an army and march upon the Protestant English Monarchy. But he dithered his advantage and in 1748, he led the Scottish clans to a disastrous defeat at Culloden. The British followed the victory with brutal oppression, hunting down the survivors and family of those who fought, outlawing bagpipes and tartans and weapons. The laird’s power no longer came from his warriors because warriors were forbidden. There no longer was an advantage in nourishing people with the land. Money could be made by raising sheep. And so, by their own lairds, the people were driven off the lands they had lived upon for centuries. This is known as the Clearances. Many were cleared off any decent land. They huddled on the rocky edge of the sea. There many starved. Many died as they tried to learn how to make a living from the sea. Many emigrated to colonies.
Badbea was one of these sad places. Back where our car was parked – that was good land so sheep lived there. The people were forced onto the cliff tops. The marker said that toddlers had to be on leashes so they would not be blown over the cliffs during high winds. The soil is minimal; the people tried growing potatoes. Badbea touched me deeply. The wildness that strikes the passerby as beautiful was daily proof of profound betrayal and death-defying toil for those who had to live there. To starve on cliff tops a few miles away from where one’s laird entertained sumptuously in a great house. How many times has desire for money sucked the privileged into such a yawning disconnect from the heart?
Which brings me to corporate globalization. Nature study and working on Chrysalis tend to preoccupy me but every now and then I come up for a breath of air and take a look around. The WTO demonstrations in Seattle made an impression; I made a note to learn more. This summer I read When Corporations Rule the World by David Korten (published by Berrett-Koehler and Kumarian Press). The man spent his professional life working in development agencies overseas so he has up close understanding of things we would rather not know. He does an excellent job bringing many disparate phenomena into a big picture. The main theme is that we have a fundamental systems problem. The current organizational form of corporations (and global finances) have allowed the positive feedback loop of “the rich tend to get richer” to spiral free of the many constraining feedback loops once imposed by religion, community, nation, morality, environment. It’s a systems problem in that this spiral includes pushing out of corporations those leaders who would temper profits with community responsibility. It promotes, instead, those who will externalize any corporate costs that is possible to pin on someone else. The positive feedback loop has grown so powerful that it already is consuming our economy, our democracy, our sense of community, and our ecosystems. (If this seems too strong a statement, please read the book.)
I know that probably half of you are much further along than I on this issue. To you I thank. I thank those of you who were in Seattle and caught my attention. I thank those of you who have communicated about their concerns. You are heroes in my eyes. May my growing awareness nourish your persistence and resolve.
To those of you, like I, who are still wondering just what you actually think about this issue, I encourage you to read the book. I believe it will help you make sense of lots of different items in the news. (Second edition just came out and is much more current than the first edition.)
Alysia and I spent a week camping on the beach. As the waves washed my mind, I contemplated my response to my growing awareness that the issue of corporate globalization, along with human population growth, are the two biggest challenges we face. There are two things I feel like saying at this early stage of my growth in this area.
A major spiritual challenge of this issue is that it is really easy to be against corporations, CEO salaries, speculative finance, externalization of costs, the WTO, etc. Our minister cautions us to always take our stand for something, not against something. Korten’s book does a good job of that. As I walked the beach, I sensed how grappling with this issue with the intent of finding upon what ground one will take one’s stand is a spiritual wrestling that will make us strong.
Second thing is from my work with erosion. It is easy, when one looks at erosion, to see only the erosive forces. To conclude, for example, that there are 20 units of erosion out there. That view is disheartening. But a deeper understanding reveals that in this hypothetical example, there are actually 100 units of erosive force but also 80 units of erosion-resisting forces. Things are closer to balance than we usually realize. Gaia’s power is invisible and easily overlooked. I shall be a grass blade growing where I hadn’t grown before, slowing the force with which corporate globalization previously flowed by me. I will absorb some of that power and grow stronger. I will remember Badbea. I will share my spirit with others as others have shared their spirit with me. We will establish the proper feedback loops so that the tool of money becomes subordinate to and serves the human spirit.
– – – – –
Do you notice how the media more and more refer to us as “the American consumer”, not as “American citizens”. An idea for a bumper sticker is “Call me a citizen, not a consumer! “
Leave a Reply