The Autumn Of Our Capitalism

In Science Daily: Humanity May Hold Key For Next Earth Evolution http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081129173302.htm ..."We are … an agent for planetary evolution or an agent for planetary destruction,” Langmuir said. “Do we relate to the current environmental problems as if we are users of the Earth, or do we recognize that we are the byproduct of 4.5 billion years of planetary evolution? What we do may determine whether the planet is able to move into its next phase of development.” Our new capitalism must undergo a considerable change. As the beings of the greatest potential for intelligence on the Earth, God gave us the position of steward that we might exercise good husbandry over this part of Creation. Instead, we have chosen to exploit it, and to turn it into instruments of finance which - due to our incredible lack of hindsight, foresight, and insight - served to increase the suffering of mankind, not to alleviate it. I imagined myself Ausonius late last autumn when I paused to consider the meaning of what I was writing. Ausonius was a figure of the late Roman Empire. He lived in present day Burgundy, and spent his life in service of the Empire. He was a poet, too. Ausonius went out into the Burgundy countryside in autumn, and felt a presentiment of everything he stood for passing away. It was not merely as a literary device that I chose Ausonius, for it seems that I actually had stood there with him, only it was years ago, much earlier than 2008. It was indicated that I was to live my life, not in the vibrant bloom of spring of a society - as I had believed since my babyhood, as I had been taught by the wise minds of my country - but I was in the autumn which grew colder day by day. We journeyed to Detroit and stood within the Detroit Institute of Arts in the Rivera court, where the great Diego Rivera had painted the murals of Industry. As we sat and looked at them, it was mentioned that we could rent the courtyard for my daughter's wedding for a mere $20,000. Beyond the insanity of the cost - obviously established in the old period which ended in 2008 but which people still fervently held onto, the period of capitalistic autism - I could not bear to be in the courtyard, for I had the distinct impression that I was standing as a time-traveller from some other age, or a future archaeologist, standing and staring with imperfect understanding at the glories of the by-gone age. Within the murals glowed the genius of invention and creativity; delineated in vibrant colors were the riches and the nurturing attention of the enigmatic Mother Earth which had been given to us. In the murals there were the hard work and dedication of generations, transformed by Industry into people who built good and strong lives and were the root stock of virtuous families. Straining in the confines of the two dimensions were the diversity of conscious entities - striving against the ideas of each other, presenting two visions - and I realized our diverse nature and the necessity that we realize we shall always differ, conscious beings always do, but we must reconcile in the end.

And I was overwhelmed by a sense of shame that I lived in the throw-away age: America of Throw-Away Well-Being! What shall we do today? Shall we toss out the retirement accounts of millions? Toss their savings as if they were plates of styrofoam, not gold, not lives.

In truth, my face reddened as I stood there. I wondered if everyone else were feeling the same thing, the same dissonance between pictures of creative beings being gaped at by their mammalian, bi-pedal, quasi-simian descendants. I am not living in the age of reconciliation; I am living at the first breakdown of the system. After me will come the great discords and the fights and loathsome wars my country is so adept at. I am Ausonius, and I write for the future generation: reconcile with each other, reconcile with God, and reconcile with nature. It is your future generation to which belongs the brave new world of the future.

orate pro nobis omnes veniete et pro vobis orabimus...

pray for us, and from our monuments

of marble we shall pray for you...

note: tomorrow we shall discuss Iconic Participation for some idea of how those who are gone actually pray for those who remain.