Sunday, February 14, 2010

Motivations

In the US, there are groups who urge social justice for Native Americans, who consider the election of a black president redemptive of the abuses from slavery, and who are critical of how humans have ill-managed environmental resources. Materialistic, greedy, short-sighted are a few of the adjectives connected to a doomy view of the planet’s, our human, future.

At the same time that we worry about the death of the planet, we are extending the life of individual humans with new technology to support perinatal challenges and various disabilities, extending the length of time each of us stays alive, and trying to forbid voluntarily sanctioned easy death.
I am wondering about connecting this unwillingness to be comfortable with the death of any one individual and the global sense of shame at the much-discussed death of the planet.

Denial? Reparation? Redemption?