Factoid Notes taken for the book.

1. "A new historic vision - a perid of mutually-enhancing human -earth relationship is being established
"Only in recent time has such a vision become possible. We never knew enough. Nor were we sufficiently intimate with
all our cousins in the great family of the earth
"The time has come to lower our voices, to resist the impulse to control, oppress,and to follow the larger community of life
. Human destiny is integrous with the deny of our life on earth."
Note: The image of the gardener. The image of the garden. It does nto have to be the monoculture of industrial farming, it
may be the handging gardens of Eden. the question s d we want domisticated humasn and a garden plaent, with the wild
things ither eliminated or carefuly controlled on a reservation? WHO DECIDES?
We are wakening to a new emotinal sensitivity as we recover our presence on earth. We are becoming aware that human
life is imperilied when that the earth community is a wilderness necessary for human survival.
I question that. If we look at if from the point of view of slaves starting to notice the results of what they ar
doing - maybe. If we look at if from….
"We have abused the planet in the past two centuries.."
England used to be heavily forested, as was the Middle East and north Africa. The deserts of the Middle East
and north Africa are human-made. The pictures I have of china are treeless plains - I mimagine that is the result of
thoousands of year so human cultivation.
He's too Ameri-centric. The problem isn't just that the middle class whites need to join the Mountaineers.
OverView
I never know how to deal with priviledged people who just assume that their priviledges are spiritually-earned and relflect a
superio understanding ofthe world.
I'm well-aware of how my background limits my vision, and this has limited my acheivements in life, and I don't want to
jinx others'grand visions, because we're all seeing how cricial these grand visions are.
But I have seen,time and gain, friends and aquaintenance break down under the assumpiton tht the world is a magical font
of munificence, and that proper belief will rpovide. It's not recogninizing where the power fulcrums are, and not
understanding ht the difference between priviledges and power.
So when I read yet another book by an educated European intellectual saying that they world is evolving bcause the damage
is so blatant that even his small cohort of liberal elite can see the effects, I never know how to react. I mean, I don't want to
stop their thought processes,which censure often can do.
I think of england in the last 1000 years - as the natureal abundance declines, the general population get herded into a
smaller and smaller area, and the remaining wild is kept as a reserve for the welathy elite.
I recall something I read, about twenty years ago, saying beware when you hear politicians and business leaders saying "we
need to ride the bus more." What they mean is "YOU need to ride the bus more."
I say beware of anything done by the intellectuals of the dominant society that just says,"We need to change." if it does
not include the recognitiioni that we need to change the bosses.
The American and European and Canadians are - what?- 20% of the world's population? How can he describe what a few
privideged white boys ar doing, and gauge humanity's maturity by it?
It is the supreme irony of history that the consequecnes ofthe millenial expections ( the Enlightenment, the democratic age,
the nation-state,the classles society, the capitalist age of peace and plenty, and the industrial wonderworld] have been the
devasttion of the planet- wateworld rather than wonderworld
The modern question has always been the control of anything that exisists on an order of magnitude many times greater
than what was available in prior periods of hisotry .

2. Again, if you look at it from the point of view of the peasant, the problem is that their overlords have way
more fire power now than they had in the past, and can affect the whole planet.
The mythic dimension, the sacred aspect of the Phillippines, is needed if naything significant is to be done to remedy the
devastation already present and to activate a program of renewal.
He totally ignored the fact that it was the takeover of the Phillippines by the US that caused this destruction,
and that it is the control of the Phillippines by the glabal multi-nationals that continues the devastation.
The people with the mythigic dimention and the sacred aspect resisted the takeover. They were labelled the
"communist insurrection" and would apears on our nightly news like misquitoes, irritating pesets to be systematically
attacked and destroyed , keeping us from fully exploiting the opportunities present in that geographic region.
It sounds like he wants us to be the corporate enablers, the social wives who sit around planning charity balls and
highway beautification projects while our husbands plnder the planet.
The ideal of a human habitat within a naturel setting of trees and fields and flowering plants etc would seem to be the only
effective way of inter a sustaining and humanly satisfying future.
Yet the current power elite,both Western and chinese, have an unbroken tradition of maintaining just such an
invironment - for themselves. And this is currently what is being planned for the future.
The only question is how big the walled city needs to be - the Pacific NorthWest?
The industrial age was invented to avoid the return due for the benefits received - to tall subsevience ofthe natural world
10,000 ecologically-oriented activeist groups,in North America
Who funds them?.
"so long as we are underthe ilusion that we know best what is good of the earth and ourselves,then we will continue our
present course with its devasting consequenceson the entire earth community
Name one person, of the hundreds or thousands that you know, include lal of your lamebrained relations and looser
co-workers as well as the enlightedn friends, name even one who thinks that they or any other human, knows best
what is good for the earth
THAT IS THE PROBLEM!
The problem is : Who is this "we" that he keeps talking about?
He says something unique happened in the 17th and 18th century Europe, but he doesn't identify it.
Why didi this technological innovation happen in Europe, but not in cina, or Central America?
What have we gained?
Ask that of the people in developing nations- what do they want? do they want destroyed cities, poisoned lakes?
Many intelligent, competent persons dedicated to the improvement of the huma situation simply do not understand the
actual comsequencesoftheir actiions - totally committee persons,simply catastrophic in their judgement
Aha! The Bumbling Fools theory raises its ugly head at last.
We all bear a certain amount of guilt for the present situation,since our American society has from the beginning supported
the industrial process with enthusiasm.. Such is the seductive theme of almost all our advertising.

3. There are few peoples in the world who could not grow their own food if their land were available to them, if food were not
exported for foreign exchange, anif the land were properly cultivated and if expensive packaging and transportation were
avoided. The evidence for this has been presented in Food First
But people do not control their land. We must get rid of the overclass.
"Ther tragedy is that our economy is being run by personso with good intentions under the ilusion that they are bringing
only great benefits to the world and even fulfilling a sacred taks on the part of the human community. "We bring good
things to life". "Profrss is our most important product". "Fly the friendly skies".
Is the author unaware that advertising lies? Has he never heard of spinmeisters? Is he unaware of the
deviouslness of advertising and the venal and corrupt nature of American big business and business and
political leaders?
The trees of the Appalachian Mountains will not be healthy if the rain is acid. Nor will the soil be fertile. Nor will the
humans have their proper nourishment. Nor will imagination be activated to its grand poetic visions. Nor will our sense of
the divine be so exalted if the earh is diminished in its glory
There may be a non-human autonous spirit, that humans can relate to. But I suspect the real reason
humans love the grandeiur of nature is that the human spirit is freed.
Fearful people don ot revel in nature - We revel in freedom and the sou-strom of nature is a
symptom, not a cause. The real cause is freedom and security..
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page 94 and 95: He sees the sequence of cultural identidy going from Paleolithic, neolithic, classical,
traditional, scientific-technologoical, and noe emerging ecological.
However, I say it is tribal/free to conquered.
He says education used to be contemplative, imaginvative and now has moved to the exploitive-
extractive skills needed in a consumer society.
I say education in the tribal way was shamanistic, personal. Education in the classical was for the
elite, and now it is for the masses.
What I see happening is that the propaganda myth that we used to use mindless consumerism for will
change to saving the planet. He's ushering in the new propaganda paradymn.
I agree tht the nature of technological education is to expoit the earth has to change, and is
changing, as we are increasingly less capable of ignoring the bad effects of technological development and as
the unexploited areas of the globe and the wild spaces of the globe, disappear.
Presently a multitude of countercultural movements are taking pace throughout American society in all areas of human
activities.I
Explain, please
The second proposaluniversally required college course would be on the evolution of human coding from Paleolitic to the
emerging ecoloical phase…" This would provide meaning to life that might not otherwise be available".
Ridiculous. Meaning to life has traditionally be to make the life of yourself, our family, friends, community,
nation, planets, life God, bette. This presupposes that the student, his/her family and community are
already so well of that this is no need to deal with that issue on anything smaller tha the global level.
[this age] ..has been the period of medical advance,of unicreased human population,of release from many of the physical
and social ils of former times.

4. Maybe an improvement in the the life of the slave, but I question if it is an improvement in the life of the
wild peoples.
"Everything needed to be transformed…Nothing in its natural state was acceptable. Anything unused was to
be used if the very purpose of its existence was to be realized."
This is mistaking the propagancda fro the the principlel The principle was that peole wer looking for that
which wuld make them rich and powerful, and everything was grist for that mill. The propaganda was their
rationalizetion.
"Only such as those (John Muir and H. D. Thoreau) were aware that the diminishment of the grandeur and fertiltity of the
natural…
If they were the only ones, why were tney so popular. They were the only ones publicized by the rulers.
The Basic sprituality communicated by the natural world can also be considered as normative for the future ecological age
Agree!.
(pp 184 - 186) Talking about the special spiritual significance of Indians -> He doesn't seem to undertand that
all tribal people who haven't been conquered havve such understandings.
P 185 - He acrues "greater survival 'value' to culture when, really, all that is happening is that some remnants
of the conquered society, be it language or traditon, is allowed to continue its existence.
"of special importance is the Earth MotherArchetype". While this is found universally, it has had a special development
with the Navaho"
What does he know about Navaho spirituality? He can he say that the Eath has a special meing for the Navaho
it doesn’t' for other tribes?
He mistakes the rationalizations and propaganda lies, told to sles t quiet their protestations for the ture
mythig of a people. As conditions change, the mythi chagnes - hence, years ago, we needed a tax cut
because time were good, and we wanted the good time to continute. New, times aren't so good, so we need
ato cut the rich peple's tax to stave off the bad tiems and brin the good times back.
Why don’t we talk about the real myths - the authorities are peope we don't know, that we only hear about
through intermediaries, much like we contact God only through intermediaries.
We are the termination, not the fulfillment, of earthly processes."
Life will continue whether numans do not not. ilfe can live in a nuclear waste dump. It will live in acidic
lakes.
"Yet isn't not easy tomvoe beyond the basic humanict ideals that have divided our cultural traditon ove the
past millenium
He is saying that ouroverlords are going to have a difficult time coming up with appropriate lies that suit their
purposes..