The Hippie Trip Continues

I'm often curious about the correlation between values and technology.  There's a line in Pygmalion that stuck in my head. 

PICKERING. Have you no morals, man?  

DOOLITTLE [unabashed] Can't afford them, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me. Not that I mean any harm, you know.

In that sense, I think green didn't really go that far beyond orange, rather, it merely took it a little further.  Orange can already take multiple perspectives.  Green extended this, taking perspectives on hierarchical family life and social institutions, etc.  But I don't think it get that far ahead, not enough anyway to be anew level.  As one author says, it was postMODERN, not POSTmodern. It was more an effort to exit, rather than something entirely new that it was building in place.

I wonder if one big reason why green wasn't a radically big leap for letting go of selfishness, is because it was still embedded in the industrialised modern world of its day.  You can't "drop out" and "live off the land" if there is no land to drop out to, and no food waiting to be gathered by some pristine river.  You can't make like the bears and just stand by the river and catch salmon leaping past in your mouth.  You need a job, a social security number, and a place of residence.  You need money and a supermarket.

So what does "giving" mean in a world of limited supply?  I guess it means trying to redistribute things more fairly.  But population numbers continue to grow (if you can't make money, make children) so then what?  How many bears can crowd around one river?  Even if you want to give, that means some bears (you) go hungry.

So I think that technically we just can't create freedom yet because people are either too poor or working too hard.  So, sure, people can experience a taste of freedom in altered states, but to make it real in the material world means making us materially free in abundance.  That mean, we need technology to satisfy everyone's material needs.  

I know that "greed" is often defined as "wanting more" and, because it is "wanting more", it is always more than whatever you have -- therefore the "answer" is to just teach people to stop being greedy and be satisfied with what they have.  Well, sure, but would one go to the world's poorest areas and teach people, "hey, we know you're poor, but wanting more won't help, just learn to be satisfied with what you have, including that nasty tropical disease?"  No, somehow we know this is wrong.  So that can't be what "greed" means. 

Is "greed" about wanting too much?  Well again, where do you draw the line?  How many people in the West have lots of money, but get sick and die young of a terrible disease?  Can't they want to live longer?

So "greed" may disappear when we have enough.  Truly when we can let go of the fixation on material needs -- because they are satisfied -- and focus on the being needs.  Because, we'll just be.

But people who just be (like hippies who just want to sit around all day and do a bit of art or a bit of fly fishing) will still be productive in some way.  It is just that we'll have passed the threshold where we no longer organise everything around having a job.  I guess a few thousand years ago we had to organise everything around strength and military might, because anyone could attack you.  But today citizens can walk unarmed because at least in some areas, there is general safety.  So that red level need is no longer a fixation.

So to let go of the fixation with orange we need to solve material abundance and survival.  Food, housing, education, health, leisure, etc.  All the good stuff.  We need more of that but we're hitting limits to productivity.  We just don't have much new technology yet.  We're at the limits of technological growth.  We need breakthroughs.  

Then people can be materially OK enough that they naturally come to spirituality, not through suffering and shocks and dramas that drive them to despair and seek an exit from conventional life, but because conventional life is so satisfying that the higher needs become more prominent. 

If Doolittle was financially OK, what need would he have to sell off his own daughter?

Toast.

It seems that there are some people who have been hanging out around here who get extremely upset about even the hint of a prospect of anyone here attempting to do any good in our World. They might ask why should anyone try to do good in our World? In my opinion, for one thing, if we witness our self doing this we might be less likely to try to harm or destroy our self. When I first reflected on this situation I found it to be strange. Upon further reflection I saw how volumes could be written about this. I think it is worthwhile reflecting on this one.  

Why do good?

Perhaps to save our very life.