Generally when we say "global society", we think of humans all around the world joined together regardless of nationality, race, ethnicity, sex, gender, or sexual preference. But global society is even bigger than that, and even more infinitely diverse! A truly global society embraces every creature on this Earth. Think about it: your day-to-day social interactions happen not just with other human people, but with a thousand-and-one other living beings as well. On the purely local level: when a bee buzzes around your head, mistaking your floral perfume for a real flower; when a raccoon plunders your trash can or a cat cuddles on your lap; when a plant in your backyard makes some extra electrons to fuel its photosynthesis, emitting waste oxygen for you to breathe - all these and more are social interactions.
Of course, these are only your local experiences of global society. You are also in social relationships, both direct and indirect, with creatures far beyond your local environment. Indeed, the Earth itself is a massive homeostatic society - some call this Gaia - where incredibly diverse kinds of different living creatures both create and maintain an environment for themselves and each other. Since its humble monomeric or crystalline beginnings, life has radically changed the look and feel of the Earth. Our planet is and has always been in the process of terraforming - and without the global society of life, our planet would be simply unlivable.
Aye - there's the rub. As the current mass extinction on Earth indicates, our planet is currently becoming less and less livable for a lot of fellow members in this global society. While extinction - like death - has always been a fact of life, our era will go down in history as the latest of only six historical extinction-events. Nowadays living creatures are dying off at an alarming rate, that is, entire kinds of living creatures are disappearing. By some estimates, as much as 30% of the species on Earth will go extinct within the next century. Polar bears, if you'll forgive the pun, are merely the tip of the iceberg: most of these species you'll never see or hear of, and indeed, many haven't even been discovered yet! (By humans, I mean.)
So - what can we do? I say, Embrace Diversity! Create it, nurture it, live it. We all understand the importance of diversity in our human communities. Even racists know that different people should be different - if only different in certain ways - and our human social tendency to specialize in certain jobs, styles, and languages is one way human global society creates diversity. Just as diversity of opinion and ability are a good measure of the health of any human society, so too, is biodiversity generally recognized as a measure of health in ecosystem. As I've shown here, global society is incredibly diverse. I say we embrace diversity in every social interaction we have - be it with bees or human beings - and at every scale, from local to global! I say we leave behind those biodiversity catastrophes we call lawns and welcome a diverse assortment of plants into yards! I say we give up cutting down trees and build around them, between them, through them instead! I say we truly start to listen to every living creature around us - and yes, that means human beings, too.
So: what do you say?
2 comments:
What makes us a global society is not just commerce and travel, life forms and environments, but awareness.
I can be in a cosmopolitan city, vitally aware of the influences and impacts of the people who surround me and with whom I am connected, whether we ever speak or not. These fellow humans contribute in ways I'll never see to the wonder of this world.
I can be in a canoe in the Boundary Waters, see no other person for several days, and be in wonder every moment at the beauty and age and power of the natural world in which I'm enveloped.
I can be in the field in the middle of the night looking for stars that seem to stay in place or stars that fall, and marvel at the numbers beyond numbers of stars and planets and galaxies extending beyond our known world into the mysterious. I can appreciate the mathematical relationships that keep them in order, and experience again a sense of wonder.
I do not know much about global warming. I do not know if man's influence is 1% or 70% of the impact. I do not know why the media was filled with articles about global cooling a decade or more ago, and now it's filled with global warming articles. I do not know if the shifting of the earth's magnetic poles or cosmic rays are a powerful impact, or to what extent global warming in one area of the globe is balanced by global cooling elsewhere.
I do know that global warming is a concern of many people I know, including those who work in technology, architecture, engineering and finance fields among others. The concern is sprouting new industries and fields of inquiry, and new communities of interest around the globe. That, too, sparks wonder.-- and gratitude for the one-ness and diversity of human talent, interest, energy and intention that shows up sometimes as opposing views, yet invariably yields benefit to conscious life.and living.
~KathyO
As Edward James Olmos said with much gusto at a U.N. gathering (We use)"the word race as a cultural determinant", though he went on to say that "there is only one race, the human race". I'd say that he got the first part right, ofc. We do have a need to describe various human groups with a more correct word or phrase. Though if we were to change focus to the actual racism obvious in his second statement, I think it possible that the slight variances we tend to look for in human groupings would evaporate in the face of the much larger variances observable in the different race groupings. There are many hitlers in our midst and we pay them for the service. Get rid of these damn pests, kind sir! Mow my lawn, trim the hedges, and isn't there anything stronger than roundup on the market? By the way, do you have any more powdered tiger penis? The missus is getting fidgety.
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