Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Earth 2.0 Finds Its Own Way
Signs of looming trouble began in New York in mid-March. We were there to meet up again with Jacque Fresco (director of The Venus Project) along with his partner Roxanne Meadows. They were appearing at the annual Z-Day event (part of the Zeitgeist Movement). Now, up until this point we had been working very closely with Jacque. Indeed, we had lined him up to be the first main ‘actor’ in Earth 2.0. We wanted to him to delineate the core principles of The Venus Project such as the sharing of the Earth’s resources. In fact, the idea has been to focus one section of Earth 2.0 on the notion of sharing and all that this implies.
The trouble began one morning over breakfast. As we sat and talked in a 71st Street restaurant, a background ‘issue’ came to the fore once more. Basically, Jacque and Roxanne do not like metaphysics. Anything spiritual or pertaining to the expansion of consciousness is anathema to The Venus Project. They even refer to popular spiritual ideas as “verbal masturbation”. We knew this harsh stance of theirs only too well from previous meetings but had not let it interfere with our collaboration. Yet it was becoming ever more clear, at least to us, that The Venus Project will not be able to deliver its healing promise all by itself but needs to be driven by raised consciousness and changed values, both of which are psychological in nature and also unavoidably connected to emotion and spirit.
In other words, it is not enough to change social conditions and surround people with humane and intelligently applied technology (Mr Fresco’s futurising revolves around this). All that means nothing if people themselves do not change inwardly in terms of their consciousness and their values. No matter how prevalent you make resources, no matter how utopian you engineer culture, no matter how efficient your mag-lev trains are, no matter how free you are of laborious work, people will still remain subject to petty negative emotions and will still have unhealthy relationships with one another. They will still identify with various exclusive groups, they will still be mean and angry and envious and be subject to all those other negative manifestations that we suffer from. These negative aspects of the human psyche are mechanical (i.e. they happen on their own) and effect us all regardless of external conditions. Yes, you can certainly design a culture which brings out the best in people and which does away with scarcity and financial corruption and such. But unless people develop themselves inwardly through mindfulness and self-knowledge, they will still find something to covet, something to get angry about, something to compete over, something to bear a grudge over, something to form a chip on the shoulder about, someone to be angry at, someone to fight with, someone to make into an enemy, someone to be envious of, and so on. And it is through a lack of consciousness and attentiveness to our relationships that leads to all of the above. Relationships are everything. Our relationships, with others and also toward environmental influences, define our lives. The chief problems of humanity therefore boil down to unhealthy relationships – with one another, with the rest of the biospherical web of life, and, ultimately, with the rest of the cosmos.
Consider how luxurious our lives are now compared with people living in the Middle Ages (back then there was no running water, no electricity, no shops, no cheap clothing, no fast food, no public transport, no spare time, no media, no internet, no mobile phones, no NHS, no welfare, no human rights, etc). We in the West now have pretty much everything in comparison. Yet we are still subject to stress, depression, existential malaise, greed, ego inflation, hatred, ecological insensitivity, racism, alcoholic violence, religious war, along with all manner of other negative manifestations and problematic relationships.
Thus, to reiterate, only inner psychological change – a change in values, an increase in self-knowledge, and a changed conception of our relationship to the biosphere and to one another – can pave the way toward healthy long term cultural change. Which means that radical personal change must precede radical social change. Our culture and all that our culture values and promotes is a direct reflection of the values of the collective psyche. If we change our minds and our values, if we become more sensitive to the life-support system that is the biosphere, if we change how we relate to one another and to the rest of Nature, if we upgrade our conception of the meaning of life, then our culture will change also.
Anyhow, we told Jacque and Roxanne that alongside The Venus Project our film will perforce feature other positive directions for change, other important visionary ideas. In particular, along with sharing, we will likely feature a section on symbiosis as well as a section pertaining to consciousness and self-knowledge (i.e. those ideas and practices that directly address the inner world outlined above). Plus a section on the various technologies at our disposal that can help to promote sharing, symbiosis and a new relationship with the rest of Nature. And all done in an artistic cinematic style.
Sounds fair enough? Not so. Explaining that Earth 2.0 wanted to present other strands of thought alongside the ideals of The Venus Project caused tremendous consternation. It soon became clear that The Venus Project is so rigid and inflexible that it will not associate itself with any other ideas. Worse, when we tried to explain why we wanted to feature a section on symbiosis (because it is a sustainable operating principle long employed throughout the web of life), Jacque and Roxanne would not have it. Indeed, they would not even allow the conversation to proceed forward. And I dearly wanted to tell them about mitochondria (the energy producing organelles inside our cells that have their own DNA thereby revealing their symbiotic origins). But it was impossible. They did not wish to listen.
This stubborn conviction that The Venus Project possesses the only practical way to solve the world’s problems proved to be so marked that voices became raised. Yet we bent over backwards trying to reason with them. Surely being featured in a major release cinematic film would be for the best and would help them to spread their message regardless if it was included as part of a broader spectrum of new ideas? I mean, their Florida residence was at that time for sale. They need publicity and funds. But no, they adamantly refused to mix their ideas with other ideas, particularly if those other ideas were about learning from Nature or about metaphysics and self-knowledge. And so it was that we parted company.
Looking back on these events, what we have learned is that one can differentiate between The Venus Project (a rigid organisation) and some of the ideas it promotes (which are adaptable). For instance, the idea that the Earth’s resources be shared and that mankind behave like the global family that it actually is, is not a new idea nor is it copyrighted to The Venus Project. In fact, much of what Jacque Fresco talks about and writes about is voiced by any number of wise people. Thus, Earth 2.0 will still explore the notion of sharing planetary wealth and behaving toward one another in a non-competitive non-profit way. And rather than focus on the circular cities of Jacque Fresco, Earth 2.0 will look at current urban upgrades and current technologies that can bring us back into harmony with the larger biospherical system of which we are a part. Indeed, Earth 2.0 will look at what the web of life can teach us about sustainable behaviour – after all, life has had three and a half billion years to hone the art of sustainability.
Returning to the notion that the world is made of relationships and that it is relationships that must evolve and be upgraded if we are to have a sustainable planetary tenure – this notion of relationships came to the fore with the break with The Venus Project. For the plain fact of the matter is that The Venus Project is, by its very nature, incapable of relating to many people. It is as though it has been in a bubble for the last 30 years, separated from the rest of the world, and has lost the power of empathetic communication. So whereas Mr Fresco can speak well on stage about various subjects, as far as current trends are concerned wherein people are upgrading their lives in an eco-friendly way, this is something that seems outside the scope of The Venus Project (having visited the sprawling headquarters of The Venus Project numerous times it is rather ironic that, despite copious Florida sunshine, there are no solar panels, nor are there any signs of home-grown vegetables).
The biggest problem however is when the issue at hand turns to mind and spirit – for this is something that leaves The Venus Project cold and mute. Yet we are all in this reality together and thus we have to relate to one another via common ground. This common ground is the biosphere, Nature, the web of life on Earth, that larger life support system into which humanity is woven. And the common ground is also our inner life, our consciousness. This too we share and this too we can upgrade. All this must be taken into account by Earth 2.0. So now we stand on our own two feet and now we move forward with determination and confidence. This is the Way.