We Brought Nature to a Forum

We Brought Nature to a Forum

Dr Abe V Rotor

Author receives Plaque of Appreciation as speaker on Humanities and Sustainability from Ms Violeta M Bonilla, president DARE Foundation and Mr Naoya Nishiwaki, president of Panasonic Philippines, sponsor of the forum.

All smiles mark the culmination of the forum on Environment: Greening the land for sustainability - opportunities and constraints at Balay Kalinaw, University of the Philippines, Diliman QC,

Participants' profile represents media, education, local government, entertainment, students, agriculture business, industry, environmentalists, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and various professions.

Twenty Major Environmental Issues

By Dr. Abe V. Rotor

Wall Mural Tropical Rainforest by A V Rotor 2000

"The ultimate test of any civilization

Is not in its inventions and deeds;

But the endurance of Mother Nature

In keeping up with man’s endless needs.”

AVR, Light in the Woods

No period in history has man influenced the environment as much as what he is doing today in pursuit of seemingly unending affluence. And instead of “tailoring his lifestyle to the environment” as what his ancestors did for centuries, he is modifying the environment in order to meet such affluence.

Environmental Issues

1. The environment has changed a lot in the last two hundred years since the start of industrialization, which is also the start of the modern age. The biggest effect to human health contributed by this era is widespread pollution. Pollution is the by-product of industrialization, and the scourge of modern living.

2. Pollution is no longer confined within geographic divisions of land, water and air - or in a particular country or region; it has grown into global proportion. The effect is worldwide in the form of global warming, causing more erratic climatic disturbances, thinning of the ozone layer, worsening effect of acid rain, among others. Pollution allergy cases arise directly from garbage, smoke from factories and vehicles, acid rain contact, sudden changes in temperature and humidity, ultraviolet rays near the ozone hole - and most specially from the gas-fed engine.

3. Modernization and the “good life” have brought about affluence, first to the industrialized countries, and later to countries which followed the same Western World model of development. People want goods and services beyond their actual need. Affluence - more than necessity - has greater impact on the environment in the form of depletion of natural resources and pollution. Affluence in the extreme is indeed a wasteful land destructive style of living.

4. The increase in population continues in geometric pattern, reaching 7 billion to date. At its present trend, another billion people will be added to the world’s population in the next 10 years or so. New settlements, bigger cities, increasing population density predispose people to various pathogens and allergens.

5. The general trend all over the world is exodus to urban centers. Metropolises and megapolises with 10 to 20 million people ensconced under crowded condition are not uncommon, with Tokyo, New York and Mexico City topping the list. Meantime villages grow into towns and towns into cities. The ratio of rural dwellers to city dwellers will soon reach equal proportion, and is likely to overtake the latter. People crowd in subdivisions, condominiums, malls, schools, churches, parks, in great numbers sharing common lifestyles and socio-economic conditions, thus predisposing them to common health problems and vulnerabilities, including disruptions of basic services (brownouts, water interruptions, and the like).

6. Destruction of the environment is a consequence of increasing population and affluence, leading not only to loss of productivity of farmlands, but also loss of farmlands to industry and settlements. This leads to the irreversible destruction of ecosystems like the lakes, rivers, forests, and coral reefs. Loss of health of the environment means loss of health of living things. And loss of environment is loss of life itself.

7. The ecosystems bear the brunt of development and progress. These are the sanctuaries of biological diversity, the natural abode of organisms assigned and organized in their respective niches. The ecosystems are organized into biomes, biomes into one biosphere. The ultimate cause of extinction of a species is in the destruction of its natural habitat. Man’s existence is highly dependent on a complex web of interrelationship with the members of the living world that by disturbing the integrity of this order will affect humans, and other living things as well.

8. Humans continue to invade the wildlife, and as the wildlife shrinks, the displaced species invade human habitats in return. Finding sanctuary in his home, backyards, farm, park and other places these species transmit deadly diseases like SARS, HIV-AIDS, Ebola, and Bird Flu, allergy notwithstanding.

9. The “Good Life” spawns obesity and other overweight conditions with millions of sufferers around the world. In the US one out of five persons is an obese. Obesity is a product of sedentary living and imbalance nutrition, and suspected to be viral. Victims suffer of various health problems, and the difficulty in getting adjusted to an active life style. Because of their conditions they are merely spectators, rather than participants, in games and other physical activities, thus exacerbating their pitiful condition.

10. “One-half of the world’s population has too little to eat, while the other half simply has too much,” as revealed in How the Other Half Dies, a book by a former UN expert, Susan George. The hungry and undernourished are mostly children, no less than 800 million of them living in Third World countries. For one who is hungry most of the time, it is difficult to diagnose the effects of hunger and physiologic imbalance from those of the accompanying symptoms of diseases and ailments. It is as if these symptoms were all welded into one.

11. Global warming is changing the face of the earth: shorelines push inland, islands sink, lowlands turn into swamps, while icecaps and glaciers disappear. As sea level rises there is need of relocation, and building new settlements. Adaptation is key to allergy resistance and immunity, but this is not possible overnight; it takes a lifetime if not generations to obtain. Indeed displacement of settlements and change in living conditions predispose people to ailments and allergies.

12. Globalization is taking place in practically all aspects of human endeavor – trade, commerce and industry, agriculture, the arts, education, politics, religion and the like. The world has shrunk, so to speak, as it travels on two feet: communications and transportation, Traveling from one place to another across latitudes and longitudes predispose one to unimaginable kinds of ailments, allergies, and discomforts. Permanence of domicile has given way to transience, to impermanence.

13. Homogenization involves pooling of genes through inter-racial and inter-cultural marriages resulting in various mestizos like Eurasian, Afro-Asian, Afro-American, Amerasian, and the like. Mélange of races results from East and West marriages. Biologically it is the native genes that provide organisms resistance to pests, diseases, and adverse conditions of the environment. Native genes lose their effectiveness when “thinned out” too far. In the process their gene pool narrows down and may ultimately disappear. Mestizos of subsequent generations are likely to lose such advantage.

14. Science and technology as the prime mover of progress and development has also brought doubt and fear to man’s future. The first breakthrough is the splitting of the atom that created the nuclear bomb, the second is the invention of the microchip which shrunk the globe into the size of a village, and the third, Genetic Engineering now enables man to tinker with life itself. Each invention or discovery bears heavily on the way man lives, beneficial or otherwise. Radiation related death still occurs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima 50 years after the bombing. The young generation spend more time with the computer and TV than with outdoor activities and with nature, Gene Therapy – curing gene-link diseases before they are expressed – is revolutionizing medicine. Naturally all these have repercussions on human health and welfare.

15. Revolutionary industries have been born out of these breakthroughs and related discoveries linking them with the business world and growing affluence, giving rise to in vitro fertilization or test tube babies, surrogate motherhood, Human Genome Project (HGP or gene mapping), multiple childbirth, DNA mapping, etc. The prototype human robot is born, and he is not defect-free. In fact he is more dependent on medicine, and could not possibly withstand the conditions of the natural environment the way normal individuals do. Indeed he will lead a very dependent life.

15. Globalization is dissolving the rigid walls of nationalism to give way to regional and international cooperation and unity as evidenced by European Union, ASEAN, APEC, CGIAR with seven members such as ICRISAT, CYMMIT, IRRI, and the expansion of the United Nations to include WTO, ILO, and UNEP. Fighting global diseases that include asthma and allergy depends largely on cooperation on all levels. In the same way a community fights Dengue, so with whole continents arresting the spread of HIV-AIDS, SARS, Bird’s Flu, and the like.

16. Green Revolution has expanded to cover non-conventional frontiers, invading the seas, deserts, watersheds, highlands, and swamps. On the other hand it has began adopting a revolutionary approach through Genetic Engineering – that is, the splicing of genetic materials between and among organisms that may not be at all related, pooling traits as scientists deem desirable. Thus the introduction of GMOs and Frankenfood, which are now in the market. To augment limited farmlands, aerophonics (farming rooftops), hydroponics or soil less farming, urban greening, and organic farming, are being developed, as measures to bring nature closer to settlements, and augment urban food supply.

17. Agriculture today depends heavily on Post Harvest Technology. To bridge the production source with the consumption end, the farm and the market, is no easy task, especially with perishable goods. Thus the proliferation of processed goods, supermarket, and fast food chains, ready-to-eat packs, sophisticated culinary art. Many food additives and adjuncts are allergenic, from salitre in longganiza to pesticide residue in vegetables, MSG in noodles to Aspartame in fruit juice, formalin in fish to dioxin in plastics, antibiotic residues in meat, poultry and milk notwithstanding.

18. Modern medical science is responsible in reducing mortality and in increasing longevity. But it is also responsible for the many ills of today, from genetically linked abnormalities to senility related ailments. It made the exchange of organs and tissues through transplantation possible, and lately tissue cloning - which some scientists believe will make people live as long as 140 years. Bodies are ultra wealthy individuals lie in cryonics tanks waiting for science to discover the secret of resurrection. As a rule, evolution culls out the unfit members of a population to keep the gene pool healthy and strong. This is true to all organisms. Only man can influence his own evolution and that of other organisms, thus putting Darwinism in his hands.

19. Exploration has brought man into the fringes of Planet Earth: into the depth of the sea and beyond the expanse of the Solar System, ushering the birth of inner and outer space science, and preparation for interplanetary travel. Man is are learning to live outside of the confines of planet earth. He has succeeded in probing the bottom of the ocean, put up a city in space - the Skylab, and aiming at conquering another planet – a long distant goal of assuring the continuity of mankind after the demise of the earth.

20. Globalization is dissolving the rigid walls of nationalism to give way to regional and international cooperation and unity as evidenced by European Union, ASEAN, APEC, CGIAR with seven members such as ICRISAT, CYMMIT, IRRI, and the expansion of the United Nations to include WTO, ILO, and UNEP. Fighting global diseases that include asthma and allergy depends largely on cooperation on all levels. In the same way a community fights Dengue, so with whole continents arresting the spread of HIV-AIDS, SARS, Bird’s Flu, and the like.

*Part of paper, Humanities and Sustainability , Environmental Forum "Greening the land for sustainability: opportunities and constraints" UP Diliman October 17, 2012

Poem 1: 

I asked God for More

Dr Abe V Rotor

 

 Virgin Forest: only 3 percent is left in the Philippines.

Requiem to a forest, Brooke's Point Palawan

I asked God for food, clothing and shelter

     and He showered me

these necessities I can not live without -

     they are the Earth's bounty;

I settled down on fertile hills and valleys

     and multiplied freely.

I asked God for power to boost my strength,

     and He gave me energy;

I leveled the mountains, dammed the rivers

     and conquered the sea;

raped the forests, prairies, lakes and estuaries,

     a world I wanted to be.

I asked God if I can be god, too, all knowing

     with my technology;

broke the sacred code of life and of matter,

     changed the Great Story;

annihilated life unfit in my own design,

     and set my own destiny.

I asked God if He is but a creation of the mind,

     and rose from my knee;

probed space, rounding up the universe,

     aiming at immortality;

bolder than ever, searching for another home,

     and wanting to be free. ~

Acknowledgment: Photos, Dr Julie Barcelona

Poem 2: 

"Please, come, and I'll give Thee rest."

Dr Abe V Rotor

Wall mural and pond, at home QC, by AVRotor 2010

The walls I painted hills and valleys and forests,

towering to the roof I painted blue, clouds rising,

birds flying in flock to meet the rising sun, as fresh

as the morning air, chirping sweet songs, circling;

And below a dozen pako fish wake in the golden

reflection of morning, eager for food and company;

I wonder if ever they feel the confines of a den,

for I have faithfully copied Rousseau's scenery.

Dream no more I said to myself, of Paradise Regained -

It is here, in the very core of being next to the heart

and soul, this Phrygian landscape with touch of vane,

the essence of contrition and amendment for my part.

For nothing is unforgivable, that Sin inherited by us

from our ancestors - we're doomed, deprived of heaven

on earth. No! the gifts the Creator have been passed

onward, and here I created a piece of that lost Eden.

Here I see God across the wall, and above my head,

His harmonious creation over land, across the sea,

I am part of the cycle of life everyday, even in bed,

as seasons come and go, here I feel always free.

When lakes and rivers dry, and the sky no longer blue;

as cities grow, land fills with waste, air no longer fresh;

I pick my brush, say a prayer in color, shade and hue,

Inviting my Creator, "Please come, and I'll give Thee rest." ~

Home, Sweet Home in acrylic by AV Rotor

ELEVEN PARADIGMS OF MORAL LIFE A Critique-Synthesis

                     ELEVEN PARADIGMS OF MORAL LIFE

A Critique-Synthesis

Dr Abe V Rotor

Finding God in Cyberspace - remote and radical paradigm of 

salvation in our postmodern time.  Painting by the author, 2008

The eleven paradigms of good moral life apparently show parallelism with periodicity: man is born at a certain time and place. How can one choose his own paradigm or model of life to lead? 

To better appreciate this concept let us first examine this parallelism in the context of history and evolution. Here we also take note of the reasons underlying paradigm shift. 

1. Classical Period (Pre-Vatican) 
“What must I do?” 

The models in this period which dominated the Christian world for centuries are “Noah’s Flood” and “Sodom and Gomorrah”. The salvation of man lies in himself alone let his sinful society perish, if that is the will of God. 

Christ centeredness - guide to salvation.  (19th century image of Sacred Heart at author residence, San Vicente, Ilocos Sur) 

Many who have seen or heard “Lakay Lakay,” a figure of an old man and woman off the coast of Ilocos Norte and Cagayan, know it is the local version of this model. Even today sea travelers throw money into the water as their boat passes through the rough waters surrounding it with the hidden fear of biblical Armageddon. 

Thus, a sinful people meet a dreadful fate, save he who is good. This is the rule that governed the faithful during this period. Who is considered good? First of all, he who believes in a God who punishes the wicked and rewards the good – typical in the preaching of the early missionaries such as Reverend Hale in James Michener’s novel, “Hawaii.” 

The image of woman as the Tempter Eve prevailed, so that sex was considered taboo. The world virtually stood still as the masters feasted on their colonies. With the missionaries they took advantage of the promise that the soul will be freed from the suffering body and reach Heaven, the ultimate reward for living in asceticism. Eternal is soul, temporal is life. St. Augustine’s thesis, “the city of God and the city of man” haunts at the crossroad. Wrong choice leads to hell. Obedience was the rule and this rule remained unquestioned, save local revolts and tragic protests like those of Diego Silang and Gomburza. The masters stayed too long in their colonies and enraged the people. Soon colonization gave way to the birth of nations. But first, let me present the transitory paradigm during the historical period. 

2. Historical Paradigm 
“What do I want to become?” 

Enlightenment dawned in this period. Education began to catalyze the acquisition of knowledge among the subjects. “Education is the key to independence,” said Rizal. The so-called Third World countries followed this formula with or without armed revolution. Or it inspired revolution itself. “Noli” and “Fili” inflamed the Katipunan. 

Spirituality took several steps down from its pedestal of dogmas to have a “dialogue with the world.” The wheels of time moved faster, the unquestioning subjects soon entered the age of realism. Man, to be good, must realize the unity of body and soul, and the root of spirituality cannot be in the soul alone. 

Women, though still looked down by society, began to see opportunities outside the confines of housekeeping. While facing the horizon of self actualization, the road that led the liberated societies was still the long and winding historical road that dictated many of their thoughts and acts. For example, truth is still historical truth. As the old folks would say, “I have eaten more rice than you had.” 

But things have changed, particularly to the younger generations. The Sodom and Gomorrah model began to melt, and the concept of sin is no longer one that is indulgence or omission, but “breaking relationships” with God and fellowmen. This means, “We go to Heaven together.” Or vice versa. 

3. Liberation Theology 
“What do we want for an alternative society?” 

Freed from their master the subjects faced self-rule. The end led however, to autocracy. Dictatorships prevailed where people were weak. The few where wealth and power were concentrated took the helm of government. A new master was born. 

The paradox is even greater if we take the case of the woman who is now doubly jeopardized of her status of being a woman and at the same time poor. For poverty plagued the newly independent states now depleted of resources. Neophyte managers ran new governments poorly. 

These scenarios naturally led to a paradigm still reminiscent of the cities of the French Revolution (PHOTO, painting by Eugene Delacroix), which sought social justice, this time addressed to the new master in cohort with the old one. Here Liberation means first and foremost, meeting the people’s basic needs, removal of inequities of wealth distribution, respect of the rights of the common man. It was also a call for the end of the vestiges of colonialism in the guise of capitalism. Thus, the birth of the masses. Conflict then moved away from the “David and Goliath” model. There must be a solution to an “Abel and Cain” conflict. 

To poor people, God is a God of the poor. Being poor is also historical but people cannot accept that. It is structural. Unjustly structural. Life the pork barrel and other hidden compensation for members of congress. What is sin then? 

From the viewpoint of this paradigm, sin is likewise structural. Graft and corruption is structural sin. If the dialectics is that poverty is the result of unjust structure, this model calls also for a dialectical method: bring out the conflict. 

Liberation from sin is not being passive, but active participation in bringing about a new society, as Christ died to redeem the sins of mankind. 

4. Feminist Theology 
“Where art thou, woman?” 

The breed of Tandang Sora and Joan of Arc’s local version, Gabriela Silang, comes to the picture in this period. Recently at one time five world leaders were women sitting side by side with men plotting the course of world affairs. 

Women Liberation from conventional role in the home and family, to do what men can in practically all fields of endeavor. Wall painting by the author  

Had it not been for the paradigm of this period, the world would hear more of the whimpers and moans of a suffering woman, cast away from a man’s world. Her DNA is no different from the male’s, and that is a biological fact. Physical, mental, sexual and emotional attributes, scientists say, are potentially equal. Thus, the birth of Women’s Lib. And man found a partner at work and at home. Breadwinning is shared, so with housekeeping. 

The dignity of a person is in accepting responsibility. When one accepts responsibility one also exercises freedom to choose and to decide. Liberation theology plus feminist theology points out one important aspect of this paradigm which has a social dimension. Here the woman rises and history will never be a history solely that of men. While sin in man is pride, in women it is passivity. “I think therefore, I am,” to women becomes more compassionate and caring. Breaking from passivity brings into the woman self-worth and self-assertion, and above all, wholeness of being. 

5. Ecological Paradigm 
“Why is Mother Earth complaining?” 

Forest fire induced by man's greed and folly in the pursuit of the so-called Good Life.  Painting by the author  

 

The prolificacy of the human species sans war and pestilence, plus growing affluence of its societies led to a population explosion, doubling in less than 50 years. We are now 8 billion. In this paradigm master and subject have joined hands to exploit the earth’s finite resources. Our best economists are the worst housekeepers of Nature. While they aim for the good life, they have unwittingly reduced the very foundation of that good life – the productivity and beauty of Mother Earth. 

Ecological paradigm endorses an eco-centric approach where all forms of life and non-life are important to human life. Spirituality points out to a unitive force: the sacredness of everything. God’s divinity flows in everything. There is integration in the universe. And we are part of that integration, exceedingly small as we are notwithstanding. 

The kind of person we truly are is reflected by our relationship with Mother Earth, how we comply under her treaties. Clearly, biocide is the greatest sin man commits in this period. Long live, Ceres! And Albert Schweitzer and King Solomon must be smiling up there. So with St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of ecology. “Reverence for life,” is the key to this paradigm. 

6. Filipino Paradigm 
“Saan ang magandang kalooban mo?” 

Homage to the Filipino Family, painting by Manuel Baldemor
(Internet image)

Rip van Winkle is said to have slept for 20 long years, “dahil sa sama ng loob” because he was a henpeck husband. When finally he woke up he was suspected a spy, but later forgiven and accepted back to the fold, because of “kagandahang loob.” 

The Filipino, like old Rip, finds spirituality through meditation with saints and spirits, and escape from reality and often into his inner self – “loob”. While he is afraid of the “aswang,” he at the same time wishes an “anting-anting” or amulet to fall from heaven. He views the world on the vantage point of “loob,” that life is cyclical: “gulong ng palad.” The other is a simple version of William James’ PHOTO stream of consciousness, which he uses in expanding his “loob.” Example: “Pagbubu-o ng loob.” 

“Abot dama.” It is no wonder that the greatest sin one can commit is “pagsira ng loob,” which means destroying the dignity of a person. 

There are things he is completely silent about, such as sex. But he will be most proud to talk of his family. Family-centeredness is an extension of “loob.” OFWs send back home their earnings. A private jeepney bears the name of the family which owns it. Houses huddle together in the company of family members and relatives. Thus the send of nationhood is little emphasized. Why globalization when that is too far from “loob.” 

7. Alternative Paradigms 
In Search for Sacredness 

“Why can’t many people find sacredness anymore?” asked Time in a special issue. Moses asked the same question, puzzled on why his people had turned their worship to a golden calf. Christ released His anger, the first and only instance, when the synagogue was turned into a marketplace. 

 

I have read Alvin Toffler’s books “Future Shock” and “Eco-Spasm" (Images from Internet). We are unprepared visitors of a changed planet who broke away too soon with the past. We are willing victims of an accelerated thrust of time and change. We are a people of the future too soon, carried away by the concept of transience and adhocracy, and not one of permanence. We created a throw-away society that we discard many things including values in favor of novelty. 

We find little sacredness when we talk in the future tense, of foreign ideologies not founded on enduring philosophies, but of futurism, its promises of choice and kaleidoscopic images. How can we find sacredness in subterranean cities, in modular fun houses, in sprawling mega malls, in mail-a-bride and rent-a-person, in hurry-up welcome, in Batman, in temporary marriages? Welcome to the rental revolution, to simulated environments, the portable playground. 

Gone is the homing instinct. Broken is the old family. If we are a product of periodicity, then we are but a drifting log swept onto the ocean of change. No, we are not. Here we remember the classical period, the anchor against the fallacy of human dreams and ambitions. What caused the downfall of Alexander and Napoleon? Here we remember the historical period. History is the greatest lesson of mankind. He who knows his history does not run and get a stabbing thorn. He who walks sees reality and the beauty of the countryside. We remember liberation theology – it is the catalyst of social justice; the feminist paradigm – it gives wholeness to man-woman relationship; the Filipino paradigm, the quaintness of Filipino life, shy from the world, but full of life’s simplicity as well as flavors, while ecological paradigm is making us move closer to nature. 

8. The Internet Paradigm 
Finding God on the Web 

The Computer Revolution is touching our faith more openly and deeply now than during the age of Bible Study and Sunday Worship. 

The marriage of technology and religion, though an ancient one (starting with the codification of religious belief in cuneiform writing), has gone farther than following Mass on television. It now makes available in the home through the Internet the subject of God in the countless denominations of faith. 

                             

This leads to the creation of a cathedral in the mind, but what does it look like? Will a worldwide web bind all of us, Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, together? 

Time poses this question with a sense of optimism that opens the door to religious understanding rather than religious isolation and conflict. These electronic exchanges will ultimately help people from many religions understand the common ideas that bind them together. 

“One of the causes of religious disagreement has been the sense of strangeness, of pure unfamiliarity,” says Notre Dame philosophy professor, Alvin Plantinga. 

Plantinga is widely-known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics and Christian apologetics. He is the author of numerous books including God and Other Minds (1967), The Nature of Necessity (1974), and a trilogy of books on epistemology, culminating in Warranted Christian Belief (2000).

9. Rise of the "nones." These are former members of religious organizations who have moved away to practice their own faith individually or as a community. They are disillusioned by their religious institutions, many of them overly strict and dogmatic and provide very little room for freedom of worship followers are seeking to express their faith in the light of today's postmodern living. 

They have grown suspicious of the true intentions of their religious institutions which have become financial giants and their leaders wallowing in amassed wealth, while the faithful are kept in silence and obedience. The nones have not abandoned their faith whatsoever. The fact that they have been liberated allows them to exercise in their own way to be of better service to their respective communities, attending to the poor and destitute, in a kind of missionary zeal, even with the use of  their own resources.

10. Same sex marriage defy natural laws and  institutions of marriage and family. Never in the history of mankind has marriage of the same sex allowed in any civilization, and if  there were cases, these were made clandestinely so as to escape social criticism and banishment. Would legal sanction remove moral guilt?  Would a general referendum speak of, and for others? Consequences are raised in questions of 

• procreation
• property 
• investing into the future
• family structure
• community
• economy
• salvation
• others 

11. Laudato Si (Praise be).  Moral dimensions of Climate Change and Sustainable Humanity. The 184-page encyclical has a a major theme the recognition of the reality of man-made environmental deterioration.   

Relentless exploitation and destruction of the environment  which the Pope blamed on apathy, the reckless pursuit of profits, excessive faith in technology, and political short sightedness. 

The encyclical is a nudge for action particularly in countries that are largely catholic, although the pope asked that the encyclical "to address every person  living on this planet." 

The encyclical is interpreted as an attack on capitalism and as unwanted political meddling at a moment when climate change is high on the global agenda. 

1. Areas of concern
2. Redefining progress
3. Integrated ecology
4. Business and environment
5. Failures of leaders
6. Reluctance of rich nations
7. Creation as God's love
8. People and nature
9. Global warming evidences 
10. Morality, common good

The world is about to plunge into a giant pool called globalization where the dividing lines of distinction begin to dissolve: sex, geography, public and private life, status, race, religion, trade, education, culture, many others. Will these end up into a “classless and raceless” society? what paradigm do all these offer for one in order to lead a true moral life?

As I walk on the road of change, I see a faint light from the window of an old house. It gives me comfort, more that all the stars I see above. ~

......................

"Moral Values are the worthy principles that one follows to distinguish the right from the wrong. These virtues are considered worthy in building up the character of an individual. Moral Value refers to the good virtues such as honesty, integrity, truthfulness, helpfulness, love, respectfulness, hard-work, etc." Internet ~

Acknowledgement: Internet reference and images as indicated.
                                                                           

Human Subjectivity in Crisis

               Human Subjectivity in Crisis* 

“Denying a person of his subjectivity reduces him to an object. How many times have we reduced people into objects?”

Dr Abe V Rotor

Our keen sense of values, like unity and harmony, is threatened by 

loss of human subjectivity. Painting in acrylic by the author.

Today numbers are synonymous to persons and objects, the doing of human institutions and computers.

A person is worth his material possessions and is diminished by the loss of them. Identity is in code and losing that code detaches one from the world. Many get lost in the massive network of human society.

But sometimes you have to get lost. Just like when my telephone line was severed by road diggings, I had one of the best vacation leaves in my life for two months.

How frail is life’s numerical system! And how selfish! I think I have more than enough which carry identities and possessions with only a part at fingertip recollection. I have the feeling that very little room is left to record other people. They, too, have accumulated numbers to keep them in touch with the world.

The problem really is that we use a universal yardstick to measure people and objects. The distinction often lies on a thin line. When we pay an accident victim, we are dealing with material compensations. The character and nature of life may be a good bargaining tool, but we cannot equate honesty and virtue with money.

“If life is merely equated with material values, then logic would suggest that an individual’s death enhances everybody’s life.” says John Donne.

The more who die off, the more space and materials there will be for those who remain. This is the game of numbers in the economic sense, devoid of moral value. But would not wish to die even if my time has come, if I can afford it. With millions I can have an expensive heart or kidney transplant and live for the next ten years. I do not care if my money would mean saving the lives of 1000 people or the well being of 10,000.

Where does subjectivity come in? I quote John Donne** (PHOTO) in Time Magazine essay, “Do you feel the death of strangers?” on the poisoning of 2,500 Indians by toxic gas and the death of hundreds of Mexicans in a gas explosion, as follows:

“Any man’s death diminishes me xxx makes me smaller less than I was before I learned that death, because the world is a map of interconnections. As the world decreases in size, so must each of its parts.”

Here the law of numerical is interpreted subjectively. It touches feelings, in fact, values. It is mathematics in the subjective sense, subtraction based on human philosophy. Since the entire world suffers a numerical loss at an individual’s death, then one must feel connected to the entire world to feel the subtraction equally.

The equation permeates with deeper meaning. Everyone represents “a world within
himself” that he can manage through his will. It is this internal and individualistic world that we can share our concern for others, for the bigger world outside ours.

It is in this small world from which we send aids to victim of circumstances, or nurture compassionate feelings for them. It is the seat of a quiet world that we can control in order to prevent the death of other people, on the least minimize the sufferings of others.

Perhaps I have gone too far to illustrate my point as distinguished from objectivity. When I step on the toes of someone, I also offend him as a person, as a subject. When we use a person as a tool in perpetuating our ultra motives we use him as an object, a license.

“Man is the only being that can reduce the world into object.” says Scheler*** . “He can dominate the world, and the world becomes an object. In fact he can even dominate his psychic life, controls his urges and drives. In short, he is capable of self-consciousness to the point that he can detach himself from himself and therefore, master of himself. The only aspect of his being which he cannot objectify is his spirit.

But we do abuse this power of intellect and will. We abuse other people as well as ourselves. Rape for example reduces a person into a mere object. It is immoral, a violation of divine and spiritual values. It is an act of dehumanizing and depersonalizing a person. In a communist society it is exploitation, which is highly punishable as violation of the constitution.

A modern Narcissus by the lake with images of materialism and fantasy. Painting by Leo Carlo Rotor, author's son.  (circa 1989)

We tend to comprehend less and less about human feelings as we amass material things and power. It is as if the more things we possess the less we know others. The inequality of rich and poor is more than a question of material values. But we are consoled by the fact that irrespective of material and social status, happiness equally sets the premises of acquisition. People who have less in life find happiness with the same opportunity with those who have more. In fact they may even be happier because their source of happiness is simpler and easier to find.

Take affection. We do not attach affection only on beautiful and luxurious things. We do with ease to simple things. To the ordinary person. To a small pet. The untouched landscape no matter how barren it may look. Affection is subjective; the object merely symbolizes its essence.

The absence of real beauty would be the major problem of modern life. When we talk of beauty, the requirement is a perceived harmony or integrity both within the object and between the object and ourselves.

What affection can you find in 

this pastel drawing of an 8-year old?

It is desolating to see something new that we only despise or that we have no feeling for it and to recall with pleasure whatever it displaced – or to see nothing where something once cherished stood. Our affection attached to that which is not there but we are there. Thus, the absence of things of value becomes a form of self-hate.

Thus, reflected the work of Matthew Arnold *(PHOTO), “Dover Beach.” Arnold expressed lament about his country’s destructive confidence.

“The eternal note of sadness in the sea xxx the rolling of the pebbles xxx the ebb and flow of human misery tale for industrial England.” His disillusionment is complete in the last part of the poem. “To lie before us like a land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new xxx neither joy, nor love, nor light ... nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.”

But why was Arnold disillusioned about his country when it was the riches, most powerful, more industrially sophisticated at that time? He knew that no industry disinvented poverty or starvation. In fact many inventions only threaten to deface the earth into waste. He knew that affluence destroys people. Wealth is a product of material exploitation.

The strange disease in modern life is in numbers, the numericals of material values, the inaesthetics of things around us. We seemed to have sold ourselves to such objects, losing our subjectivity.

Likeness of Dover Beach in postmodern art. AVR  

As I carry my load of numbers to turn ultimately to face the sea, I imagine Arnold looking across the English Channel on Dover Beach that calm evening more than two centuries ago. For I have learned to like the sea, the edge of human habitation. That it seems to be the last place on earth to find recourse. Its rugged rocky shores or its monotonous sands, the never-ending remind me that the sea is the cradle of aesthetic beauty, the arena of human submissiveness, the proof of God’s mysterious processes and immense power.

I would like to cast away my load of numbers, but then, between the sea and me is a chaos of resorts, laughter, fishing boats, beer cans and oil slicks. I perceive the alienation of life itself. ~

* Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) was an English poet and cultural critic. Dover Beach is one of the most read poems in the school. 

*Edited and updated article published in Grains, magazine of the National Food Authority, February 1985
** John Donne is considered to be the preeminent metaphysical poet of his time. He was born in England in 1572 to Roman Catholic parents. 

*** Max Ferdinand Scheler (1874-1928) was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology.

Reflections on the Ebb of Life

                         Reflections on the Ebb of Life

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog

Ruins of Lighthouse and Sailing Ship, oil painting (28" x 36") by AVRotor 

You are alone at your lowest ebb.

At low tide the sea reveals her shore

That bathes under the sun to its edge.

Go to the sea and learn its chore.”

- AV Rotor, Nymphaea: Beauty in the Morning, 1996

A man can accomplish anything he sets out to do, but he needs the strength of character propped up by personal values, the seasoning of time, the drive to reach a goal - and the willingness to pay the price of achievement which is not synonymous with happiness, not even with success.

I was then a young teacher when the student demonstrations reached mob level in practically all the big universities and colleges in Metro Manila. That was in the early seventies prior to Martial Law. I decided to quit teaching and return to the farm where I grew up. Materially it was a poor choice, but it was one of the best moments of respite in my life to gather strength and courage. With spontaneous self-evaluation I saw what I wanted in life. It was also a time for self-education, a kind of self-fulfilling acquisition of new knowledge, “a discipline that keeps a man driving toward hard and distant goals,” in the words of James Michener, a great novelist.

Earlier, just after graduation from college, I employed the same strategy. Strategy, you call it, but I would say recourse. For when a man has his back on the wall, either he puts up a bravado stance, or simply gives up. I had taken the latter.

Here, liberated from the heavy demands of city life, I remembered a Chinese philosophy, “When there is no time for quiet, there is no time for the soul to grow. The man who walks through the countryside sees much more than the man who runs.”

Here, I developed many things, which could have been impossible to do in the city, not for lack of space, but for lack of time. I had all the time.

Creativity
The capacity to be creative is inherent in human beings, and the utilization of that capacity is hard work. Michael Drury, a psychologist defines creativity as not only hobbies or taking courses or keeping busy. It is work that goes everywhere. It is a sustained effort toward an ideal.

I tried my hands on oil painting and began developing keener awareness of details of my subjects – the farm and the landscape. Above this, I began to see the meaning of their existence, and the subjective interpretation of form, shape, color, perspective and the like - the very components that the scenery is made of and how in the eyes of the artist relates it to life. Two years later the famous Philippine journalist, Teodoro Valencia, was asking me if I could paint sceneries of his childhood in Batangas. It was a big break for me as a budding painter.

Creativity is not so much an aptitude as an attitude. The exact process is not known, although admittedly it is an immanent beginning in response to things greater than ourselves. Beyond many things, simple as they are, come reflection, an awareness of awareness, taking notice of our thought. Helen Keller wrote, “When we let a resolution or a fine emotion dissipate without results, it means more that lost opportunity; it actually retards the fulfillment of future purposes.”

Self-Education
“Never stop learning,” says James Michener. Just as he learned that the war
(Second World War) had been won by the Allies, he and some officers immersed themselves into fruitful occupation, rather than loafed and let the days pass by. It was when he began writing his famous book, “Tales of the South Pacific.”

It was in isolation that Michener realized the value of self-education. It is also when you are detached that you find a better vantage point.

“I know now that the good work of the world is accomplished principally by people who dedicate themselves unstintingly to the big, distant goal.” He said. Weeks, months, years may pass but the good workman knows that he is gambling on an ultimate achievement which cannot be measured in time spent. Responsible men and women leap to the challenge of jobs that require enormous dedication and years to fulfill, and are happiest when they are involved.

Why is it that some people go back to school many years after receiving their diploma? I appreciate the attitude of these people. To them it is more than just the acquisition of new knowledge. It is the piecing up together of known things into something bigger and whole, the deepening of perception of things around and the awareness of what is ahead. All these are unconscious products of self-education. I would tend to believe that people enroll in the graduate school to formalize acquired knowledge with experience, amalgamate them structurally, and record them in a book.

As one indulges in self-education, he becomes a “generalist”, moving away from the narrow path of specialization. It appears today that what the world needs more are well-rounded human beings, although specialization is important in developing objective thinking. Self-education puts subjectivity into decisions we make, and into our very actions. It adds the humanity ingredient, the spice of culture, and the magic of aesthetics to the otherwise prosaic and mechanical.

Self-Honesty
Failure in self-honesty is often the root of emotional and mental disturbance. This I learned in psychology. It is no wonder why promising men ruin their careers because they are poor judges of their own abilities and aptitudes.

When I sought contemplation on the farm it was time I felt I no longer liked my career as a teacher. Was I deceived to serve a meaningless cause or was I a victim of self-deception? I wondered if I was “other directed” - looking toward the goals, ideals and ideas of other people for guidance, rather than searching these from within myself. Or, was I looking into the misdoings and misgivings and not on my very own? Have I placed myself on a pedestal of ideals and refuse to confront the real issues down below?

Perhaps I had overdone a work not the calling of the times, or heeded merely the call for work rather than that for service.

Only when one is detached from the maze of human relationships that he knows how to define his role. It is very difficult and it demands a lot of courage to do so. It is like drawing out a single strand from a knotted ball, then sewing this thread into the fabric, now with a definite purpose.

Going back to your feet with determination, strength and precision of what you intend to do is the consequence of self-honesty evaluation. “The person who achieves mature self- knowledge is no longer afraid of life,” says Dr. Carl Rogers. “He recognizes that it rests within himself to choose his way of living.”

It sounds truly Augustinian and Thomasian. Man has the power to choose the way either to the city of man or the city of God. ~