The picture of the donkey in the well is eye-catching. I like your story too and the link back to environmental issues.
I think we're back with the concept of servant leadership and one of its key values---stewardship. I guess you're saying in some ways the immediate service we give is to our planet. But that in the longer run, we're really showing service to the future populace of the planet.
If we screw up on our stewardship, we leave our children (and I suppose ourselves in our older age) with a mess. It's a little like a parent running up a charge card, and leaving his or her child with paying the bill.
Good posting, and it's hard to get that picture of the donkey out of my head, which pretty much keeps your general point in my mind!
Chris,
Thanks for the thoughts. The point I take out of these stories is related to the problems that exist not only to how we relate to the environment, but also to how we relate to the rest of humanity. I see servant leadership as the opposite of hierarchy. I think that hierarchy is about treating people below you on the pyramid as a resource to get what you want. When they no longer serve the purpose, they are abandoned also. This hierarchical view of things I think came about when humans started to elevate themselves above the rest of creation. For example humans are above the animals, animals are above the plants, plants above other lower life forms, and life forms above non-life forms. The reality is that this hierarchy is something that humans invented, it doesn't exit in the non-human world. stuff just is, it isn't higher or lower then other stuff, just different arrangements of it. It all needs the other parts to make up the whole. The concept of everything having its origins from the same cosmic dust is the great equalizer that I think was forgotten, or perhaps even purposely hidden, so that domination of others whether it be other parts of the environment or other parts of humanity could be justified.
Anyway, just some more ramblings on the topic.
Tom
I was doing some studying in ethics a while back, and was surprised to find that ethical treatment of animals is a relatively recent value in human affairs. Jeremy Bentham of Utilitarianism fame in the 18th century was revolutionary in arguing that if animals can feel suffering, we must deal with them ethically.
I like your idea even more: That if we're all cut out of the same cloth---we owe respect to each other. For instance, to feed hamburgers to the people in Los Angeles, we shouldn't destroy rainforests in Central America for cattle farming.
I guess I'm not saying no more hamburgers, but I think we should be aware of the benefits and the environmental costs. "Respect" should be valued into the cost/benefit equation.
Chris,
Thanks for more thoughts. Your comments always force me to go deeper into a topic. I can take no credit for the ideas presented. Aldo Leopold really does a much better job of explaining the importance of our need for what he called a "Land Ethic". His essay on the topic is included in The Sand County Almanac. Leopold wrote "a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such." Here is a link to some interesting thoughts on Leopold's writings and how it relates to ethics. http://gadfly.igc.org/papers/leopold.htm
One more thought on hamburgers, although I still am a hamburger fan, the more I become aware the real cost of meat eating, the less meat I eat. Here is a good article on becoming aware of the real costs of hamburgers.
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?142
Thank you for a thoughtful post. Aldo Leopold and The Sand County Almanac are two new things for me to look into. They sound interesting. I like Leopold's Maxim "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."
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