When I say ‘it is time for Mankind to stop competing and start collaborating’ people say ‘but we need competition to motivate us to achieve more, to get more done’.I say ‘Mankind - what have you achieved? What have you done?’.
You have produced more and more things-that- you–do-not-need at the expense of the planet that makes your existence possible.
You have locked away more and more of your kind in offices and factories in order to produce more and more things-that- you–do-not-need. Why? You do this so that the very few can have a lot more things-that-they-do-not need than everybody else.
You have designed fantastic technologies so that you can communicate across the globe – but in the process many of you have forgotten how to talk to your neighbours; so alienated, fractured, fearful and wartorn are the societies that you have ‘achieved’ – this is what you have done.
You have designed wonderful technologies for your ‘viewing and listening pleasure’ in your own home - but art only reflects life, and for many TV, video games and virtual communications are a poor sop to replace the real thing. What is your wonderful body for? Where is the wonderful world it used to live in? You will spend more and more time in front of a screen.
You have designed fantastic technologies so that you can share information easily and efficiently – yet you still refuse to share so much information.
You have invented wonderful medicines - but all too often failed to distribute them to those most in need – and your obsession with longevity over quality of life means that perhaps even those who can afford the medicines have all too often suffered more for all your efforts.
You have concocted fantastic cuisines, but failed to feed the world when there is plenty for everyone.
You have produced many wonderful thinkers who cannot even agree if anything exists or not.
You might say to me ‘you are looking on the dark side, you yourself admit we have learnt so much, accrued so much knowledge’.
I say ‘Great! Then it has all been worthwhile – if you can learn to use your technologies for the common good then none of your suffering will have been in vain. Read the book of time – hear the stories, learn the lessons – this is what history has been for. It is not a technical manual, this is not the purpose of your suffering. It is a parable. It is not too late for this cautionary tale to have a happy ending’.
"Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved
eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each
other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick
instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build
ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make
a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were
building. The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have
begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each
other." So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they
stopped building the city.
That is why it was called Babel [confusion] -
because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the
LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth."
Genesis 11
“If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing will be impossible for them” - Take medicine as an example. Amongst the most significant of our scientific enquiries are conducted competitively behind closed doors by capitialis drug companies. Medicine should not be about money. Surely we can collectively find the resources to support these great endeavours? And surely our scientific researchers can motivate themselves to save lives, without an extra television, an extra car, another holiday? If not? Then we are not a race worth saving. And would the advances in medicine not be so much quicker if the world shared what it learnt, if the results of conjecture, experimentation and trials were shared worldwide, instantly, efficiently, across compatible technological standards?
This is just one of the many ways in which Capitalism is completely unethical, and will be regarded as having been a greater evil than slavery by generations to come.
The competition has a closing date, the human race has a finish line - and the only way we can win is to wake up and see that we have been chasing our own tail for a millenia, cutting off our own fingers to spite our hands, punching ourselves in the face - over and over and over again.
The competition has a closing date, the human race has a finish line.
We are ONE. If we fail to realise this? We have come last and all is lost.
We are ONE. When we realise this - then we have just WON!
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