When medical doctors take the hypocritic oath, they vow to ‘Do No Harm’ when they practice medicine, because human life (and by extension, all life) is sacred and to use your skills to harm anything living is a crime against humanity and the natural world. The Oath is an ancient Greek pledge of medical ethical conduct. It addresses two important tenets: benefitting the ill and protecting patients against personal and social harm and injustice. Considering how our modern technological systems produce so much potential harm to human and global health, it is amazing that we do not make everyone take the hypocritic oath. If we did, then all our technology would be appropriate for how it is used and would follow the precautionary principle as a matter of standard procedure. This would involve the full life cycle of a product from mining to disposal and whether it was fully recyclable or not. (This is the central aspect of Michael Braungart and William McDonough’s book Cradle to Cradle.) I would like to think it should take precedence before the business ethic of maximizing profit for shareholders, which has become the central problem of our corporate driven world.
Now the business and corporate world are not going to voluntarily take that oath, but we the people and users of the goods and services provided by the corporate system can make them do so by doing so ourselves! As addicted and controlled as we are by the corporate world, they still need us to buy their goods and services, and we can make the choices that force an ethical change in the world. If the day comes that we end up with a centralized world government and world economy, then we will have descended into the totalitarian nightmares predicted by writers such as Huxley and Orwell and shown so grimly in films like The Hunger Games. We are not there yet, but please believe me when I say that time is coming sooner than you realize, and we must all choose now while we still have that option.
The appropriate technology is our choice and we must ask every time, what is the best choice I can make in this situation? Food wise we can more easily make the choice to support organic local foods and avoid GMO crops and non-organic crops that are grown with toxic pesticides. Directly linked is our medical system. Medically, we can choose what kind of medical treatment is best for us. Allopathic medicine (a pill for every ill) focuses on alleviating the symptoms of a disease (a sick-care system) while Osteopathic medicine is oriented to treating the patient to eliminate the disease and the disease state (a true health-care). It’s not that allopathic medicine is bad, for it has many benefits. But we need to look at our own health and that of the planet from a more holistic perspective. Preventative systems for personal health and natural system health is a far better option than trying to cure something that could have been avoided to begin with, and that includes the vicious cycle between Big Agriculture, Processed food, and Big Pharma driving the sick-care system. How can we stop the problems with technology before they occur rather than treating the problems after they have already manifested?
In your everyday life, what can you do to minimize any harm from your transportation choices? Can you use alternate transportation to get to work, or even work from home more often (as is more common these past 2 years with the lockdowns)? When you make technology choices, can you find the companies that use best fair practices for their workers and suppliers (e.g., like B-corporations)? When you buy something, ask if you really need it or if it is a necessity rather than just a want? If you need it, does it have to be the most up to date product with all the bells and whistles, or can you use something simpler? Something as simple as a can opener – can you get a good quality hand opener rather than the latest electric opener? It’s all about being consciously aware of every choice we make. How can you eliminate any harm or at least minimize it as much as possible? If hundreds of millions of us immediately start to make these better choices it sends a message to the corporate giants that we are aware of what they are doing and that we are in control. Never forget, they need us, we don’t need them. Over the many past decades, consumer boycotts have shown the system that the people are the true power, despite the cohesive systems (from seductive advertising to propaganda) set up to manipulate and control the people.
Once you stop making brand choices and make choices based on less harm you start to influence the system. When lots of us do it, we send a clear message about who we are. I have talked about Personal Sovereignty at length in this blog (e.g., see Coming into our sovereignty {May-June 2021}) because I believe it is the most important aspect of our individual humanity. And collaboration needs to be coupled with it. At this time, we have lots of individuality but little sovereignty. I know, it sounds like a contradiction but the corporate consumer system keeps us separated from each other in a myriad of ways because the technology promotes this separation. When we don’t need others, we withdraw into our own little worlds. So, is the multi-media technology helping you to truly connect (and I don’t just mean gaming or Twitter, Facebook, etc.) or is it allowing you to remain isolated while you play on your electronic systems. That is also part of the appropriateness of electronic media – being aware of how this media system is manipulating you. What choices can you make to interact more with people directly. Even during the lockdowns, you could still Skype or Facebook or interact more directly without having to withdraw into a pseudo media reality. Gain, it comes down to awareness of the technology and then being conscious enough to make better decisions that do no harm, or the least harm under the possibilities available, including not using any specific technology that is harmful.
I suppose the basic message of this week’s post is for you to closely scrutinize the technologies you support and then decide which is a better technology for a specific reason or whether you want to support that kind of technology at all. After all it all comes down to you deciding what really matters in your life. Consumerism is built around fear and separation – it’s what makes us buy things – but what we really want is a life of happiness and joy. Things give only momentary pleasure, but inner peace comes from connectedness. This series of posts is about thinking anew and that means being aware of what we think and why. If you sincerely want change towards a sustainable world then you have to be willing to make the changes in your personal life that influence the people around you.
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