GO FORTH AND SUSTAIN THE WORLD,
THE 21ST (century) COMMANDMENT
Dr. Edgar Mitchell
In these days we are all deeply concerned with the issue of sustainability in global civilization. It is not at all clear but what nature may need to treat humankind as a foreign substance that necessitates a purgative unless we clean up our act. Over population, loss of non-renewable resources, pollution, extinct species, global warming, ozone layers are all major issues. These issues are not new ones, having been in the making from the earliest days, but have become crucial in our century. Let's take a brief look at the very beginnings of this problem and trace its torturous path through history up to the current moment in order to see if there is a reasonable solution..
If we use the Biblical record of creation, we find in Genesis 1, verse 17, the commandment to Adam and Eve to "....be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth, ....". Now, Adam and Eve didn't really know how big the Earth was, but as far as they could see, it was BIG --- really BIG, and was going to take a lot of replenishing.
The Biblical record also states they got evicted from the Garden of Eden for being conned by a snake into getting too smart. This is probably a mistake in the record, because no woman would be dumb enough to get taken in by a talking snake who said that knowledge grows on trees, -- money growing on trees, maybe, but not knowledge. Every one knows knowledge comes from having a diploma. It is more likely that Adam, being a practical sort, as well as smart after eating the apple, took a look at this problem of replenishing and realized that it couldn't be done by just hanging out in the Garden of Eden, eating fruit and begatting a son every year or so with Eve. It is more likely that Adam said to Eve: "Eve, we can't replenish this Earth without getting better organized. The way things are, the system is not very efficient. I only need about 10 minutes every nine months to do my job, but you need the entire nine months to do yours. The system isn't very equitable, I realize, but that can't be helped" Also, being a kind and thoughtful mate, Adam further suggested: " I would like to find you some help with your part of this project, and so that I can contribute to it more. So why don't I go out and wander around a bit and see if I can find some additional women to help you share the load for your part of the replenishing." So it was really to search for females to help Eve with her major assignment, that prompted Adam to leave the Garden of Eden -- a real sacrifice on his part.
We can imagine that Eve wasn't really thrilled with this suggestion, for she knew Adam pretty well and realized there might be some deeper agenda that didn't meet the eye. But Eve couldn't refute Adam's irrefutable logic, she indeed couldn't replenish the Earth all by herself, -- no way. And further, just how much of this begatting did she really want to go along with, for the job wasn't exactly without its downside, you know. Furthermore, Eve had already been chastized once for listening to the snake about this apple business, and now being smart, she knew she couldn't afford to be further accused of slowing the job of replenishing. Reluctantly, Eve agreed to this arrangement -- and that's how harems were born. The fact that it caught on quickly and was not just a fettish of Adam's youthful libido is recorded in Genesis 6, verse 2 ".... the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose."
So the populating and replenishing began in earnest with this arrangement between Adam and Eve and by about 10,000 years before the Christian era the Earth had about 10 million people, all told, give or take a few --- not a bad job of organizing and begetting on Adam's part. But then trouble arose. The ladies of the harems were becoming quite dissatisfied with the working conditions. They were doing all the work and the sons of Adam were "working" only a few minutes a day, a few days a week -- and never on Sunday. The rest of the time they sat around telling tall tales under the shade of a tree and drinking coffee. Furthermore, some of the lads being overconfident and brash in their youth had accumulated very large harems. And management studies showed that production in these large harems had really declined because the older men were usually too pooped to work more than a very few minutes a day, early in the morning, a few days a week, --and never on Sunday. So the ladies of the harems revolted. The message was simple. "Either get off your duffs and help us feed, clothe, house and raise these kids, or we'll find someone who will."
Now, the sons of Adam were pretty bright fellows, and they knew immediately which side their bread was buttered on, so they went to work hunting, fishing and building houses to help support the kids. But being basically lazy, hunting, fishing and building houses with just their bare hands alone was hard work and took up too much time. Lazy, yes, but not dumb (having eaten the apple), they began to think of ways to make the job easier so they could get back to swapping tall tales in the shade of a tree and drinking coffee. And that is how the spear, the wedge, the lever, the wheel -- and the fly rod came to be invented.
With this new arrangement things worked pretty well for a while, for about 5000 years to be exact. At that time there were about twenty-five million souls on Earth, give or take a few, and the replenishment effort again was moving nicely --- almost too nicely. There were so many people, so many houses, so many wheels, wedges, levers --- and flyrods, that no one could keep track of them. So the sons of Adam invented writing. Now they could tally the results of their efforts and they appointed scribes to audit the numbers. The tall tales in the shade of the trees and with the coffee turned to how many wives, wedges, wheels, houses and kids each had --- and with the numbers to prove it. But the tales got taller and the numbers more outrageous, and the scribes had to turn to creative accounting and two sets of books just to keep things straight. Furthermore, the ladies of the harems, hearing about the exaggerated audits realized that all the inventions the men had created made the men's work easier, but the replenishing rate was about the same, and their lives raising children hadn't changed much either.
An outcry arose among the women to use the tools, inventions and discoveries for their desires also, rather than just to enhance the exaggeration and bragging in the coffee shops. Gold and silver could be used for ornaments. Bronze and iron should be used for water vessels and cooking pots as well as weapons, wheels and wedges. And baubles, bangles, feathers and beads could be used for getting all gussied up as well as for tying flies for the fly rods. This caused the sons of Adam to become stressed out again. But even worse, some of the scribes were caught doing more than just cooking the books and counting noses in the harems. Some serious hanky-panky was afoot. The number of minutes per day, and the number of days per week, excluding Sundays, didn't add up to the replenishment production rate. Some outside DNA was contaminating the product. Thus,-- It was true about the "Tree of Knowledge". Being too smart could be a very worrisome thing. Jealousy, greed and avarice had crept into the system along side lust.
And so it was, that the sons of Adam, being stressed out from amassing armies to protect their houses, harems, wedges, wheels and flyrods; too busy and too stressed to tell tall tales in the coffee shops; beset by dishonest and predatory scribes at home, and pilloried with demands from houses full of wives and kids for more baubles, bangles, feathers and beads, not to mention gold, silver, bronze and iron, had to find a new solution. --- They invented the first "downsizing". Wouldn't it be easier, they reasoned, to limit their activities to a smaller number of women, maybe just one or two. Defending and auditing would be much easier and less expensive, and, with fewer demands at home, there would be more time for tall tales and coffee, for inventing new labor saving devices, and for fly fishing -- which had really caught on over the centuries as being as relaxing as talking in the coffee shops. And so, monogamy became the order of the day --- (well, most of the time).
Amazingly, overall production didn't decline by down sizing, the population just kept right on increasing, doubling every several centuries, and downsizing did reduce the squabbles and politicing that went on at home. The number of new inventions, and the ways to utilize baubles, bangles, feathers and beads for decorations and ornaments began to increase at a dizzying pace as the greater domestic tranquility left more time for innovation. Instead of having to work hard to house, feed and outfit a large harem, the sons of Adam had downsized the problem to that of just keeping up with the Joneses. But the ladies still knew how to stir things up with: "Get off your duff and help raise these kids, or I'll find someone who will." And by all accounts they must have carried out the threat frequently, because the DNA became so contaminated that after the Tower of Babel, according to the Biblical record, no one could speak the same language.
Now, it shouldn't have required a Sigmund Freud to figure out that something was wrong with this system, and that the something had to do with penis envy. Clearly ten minutes of orgasmic ecstasy doesn't equate to nine months of morning sickness. An apple from the "Tree of Knowledge" is certainly not required to understand that. And the problem was further exacerbated by the remainder of the commandment to Adam: "---replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." The daughters of Eve, faced with this glass ceiling, "dominioned over" below the fishes and fowl along with "everything that moveth", were with reason thoroughly ticked off at the inequity of things. Naturally they had turned to guile, seduction, manipulation, hidden agendas, unreasonable demands and headaches --- the only weapons in their arsenal --- to get their fair share of the spoils. So the pressure upon the sons of Adam to produce ever more baubles, bangles, feathers and beads, not to mention gold, silver and other handy items as time went on was increasingly intense.
For one brief and shining moment, near the end of the Dark Ages, King Arthur of Camelot, lifted the system to a more noble moral plane. But, alas, betrayed by the carnal needs of his best friend Lancelot, the reincarnation of a predatory scribe, the system soon settled back down to business as usual. But the daughters of Eve forever after dreamed the dream of romantic love, and connubial bliss, where rains would never come till after sundown and by eight A.M. the clouds would disappear.
And so it was that by the Middle Ages, save for an occasional setback due to wars, plague, famine and other natural disasters, replenishing the population was positively routine and not a source of concern in any culture around the world. The women could be counted on to bear 5 to 20 children in a life time, and the men could be counted on to drink coffee in the coffee houses, make a labor saving invention now and then, go fishing with their fly rods, fight a war every so often --- and --- fool around a bit, while reminiscing about the "good old days".
By the seventeenth century, one son of Adam, Sir Isaac Newton by name, made a real breakthrough invention. He invented the Industrial Revolution. This created a completely new epoc for improving the spear, the wedge, the lever, the wheel, and for the business of subduing and dominating. Machines that could do much more than a man, and faster, were invented. The business of subduing and dominating moved into high gear after Sir Isaac's discoveries. Not only did the efficiency of subduing and dominating reach new highs, but the inventories of new --- and improved --- spears, wheels, baubles, bangles and beads began to pile up because the new machines could flood the market. The supply of exotic feathers became endangered, however, because too many daughters of Eve wanted to gussy up with feathered capes and plumes on their hats to accent their baubles, bangles and beads.
For the first time, except for the endangered species, supply could easily exceed demand. It fell to Dale Carnegie, John Wanamaker and J. Paul Getty to solve this problem. Carnegie realized that if you told people just what they wanted to hear, you could sell them anything. Wanamaker discovered that it was better to waste half your advertising dollars than not to advertise at all, and J. Paul Getty invented multilevel marketing to move the product. Getty realized that it was better to receive a few percent commission from the efforts of a 100 different persons than just a 100% of the commissions from one's own sales. Thus by smooth talking, advertising and network marketing the daughters of Eve could be persuaded to buy things they did not need, could not use and had no place to keep.
All of which now brings us to the present time, where we can agree that things are in a helluva mess. Too much population, too many new spears, baubles and bangles that no one really needs and which must be sold like snake oil on Madison Avenue; too many endangered species as a result of subduing and dominating, and with the earth being replenished by piles of toxic waste.
Sustainability has now become the new concern. It is actually quite simple to understand what that means and what to do about it. We only need go back to the beginning again and understand how Adam and Eve screwed up.
The record in Genesis 1 verse 17, states: "---be fruitful, multiply, etc.--." Now, if after the word "multiply" had Adam's mind not been focused well below his belt buckle, he would have recognized that "be fruitful" also means "be productive". And that "replenish the earth" (little 'e'), isn't the same as "re-populate the Earth" (big 'E'). Had he thought it meant "re-populate the Earth (big 'E'), he should have clarified his instructions: "Who are we replacing?", "How many of them were there?" and "What happened to them?" No, "replenish the earth" (little 'e') means to put back into the earth what you take out of it -- that is to say, recycle and nourish the earth. And the words "--- subdue it---" also means to "tame", to "gentle", and "make more hospitable"; actions which are infinitely easier to accomplish with kindness and love than with fire and the sword. And "dominion over" also means to be "responsible for".
So, if Adam hadn't been having a severe libido attack when the orders were handed out, the instructions might likely have been understood and passed on down to us in the following way: "Work hard and be productive, multiply, replace and nourish that which you take from the earth; tame it and make it more hospitable with love and kindness, and be responsible for the well being of the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and for every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
And correcting that initial error is what sustainability is all about. Thank you for your attention.