Towards A Wiser Politics

Let’s be honest.
Our political systems really don’t seem to be doing very much for us these days, if we can judge these by our happiness, by the many intransigent social problems seemingly endemic in our populations, by the harm we are doing to ourselves and the planet. Our patterns of consumption, our profligate use of food and water and energy, are unsustainable. Our policies and our behavior combined seem to conspire in racing us towards a totally bleak future for humanity.
What has gone wrong?

I have just finished reading a review copy of a splendid and important book, due out in April, called A Wiser Politics, by Jean Hardy. “For all those who have been looking for a new politics, this is it!” proclaims Satish Kumar, Editor of Resurgence, and I have to agree.

Here is a most carefully reasoned but also intuitive and feeling book. Although it is written around the history of British political philosophy, don't let that deter you if you are in the United States or indeed anywhere else.  It is of a far wider relevance, because Western economic and political values have become pervasive throughout the globe, affecting the lives of the vast majority of people now living. 

The problem seems to be that our whole political philosophy is rooted historically to a time when man ruled supreme, women had no voice, from a time when man was seen as inherently warlike and competitive, needing an authoritarian society, always chasing wealth and glory and power, owning and exploiting the earth as if it were there for our own sole use. Politics was largely secular and rational, and assumed the superiority of the white rich male, usurping all those others; the feminine, the indigenous, the spiritual, who in all probability held a deeper and superior vision of life.

In this well reasoned book Hardy argues for a more connected politics, that embraces the Cosmos (universe and earth), the Polis (Greek for political and social world), and the Psyche (who we are). She traces the history of modern politics through the last 400 years, exploring the lives and times of those who wrote it

We are missing in our politics the feminine (politics still being largely male dominated), indigenous wisdom, consideration of the earth and all its creatures, a sense of the spiritual and the holistic, and an appreciation that concepts of human nature and behaviour are subject to new knowledge and now understood differently. Most interestingly, and important in this respect, Hardy draws attention to the psychological effects on children of their upbringing. There is plenty of evidence now that we are shaped by how we are nurtured, that the empathy and love bestowed upon us in our earliest years is crucial to the way we behave in later years.

A pattern emerges of the childhoods of those men who shaped today’s political world, showing that they suffered discontinuance, trauma or uncertain childhoods by any definition, lacking in the security of emotional ties. Indeed, it would be legitimate to argue, and Hardy does, that the root of all war lies in the lack of time and perception given to children, and in the positive neglect, disruption and cruelty experienced by others. It is certainly easy to see that most if not all world problems can be traced to the agency of humankind, and could be solved by changes in our behaviour.

She calls for a new way of governance, that will embrace the conscious and unconscious, the dark and the golden, a greater breadth of knowledge across all disciplines. The separation of science from religion, person from universe, feeling from intellect, are now being questioned. Depth psychology is showing us a way to a kinder, wider and deeper way of relating to the world. We need more interconnectedness, relationship with the spirit in all things. We need to demolish the myth that success is measured by material wealth. Modern science, politics and economy between them are powerful, but unsustainable and even immoral. We don’t love the earth enough so we need legislation to protect it from ourselves – and so on.

The book concludes with a list of 14 proposals for the framework of a wiser politics, a list of truths that Hardy says we must live out if we are to survive the twenty first century. I will post these over the next few weeks.

A Tree Blessing

May you be like a tree whose roots quarry deep

Into the earth’s wisdom,

so that your mind is filled with vision and inspiration.

May you grow strong like a tree knowing your growth,

however slow and painful, is not just for yourself.

but for this lovely planet.

May you pause like the tree to feel the gentle winds of heaven upon you, 

    and the heart of the Creator warm and golden within you.

May you be wise as the tree who taps the centre of its

being for truth,

so that amidst every storm that shakes your roots

you will know that all is well.

Within your still centre may you know the magic

of love that opens all doors and heals all pain.

May you always be strong and firm and beautiful as a tree.

Stephanie Sorrell

I think that is so beautiful. It is in Stephanie's lovely new book, Nature as Mirror: an Ecology of Body, Mind and Soul.

Nature is a mirror, she explains, reflecting back at us the fractures and chasms within our own psyche. Because of this, nature can also be used as a powerful healing tool, and this book explains how to use nature’s own natural cycles and patterns to heal our own souls. Also, and importantly, until we develop an intimate sense of our union with nature, we will continue to work against the natural environment, with all that this implies in environmental destruction. If we do not heal our relationship with nature it will destroy us. Here are her links to Amazon, and do check out her poetry whilst you are there.

The Scientific and Medical Network

I was in a conference centre in Hampshire last weekend for the annual meeting of the Scientific and Medical Network, and what a stimulating time it proved to be. Aside from the lively AGM, which provoked lots of discussion and ideas, we had a line up of excellent speakers for the theme; Towards an Integral World-View: Inner and Outer.

In addition to the scheduled speakers, one of the sessions at this conference gives members a chance to talk for a short while, half an hour or so, about their own interests, book, research, whatever, within the theme of the event as a whole. And one such member caught my particular attention. Jean Hardy is writing a book, A Wiser Politics, to be published by O Books in due course. In this, her third book, she draws on her own background in political philosophy, psychosynthesis and holistic ecology to explore the need for a wider vision in politics of values and spirituality, in other words beyond the usual pragmatic and managerial issues which seem to dominate political thinking of all three main parties. Where, she asks, is the wider vision. Can we really hope to change our policies to form a better world unless we view our current system from a different and more spiritual perspective?

I have expressed my own hope for more politicians who will not be shy or afraid of letting the world know their own faith -driven or spiritual values. We need such politicians who can reflect those values in policies in a way that still appeals to the electorate and does not antagonize them.
I know Barack Obama has somewhere made a similar observation. We need spiritual politicians
who are compassionate, indeed empathic to the needs of the populace. In fact we need spirituality, compassion, empathy and good old fashioned morality all round, in ourselves as well as in our politicians. And we need changes of heart and mind in us all.

Jean argues in her book "for a way of thinking that links, as many earlier societies have done, Cosmos, with Polis, and also with Psyche." If we are to change the political and world paradigm in which we seem to be stuck, we must understand where myths and stories came from that are established often deep in our psyche, she told us.

If Jean writes with the same easy style she used to talk to us, this book will be a joy to read and I look forward to its publication very much indeed.