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 Mason's
Meditations
If
you're looking for something to chew over, some thoughtful seeds
for mental cultivation, bookmark this page for Jeff Mason's monthly
meditations. To think in or take away...
Number
Forty: Local and Global
Each
individual lives at a historically precise intersection of local
settings and global conditions. In the past, this intersection was
less consciously global. Great distances and slow communication
ensured this. Lately, new systems of communication throw us into
a truly global world. The world appears as a whole from one ideological
perspective or another. However, it is possible to multiply perspectives
and come at the world from different angles. We are now in a position
to see the interrelations that are making us think globally.
What
are truly global concerns? Obvious ones are natural disasters, famine,
disease, war, pollution, social injustice, racism, sexism, animal
rights, biodiversity, genetic engineering, weapons of mass destruction,
defoliation, global warming, the spread of democracy, human rights,
and the increasing difference between rich and poor. To take one
example, deforestation may not seem to matter to a desert country,
but the extent that such denuding changes rain and weather pattens,
it could make a great deal of difference in the long run. All these
concerns are "long term."
What
are local concerns? There is no telling what these may be in the
absence of a social setting. The local concerns of people displaced
by an earthquake in the winter, for example, would be tents, blankets,
food, warmth and medical assistance, international cooperation,
and volunteers to look for survivors. In relatively peaceful towns,
local needs might come down to filling potholes, or finding a playing
field for the children to use. Of course, towns and cities are also
affected by global conditions, and this will affect local needs.
Other local concerns transcend particular localities but are not
truly global, like the question of gay marriage, female priests,
gay bishops, whether marijuana or prostitution ought to be legalized.
How
will the individual react to this intersection? It depends upon
the individual’s character, habits of action, thought and emotion,
attitudes and orientation in a world of values, moral aesthetic
or social. Some will feel the global conditions more acutely than
others. Some will ignore, as far as possible, the global conditions
as long term and thus not applicable to them, though their descendants
may feel the effects. Others will be forced to put them together,
as when the earthquake does strike and you are suddenly in the street
with nothing. In morality, we have obligations to those who are
physically close to us as well as those who live half way across
the world. Both the local and the global concerns have their pull.
The important thing is to see that there is a choice where one’s
commitments lie, in the local, the global, or, with difficulty,
in both.
.
Mason's
Meditations will next be updated mid-March 2004
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Previous
Meditations
39.
38.
37.
36.
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34.
33.
32.
31.
30.
29.
28.
27.
26.
25.
24.
23.
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18.
17.
16.
15.
14.
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12.
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9.
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