A World with a View
The power of questioning ours
Each of us moves through life viewing the world around us in a particular way based on a set of beliefs we’ve developed and assumptions we’ve accepted. This lens influences our personality, perceptions, and values. In addition to our individual worldview we are immersed in a collective or societal worldview that dramatically influences our life experience. This programming becomes an overlay we place on everything we experience which, of course, means it has tremendous power over our quality of life, our level of peace, happiness, etc.
One of the most intriguing things about worldview is that sometimes these incredibly powerful beliefs and assumptions are true, and sometimes they’re not. The more aware we become of our mostly unconscious beliefs and ways of viewing the world the more agency we have over personal experiences and our ability to shape society.
I’ll give you a personal example. My father taught me that most people couldn’t really be trusted and it was best not to get too entangled. My dad’s own treatment of me made his case. Decades later, when I first moved into the home I’ve now loved for nearly twenty years, my neighbors asked if they could park their landscaping equipment on the vacant area on the south side of my yard. My first instinct was to say no; I could hear my dad rumbling, “What if they back into your fence? What if something happens to their equipment and they blame you?” But something in me was shifting and I was beginning to question old, knee-jerk reactions. On top of that, my old dog, Elkie, had already really taken a shine to these guys. So, I let them use the vacant lot.
That decision turned out to be one of the best moves of my life. These neighbors have become non-DNA family. They take care of me and my place and are “God/Dog – parents” to all in my pack. I know, for sure, if they accidentally damage something of mine I will get it back in better shape than ever. My new belief is that the more I expect good from people the more good I receive.
The cultural worldview we’re immersed in has enormous influence on our beliefs and experiences and, just like our personal beliefs, the “truths” put forward in a cultural worldview may or may not be true. The worldview that currently dominates humanity, driven by the globally-connected economy, is Western consumerism. Western consumerism refers to the ideology of Western society revolving around a social and economic structure in which people are viewed as customers/consumers and are encouraged to buy stuff, regardless of whether they need it. Product producers and the marketing industry use sophisticated messaging and images to convince us that they we’ll gain a sense of happiness and fulfillment through material possession.
Consumerism is inextricably linked to extractive capitalism which extracts raw materials from nature, and labor and money from people in the roles of paid workers and consumers. A central characteristic of capitalism is private ownership of the means of producing products and their operation for profits that go to the private owners. Extractive capitalism is designed to ensure that economic activity primarily benefits those who possess wealth.
There is now ample evidence that extractive capitalism is driving a nearly inconceivable wealth gap between the uber wealthy and everyone else, and people are bogged down in consumer debt. Consumerism is wreaking havoc on nature, with oceans choked with plastic, mountains blasted apart in mining operations, wildlife populations decimated, and vast stretches of forests, grasslands and wetlands razed and polluted to produce the insatiable amount of stuff that drives the global human economy. Climate change is just the cherry on top.
And yet with all of that, the belief that high consumer spending and economic growth are positives and positively essential is so ingrained in western ideology it is almost never questioned by mainstream institutions or leaders, or even most people under its influence. And that, my friends, is the power of a worldview, or set of beliefs and assumptions that goes unquestioned.
So let me ask you to consider a few true or false statements:
· More stuff is always better. (True or False?)
· You will be much sexier if you buy a brand new car. (True or False?)
· Your worth as a human is based on the size of your bank account.* (True or False?)
· It’s better (or at least acceptable) to have massive factory farms for cheap meat, countless plastic disposable gadgets, and ever-expanding cities than it is to have landscapes, skies and oceans filled with abundant, amazing, beautiful wild creatures. (True or False?)
I could go on. You get the point. One of the most important ways of acting in these wild times we are living in is deeply questioning the status quo, the worldview, shaping our lives, systems, and planet. Just because a thing seems normal doesn’t mean it’s good.
It's worth noting the phenomenon of modern consumerism is a very recent phase in human history, arising in the wake of the Industrial Revolution in which humans first began creating technologies that could extract materials, and manufacture products at a scale previously unimaginable. Since then, it has become the religion promoted by various and powerful interests that benefit most from the short-term profits. Remember Einstein once noted, “Blind obedience to authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
Much love,
Cylvia
P.S. * Don’t you find it a little strange we even use the term “net-worth” to describe how much money and stuff a person has?
P.P.S. The picture I used for this piece is my beloved old dog, Elkie, who befriended my awesome neighbors. I thought, “Why not, since it’s hard to come up with a good pic for Worldview. Elkie is actually a great example though. When I first got her she was fearful and had separation anxiety. After about a year, she began to view the world, and me, as a safe place and she became the most settled and happy girl. She spread light wherever she went.