Can individuation overcome over population?
What on earth will get us to see that the planet is already vastly overpopulated? Perhaps, we”ve been taking the wrong tack.
Pointing out that finite supplies of fresh water, for instance, and arable land and fossil fuels ? with our numbers growing so fast ? plus pollution ? must lead to doomsday ? evidently will not do the trick. Surely, going on as we are ? food wars will soon lay waste a burgeoning humanity. But maybe bare survival – isn”t what we”re all about; what if simply “remaining alive” is anywhere enough of a goal for us?
What about mentioning that the human person with his or her miraculous capacity for “self-actualization,” for becoming, for developing talents than can last, can bless humanity is becoming scrunched by the mass of numbers have just whoosished in?
The planet has doubled to almost seven billion strong, for instance, in only the last hundred years after a half-million years of unbelievably slow growth. Our “Individuation” ? our power to make miracles of ourselves ? in music/art/poetry, in the novel, in architecture, in LOVE – to mention a few areas. The amazing aptitude we have to become what we dream ? to make real Bach”s notes or Shakespeare”s lines ? perhaps the safeguarding of that is what we might be seeking. If we just knew how.
Norman Fleishman
Lakeport
