Big picture. Humanity in recent centuries is undergoing growing pains, as it necessarily needs to mature from a tribal culture into a global civilization that can address various existential threats. The most immediate being climate change, brought about by that same global civilization. (There’s no going back.) The history of humanity runs from a deeply entrenched tribal human nature that well-suited the race for hundreds of thousands of years, to an expansion across the world that enabled an expanded human nature. (See my chart of morality.)
OnlySky, Becky Garrison, today: Build a bigger table, not a higher wall, subtitled “Documentarian Josh Fox wants us to welcome the tired, poor and huddled masses escaping the climate crisis.”
Emmy-winning filmmaker Josh Fox wants to fight these wall-building, us-against-them tactics, which inflame hate and wreak havoc on a national and global scale. To that end, he makes documentaries that address what he sees as the most pressing issues facing the world: the erosion of human rights due to anti-immigrant prejudice, and the rolling disaster of climate change.
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In his latest documentary, The Welcome Table, Fox hopes to spark a similar movement focused on fighting climate change and helping those who suffer from it. He shines a light on what can happen when people choose to build a bigger table that welcomes all, rather than a wall that criminalizes climate change refugees seeking asylum. Traveling from the United States to the Caribbean, Italy, Kenya, Peru, Brazil, and Australia, Fox illuminates the beginnings of what could be the largest mass migration in human history.
This has been apparent for several decades, at least. The reason immigrants are coming north to the US isn’t — well, what, because they want to steal American jobs? Nonsense. Why go to all the trouble? Do conservatives give any thought to this? Why are they coming here? To escape their corrupt governments? Maybe. Thought the US currently has a corrupt government, which may figure into why immigration is down. A big factor is that as climate change happens, their livelihoods have, literally, dried up. And this explains immigration around the world, including those into Europe.
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I’ve seen arguments that religion, as a type of story-telling, has had a crucial role in human evolution. Tribes formed around common stories, with myths and then religions, in order to enforce identity, and to distinguish tribes from other tribes. Thus how “belief” in implausible stories was a crucial factor in confirming tribal identity. But now we’re in a world in which tribal identity is creating social and political rifts, which we see in culture and politics, and which is preventing humanity from getting anything done to solve existential problems.
I think this is related.
JMG, today, from Christian Post:
Nearly half of Gen Z Americans say Christians’ support for President Donald Trump is a reason they’re less likely to attend church, according to a new study. The Billy Graham Center Research Institute surveyed 2,365 Gen Z adults, ages 18-28. The study was funded by the Lilly Endowment.
According to the research, 48% of respondents said they agree with the statement “Christians’ support of Trump has made me less likely to go to church.” That included 19% who “strongly agreed,” 14% who “agreed” and 15% who “slightly agreed.” By contrast, 52% disagreed, including 21% who “strongly disagreed,” 16% who “disagreed” and 15% who “slightly disagreed.”
Maybe here is a slight indication of progress.
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Today: Bernstein, Mahler 5.
No commercials. I love watching videos like this because they show the individual instrumentalists in close detail. And the intensity of the conductor.
