Industrialism is face of evil

NATURE, in the organic radical tradition, is regarded as the manifestation of good.

- PAUL CUDENEC

Whether seen as the self-realisation of divinity or as its precious creation, it represents all that is sacred to us - life, authenticity, beauty.

But what about the other side of the coin? How might we regard the abstract notion of evil as manifesting in our world?

It would have to take the form of everything that opposes the force of good we have already identified, everything that impedes its thriving, blocks its divine light.

Within the human mind, we could identify this as the ego; the little self who is only interested in his own narrow desires and, thus, like soulselling Faust, puts himself at the service of evil.

But when a world is dominated by individuals who have deliberately embraced selfishness, unashamedly and even jubilantly, this germ of inner evil will then expand to assume a social and physical form.

Certain apologists for the current industrial system like to claim that the enormous social and environmental problems associated with it are the result only of the specific way in which our society is being run at the moment.

The technology involved, they insist, is itself 'neutral' - it is merely the way in which it is used which is problematic.

However, to fairly assess this so-called neutrality, we need to consider what lies behind the industrial impulse.

While the official narrative insists that its aim has always been to relieve people of the need for manual labour, to lift them out of poverty, to elevate humankind to greater cultural and civilisational heights, this is just window-dressing for something much less worthy.

Industrialism is about profit.

Labour-saving machinery has always been about saving the costs of human labour for the machine's owners and thus increasing their profit margins.