Mechanistic materialism, an ever-growing global madness, is the dominant worldview in Western civilisation. Only dead matter exists, the materialists believe, with life a mere flash of light between two eternities of darkness. This generates fear, selfishness, greed, ecological destruction, endless pollution and war after war as we slaughter each other over ever-dwindling resources and limited territory. For the materialist, more is never enough. And so peace of mind is never possible and so world peace is never possible. Awash with material goods and food far in excess of our needs we gloat over our wealth and seek ever more, while a million Afghan children slowly starve to death.
Materialism is the path of self-destruction. And self-destruction is madness.
Materialism sees dead matter as primary and life as secondary; and sees consciousness as a by-product of the brain and therefore tied to an individual mortal body. This fosters the belief that one is a separate ‘self’, separate from others, separate from nature, separate from the universe, and destined to die, both as a self and as a body. This generates feelings of loneliness, inferiority, despair, alienation and a felt need to abuse and attack others in defence of the supposed separate ‘self’, its body, country, beliefs, paradigmatic presumptions, assets, religious beliefs, territory etc. It’s basically a mental disease.
Panentheism, on the other hand, glimmerings of which show in Australian Aboriginal culture, at the opposite end of the spectrum of possible paradigms, sees the whole cosmos as a living presence divinely saturated with unconditional love containing and transcending all existing matter, time and space. This is peace beyond the understanding; the domain of the mystic. Nobody kills anybody here because there is only one of us.
Most people’s brains need turning inside out. Maybe another war will do the trick. Israel has declared war on Hamas. Another step forward to Armageddon. Russia doesn’t even bother to declare war on Ukraine, and on most of the rest of the world, but is at war nevertheless, while pretending otherwise. Will they run out of soldiers before NATO runs out of bullets? Will they fulfil their threat to turn England into a toxic Martian desert – and presumably the rest of the world too?
Maybe we need a global nuclear war to knock us back to the stone age from where we might learn from the Aboriginals, if there are any left, how to live in harmony with the land and each other.
How much pain does it take to wake up?
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
