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Shifting From Exclusion To Inclusion

"Either everything is sacred, or nothing is." Einstein

Exclusive systems rest on the assumption of absolute separation. They draw a line which includes some, and excludes the rest. Exclusive concepts have dominated human history for over 3500 years. The rise of empires, rooted in misogyny, racism, and the destruction of nature, are expressions of this exclusive perspective, an unbalanced preference for left brain thinking. It allows the select to tyrannize the rest, with righteousness and pride.

When capitalism developed, exclusion was at the core. To maximize profits for the owners, worker's wages were minimized. At first, the quality of the product was important, so maintaining skilled workers, reliable suppliers, and quality raw materials, demanded social consideration from business. But as corporations matured, and went international, the focus shifted exclusively to the quantity of the bottom line return to the shareholders, even ignoring the quality of the product. Modern management theory now claims that it is a fiduciary betrayal of the shareholders to give any consideration to the environment, the larger social good, or the welfare of the workers.

In the last 40 years, the series of financial crashes have acted as a pump, sucking value from the whole system and concentrating toward the top. Financial indicators are now similar to the levels just before the 2007 crash, suggesting another cycle of the pump is about to begin.

Which brings us to this moment in time, when eight people own as much wealth as the poorest half of the planet, forcing 3 billion to live on less than $3 per day. The health of the planet is deteriorating anywhere you choose to look, and CEO's make 400 times the average working person, up from 20 times a few decades ago. Some of the rage that elected Trump is white men seeing that they are now part of the excluded masses. After centuries of feeling that they were the select insiders, they now experience what people of color and women have been struggled with since the beginning of this country. The irony is that we have all become included in the excluded, disposable group.

Nature has a socialist, inclusive bias, and the exclusive assumption of absolute separation is an illusion. Quantum physics shows that matter is fundamentally connected, like waves on the surface of one ocean, and consciousness studies show similar connection.

We are connected biologically as air breathers, and share the fate of poor air quality. Depending on blood type, your life can be saved by another person's blood, regardless of race, gender, wealth, religion, or sexual orientation. The DNA sequence that codes for the enzyme which metabolizes sugar in our body, is identical to the DNA sequence in a maple tree. Every human biochemical pathway was long ago expressed first by bacteria. From the perspective of a hostile virus or bacterial, we are meat pies, ripe for infestation.

At the planetary level, we are all at the mercy of global economic forces and weather patterns. We are all exposed to the radiation still coming from Fukushima, and all have traces of agricultural poisons in our blood.

In his book "Perennial Philosophy", Aldous Huxley looked at the spiritual traditions across the planet to find common factors. There is a universal desire to transcend self-ness, to experience our common humanity and our deep inclusive nature. We are hard wired for compassion and empathy, with what are called mirror neurons. The inclusive wisdom of the Golden Rule is found in all religions. Unity is our birthright.

But we have been distracted for thousands of years by a fearful belief in separation and exclusion. The lethal consequences of that perspective are becoming more obvious every day. It is time for humanity to wake up. Whether we like it or not, whatever we have been taught, we are all connected. Will we choose, by default, to be connected in poverty on a ravished planet, as a result of this obsolete, lethal, exclusive socio/economic concept? Or will we choose to evolve into real humanity, with compassion for not only all people, but also all living beings and the living planet?