October 2021
Jeremy Lent is a writer, speaker and founder of the non-profit Liology Institute. His book The Web of Meaning was reviewed in the July/August issue of Share International. A recording of an online conversation between Jeremy Lent and Felicity Eliot can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/11YS4X6gFok
SI: Thinking about your book I wondered what comment I might make if asked. I settled on the following and I wonder what you make of it: Jeremy Lent’s latest book: The Web of Meaning — Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe is an antidote to alienation.
JL: That’s a great way to describe it. The essential theme of the book is how our modern worldview is all about separation. It shows not only that it’s dangerous and bad for human experience and our civilization’s direction, but that it’s also just plain wrong. There’s another worldview — one of connectivity, which modern science as well as traditional wisdom cultures around the world point to. It’s a view which offers us an incredibly positive path forward, both for ourselves as individuals and our whole species in relation to the Earth.
SI: You describe the current predominating view of reality as dangerous. Please explain how.
JL: One of the most obvious ways is that it’s driving our civilization to this incredible imbalance with the living Earth that we’re a part of. We all know about climate breakdown and the terrible dangers this situation poses this century, but even broader than that is the whole ecological devastation that we’re causing. If we don’t turn it around it will lead to some form of collapse of our civilization, and just as important, if not more so, a collapse of much of the richness and diversity of life on this planet. On a mega level, that’s how dangerous it is.
But it’s also perilous for each of us as individuals, because it takes away our sense of well-being. Our consumer culture is designed to make us unhappy with our lives and move us away from a path of long-term well-being. …
SI: I think people are beginning to see that everything has its place, meaning and purpose, that it all fits together, and that all are necessary. Unfortunately, we see this, too, through the destruction we’ve caused to the natural world. We see what happens when we destroy one small link in the chain. But now that we know something of who we are, what we are, and where we are, it brings in a huge question — which you’ve asked. If life is organized in and from itself, then “How should I be? How should I live?” Many thinkers like yourself are saying ‘This is the pivotal moment. We have to shift; we have to change. We need to seize the opportunity’. So, how should we live?
JL: It’s almost never been so important for all of us to be asking this question. Again, we’re told by the mainstream culture that we should exploit the natural world to the maximum. As separate individuals we should do everything to pursue our own happiness and liberty at the expense of everything else. Then, by some magic, when we’re doing that it creates a more efficient society, so everyone wins.
SI: You can see how this predominant myth benefits capitalism, can’t you? These ideas perfectly dovetail into each other.
JL: Exactly. In fact, it’s no coincidence. They dovetail because they form from the same ontological roots. Some of the key elements of the worldview that drives our values today, our economy, our global culture came from the scientific revolution that transformed everything since the 17th century. Look at capitalism, colonialism, when a few European countries got to dominate the world for their benefit. Even racism, white supremacy all started in that same place in Europe around the 17th century. They all come from the same foundational understanding of extraction, exploitation as being not simply okay to do, but what humans should do.
Is there another way to live? I believe — and I’m simply conveying what so many great wisdom traditions show us — that there is another way. It’s based on the recognition of our deep interconnectedness. Once we realize we are life, that we’re part of this great animate sentience all around us, then we have to recognize that much of what we do is based on the presumption of human supremacy. Not just white supremacy, which is foundational for racism, but the notion that all of nature just exists for us. Even more enlightened people right now are still thinking in a mainstream way and come up with things like: we need to be more sustainable so we can use nature in a way which allows us to be prosperous for much longer than just a few generations. That’s better than destroying the earth, but it still doesn’t shift into understanding our ‘ecological self,’ as Arne Naess called it. In the words of Albert Schweitzer, “I am Life that wills to live in the midst of Life that wills to live.” He goes on to say, “I cannot then but have reverence for all of Life.” When we shift into that “we are all of life” understanding, it totally changes the ways in which we relate to all. …
If we see the world as this place of deep interconnectedness, then we can see the meaning of our lives arising from that. We learn that meaning itself is a function of connectedness. This is something that we, as sentient beings, enact in the universe through how we attune to it. Meaning is latent in all around us. We have a choice; we can close our eyes, be numb, or we can attune our spirits to that intrinsic, latent meaningfulness that’s in the universe, once we choose to connect with it.
