The Humancentricism of Our System of Governance

Like Greta Thunberg and her generation, many of us are seeking change. Change with a capital C – as in a change of paradigm – a whole new way of viewing how we live, so that we can bring forward a way of living differently, that will put an end to the destruction of this earth and all the misery that goes with it. 

Paradigm

: a frame of reference, a set of assumptions, concepts, values and practices that constitutes a way of viewing.

To transition from a system of governance created and implemented by the patriarchy, whose sole focus is economic growth  – towards a way of living with Nature’s laws at the centre. The Earth’s timeless laws, where reciprocity and respect for all life is given priority over the economy, smart technologies and shiny new things. Where nations call a permanent cease-fire with each other over territory, land ownership and who gets to be the Man in Charge. Where women’s ways of seeing the world – their natural inclinations, intuitions, skills and abilities are built into governance itself, rather than simply perpetuating this idiotic capitalist system.

Does that seem impossible to you? Well it does to me too. So let’s poke around together and see what we can find. 

Dianne Biritjalawuy Gondara is a Cross-Cultural Consultant and Educator from North East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territories of Australia, In the film made in 2023 Luku Ngarra she puts this question to the dominant culture: “Where does your law exist from?” I have not heard another question ever that holds so much power against evil.

So let’s look at our laws and find out where they exist from…..

The current system of governance here in Ireland and throughout the developed/domesticated countries, is commonly called Capitalism. Some call it Colonialism, others Neo-Liberalism etc. But for the purpose of this discussion, let’s just stick with Capitalism.

To me, our insular culture has morphed into what I call the ‘snatch and grab’ culture. Our drive for more has become unconscious and insatiable. The desire to travel the world; buy the latest everything; have all that we deserve, ‘live the life.’ Capitalism serves the few, those in private industry and in control, while the rest of us are disempowered, in debt, time poor and utterly dependant on this system of governance. 

We don’t care what countries we exploit for their natural resources – even though all countries are on this one planet that we also inhabit. And we don’t care how Mother Earth is supposed to deal with our oceans of cast-off plastics and broken toys when we become bored with them, or when industry comes up with a newer, better and more expensive model of phone/TV/car/sofa/tractor/milking machine/computer etc etc..… 

Our capitalist system of governance cultivates competition rather than co-operation. We compete with our friends, within families, at work. Human society has been trained to actually compete with itself. It’s easy to see that this is nonsensical, even ludicrous.

Fear-of-missing-out has become a significant part of our problem. We’re rarely satisfied with what we have and are therefore never at peace with ourselves. We never have enough – always striving for more, better, different. 

We’re not aware that we’re discontent, nor that this state of discontent is of our own making, therefor within our ability to fix. 

We hardly ever experience the joy-of-missing-out, except when we’re so wrecked from over work, over activity or over indulgence, that all we can do is crash out on the couch with the blue light of the TV filling the room.

Our society has become weighted down with seemingly unsolvable problems and continual crises that need urgent attention but don’t get it because of the more immediate problems we all have to wade through on a daily basis.

The actual system that is so broken and rotten to the core – where all this trouble and misery emanates from, is not on the ‘to do’ list. We don’t seem to realise that it’s the actual system itself that’s causing all this pressure and unhappiness, ill health and violence. And of course, the destruction of this one beautiful and wondrous Earth. 

We run around in circles confirming to ourselves and each other how bad things are, as if the results of industrial capitalism aren’t of our own making.

In his book “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible,” Charles Eisenstein speaks of ‘the crushing of our spirit – the effects of the relentless ugliness of the industrial society.’ 

 Global companies are apparently still making huge profits, so all else is still being negatively impacted. 

The natural environment is being whittled away by each successive  generation, but the majority of us are so busy we don’t seem to even notice. Of course there’s been numerous books written on this subject, so book-knowledge isn’t fixing things either.

The more monstrous industrial animal farming becomes the more invisible the plight of those poor souls whose one chance at their wild and precious life is spent locked up in an overcrowded building behind industrial security gates of the so called ’farm’ – waiting to be taken away to face the horror of the slaughterhouse. How completely opposite from the cute drawings of what a farm is, as depicted in our children’s books, which are still widely in circulation even though they no longer bear any resemblance to the truth.

Nor does the capitalist economy serve the majority of the global human population. Instead it’s causing inequality, poverty, fear, starvation and wars across the world.

Not surprisingly, our physical, mental and psychological well-being is eroding along with the integrity of our soils, plant health, waterways and the very air we are drawing into our lungs right now.

The word ‘sustainable’ is frequently used by politicians and industry but common sense tells us the word has lost its meaning in real time. 

And then there’s the little matter of climate change, or what I call earth systems collapse.

Sustainable

Meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. 

Capable of being maintained at a steady level without exhausting natural resources or causing severe ecological damage.

So let’s do away with using that word ‘sustainable’ as the definition of our way of life. There’s no truth to it and there’s enough fake information circulating without adding such a huge and blatant lie into the mix.

Continuing to expect accelerated material and economic growth from a finite planet, plundered and impoverished on an enormous scale over time, amounts to human madness. And madness is in evidence all around us.

It’s clear that industrial capitalism is the elephant in the room – and it’s shaping up to become potentially the most lethal foe humanity has ever had to face.

So, let’s face it……

Capitalism

: an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit. The essential feature of capitalism is the motive to make a profit. 

I suggest that the control in the definition above also applies to the natural environment, whose exclusion from this definition illustrates the human-centric views of those who wrote it and the society that accepts it. So, having spotted the error, we’ll hereby change it for clarity:

Capitalism 

: an economic and political system in which a country’s trade, industry and natural environment are controlled by private owners for profit. The essential feature of capitalism is the motive to make a profit.

Let me be clear. I am not promoting communism, socialism, Marxism or any other isms. We’re looking at the human-centred, or humancentric, nature of our system, which is capitalism. I know of no system operating in developed countries that puts nature at the centre.

ism

: a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school.

So let’s get back to Dianne Biritjalawuy Gondarra’s magnificent question: ‘Where does your law exist from?”

Capitalism seems to have taken off during what was to become known as the industrial revolution. Google says the industrial revolution started in England in the 1760’s. Many geologists argue that the industrial revolution was the beginning of the anthropocene.

In her recent book The Garden Against Time – In Search of the Common Paradise, Olivia Liang speaks of the ‘parliamentary enclosure’ – the legal process of taking the land into private ownership. She says ‘Enclosure was essentially a land grab legitimised by a flurry of new laws.’ 

She goes on to tell us that ‘Between 1760 and 1845, thousands of enclosure acts were passed. By 1914, more than a fifth of the total area of England had been enclosed, a prelude of today’s enraging statistic that half of the country is owned by 1% of the population.’

And Liang lists the effects of enclosure on nature: ‘the draining of the fens, the levelling of the hills, the cutting down of woods, the diverting of rivers, the stopping of streams, the division of fields, the putting up of fences and hedges and the closing of footpaths.’

1760 was almost 30 years before the English landed on the shores of Australia. So Industrial thinking was well established. By then the English patriarchy had become proficient at introducing makey-uppey laws to serve only themselves for the purpose of land grabbing.

In his book Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe quotes from the Scottish surveyor Thomas Mitchell’s journal while he was on an expedition in western Victoria in the 1830’s “…there is not in the wide world a valley so sweet,” Mitchell writes. And later – “Certainly a land more favourable for colonization could not be found.” 

In her book ’Whitefella Jump Up’  Germaine Greer reports:

“From first contact, the leaders of many Aboriginal peoples saw that sharing of the land would only be possible if the white-fellas could be drawn into the Aboriginal system. They pursued a deliberate policy of co-option, hoping to civilise the invaders, who had no conception of a considerate and viable use of country, into abandoning their inappropriate concepts of ownership and exclusivity.”

The hierarchy – or more accurately the patriarchy – gave themselves permission to ignore the ancient laws of nature and set about using ‘natural resources’- ie nature itself – to produce their goods for profit.

In Australia, these men assumed authority over the people whose residency and land care extended over 60,000 years or more. And through arrogance and deceit, unspeakable brutality amounting to genocide – they took control of the entire continent. 

Having first created the absurd, and cunning notion that man could take ‘ownership’ of land and do what he wants to it, Australia very quickly became a free-for-some. Free, unless you were a woman or an aboriginal person.

Germain Greer reports that “Within a few years banks and corporations had control of virtually all the land.’

This from Yuin nation Elder Uncle Max Harrison on land ownership:

“We belong to the land because Mother Earth feeds us and births everything. Non-indigenous people think they own the land and look on it as wealth.”

Of course in the absolute reality, the land is not a thing that can be bought and sold as someone’s possession. Land ownership is a relatively new concept thought up and forcibly implemented by a handful of men several hundred years ago, mainly as a tool of colonialism. Now, of course, it’s been normalised throughout the world.

The earth itself is a living entity in it’s own right. The soil, rivers, oceans, air, sky, land and all who live on it, etc. all belong to the Earth – that’s obvious.  Therefore to assume any of it can become the possession of a human being is either delusional, or three-card-trickery. 

Delusional

: characterised by holding false beliefs or judgements about external reality that are held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. 

Climate change/Earth systems collapse may well be the incontrovertible evidence here to show us just what happens when half-baked humancentric concepts are adopted and played out across the world.

So the patriarchy gave itself permission to own land and destroy nature. Nature was no longer the authority that had determined the direction of human activity across the world for thousands of years.

Instead, economic growth became the sole focus and motivation. Authority came from the patriarchy. Women were now disempowered and so nature was plundered to the precarious point that we now find ourselves – standing at the edge of the precipice. 

At this stage you might be wondering if I’m referring to Australia in 1788 or present day Ireland. 

Perhaps Ireland has a similar story to tell. The struggle to hold onto our own Brehon Laws was partially successful. Our culture, our music, our language, place names, agricultural traditions, wealth of forests, unique wildlife and our ways of being in the world, although diluted, are still in evidence or just below the surface. 

Aboriginal Australia has never ceded their territory and still campaigns for a treaty, for self determination to live by their own Medayin nature-led system of governance.

Whereas Ireland succeeded in winning back her independence in the twenty six  counties. But it seems that the system that was adopted by the new Irish government was the same system imposed by the colonialists. And because of that decision, to pick up where the English left off, somehow it seems to me that we’ve lost so much of what we were fighting for.

Burnam Burnam’s declaration in many ways points out the root characteristics of the very system of governance, leadership and authority that we in Ireland have created for ourselves. So now we have our own landlords, evictions, social discriminations, shocking inequality and underlying all of it, but invisible to the majority it would seem – the destruction of our own natural Irish environment and our native wildlife. 

Of course nature is still the true authority who governs us all, at the end of the day, as we’re now finding out the hard way. Indigenous peoples never stopped knowing this. And on a deep level, I believe, nor have we. 

We have our hard won independence. Therefor we have the choice to make change with a capital C. But if there’s no hope of Change at National level – then let’s begin ourselves – person by person – with nature as our steadfast ally.

Ally

an ally will act together, and protect one another.

Photo: Woodland with understory in County Leitrim, followng the same Earth laws as at the time of creation and paying no heed whatsoever to the man-made laws of capitalism. Photo by Jan Alexander