Oldal 61 [61]
OCR
What can I know (if trust in knowledge has been lost)? 159 inequalities and dissatisfaction. Such gaping holes have appeared between the successful and unsuccessful participants in the global economic competition (between the centre and the periphery, monetary and real economy, the price of cutting-edge technology and that of raw materials, etc.) as have not been previously seen in the history of humanity. The leaders of a few hundred corporate empires and financial networks possess the lion’s share of the wealth of humanity. They control public discourse, direct our desires and decide about our wellbeing. The power needed for true rule has however slipped from their hands as well. They are not masters but merely beneficiaries of the processes directed mostly by impersonal automatisms and computer programs and held together by the force of helplessness. All this means that on the other side not only those became much poorer who, as the victims of this competition, lost their living, property and security, but also those in whose lives the ever more ruthless economic competition, the growing concentration of capital and the total dependence on technological systems “only” meant that they had to forgo individual enterprise, meaningful work done with professional pride and selfrespect, a long-term life strategy, workplace security or the ’competitiveness” of their native tongue and cultural heritage. In other words, almost all of us. Another, sadly well-known, effect of economic growth is the slow collapse of the ecosystems. As a direct consequence of this, the most basic services of nature are harder to obtain and of deteriorating quality. This would make us pitiable in the eyes of the generations before us. For them access to clean drinking water purified of toxins, nano-particles and toxic residues, good air, a clean calm environment, birdsong and beautiful landscapes was yet to become an insoluble problem. ‘Their lives depended much less on technological services and products without which we can barely move. They spent more time in each others company, with activity requiring cooperation of body and soul, which fits human nature much more than computer games and internet connection. ‘They probably could not even have been able to imagine a vulnerability like ours and this extent of the deterioration of the quality of the natural environment. And they would listen in disbelief to the explanation that we make all these sacrifices in the interest of our wellbeing. For what could be well with such being? And in the meantime, we have lost a whole host of our relatives: the earth, the air, the waters and the majority of the creatures that inhabit the earth, great and small. We are still at the beginning of the mass
