Best News

"Mass unemployment can be the best news humanity has heard in 20,000 generations."

Choosing a number like this is quite arbitrary, beyond the minimum significant magnitude I wished to express. I could as truthfully have said 100,000 generations. I wanted it to include, and far exceed the time of "The West" since the days of ancient Athens, and indeed beyond the time of ancient Egypt. Back beyond Gizeh and Stonehenge, Byzantium and the Druids of Mona. To include the entire time of God's curse on Adam and Eve, which some have suggested was at the time of the origins of agriculture, when the leisurely "God's garden" days of the gatherer-hunters ended, and regularized labor and hoarding began: East of Eden, in the land of Nod.

What might have been better news? Perhaps the arrival of Jesus Christ?

Since the Jesus story is still, as C.G. Jung said, the "central myth of our culture" ("myth" not to mean a falsehood, but rather a collective story told over and over), and is, in my opinion, a key element in the issue of worldwide poverty, I will address it in part here.

Earlier in the myth, God cursed Adam and Eve. The curse included having to "eat their bread in the sweat of their faces."

Later on, Jesus, among other things a symbol of a new covenant between God and people, said that he was bread: here, eat. No sweat.

Some say he proposed cannibalism. But he didn't say, "I am meat." Some suggest therefore that he was the Gingerbread Man. Some say that when he was seen abroad after his burial, he said "Don't touch me, I am newly risen" (like new loaves) and that he was touched, and fell with a flop to the ground and became flat-- that is, became words on a page instead of a living truth. To pin Christ-the-Tricky down is perhaps difficult (but it was done). "Rome Done It."

But a central tenet of his message had to do with the abundant availability of food. In his presence a multitude was fed from a few loaves and fishes which "magically" became enough for all in his presence, with no increase in labor.

One of the first things that is celebrated in the story of Jesus is the giving of free gifts, and the promotion of an idea of the bounty thereof. And it was wise men, not stupid men, who gave free gifts to the baby Jesus (they did not give him investment certificates or bonds to secure his future, or contacts for a future career), and which we imitate every December. Santa Claus himself, jolly and well-fed with a conspicuous cornucopia sack of goods and goodies, is a symbol of the Earth's bounty, and its free distribution.

Jesus by word and example rejected the work ethic, while speaking often of God as a giver of free gifts ("If your son asks for a fish, would you give him a serpent? How much more will your father in heaven give good things....")-- He walked away from his inherited trade, an act which was blasphemous in those days when social custom and position was a life-and-death matter-- and he went wandering with disreputable friends, expecting people to feed them. Never once offered to mow their lawn even.

1. "Behold the fowls of the air. For they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?"

2. "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."

3. "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

A telling phrase, using the term "give"-- something entirely different than "require you to earn by selling your labor cheap to somebody else's dubious project" (The Protestant Ethic), but perfectly consistent with the whole story of the wise bearing gifts (not jobs), the multiplication of food without added labor, and all the rest.

One 13th century theologian named Joachim spoke of 3 historical periods of Christian development. The first was the period of God the father, which I pass over to what is more relevant to my argument. The second period is that of God the Son-- the period of the church, the delivery of the message of God through the institution of the church.

The third period is that of the Holy Spirit: when the holy spirit will speak directly to each individual, without any institution. Joseph Campbell, a great scholar in these matters, put it this way: "Each is the counterpart of what Christ was: Christ was the vehicle of the Spirit, and so are you."

Spokespersons augur this period, which some say has been happening for a while. Buckminster Fuller, who bucked a few monsters and ministers, and said our cup was fuller than we ever imagined, said we all have a personal hot-line to God, and the churches try to put in a "censor-supervised switchboard" to control the connection and claim its power as theirs. Deepak Chopra, on TV the other day, said "God gave humanity Truth, and the devil came along and said 'I'll organize it for you and we'll call it religion.'"

What might this imply for our subject?

This: I give you a scenario:

A young mother in a sub-Saharan country is starving to death. Her breasts are dry, her baby has taken its heroic little struggle into the silence before death. The mother has found some leaves on trees but her little daughter won't eat them.

Three representatives of three types of "good news" come and speak to her.

1. The first is a free enterprise capitalist, perhaps Bill Gates, who tells her: "the system I represent is a success, Madam (and child). May I recommend you start a software company?

2. The second says "Good news! Jesus was born 2,000 years ago. Goodbye, now."

3. The third says, "Madam, I don't know what came over us. Food will be arriving in more profusion and variety soon, Meanwhile here is food for yourself and the baby. Until decent shelter with sanitary infrastructure is built, we will give you the option of a private tent for yourself and your child, or a place in a communal tent. There will be an international contingent of soldiers to protect you and your community from any possible interference in getting the basics to you and your children. There will be consultants to help you provide the best nourishment for yourself and your child in this condition. Later there will be participatory discussions about what would best serve your community's needs. If there is any way we can be of service, let us know."

Which news would be the best as far as the woman would be concerned?

The third item may be said to follow a certain awakening of the Holy Spirit, the spirit Jesus brought and preached, to enough people, who then would simply not tolerate the conditions their fellow human beings have been forced into, while loaves and fishes rot, or are confiscated and sold.

This would also give more weight to the announcement of Christ's birth as good news.

Others have argued that the advent of high tech industrial technology is the Second Coming, in the light of Jesus's words from the Thomas Gospel: "The Kingdom is spread upon the earth, but men do not see it." After all, Jesus essentially preached love, and what is love but pure service, and what is more pure service than a machine? What will work for you day and night without complaint, nor drink nor call in sick nor steal from you under the table nor run rampant and kill a bunch of people (unless it is very badly made or maintained, or is built for that specific purpose: the grace of machinery honors the free choice of human beings.)

Now some have pointed out that the word "inspire" and "inspiration" meant "influx of the Holy Spirit." Spirit, from spirare, to breathe. The Greeks had one word, pneuma, that meant both "spirit" and "moving air."

We know that technological invention has come from inspiration. Many inspirations. The "eureka!" experience is well known. The ecstasy of inspiration is the moment one is touched by the Holy Spirit.

Question: how many inventions came to mind in a church? Who yelled "eureka!" from pew or pulpit?

The other branch of discussion along these lines is the history of Protestantism, which arose just about when a powerful segment of European humanity was starting to be attracted to the myth of "scientific reason" as a kind of new God, and a rational secularism challenged the church, and indeed its technology provided more substantial and verifiable miracles than the church. This was also the time of a rise in the power of the merchant class, and a new morality, which essentially said that greed was correct, on the one hand (for the merchants and the rich), and that for the workers, suffering and self-sacrifice was correct. Some argue that the serpent was abroad then, just at the inception of new possibility for a new garden.

So, in conclusion: if the example and preachings of Jesus came to many people and became practice, we as human beings would accept the "unmerited grace of God" which has come to us from many millions of inspirations, the cornucopia of industrial technology which can produce plenty for all at minimum human toil, and see to it that it is distributed to cover the basics and more for everybody, before any competition for luxuries is allowed to run without limit.