New Dimensions; The Tao of Physics; Part 2

<v Fritjoff Capra>And you know, I have spent a lot of time recently thinking about economics <v Fritjoff Capra>and various other sciences, and you have the same phenomenon there that <v Fritjoff Capra>economists try to put everything into quantities <v Fritjoff Capra>and mathematics and prove everything. <v Fritjoff Capra>And that's a general trend in our culture. <v Fritjoff Capra>And it is because of this over emphasis on rational scientific knowledge <v Fritjoff Capra>that I've talked about just before. <v Fritjoff Capra>Now, psychic phenomena are - very <v Fritjoff Capra>- this is a whole very interesting and, uh, <v Fritjoff Capra>fascinating field. <v Fritjoff Capra>And the position I have personally <v Fritjoff Capra>is very much influenced by the traditional position of mystics <v Fritjoff Capra>- in mystical traditions. <v Fritjoff Capra>They always tell you that when you reach a certain level <v Fritjoff Capra>in the exploration of consciousness, in self-realization, development

<v Fritjoff Capra>of consciousness, expansion of consciousness, whatever you want to call it, then you <v Fritjoff Capra>will naturally experience these paranormal <v Fritjoff Capra>phenomena. You will experience these psychic powers. <v Fritjoff Capra>And what they always tell you and they go on and on about this is that <v Fritjoff Capra>you shouldn't pay too much attention to them, that these are distractions from <v Fritjoff Capra>the path towards self-realization. <v Fritjoff Capra>They often even say that these are dangers. <v Fritjoff Capra>They associate them with demons and devils and so on. <v Fritjoff Capra>And by the way, also in the Christian tradition, remember when when Jesus was led <v Fritjoff Capra>up some rock and then the devil said, you know, if you're the son of God, why don't you <v Fritjoff Capra>jump down and fly or something like that? <v Fritjoff Capra>So the same thing in the Christian tradition. <v Fritjoff Capra>And - and of course, Jesus being the mystic he was who <v Fritjoff Capra>said, no, no, this is not my thing. <v Fritjoff Capra>[laughter] So you have this in all traditions and you have very <v Fritjoff Capra>explicit counseling and mystical traditions that you should not pay

<v Fritjoff Capra>too much attention to this phenomena. Now, why do they say it? <v Fritjoff Capra>They say because these phenomena build up, tend to build up the ego <v Fritjoff Capra>and, uh, build - build up too <v Fritjoff Capra>much concentration on, you know, powers you develop <v Fritjoff Capra>and, uh - you then tend to use them for various purposes <v Fritjoff Capra>and so on. It's essentially the building up of the ego, whereas the spiritual <v Fritjoff Capra>path should lead you towards losing the ego rather than building <v Fritjoff Capra>it up. And I think that this - that this counsel and <v Fritjoff Capra>this advice, which is given to individuals, individual seekers <v Fritjoff Capra>of spirituality, that this is also valid for us as a civilization, as <v Fritjoff Capra>a culture. So I think we should not at this point in <v Fritjoff Capra>our culture, we are not at this stage where we should actively encourage <v Fritjoff Capra>investigation or use of these phenomena.

<v Fritjoff Capra>I think it's all right to do it personally that each of us, as <v Fritjoff Capra>we go along and and develop our consciousness, will come across this phenomena <v Fritjoff Capra>and to take them into account to acknowledge them. <v Fritjoff Capra>I think is very useful. For example, that I have found very often <v Fritjoff Capra>and increasingly so recently, that in my work I come <v Fritjoff Capra>across information when I need it. <v Fritjoff Capra>I also go out and look for it. But - but the really relevant information, <v Fritjoff Capra>the really crucial information usually is there. <v Fritjoff Capra>And I just have to pick it up. And by the way, coming back to Castaneda, Don Juan, <v Fritjoff Capra>says that you have a cubic centimeter of chance I <v Fritjoff Capra>think he calls it that comes up every now and then. <v Fritjoff Capra>And the difference between a warrior and an ordinary person is that the warrior picks it <v Fritjoff Capra>up and notices it. And I think if if you pay attention to this, then this <v Fritjoff Capra>this comes up. You have a you develop a certain sense for what Jung has called <v Fritjoff Capra>'synchronicity.' And that is extremely useful.

<v Fritjoff Capra>And in that sense, I think these paranormal phenomena are extremely useful. <v Fritjoff Capra>Also, if you are a healer, for instance, it is extremely valid <v Fritjoff Capra>and useful to develop these healing powers and and use them, <v Fritjoff Capra>but to study them scientifically, to study things like <v Fritjoff Capra>telepathy or levitation, psychokinesis and so on, and <v Fritjoff Capra>to adopt them to make a technology out of it. <v Fritjoff Capra>Maybe that's the crucial point to make it technology out of it that I think <v Fritjoff Capra>would not be very useful at this present moment, because what would happen is, <v Fritjoff Capra>well, you know, the first people who would use it is the Pentagon, and they would they <v Fritjoff Capra>would ask, you know, they would do a psychokinetic bomb or whatever. <v Fritjoff Capra>And see, at the present moment, <v Fritjoff Capra>we cannot even use things like the combustion engine. <v Fritjoff Capra>We cannot build cars that don't pollute. <v Fritjoff Capra>Well, that's technologically no problem whatsoever.

<v Fritjoff Capra>It's very - it's a very simple machine that is perfectly well understood. <v Fritjoff Capra>Why don't we do it then? We don't do it because of psychological reasons. <v Fritjoff Capra>Economic political reasons. <v Fritjoff Capra>Because we are not mature enough as a civilization to do things ecologically. <v Fritjoff Capra>Of course, you know, now that this whole, you know, ecology movement that leads us in <v Fritjoff Capra>this direction. But by and large, the traditional <v Fritjoff Capra>culture in which we live does not have this maturity. <v Fritjoff Capra>And so as long as we don't have this maturity, I think it's not very useful to look <v Fritjoff Capra>for new powers to harness because we just wouldn't know how to use them. <v Michael Toms>Yeah, I recall that I think some of the research on psychokinesis at SRI was funded by <v Michael Toms>the Defense Department. Right, that's - that's typical. <v Michael Toms>You know, that brings up just - just so we can clear that out of the way for those of our <v Michael Toms>listeners who might be wondering and I'm thinking of people who have been very popular <v Michael Toms>-popular psychics like Ingo Swann and Uri Geller and - and <v Michael Toms>the fact these people have been there's been a great hullabaloo about the fact they've

<v Michael Toms>been tested scientifically and so forth. <v Michael Toms>What are your views on that kind of experimentation? <v Fritjoff Capra>Well, they are - see they are good examples of - of what it means to build <v Fritjoff Capra>up one's ego when they go around. I'm not sure about Ingo Swann. <v Fritjoff Capra>I don't know him. I've heard the name several times. <v Fritjoff Capra>But but Uri Geller, I've seen perform. <v Fritjoff Capra>And Uri Geller is a magician you know, he may or may not be a psychic, but he's <v Fritjoff Capra>definitely magician. And he goes around doing his magic tricks and, <v Fritjoff Capra>you know, speaks to huge audiences and so on. <v Fritjoff Capra>I think he has stopped this now, has been a little more quiet around him. <v Fritjoff Capra>But those people are good examples of - of what I was talking about before building up <v Fritjoff Capra>the ego. And and I don't think it's too useful. <v Michael Toms>I recall the book that Andrija Puharich wrote about his work with Uri <v Michael Toms>Geller and -and the literally fantastic revelations that I don't know <v Michael Toms>if you read that book and other fantastic revelations were in there, again, just to put <v Michael Toms>it to rest and we can explore other - other things. <v Michael Toms>But what are your - what is your experience or views relative to the phenomenon of the

<v Michael Toms>UFO? <v Fritjoff Capra>Oh, I have never seen any. <v Fritjoff Capra>[laughter] I have seen things from the sky that I couldn't identify and that <v Fritjoff Capra>I understand is what UFO means, unidentified flying objects, but I don't <v Fritjoff Capra>believe in all the hocus pocus of, you know, extraterrestrial civilizations <v Fritjoff Capra>visiting us. Not that I don't believe that they exist. <v Fritjoff Capra>My view of an advanced civilization on another star, on another planet, <v Fritjoff Capra>rather, would be a civilization that has the technology <v Fritjoff Capra>to come into our solar system and visit us. <v Fritjoff Capra>But they don't use it. They just stay at home and cultivate their potatoes and <v Fritjoff Capra>eat their brown rice or the equivalent of what ever they have out there. <v Fritjoff Capra>They live ecologically. <v Fritjoff Capra>And in these science fiction books and this science <v Fritjoff Capra>fiction scenarios, progress is always progress <v Fritjoff Capra>towards more yang, more masculine, more technology.

<v Fritjoff Capra>This whole space colony craze, for instance, is an example of that. <v Fritjoff Capra>You extrapolate existing technology and of course in doing so, <v Fritjoff Capra>you take all the problems we have here and put them out into outer space. <v Fritjoff Capra>You can imagine the space colonies, how how they would work. <v Fritjoff Capra>There would be a fascist police state because there's <v Fritjoff Capra>one gravity switch or whatever. <v Fritjoff Capra>Who makes the whole thing rotate so that there's artificial gravity and if you shut that <v Fritjoff Capra>off, then - then you know, the whole thing, uh, disintegrates. <v Fritjoff Capra>And so, of course, nobody is allowed to have access to that switch. <v Fritjoff Capra>So that has to be heavily policed. <v Fritjoff Capra>Also, you don't want just anybody in your space <v Fritjoff Capra>colony. You want to select the people that you - you admit to the space colony. <v Fritjoff Capra>And you can imagine what kind of criteria they would have to select the people. <v Fritjoff Capra>You had better be a - a white male Protestant in the first place <v Fritjoff Capra>to get there. And, uh, you know, all - all the

<v Fritjoff Capra>- the one sidedness and the imbalance that we observe in our culture is <v Fritjoff Capra>projected and - and is extended into these <v Fritjoff Capra>domains in science fiction and in space colonies, which I regard as part <v Fritjoff Capra>of science fiction. So to me, that's - that's not how - <v Fritjoff Capra>not my scenario of the future. <v Fritjoff Capra>My scenario of the future is going towards an ecological way of doing things, <v Fritjoff Capra>a holistic, dynamic ecological way where we achieve some <v Fritjoff Capra>kind of balance. And for me, an advanced civilization is a civilization that <v Fritjoff Capra>has that kind of balance that is also <v Fritjoff Capra>profoundly spiritual civilization, because and maybe we <v Fritjoff Capra>can come back to this - spirituality and ecology are very closely linked. <v Fritjoff Capra>I have come to recognize this over the last few years. <v Michael Toms>How are they linked? <v Fritjoff Capra>Well, I - I think that if you ask what is spirituality, <v Fritjoff Capra>what is religious awareness or religious consciousness, mystical awareness,

<v Fritjoff Capra>then one of the main aspects of it would be <v Fritjoff Capra>a recognition of your place in the cosmos, <v Fritjoff Capra>a recognition of how things are interrelated and interdependent in <v Fritjoff Capra>- in the cosmic scheme of things. <v Fritjoff Capra>And that to me is also ecology. <v Fritjoff Capra>There's no - there's not much in uh - <v Fritjoff Capra>religion or mysticism, spirituality, <v Fritjoff Capra>which is not also in ecology, in a very fundamental sense of ecology, <v Fritjoff Capra>I'm not just talking about, you know, consumer movements and so on, but the very, very <v Fritjoff Capra>fundamental ecological awareness comes very close to mystical religious <v Fritjoff Capra>awareness. I think there's more in - in religious awareness. <v Fritjoff Capra>For example, there's a sense of evolution - of <v Fritjoff Capra>cosmic evolution, of of meaning. <v Fritjoff Capra>Where did we come from? Where are we going to?

<v Fritjoff Capra>And they used, you know, various myths and metaphors. <v Fritjoff Capra>But maybe that also will come in in the ecological consciousness. <v Fritjoff Capra>So to me, the two are very closely related. <v Fritjoff Capra>And that, by the way, is something that is a good thing <v Fritjoff Capra>to keep in mind. If you look at various spiritual movements that, you know, as you know, <v Fritjoff Capra>there are many, especially here in California. <v Fritjoff Capra>And over the last few years, I have developed, uh, <v Fritjoff Capra>two rules of thumb to think <v Fritjoff Capra>about various spiritual movements, various gurus - to provide some discernment - Yeah, <v Fritjoff Capra>to, yeah, right - to - to distinguish between various gurus and <v Fritjoff Capra>they're very simple rules of thumb. The one is their <v Fritjoff Capra>relationship to money and the other is their relationship to women. <v Fritjoff Capra>And if you apply this, then you will see that 95 percent fail on both counts. <v Fritjoff Capra>And I think both are - are very important because the relationship

<v Fritjoff Capra>to money is related to economics, which is related to ecology, which <v Fritjoff Capra>is related to spirituality. So if spirituality, that does not take that <v Fritjoff Capra>into account somehow in our culture, it's not going to make it. <v Fritjoff Capra>And the relationship to women is related to the rising feminist awareness, <v Fritjoff Capra>which is also part of the counterculture of - of the rising new civilization. <v Fritjoff Capra>And if they can't relate to this in a meaningful way, again, they're not going to make <v Fritjoff Capra>it. <v Michael Toms>So you're suggesting that number one, if a spiritual teacher is <v Michael Toms>uh -uh -overspending or driving around in a big Rolls Royce or whatever, that would be a <v Michael Toms>key to look for it and the other would be if - real estate for instance, these huge <v Michael Toms>real estate holdings that many - if women are in a subordinate role - Right - within the <v Michael Toms>community, that would be another key. <v Fritjoff Capra>Right. Right. Now, I'm not condemning them for that <v Fritjoff Capra>because many of them come from other traditions. <v Fritjoff Capra>And I don't think you can expect a, say 70

<v Fritjoff Capra>year old Indian to come over here to America or <v Fritjoff Capra>a 70 year old Tibetan to come over here and then <v Fritjoff Capra>turn out to be an ecologist and a feminist. <v Fritjoff Capra>I mean, it's just now you can't - just can't expect this from people to change so <v Fritjoff Capra>radically. What I'm saying is that, uh, we should listen to them <v Fritjoff Capra>because they had to have a lot of valuable things to teach us. <v Fritjoff Capra>But then we should also develop our own consciousness and evolve in our own <v Fritjoff Capra>consciousness. And there I think the ecological perspective <v Fritjoff Capra>and the feminist perspective are two of the most necessary <v Fritjoff Capra>and relevant perspectives in our culture. <v Michael Toms>Deirdre, you've been involved in the spiritual community of of several, <v Michael Toms>I think. How do you feel and what Fritjof just said? <v Michael Toms>[intake of breath] <v Dierdre Wu>I don't. [laughter] You don't? <v Dierdre Wu>No, I don't

<v Michael Toms>What was your experience of that? I mean, you lived in a community where where there were <v Michael Toms>women and men and a spirit head - there was a spiritual figurehead. <v Dierdre Wu>Yes. The women were not looked down on as being subordinate. <v Dierdre Wu>Shakti power or feminine power was definitely recognized and encouraged <v Dierdre Wu>[pause] through kind of militaristic discipline as a matter of fact. <v Dierdre Wu>It was sort of a Marine boot camp for women, a spiritual Marine boot camp. <v Dierdre Wu>Economically, the spiritual teacher or guide <v Dierdre Wu>for the movement had an MA in economics <v Dierdre Wu>from a well-known university in India, was a very shrewd in terms of real <v Dierdre Wu>estate and land holdings. <v Dierdre Wu>His advice was that poverty was a curse and that actually, <v Dierdre Wu>our divine - divine [sharp intake of breath] <v Dierdre Wu>privilege or right was prosperity. <v Dierdre Wu>And he - he actualize that in large landholdings, which he explained of

<v Dierdre Wu>as being for his spiritual children, you know. <v Fritjoff Capra>I disagree very strongly with that position. <v Fritjoff Capra>I think that -that is an argument that is brought forth very often. <v Fritjoff Capra>They say - what's so spiritual about being poor? <v Fritjoff Capra>And I agree that you and you have to distinguish between poverty and misery. <v Michael Toms>The other question is also, I think, is what's so spiritual about being rich? <v Michael Toms>Right. <v Fritjoff Capra>Well, I think that actually, uh, having a lot of money is, uh, <v Fritjoff Capra>a definite hindrance to being spiritual. <v Fritjoff Capra>And - and I can show this and in the context that we have been talking about, the <v Fritjoff Capra>relationship between spirituality and ecological awareness, ecological <v Fritjoff Capra>balance. You see, uh, suppose you have a large amount of money, <v Fritjoff Capra>let's say, you know, $100,000 or a couple of hundred thousand dollars or <v Fritjoff Capra>something, you know that - A lot of money. <v Fritjoff Capra>What are you going to do with it? <v Fritjoff Capra>And then, uh, you can list the number of possibilities and you will find <v Fritjoff Capra>that almost anything you can do with that money will be

<v Fritjoff Capra>unhealthy. <v Fritjoff Capra>It will be unhealthy for yourself, for the society and for the ecosystem. <v Fritjoff Capra>Let's - let's see what you would do. <v Fritjoff Capra>You would go to better restaurants. <v Fritjoff Capra>You would start, you know, by eating and eating more, you know, having good wines, having <v Fritjoff Capra>all kinds of good things, which is, as we know, unhealthy for your organism because <v Fritjoff Capra>it would tend towards heavy food and so on. <v Fritjoff Capra>You don't have to, but that would be one possibility . <v Fritjoff Capra>If you stay on - on a simple macrobiotic diet, you know, you can't spend your money <v Fritjoff Capra>because that's cheap. You would travel a lot and that - that can't be <v Fritjoff Capra>too bad. But it turns out it is because you'd have jet lags. <v Fritjoff Capra>You know, you'd go to the Bahamas and you'd go to the Far East and so on, and <v Fritjoff Capra>you just travel around and it's not good for your organism. <v Fritjoff Capra>You would, uh, buy gadgets. <v Fritjoff Capra>You would transform your leisure time into something <v Fritjoff Capra>that uses a lot of technology. You would have speed boats, airplanes,

<v Fritjoff Capra>something like that. Now, this, again, like the traveling increases your <v Fritjoff Capra>stress and so is unhealthy. <v Fritjoff Capra>You would use your money as a means of power. <v Fritjoff Capra>You would play the stock market. <v Fritjoff Capra>You would, you know, buy political positions, political influence, whatever. <v Fritjoff Capra>Now, that's pretty obvious that spiritualist - spiritually is not very healthy. <v Fritjoff Capra>So whatever you do, it is unhealthy individually. <v Fritjoff Capra>Now, the interesting thing is that when you look at individual health, you will <v Fritjoff Capra>find that all these things which are individually unhealthy are also socially unhealthy <v Fritjoff Capra>because they emphasize aggressiveness, jealousy and so on, and <v Fritjoff Capra>they act against social cohesion. <v Fritjoff Capra>Furthermore, it is also ecologically unhealthy because <v Fritjoff Capra>your jet traveling and - and your airplanes and speedboats <v Fritjoff Capra>and dune buggies and - and all your gadgets you use for your - for your

<v Fritjoff Capra>leisure time will use up fuel and - <v Fritjoff Capra>and raw materials and so on and continue the existing imbalance <v Fritjoff Capra>of - of the environment, use up natural resources. <v Fritjoff Capra>And I'm not saying that you - you could not do anything meaningful with <v Fritjoff Capra>a lot of money, but it's very hard. <v Fritjoff Capra>And so I think there's a - a good point to be made that having <v Fritjoff Capra>less money is more spiritual if you if you equate spirituality largely <v Fritjoff Capra>with ecological balance, ecological consciousness, that's a good point to be made. <v Fritjoff Capra>And I think that the intuitive <v Fritjoff Capra>caution that most of us have vis-a-vis having a lot of money, we <v Fritjoff Capra>sort of don't feel too comfortable. <v Fritjoff Capra>You know, something is not quite right. <v Fritjoff Capra>May not be just the Protestant work ethic and - <v Fritjoff Capra>and, you know, upbringing of of that kind, but may be very <v Fritjoff Capra>sound ecological intuition that we have in our organism.

<v Fritjoff Capra>And of course, this ecological wisdom has evolved over millions of years. <v Fritjoff Capra>Whereas money is only a few hundred years old, is a relatively new invention, <v Fritjoff Capra>so that our organism, our body and our cellular intelligence <v Fritjoff Capra>knows about this and has this intuitive caution. <v Michael Toms>Your referring to paper money. But I mean, money isn't - as a tool has been around for a <v Michael Toms>long time in different forms. <v Fritjoff Capra>Uh, yes, but not not in the sense that we use it now. <v Fritjoff Capra>You see markets are only a relatively new <v Fritjoff Capra>phenomenon. <v Fritjoff Capra>The - there was a lot of exchange, but the old economies <v Fritjoff Capra>relied very much on barter, on cooperation. <v Fritjoff Capra>And they did use money. But - but in a different sense. It was some kind of exchange - Yes and <v Fritjoff Capra>it was local, you see, now money is global now - now the yen affects <v Fritjoff Capra>the dollar. And that kind of didn't exist. <v Fritjoff Capra>[laughter] Right.

<v Michael Toms>As you were talking, I was just thinking a - another thing that that usually occurs when <v Michael Toms>people have lots of money is - is an immediate sense of holding onto it - an <v Michael Toms>attachment develops. Right. If you get a lot of money, I notice that I've been around <v Michael Toms>people who have come into a lot of money who didn't have it before. <v Michael Toms>And I've noticed that either they themselves or the people around <v Michael Toms>them are constantly promoting the idea. Well, now you have to put this in a in a good and <v Michael Toms>you have to invest this wisely. You have to hold on to you have to protect it, and tyou <v Michael Toms>have to nurture it and save it. And there's that whole emphasis on that - and again, I <v Michael Toms>see that attachment versus detachment. <v Michael Toms>So that's something else, I think that perhaps comes around money. <v Fritjoff Capra>You see, but it is very - And there are a lot of spiritual leaders <v Fritjoff Capra>and a lot of people who follow new consciousness type <v Fritjoff Capra>movements who don't make this connection between the ecology, the economics <v Fritjoff Capra>and the spirituality. <v Fritjoff Capra>I mean, we all know that here in the Bay Area and in California, we've had these chain <v Fritjoff Capra>letters, you know, the circle of gold and other chain letters. <v Fritjoff Capra>And that's a very typical phenomenon. What you do is you make a quick buck

<v Fritjoff Capra>by ripping off somebody in the future. And the people at the end of this pyramid scheme <v Fritjoff Capra>all get ripped off. And this is exactly what the um - <v Fritjoff Capra>what a lot of corporations do in our economy. <v Fritjoff Capra>They go to South America and to agri-business and <v Fritjoff Capra>they destroy the natural environment there. <v Fritjoff Capra>They make huge profits, destroy the environment, and then move on to something else. <v Fritjoff Capra>So they make profits, uh, using up resources, uh, that <v Fritjoff Capra>exist somewhere else or somewhere in the future. <v Fritjoff Capra>And the chain letter does exactly the same thing. It's a profoundly anti-ecological <v Fritjoff Capra>system. But this is usually not recognized. <v Fritjoff Capra>And I don't blame the individual people who - who subscribe to that because <v Fritjoff Capra>our whole culture has not made the link between <v Fritjoff Capra>ecology, economics and individual

<v Fritjoff Capra>health, human potential and so on. <v Michael Toms>You're suggesting that it's that ecology needs to include human beings and all of the <v Michael Toms>aspects of - of -Yes - that we interact with in life. <v Fritjoff Capra>And you probably know that Theodore Roszak has come out with a book called Person Planet. <v Fritjoff Capra>And there he says that the needs of the person are the needs of the planet <v Fritjoff Capra>and vise versa. And the rights of the person are the rights of the planet. <v Fritjoff Capra>I think that's a very important step in this direction. <v Michael Toms>So we're really talking about an ecology of consciousness. <v Fritjoff Capra>Right. You know, I read a report about these chain letters. <v Fritjoff Capra>And one of these gurus, you know, is on <v Fritjoff Capra>them. And he was interviewed and he was asked, 'well, what about this chain letter?' And <v Fritjoff Capra>he said, 'well, oh, that's just business. I do this - I didn't considered as part of the <v Fritjoff Capra>dharma. I considered it as just a business investment.' I mean, it's just insane. <v Fritjoff Capra>[laugher] <v Michael Toms>I didn't make - as if you could separate something - <v Michael Toms>amazing - this is the dharma and this is the non-dharma. <v Michael Toms>Yes. We're talking with Fritjof Capra.

<v Michael Toms>You're listening to New Dimensions. This is KQED F.M. <v Michael Toms>in San Francisco. [music] We're <v Michael Toms>talking with Fritjof Capra and Fritjof, if I want to come back to a to a term that you

<v Michael Toms>used early on and that was the rising culture. <v Michael Toms>And you mentioned Ted Roszak's earlier book, Making of the counterculture, <v Michael Toms>and I really like your term 'rising culture' because I notice the use of the word <v Michael Toms>counter and the use of the word alternative kind of implies outside of the mainstream. <v Michael Toms>Rising culture kind of is part of it - sounds like it's part of the mainstream at least <v Michael Toms>becoming a part of it. <v Fritjoff Capra>Yes. In fact, I have never used it in that way. <v Fritjoff Capra>I've talked to, you know, and thought a lot about the rise and fall of cultures. <v Fritjoff Capra>But to call it the rising culture instead of the counterculture, it <v Fritjoff Capra>is really very nice. I have really learned this from Hazel Henderson, who is a <v Fritjoff Capra>radical economist or anti economist and futurist carrying <v Fritjoff Capra>on the work of Schumacher. She has written a book called Creating Alternative Futures, <v Fritjoff Capra>which you may know. And she pointed <v Fritjoff Capra>that out to me, that there is this dynamics about the rise <v Fritjoff Capra>and fall of cultures for reasons that are not well understood.

<v Fritjoff Capra>At least I don't understand them well, and I haven't really seen anybody or heard anybody <v Fritjoff Capra>who understands them well. <v Fritjoff Capra>Cultures and civilizations rise and then reach a culmination <v Fritjoff Capra>and then decline. It has to do with the resource base they're using. <v Fritjoff Capra>It has to do with the value system. <v Fritjoff Capra>It has to do with Gregory Bateson used the term cultural themes, <v Fritjoff Capra>which is a sort of, you know, very vague general term. <v Fritjoff Capra>And I'm very interested in those dynamics now. <v Fritjoff Capra>And I think that at the moment we are at a point where the <v Fritjoff Capra>uh- the main civilization, the main culture in which we are living is declining. <v Fritjoff Capra>And there's the rising culture, the rising counterculture, or whatever. <v Fritjoff Capra>Now, the rising culture is still in the minority. <v Fritjoff Capra>But as time goes on, it grows. <v Fritjoff Capra>And the other culture goes down. <v Fritjoff Capra>Now, the the traditional culture does not go down smoothly, <v Fritjoff Capra>but fights for it. And so we are we are seeing that many institutions <v Fritjoff Capra>are becoming more and more conservative.

<v Fritjoff Capra>They're becoming more rigid, more autocratic, <v Fritjoff Capra>more fascist, even if you wish. <v Fritjoff Capra>But I think that this dynamics is an evolutionary dynamics which <v Fritjoff Capra>is going to take place whether or not we want it or - or whether we hinder it or <v Fritjoff Capra>further it. And the only choice we have is to choose in - <v Fritjoff Capra>in which culture we want to be and whether we want to be part of the declining one or <v Fritjoff Capra>the rising one. So I'm very optimistic in - in terms of the future. <v Fritjoff Capra>Of course, now we are in a situation where we do have the possibility to <v Fritjoff Capra>stop everything.