claustrophobic powerlessness…

“One… gets an impression that civilization is something which was imposed on a resisting majority by a minority which understood how to obtain possession of the means to power and coercion. It is, of course, natural to assume that these difficulties are not inherent in the nature of civilization itself but are determined by the imperfections of the cultural forms which have so far been developed.” – Sigmund Freud

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People everywhere seem to be in the grip of a sense of claustrophobic powerlessness–a sense that deepens in direct proportion to the advance of globalization. This is, in my view, an inevitable outcome of the arrogance and egotism
that pursues profit blindly, imagining that human society can continue to exist even as it destroys the natural and cultural environment. We ignore at our peril the timeless words of José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) regarding the essential unity of our lives and our surroundings–“I am myself plus my circumstance, and if I do not save it, I cannot save myself.” – Daisaku Ikeda, Source: Excerpt from the 2009 Peace Proposal