Greenest Before Dawn

I’ve been thinking about the difference between the Green and the Brown worldviews. I’m beginning to see a polarity, a conflict, that may be the big conflict of this century.

How could I describe the conflict concisely? Small, decentralized communities vs power and hierarchies.

Surprisingly, I don’t think that nature is the key factor. Few people seriously argue against nature. We all love nature. The argument is always: “We are sorry, but we need to sacrifice nature for the benefit of humans.”

I think the root motivation is social: to maintain one’s place in the human hierarchy or to climb higher. Greed, for example, is not the physiological desire for more food (there is only so much you can eat), or for the pure pleasure of owning clothes, houses, and possessions. It is the social status that accrues.