Life is a Web

The world we inhabit is a contingent world. What I mean by "contingent world" is that all facets of human existence are interdependent or conditional. Mahatma Gandhi wrote, "Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being." We would be wise to cast of any remaining delusions that America enjoys complete independence. I would suggest we also go so far as to stop emphasizing individual independence over mutual interdependence. The world is small but we need to begin thinking big.

Take the crisis in Syria, for example. The civil war that has displaced millions of Syrians was precipitated, in large part, by an historic drought. For several years, drought has been forcing people in remote regions of Syria into the cities where there are more resources available to starving people. Those who are living remotely are unwelcome in the cities because they are religious and ethnic minorities. Centuries of anger and fear, held at bay by severe political oppression, have boiled over as a result of this sudden admixture of many out-groups with a deeply-entrenched in-group. We should not, then, think of the two million refugees as victims of war. They are first victims of famine caused by sudden and catastrophic climate variations. The violence in Syria (and throughout the Middle East) is food-related and resulting from a conviction that benefits of power inure solely to those in power. I suggest that we begin to understand food production, policy, and security as something of greater concern than expensive eggs. Getting serious about climate change and sustainable agricultural methods presents an existential crisis. Syria is, for us, a reminder that ethnic and religious fragmentation, even the nascent (but growing) fractures we're experiencing in the U.S., is a foundational instability that we cannot afford to abide.