Stage 3: A Vision of Human Evolution

Stage 3

A Vision of Human Evolution

By Scott A. Lape

Copyright 2013 Scott Arthur Lape

Smashwords Edition

For Michael, Henry, and Julia

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1: Three Stages of Consciousness

Chapter 2: Evolution of the Individual

Chapter 3: Marriage

Chapter 4: Evolution of Society

Chapter 5: Religion

Chapter 6: Science

Chapter 7: The Economy

Chapter 8: Politics and Law

Chapter 9: Other Aspects of Culture

Chapter 10: Visions of Transformation

Chapter 11: Awakening

About the Author

Resources

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

I have enjoyed the help and support of many people over the years as I have developed the ideas in this book. I’m grateful to my mother, Silvia Milosevich, for her fun-loving spirit, gentle wisdom, and unfailing love. I’m grateful to my father, Bruce Lape, whose love of life, taste for adventure, and independent thinking have inspired me since my boyhood. My stepmother, Mary Lape, was kind enough to read the first draft of the book, and has always been a sympathetic friend to me. I’d like to thank my stepfather, Vincent Milosevich, for sharing his love of books and ideas with me, for stimulating me with his writing in many genres, and for encouraging me always to philosophize in the grand manner. My sister, Kristen Lape, has encouraged me from the beginning of this project, and I am deeply grateful for her presence in my life. I send my most sincere thanks as well to the many other members of my wonderful family for their dependable love.

Several friends read the manuscript at an early stage and offered helpful feedback, including Lee Esbenshade, Sten Hoiland, Karen Howells, and Hugh Kern. Other friends have given me invaluable philosophical companionship and general encouragement over many years, including Kevin Barry, Erica Charlesworth, Eiko Cusick, Ly Doan, Lora Ferguson, Marc Gabriel, Julie Graber, Stephen Growdon, Leslie Hall, Jens Harlander, Anne Harvey, Sandy Hayano-Lavin, Shawn Lavin, Leigh Ann Lipscomb, Walter Lucio, Kathleen Makel, Darren Marshall, Jena Milosevich, Glen Orcutt, Shawn Purcell, Vicky Scheuerell, Ted Sullivan, and Rob Sylvester. I’ve been lucky to have you all in my life. I’m grateful to my dance teacher, Jacia Kornwise, for inspiring me to spend less time in my head and more in my body. And I feel tremendous gratitude for the help of my editor, Susan Dobra, whose thorough and sympathetic reviews of the manuscript have improved it immensely, and whose enthusiasm for the project helped me follow it through.

I’m very grateful to my daughter, Julia McCarthy, whose lively presence always lifts my spirits, and who recently inspired me with her creative energy and dedication to a film project that took well over a year to complete. Finally, I want to express the most profound gratitude to my wife, Theresa McCarthy, for all her love and support, for her keen insight as she has helped me develop the ideas in this book, and for the inspiring example of personal evolution that she shows me every day.

Preface

My intention in writing this book is to contribute to the great transformation of culture and consciousness that we humans are experiencing in these times. Many of us feel that a leap forward in human evolution is necessary if we are to survive with any dignity much longer. We see grave problems on all sides, worsening daily, and we do not believe that our dominant social, economic, and political institutions are capable of solving them. Indeed, we feel that most of our worst problems are caused by these institutions. Only a radical revision of our way of life can save us, and it must begin with a transformation of consciousness, in individuals and in society as a whole. We will never dismantle the institutions that create war, poverty, and injustice until we grow beyond our limited ways of thinking and feeling that allow us to accept these evils.

And it's happening, all over the world. More and more people are working to heal themselves, learning to let go of old patterns and consciously create the lives they want. More and more of us are questioning the dominant values of money and power, and working to create a world that honors life above all. Though the times seem dark, and the forces of military and economic empire have the upper hand, there is much cause for hope. People everywhere are recognizing the insanity of a civilization that destroys the living systems of Earth that we depend on. People everywhere are sick and tired of an economic system that creates massive wealth for a few and poverty for billions. We're outraged by the senseless violence all around us, from men who beat their wives and children to the bloody wars of empire. We've had enough. And we know there is a better way: the path of compassion, of tolerance, of love for each other and all beings. The crisis of the present time creates the necessary conditions for a sweeping change in humanity. It can happen fast. We are at the tipping point. With hard work, and plenty of luck, we will awaken in the nick of time. At long last, we will recognize our collective freedom and responsibility, shake off the illusions that have caused so much pain, and begin to create the better world we have long dreamed of.

In this book, I propose a simple, three-stage process as a model to help us understand the development of individuals and societies, in the hope that such understanding can help us make the evolutionary leap. The model is grounded in the simplest human experience: consciousness itself. I treat consciousness as an irreducible, primary process, the starting point of inquiry, rather than as a phenomenon to be analyzed or explained in any terms whatsoever. From this perspective, I identify three levels of consciousness, through which individuals and societies progress if conditions permit. I have chosen the content-free labels Stage 1, Stage 2, and Stage 3, to emphasize that I see these as fundamental process-structures, forms of consciousness that underlie all experience. After developing this framework, I use it to guide a discussion of individual and especially societal evolution. My purpose, again, is to help stoke the fire of the transformation that is leading to a better future, a future in which every single one of us will enjoy a dignified, peaceful, and happy life.

Introduction

I am a lucky man. Right now I am enjoying a delicious lentil soup for lunch. It's winter, but a wool blanket is keeping me warm, and the roof over my head does not leak. The air coming in my window is clean and fresh, and I have filtered water to drink. Outside I hear some traffic, but it's not too close; the occasional voices I hear are friendly and unafraid. In this moment, all is well—for me. But great numbers of people around the world are not so lucky. How many billions of human beings do not always have enough to eat? How many billions drink polluted water and breathe polluted air? How many lack housing, education, and health care? How many are menaced daily by men with assault rifles? All of these people are being denied the basic necessities of a dignified human life. And even the more fortunate among us lack other necessities of the spirit: time in nature, meaningful work, unconditional love. Too many of us suffer from stress, depression, and anxiety; too many are victims of crime, and too many commit crimes; too many of us rot in prison. Military budgets and prison budgets expand every year, while schools and parks run short of funds. The Arctic ice cap melts and global weather patterns change, while we continue to pump greenhouse gases into the skies. The gap between rich and poor grows wider every year, the inevitable result of unrestrained global capitalism. Human population continues to grow; by now we have probably gone well past the long-term carrying capacity of Earth. We are overpumping aquifers, overfishing the oceans, overgrazing the grasslands, overcutting the forests, turning farmlands into desert and pavement, overwhelming the biosphere with our wastes. The fossil fuels that have driven our population explosion are running out; world production of oil and natural gas will peak within the next few years. World grain production will likewise soon peak and then decline. Within this century, we will reach a historic watershed: our human population, after so many centuries of going up and up, will reach an all-time high, and then decrease. Never again will there be so many humans on the planet all at once. One way or another, our population will be reduced to a sustainable level. It might be possible to manage this process consciously, avoiding great suffering. But the way we are going, it seems more likely that our numbers will come down in a hell of famine, disease, and war.

In recent decades, many of us have been horrified by the slide of the United States into what looks more and more like fascism, complete with a corporate-controlled state that curtails civil liberties, tortures its prisoners, and embarks on ever-expanding military adventures overseas. Whether the Republicans or the Democrats are in power, the federal government acts primarily to protect the interests of capital, using lawyers, guns, and money at home and overseas to ensure that corporations continue to rule the world. This is indeed horrifying, but it is nothing new. Since the dawn of civilization the powerful have used force to enrich themselves at the expense of the weak. The United States government is just the latest expression of the forces of money and power that have dominated public life for five thousand years.

We must do all we can to resist fascism and military empire. But we must recognize that our problems run even deeper. Our civilization is using natural resources far more rapidly than the Earth can renew them, and will soon run into a brick wall. No magical technology is going to appear in time to save us. As our ecosystems continue to deteriorate, more and more people will suffer. As we run out of oil, soil, and water, as economies and societies collapse, we will see much worse than the American Empire. As our inherently unsustainable civilization falls apart, we will fight over the wreckage until we all perish—unless, perhaps, we wake up, see what's happening, and choose differently. And I believe that we will. We will create a new way of living, a planetary society founded on the principle of peace and plenty for all, holding sacred the right of every human being to a dignified life, honoring all life and the planet itself. Indeed, millions of us are already working to build that society. We envision a world where every person has food and shelter, clean air and water, good work to do, lifelong education and health care, time for leisure and love. We envision a world without war, without sexism, without racism, without any institutions that do violence to body and soul. We envision a sustainable civilization that works in partnership with nature, that leaves a healthy environment for our children, that values life over the abstract institutions of money and power. It is in our power to create such a world. This is the great work of our time. As the present-day civilization dies, we will build a better one to take its place.

We tend to regard our industrial civilization as a great achievement. Certainly we have invented wonders: machines that wash the dishes, machines that fly, machines that almost manage to think. But what joy has our technology brought? Are we happier now with our cars, freeways, and parking lots? With our televisions, cell phones, and computers? With our plastic water bottles and plastic food? With our leaf-blowers? With our guns, tanks, and bombs? I would trade it all for a single day in the world we see in children's books—a world of unspoiled countryside, thatched cottages by sparkling brooks, and unhurried afternoons, where animals talk, people listen, and each tree has a name.

For me, perhaps the worst thing about this artificial civilization we have created is its ugliness. As the Romantic poets of an earlier age recoiled from the squalor of early industrialism, so do I recoil from the signs of progress all around me. Especially here in America, where the aesthetic sense has been stunned into a coma, every landscape is blighted by some monument to the Gross Domestic Product—here a Wal-Mart, there a McDonald's; here a smoking power plant, there a