What Did Happen In 2012?
January 2013 Channelling
At the end of 2012 The Daily Telegraph asked: “was 2012 the year when the democratic world lost its grip on reality? Any political leader prepared to deceive the electorate into believing that government spending, and the vast system of services that it provides, can go on as before was propelled into office virtually by acclamation”
The Mail Online reported: “record numbers of police officers are being investigated for corruption. Anti-corruption units across the country are wrestling with a workload of 245 cases every month, a 62% rise from the year before.”
The Guardian said: “capitalism in the late 20th Century became a monster. The results are hideously apparent. What hopefully will emerge from the rubble is a capitalism that creates jobs, creates value, provides security and promotes fairness, the civil and civilised capitalism that was always promised but never with the smallest modicum of real commitment or sincerity.”
There has been no shortage of compelling human drama in 2012, but there have also been deeper themes, turning-points and watersheds. For some reason one of the most significant to me is the dawning recognition that evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, whose most famous book is ‘The Selfish Gene’, might after all, be an ‘Emperor with no clothes’.
A few days ago, renowned theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, told The Guardian that he agrees with those who find Dawkins’ approach to dealing with believers ‘embarrassing’. He added that he thinks Dawkins does a dis-service to science. “What Dawkins does too often is to concentrate his attack on fundamentalists. Dawkins in a way is almost a fundamentalist himself, of another kind.”
Guidelines
The most important thing to say about 2012 is that the world survived a holocaust. What we mean is that the most intense destruction of humanity has been going on under the radar – throughout the Western world as well as the East and Middle Eastern worlds. Yes, a real attempt at destruction through the most insidious means possible.
For example, in the West there has been a systematic destruction of all the values that are decent in humanity. In other parts of the world there has been an attempt at the destruction of all those who dissent.
The world may not have come to its end in 2012, but it did come close to ending all that was flourishing and decent, to become a dead and destructed world.
However. It did so to become a new world. It is like those spontaneous forest fires, which look highly destructive, but in fact are nature’s way of getting back to the roots of things. It is a destruction that ultimately allows a new beginning, the burgeoning of healthy activity, and produces once again a vibrant forest, flourishing with renewed integrity.
There is a sense that man has come of age, that the child has become the adult. No longer will that ‘selfish gene’ rule the hearts of humanity in the old way. The child that had a tantrum to get what it wanted: the greed of the child to have more than the next child, and who fought for his supremacy no matter what.
The idea of ‘the selfish gene’, promulgated with such tenacity, has become a bloated, self-important message. But this is not the truth of human kindness; it is not the truth of the way humanity is emerging in this moment of tremendous upheaval and change.
The ‘selfish gene’ is losing the battle. Above and beyond the selfish gene that has been driving mankind to extinction, is the overlay of the magnificence of what it is to be truly human. Humanity now has the opportunity to move into a new phase of altruistic wellbeing.
Altruism is not self-regarding, but asks the question ‘how do I fit in’? Altruism is not about ruling the environment, but allows us to remember that the world is a place of a deeper nature: a nature driven by the force of love, not by the instinct to survive (which is also the instinct to be superior).
It is now the time to recognise deep down that what we really want – and need – is the opportunity to play our part in the world of nature. Not to conquer but to love and, in that loving kindness, to co-operate.
The future is about globalisation, yes, but globalisation in the sense of an increasing awareness of co-operative action. The world is mixing and matching like never before. Great swathes of people are moving across continents through war, famine and fear. Ultimately we will begin to truly recognise that all men and women are equal, and that the way to lead a country is to start from that understanding.
Read More: December 2012 Channelling ‘THE COURAGE TO LIVE’
Next edition of Annie’s Notebook: January 18th