The comfort/experience paradigm
In the Western world, a large proportion of people live in the so-called comfort/experience paradigm: people are focused on building an existence that is comfortable and filled as much as possible with positive or blissful experiences.
One believes to realize one’s happiness in life that way.
Simply put: if you make sure you build up enough material wealth and enough relationships, then you can live in a comfortable home, eat well, drive comfortably in a luxury car, enjoy distant travels, relax with family and friends, have adventures and also go on vacation a few times a year, in short, be happy.
The climate crisis has put pressure on the comfort/experience paradigm.
It is not good for the climate that people drive gas or gasoline-powered cars, take airplanes to travel far away, eat meat, cheese or other luxury products, use plastic, buy clothes made in environmentally polluting ways and so on.
Climate commandments and prohibitions (don’t fly, don’t eat meat, and so on) imply an impairment of comfort and experience, and will be perceived as inhibiting (not positive) by people who adhere to the comfort/experience paradigm.
Most adapt to some extent but not with enthusiasm.
With all the prohibitions and commandments, in their perception they have to “pay” for something they already have, namely an earth and nature, or pay for a cigar out of their own box.
Nation-bound eco-humanism
Viewed from a different paradigm (than the comfort/experience paradigm), however, climate commandments and prohibitions can also be perceived as positive.
To describe this paradigm, I would like to ask you to imagine that you own a garden that is full of beautiful flowers, grass, plants and trees.
Once you have realized such a garden, you have to maintain it.
Working in your own garden, clearing away weeds, watering plants and grass, pruning trees, is an activity that can be blissful in itself.
Those who lovingly care for the ecosystem “garden” see the fruits of their love growing and flourishing around them.
An ecosystem (eco comes from the Greek ‘oikos’ meaning dwelling or house) is a dwelling or living environment where different components interact and form a functional whole (system comes from the Greek ‘systema’ meaning assembly or whole).
You also understand that the ecosystem ‘garden’ is embedded in larger ecosystems, and that poor condition of the larger ecosystems negatively affects the garden and vice versa.
Think of acid rains, polluted air, decline in biodiversity and so on.
Similarly, we humans can see ourselves (our bodies and minds) as the center of an ecosystem that in turn is embedded in larger ecosystems.
Lovingly taking care of our own body, our own mind, and paying loving attention to the ecosystems around it can be a blissful activity if one cultivates the good mind attitude in oneself to do so.
For example, consider not consuming sugar, cigarettes or alcohol to keep your own body free of poison, cleaning your street and home, taking care of your garden, separating garbage, collecting rainwater and so on.
Every time you don’t drive your polluting car around is a contribution to a cleaner ecosystem.
Eating healthy and taking good care of yourself is similar to actively maintaining your garden, rich with plants, flowers and trees.
Of course, actions that involve the small ecosystem (your body and mind, and immediate habitat) more quickly lead to more visible results and gratitude.
Actions that involve the larger ecosystems that your small ecosystem, the micro-ecosystem, depends on, appeal less to the imagination.
Those who eat less or no meat do not immediately see the consequences.
The same goes for less travel and vacations.
Viewed from the comfort/experience paradigm, for an inveterate smoker, to leave a cigarette behind is to give up a piece of comfort and pleasure, a sacrifice, while from the garden paradigm, this act is equivalent to keeping your lungs free of pollution, an act of gratitude.
Similarly, numerous climate commandments and prohibitions in the garden paradigm are not perceived as negative, but as a positive contribution to, and an active shaping of, our micro-ecosystem of which our body and mind are the center.
Actively contributing to the flourishing of this ecosystem is like maintaining a beautiful garden.
Nations
However, our contemporary world is not divided into ecosystems but into nations.
Whether that is desirable or not, it is the reality we must take into account.
Nations generally have sharper demarcations than ecosystems.
Human individuals, in principle, all pursue their own well-being in their own way, but human coexistence in a nation, or in a smaller context such as a family, relatives or neighborhood, also has such a thing as common well-being: a human being depends for his own well-being on the well-being of the people with whom he lives and on whom he is more or less dependent, and in addition on the ecosystems of which he is a part.
Simply put, if the people on whom you depend (for example, your parents, or your spouse and children) are doing badly, that negatively affects your well-being, and if the people in the neighborhood where you live are doing badly, that negatively affects you.
Viewed at the national level, it is bad for you if the country where you live is in great trouble, due to high unemployment, serious environmental pollution, war or political strife.
Norms, values and rights
A nation, and also the smaller connections within it (family, neighborhood and so on) have something like general welfare, and participants have an interest in ensuring that general welfare is of a sufficiently high level.
Now, general welfare has a certain degree of abstraction (how do you measure it?) and therefore you cannot expect individuals to think about its impact on general welfare in every action.
Most societies solve this problem by establishing a set of general behavioral guidelines to promote general well-being.
We then talk about norms (commandments and prohibitions), values (things to strive for) and rights.[1] Such norms, values and rights are basically fixed (fixed) thoughts about what is right in a given situation.
It is important to note here that norms, values and rights should serve the common good and not the other way around.
If certain norms interfere with the general welfare, they should be modified.
Imagine coming to a country where the general welfare is extremely poor (everyone is dead unhappy) and someone would say, “Yes, that is because of our norms and values, but yes, we are not going to change them, because norms and values are more important than happiness. That would be the upside-down world.
Thus, contemporary man lives in a nation where something like general well-being is important to his happiness, and where a system of norms, values and rights exists to support him in making choices that promote or at least do not worsen the general well-being.
In the (nation’s) garden paradigm, there are four very important values namely flexibility, diversity, connectedness and tolerance.
Flexibility
Flexibility, being able to adapt to changing conditions, is a basic element of all life.
For an ecosystem with people to flourish and adapt to changing conditions, there must be sufficient flexibility in people.
Diversity
Diversity in an ecosystem with humans creates a wealth of life forms – something that is beautiful in itself – making the ecosystem more flexible and adaptable to changing conditions.
An ecosystem with only 1 or 2 life forms is inflexible and will sooner or later perish due to its own monoculture.
For example, consider an agricultural plot with only corn plants.
If these plants get sick, or if a certain species has it in for corn, this “ecosystem” is quickly destroyed.
Connection
Although diversity is important, diversity should not be unlimited.
Fundamental human needs include security, stability, order and social bonding.
Diversity that does not rest on a basis of connectedness cannot meet these needs.
As an example, take an average residential neighborhood in the Netherlands where mostly native Dutch people live.
Now imagine that suddenly a large group of immigrants from different countries of origin moves into that neighborhood, making up 50% of the population.
All these immigrants bring with them different values and norms, different languages, frames of reference, histories, and customs.
In addition, some of them may stay temporarily and thus have less attachment to neighborhood, fellow human beings.
They are also likely to have more loyalty to their country of origin, rather than to the Netherlands.
Such an influx of immigrants is very interesting for sociologists, but at the expense of the quality of life in the neighborhood (general well-being).
First of all, the need for security is at stake.
“Who are these other people, and what standards do they hold?”
Unfamiliarity with others, also implies unpredictability and thus insecurity.
This insecurity arises not so much because immigrants are allegedly criminal, but because of the lack of connection.
A native Dutchman with a flat bicycle tire who in the old situation (only native Dutchmen) would have dared to ring the doorbell at random to ask for a bicycle pump and a bucket of water, now realizes that the person who answers the door may not even understand him, may not even know what a bicycle pump is, and apart from that probably finds it inappropriate that a stranger rings his doorbell, and may even react suspiciously and become aggressive.
A native Dutchman who sees the blood dripping down his windows and does not know that his Muslim upstairs neighbor is slaughtering a sheep on his balcony for the feast of sacrifice may be frightened to death, and will not knock on the door of his upstairs neighbor’s house to have a chat about what he is doing on his balcony.
Apart from the lack of shared norms and values in such a multicultural neighborhood, there may also be conflicting norms and values.
Consider an imam who lectures his male listeners that you can beat your wife, as long as you don’t do it too hard.
An immigrant from Somalia who has his daughter circumcised and mutilated for life is another example.
Or consider a native Dutch boy who goes for a beer with a girl of parents from Morocco in the pub, and then incurs the wrath of the Moroccan family because he has offended the family honor.
Apart from the lack of common habits, norms and values, language, frame of reference and history in such a multicultural neighborhood, there is also such a thing as a lack of bonding and loyalty.
Many immigrants have come to live there for work, not planning to stay in the Netherlands for long.
Therefore, they are also reluctant to invest in the neighborhood and bond with its residents.
They prefer to invest in their country of origin to which they want to return one day.
Mind you, these problems of general welfare do not arise because immigrants are bad and native Dutch are good.
They arise because of the lack of connection between all these groups.
Too much cultural diversity in a society makes life unsafe, inefficient and unpredictable.
At its core, this problem also has nothing to do with racism and xenophobia, although of course a reaction to these problems can be racism or xenophobia.
In short, diversity must rest on a foundation of connectedness.
We want, to stay in our metaphor, a beautiful garden with lots of biodiversity, but we don’t want a chaotic wild garden.
Tolerance
An important value in the common values framework is tolerance of anything that differs from you, but at the same time promotes or at least does not worsen the general well-being.
I call this good tolerance.
Simply put: you are tolerant (in a good sense) of your neighbor who does yoga three times a day (even though you may think yoga is nonsense) because it doesn’t bother anyone.
You are (in a good sense) tolerant of that gay couple despite being heterosexual.
On the other hand, society must be intolerant of deviant behavior that undermines the general welfare.
Consider a neighbor who plays rock hard music at three in the morning and keeps everyone from sleeping.
Turning a blind eye to this behavior would be a form of poor tolerance.
For example, society should also be intolerant of that imam who preaches that homosexuality is a mortal sin.
In short, little good tolerance leads to a lack of diversity, and thus monoculture (think of a village in the bible belt), and too much bad tolerance leads to rampant diversity, or chaos.
International
A nation, like the Netherlands, is part of a world with other nations.
These nations often work together in so-called coalitions.
The Netherlands is part of the European Union and has its national defense invested in NATO in which the U.S. plays a leading role.
Opposing the EU and the U.S. is currently an occasional coalition of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
Nations or coalitions of nations often compete with each other economically but also in terms of scarce resources and spheres of influence.[2] Most nations depend on other nations for resources and other things (think air and water).
For example, consider Israel which depends on Syria for Jordan River water which controls the supply to the Sea of Galilee.
Israel also depends on the U.S. and the EU for its security.
International competition is different in nature from free competition between companies in a country like the Netherlands.
The general welfare in the Netherlands is served by free competition between companies, and legislation in the Netherlands tries to ensure that everything goes according to the rules of the game.
International competition has a much weaker legal basis.
While there is such a thing as an international legal order, and there is a World Trade Organization, disputes and trade wars regularly break out.
In international competition, a nation’s freedom, prosperity or even survival may be at stake.
Consider Israel, for example.
When competitiveness declines and the country is severely weakened economically, the survival of this nation is in jeopardy.
A well-functioning economy is necessary to maintain a good military,[3] War can only be sustained for a long time if the economy underneath allows you to do so.
Without certain economic reserves (oil, food, weapons, money)[4] a prolonged war is difficult to sustain.
Coalitions of countries competing with each other must ensure that they do not lag each other economically.
For example, should the EU, and therefore the Netherlands, fall seriously behind economically compared to the coalition of Russia, China and Iran, this poses major security risks.
Consider, for example, the former Soviet Union that could not keep up with the U.S. economically, and collapsed.
It is not an option for the EU to opt for zero growth or contraction when China is betting on robust economic growth and innovation.
So we see that within a nation something like general welfare is a clear concept, and it also pays for all participants to contribute to the general welfare within the nation, but we cannot simply speak of general welfare internationally.
As long as there are nations on this earth, and some of them, whether in the form of nation-coalitions or not, are in competition with each other over scarce resources or territory, it may be that the welfare of nation B is bad for the welfare of nation A. Simply put: it may pay for nation A to make sure that nation B does badly.
In the case where nation A and nation B are engaged in a war of annihilation with each other, this need not be at all obvious.
In summary, it would be nice if the world were put together in such a way that there is general welfare on a global scale that we could all strive for, but the current situation in the world makes that a pipe dream for now.
Because each nation is part of an international world with coalitions and power blocs, and because of the scarcity of resources and land, one must pursue the general welfare within a nation taking into account international relations.
Economic contraction may be good for the environment, but it may be bad for a nation’s security.
A balance will have to be struck between general welfare within the nation and security in relation to other nations.
Nation-bound eco-humanism
The paradigm in which the well-being of people within a nation, nature and ecosystem is pursued, taking into account international relations, I call nation-based eco-humanism.
Important in this is human connectedness within a nation through common language, norms and values, customs[5] and so on through which the general well-being is promoted or maintained.
What is important in this, then, is not so much the specific and accidental way in which this connectedness has taken shape (this language, these norms and values, this frame of reference).
Nation-bound eco-humanism is thus quite different from nationalism in which something as abstract as the national, the popular soul or the sacred nation is propagated.
Nation-bound eco-humanism does not consider one nation better than another, or one people or race better than another.
I am happy to contribute to thinking about and shaping the discussed nation-bound eco-humanism.
How can we ensure that nation-bound eco-humanism replaces the comfort/experience paradigm?
The Christian paradigm as a stand in the way of nation-bound eco-humanism
My mission is to reduce or combat paradigms that stand in the way of the new paradigm.
One is the old Christian paradigm.
Before the comfort/experience paradigm broke through in Europe, the Christian paradigm was dominant.
The life goal of many people was not to experience comfort and exciting things, but to become worthy of the eternal happy life in the afterlife by following the precepts of Jesus.
This Christian paradigm seems to have largely disappeared in Western Europe but its remnants can still be seen everywhere in our thinking, without us being aware of it, something we will show further on.
The Christian paradigm, either actively lived by people or only present in residual form, is a stand in the way of nation-bound eco-humanism. [6]
It should also be noted that the Christian paradigm is still very dominant in Eastern Europe – Russia, Hungary, Poland – and in the U.S., and South America.
We see this in such things as anti-abortion and anti-euthanasia legislation.
We see it in the discrimination against homosexuals in Russia and Hungary, and the culture clash in the US.
Why exactly is the Christian paradigm such a stand in the way of the new paradigm?
First, we should note that the Christian faith has all kinds of variants.
On the left, there is a fundamentalist version in which the stories contained in the gospels are believed literally.
In it, Jesus is son of God, risen from the dead, and ascended to heaven; everyone who follows his commandments will rise bodily from the dead and share eternal happy life.
On the right is a version of the Christian faith in which one can no longer really speak of faith.
In that version, Jesus is a teacher, a humanist who preached a gospel of empathy and humanity.
Stories like Jesus’ resurrection from the dead should be understood in that version as metaphors and comparisons for spiritual resurrection.
What matters is compassion, not a beautiful afterlife.
That version is basically a form of humanism, where Jesus is revered as a special person.
I call this Jezism.
Historically, one can see a development in Europe whereby the fundamentalist version of the Christian faith has lost strength and adherence, and has gradually moved to a humanist version.
This does not alter the fact that in certain parts of society the fundamentalist version is still adhered to, or that there is sometimes a counter-movement that moves again toward more fundamentalism.
And also in Europe, it is possible that due to changing circumstances (collapse of the economy resulting in chaos and poverty, a third world war), a movement toward the old Christian paradigm may start.
When I speak of the Christian paradigm in the sequel I have in mind the fundamentalist version of Christianity, and I conceive of its loss of following and strength as a gradual weakening and extinction of the paradigm.[7]
I focus in this discussion on the Christian paradigm in its full force.
Why is it a stand in the way of the new paradigm?
I indicated earlier that the new paradigm has four key values, namely flexibility, diversity, connectedness and tolerance.
Intolerance
At its core, the Christian paradigm is intolerant of other worldviews.
According to this paradigm, there is only one god and he is omnipotent.
Other non-human and non-animal beings are angels (helpers of God) or devils (enemies of God).
A religion like that of the Hindus, for example, with its hundreds of gods, has no problem worshipping another unknown god, such as the Christian god.
“There are already many gods, why not add another?”
Conversely, this is not true.
All gods other than the Christian god are nonexistent in the Christian paradigm, and if they do exist, they must be devils, and so worshipping them is a mortal sin.
Consider, for example, gods of the Incas such as Inti, Viracocha, Pachamama and Illapa who were relegated to demons by the Spanish conquerors of Peru.
The Christian paradigm also has great intolerance toward doubters and apostates.
The Christian faith teaches the bodily resurrection from the dead, that is, it tries to make a person believe that his dead body, eaten by worms, will rise from the grave and become like new again.
Our bodies, however, are part of an awesome nature that follows inexorable laws of life, decay and death.
Throughout his life, a human being sees animal and human bodies grow up, become stronger, age and die.
New young bodies appear, but it never happens that a disintegrated body becomes like new again.
Anyone who wants to believe the resurrection story must believe against the awesome nature, as it were.
No human being can do such a hard job alone.
It is like pushing away a heavy boulder.
One man is not strong enough for that, but thousands of people together are.
All these people together can believe the impossible, though, and each participant draws his strength from all those other people who all say they believe this.
Belief in the bodily resurrection from the dead is not something you do alone but all together.
“I believe because you believe” and vice versa.
Because people depend on each other to believe this, there is great intolerance toward doubters and apostates.
Doubters violate the tacit agreement of the Christian faith, which is that you never believe alone, but always believe together.
In short, doubters no longer “play along” and ruin it for the rest of the group.
Someone who openly doubts the resurrection story as a Christian reminds the other Christians of something they would rather not or never think about again, namely, that deep down inside they also doubt.
This will lead them to want to show that they do not doubt, or are completely sure of their faith.
They can show this by committing an irreversible act, an act of extreme intolerance, which you only dare to commit if you are absolutely “sure” of your case, namely burning or executing a person (in this case the doubter).
Think, for example, of all the heretic burnings and executions in the Middle Ages.
In this way, the group “proves” that there are no doubts, and at the same time cleans up the person who ruins it for everyone else.
The same, of course, applies to someone who openly declares that he no longer believes.
Furthermore, the Christian faith is intolerant toward dissenters.
It is a conversion faith, or a faith that tries to convert people who adhere to another religion to Christianity.
This explains why there are currently some 2 billion Christians on earth.[8] Christianity, in the eyes of its adherents, is an offer you can’t refuse. Who wouldn’t want an eternal happy life after death?
No religion, except Islam, has something so wonderful on offer.
“If you reject that, you’re not right in the head. And it is not only stupid, but also ungrateful because Jesus, according to Christian doctrine, suffered horribly on the cross to give mankind, and therefore you, this beautiful gift. And you just turn that down?”
Rejection of the Christian faith leads to resentment and misunderstanding among Christians.
If someone then does not move in the right direction with a gentle hand, it must be done with a hard hand, for his own good.
After all, Christian societies are intolerant of secular societies that have many freedoms and diversity.
These are sinful and degraded (think of the Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that had to be destroyed) in the eyes of Christians.
For example, look at how Western Europe is thought of in Russia.
In short, the Christian faith is extremely intolerant of other worldviews, of doubters and apostates, dissenters, and societies that have many freedoms and diversity.
Rigid
Flexibility also suffers in a society dominated by Christianity.
We noted earlier that norms, values and rights are fixed (rigid) thoughts that should promote the common good.
If they fail in this they should be modified (flexible).
Norms and values are there for the good, not the other way around.
With Christianity, it is the other way around.
According to the Christian, Christian norms and values come from God and are therefore sacred and have eternal value.
What God has issued in commandments and prohibitions, man may not change.
If a Christian is not comfortable with Christian norms and values (think homosexuals), he should just adapt.
If he then still feels unhappy, then tough luck.[9] From the perspective of earthly happiness and well-being, however, there is the opposite world.
If certain norms and values no longer or no longer serve earthly well-being, then they must be adapted (flexible).
With changing times and circumstances, rigidity in this area can lead to a major mismatch between norms and values on the one hand and earthly well-being on the other.
We saw this in the 1960s in the Netherlands, when the Christian populace began to emancipate and no longer wanted to feel trapped by Christian dignitaries.
Monoculture
Christian norms and values, which Christians believe come from God, have a certain type of person, a certain type of society, and a certain type of behavior in mind: the heterosexual person who marries, follows the Christian commandments, adopts the Christian worldview, starts a family, raises his children Christianly, goes to church, and so on.
Anything beyond that – homosexuals, transgender people, pagans, atheists, doubters, apostates, followers of another religion and so on – is no good, should conform or disappear.
Thus a monoculture in a society threatens to develop, a total lack of diversity.
No good motivation for solving climate crisis
Earth’s ecosystems are in a major crisis (climate change).
Saving the ecosystems will require unprecedented efforts by humanity.
People must be willing to make great sacrifices.
Christians are less motivated to do this, because they believe that there is an almighty good god who will make sure that everything will be all right in the end, both with this earth, and with all people.
A Christian may still want to do his best for the environment, but if he does not, he thinks, all is not lost because God has the power in his hands to solve all these problems, and God is good, so all will be well. True, Christian morality in name preaches something like stewardship and caring for life and nature, but the history of the Western world, predominantly Christian during the last millennium, teaches us that no other continent has wreaked such disastrous havoc on nature as Western/Christian.
Inadequate thinking
In our contemporary world, we see a multitude of powers with opposing interests and directions.
Think of companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, Exxon, Shell, as well as nations like the U.S., China and Russia.
Powers rise, become dominant, weaken and fall.
These powers often enter into varying coalitions with each other, and sometimes one coalition is dominant and sometimes another.
Sometimes there is war and chaos, and sometimes there is some kind of balance and equilibrium. The idea of the one all-powerful Christian god who wants a certain direction with the world is not consistent with how our world works.
In summary, the Christian paradigm is characterized by a high degree of intolerance, rigidity and monoculture, and is thus a stand in the way of nation-bound eco-humanism.
[1] You can compare this to traffic. General welfare in traffic is that traffic flows well, and for that purpose a number of commandments and prohibitions have been established (give right of way, stop at red lights and so on) and values (respect, kindness) and rights (on a highway you are allowed to drive 100 km per hour).
[2] Theoretically, with abundance, there would be no struggle for existence, but earthly life is characterized by scarcity of resources, land and water. Many wars arise over resources or territories.
[3] In addition, one’s own security depends on the coherence in a nation (is there unity?) and the loyalty of its inhabitants and the motivation to possibly fight against invaders.
[4] Think of hunter-gatherers who have no supplies and cannot fight protracted wars.
[5] Certain handed-down customs can have something ritualistic and sacred about them. Because they have a long history, they have something venerable that can inspire awe in an individual (which is good against self-centeredness). You are doing something that has been handed down from many generations over hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Such a long past gives it a certain weight. Any new habit or ritual will have to grow just like a young tree, and it will take many years for it to gain heavy weight.
[6] Reflections on the Christian paradigm can be extrapolated to the Islamic paradigm which has many similarities to the Christian one.
[7] So I do not conceive of the gradual development from Christian fundamentalism to Christian-colored humanism as a paradigm shift, but as a gradual weakening of an old paradigm. That said, as already mentioned, the old paradigm can regain strength if the situation in society changes dramatically ( collapse of the economy, poverty and war).
[8] Note that the more people are converted to the Christian faith, the stronger the power of the masses to believe the impossible (resurrection from the dead), and the better you can suppress doubts.
[9] But according to Christian teaching, this sorrow is more than made up for after death, at least if you have faithfully followed the Christian commandments. “Better temporarily unhappy now, than eternally unhappy later.”
