What if society was based on spiritual values, not property?

What if society was based on spiritual values, not property? I finished two books today. When I get to the second one I’ll explain how that happened. They also fit well together. The first book is The Peacekeeper by B. L. Blanchard. What attracted me to this book is the setting – North America (actually the whole world) not colonized by Europe. The time is 2020 (thought the first chapter begins with the date in many calendar systems). Many of our modern conveniences exist in this world with smartphones being the most obvious. There are also high speed trains (cars aren’t mentioned), living skyscrapers, and modern forensic science. The skyscrapers are designed with space for trees on balconies (yes, this is a real thing, see here for an example). The story follows Chibenashi, resident of the small tourist town of Baawitigong (near what we know of as Sault Ste. Marie). When he was seventeen his mother was murdered and his father way too quickly confessed to the crime and asked to be sent to prison. That left him to care for his sister Ashwiyaa, twelve at the time. She didn’t handle the loss of her parents and goes frantic or almost catatonic whenever anyone but Chibenashi cares for her. The one exception is Meoquanee, their mother’s best friend whose own husband and son deserted her. Twenty years later Meoquanee is murdered. Chibenashi is now a peacekeeper, the equivalent of a policeman, though their small community doesn’t need much policing. He is assigned to the case, which brings up ties to the previous murder. To help solve the case Chibenashi must go to the big city, Shikaakwa, on the southwest shore of Ininwewi-gichigami (Lake Michigan). That makes me wonder if the huge city at that location in our world derived its name from a native name. This is the place with the living skyscrapers. It has much more sophisticated police force and forensic tools. It is also where his father is in prison. So, yeah, this is a murder mystery. The author is very good at introducing new information that upends what Chibenashi (and the reader) understood up to that time. Alas, Chibenashi is too emotionally involved in the case. It’s a good mystery. It is also a good way to describe what North America might have been like if natives had kept control. I’ve mentioned the living skyscrapers. There are city layouts that incorporate a great deal more nature. There is a description of an alternate justice system, based on restoring (as much as possible) the victim rather than punishing the perpetrator. Instead of lawyers and judges there are advocates and mediators. One of the characters is an economics professor and he is given a chance to expound on how their economic system differs from capitalism and communism. Their system is based more on community and on the idea that a person or community gives of their surplus with the hope their needs are met by other people or communities giving of their surplus. I very much enjoyed this story and towards the end didn’t want to put it down. I usually don’t like mysteries (the story is about a death), but the description of the society the author created was well worth the read. The mystery, plot, and characters were pretty good too. I recommend it. On to the second book. It is Native Wisdom for White Minds, Daily Reflections Inspired by the Native Peoples of the World by Anne Wilson Shaef. In the past I’ve used Christian daily devotion guides that have a page for each day of the year. Each page has a Bible verse, a writer’s commentary on it, and a prayer. This is similar. Each page has a sentence or more of wisdom from a native community, Shaef’s reflection on it, and her prayer. The wisdom comes from American natives, Hawaiian Kupuna, Australian aborigines, the Maori of New Zealand, South American natives, even the Irish. Yeah, I’m writing about it at the end of January, rather than the beginning, because there were many days I forgot to open it. Even with doubling up towards the end of the year I still didn’t finish it until now. I found the book 18 moths ago in the Indigenous shop in Stratford, Ontario. The title intrigued me, so I bought it (and a couple other books on native themes I’ve since read). During the year I wrote down on an index card the dates and topics of thoughts that intrigued me. By the end of the book I had filled the card. I can’t share all of them, but I will share many. For some I quoted the native speaker, for others I quote Shaef’s reflection, and in a few I wrote a summary. You don’t need to ask me permission to quote something I have written or said. We are both doing the work of the Creator. Our responsibility is to get the information out there. Use whatever you like. – Don Coyhis, Mohican American native. Shaef added: Possession is an illusion. Western society (especially American evangelicals) focus on the family of a man, a woman, and children. Native wisdom says that is too narrow. Children benefit from having a community of aunties, uncles, and siblings. Why is it that right now Western governments are increasingly pushing the isolated nuclear family [rather than the extended family and community] as society’s building blocks? – Shaef Also on the nuclear family: Some of us are even beginning to wonder why our societal structures keep pushing for a model that produces damaged individuals. – Shaef “We” overrides “me.” – Hawaiian proverb. Shaef added that many of the laws in Western culture actually work against community. Everything in the universe is perfect. People and anything else only become less than perfect when compared to someone or something else. – Rangimarie Turuki Pere, Maori Too many times we use the word “illiterate” to describe people who are not formally educated in Western science and culture but understand the world and its wisdom much better than Western culture does. Sometimes it’s difficult for “civilized” people of the world to believe that “primitive” people can look at our way of life with all its advantages and not want it. It’s even more difficult to believe that they find our way of life not only undesirable but primitive. – Shaef Earth, water, and sea belong to the gods and people are here to enhance them, not deplete them. – Hawaiian Kupuna When we realize that we are, indeed, one with others, we become less willing to destroy them, because we understand that we are, in essence, destroying ourselves. – Shaef. We work volunteer – you could never get people to work this hard if you paid them for it. – Bruce Stewart, Maori Hawaii works for personal excellence, the West works for money. – Patrick Ka’ano’i, Hawaii One must have a good heart and a good mind and use both. Much of Western culture is built on exclusion. Native culture is built on inclusion. Perhaps only when people can enjoy their differences as a resource of cultural enrichment do they become truly civilized. – Herb Kawainui Kane, Kupuna Only a system that believes it has the right, yea, even the mandate, to dominate and control (and often destroy) would have the arrogance to see a people who live every moment of their lives in deep spirituality as “wicked and unsaved.” – Shaef No one needs help to get into trouble. – Maori proverb. Status is gained by mobilizing and redistributing wealth, not by hoarding capital. – Patricia Kinloch, Health Services researcher in Samoa Many Westerners are too busy trying to impose our culture to let ourselves be happy. How can people say one skin is colored when each has its own coloration? What should it matter that one bowl is dark and the other pale, if each is of good design and serves its purpose well? – Elizabeth Q. White, Hopi, American native Only when we have a religion that is a closed system that cannot tolerate the existence of other systems do we have to legislate controls. Closed systems are by nature controlling and are threatened by open systems. Open systems are not threatened by closed systems because all are allowed existence. – Shaef. It seems [white people] have something in their life called gravy. They know truth but it is buried under thickening and spices of convenience, materialism, insecurity, and fear. – Australian aboriginal On missionaries: We cannot read their book – they tell us different stories about what it contains, and we believe they make the book talk to suit themselves. If we had no money, no land and no country to be cheated out of, these black coats would not trouble themselves about our good hereafter. The Great Spirit will not punish us for what we do not know. – Red Jacket, Seneca, American native A good thing sells itself. A bad thing is advertized. – Swahili proverb In the Western world we have capitalism, communism, and socialism, and all are based upon economics. What would a society look like that is based upon spiritual values instead of property? – Schaef In Western culture, we seem to have set up a dualism: I do what is good for the community/I have to deny myself. Native people do not operate out of that dualism. Their worldview moves them from the individual to the community to the whole. – Shaef Each person is known to have a certain gift and certain ability, and is therefore able to make a contribution to the whole. There will be the expert in bone carving; the expert in weaving, but there is in the extended family a place for all. – Hiwi Tauroa, Maori One important belief is that the Creator has given a unique heritage to each and every culture across the world. No culture is more or less important than another – to suggest that there is, is to criticize the Creator. – Rangimarie Turuki Pere, Maori