The Universe Story : From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era--A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos

Author Swimme zooms around the globe in commercial air transports, speaking at "earthspirit rising" conferences, telling his audiences that humanity needs to embrace the "new story" so the Earth can bloom again. He has also written to me stating that "knowledge of complex systems is crucial."

Swimme is in a predicament here. In this book, he shakes his fists at consumerism, rages against the machine, and complains about environmental degradation. Yet for whatever reasons, he does not see fit to eschew commercial air transportation and instead walk to the conferences he speaks at. It's my view Swimme can't have it both ways. He asserts that knowledge of complex systems is crucial, yet he appears comfortable that the turbofans attached to the airplanes he rides in spew a great quantity of carbon dioxide into a very complex system (the Earth's atmosphere). What other conclusion is there than this: that knowledge seems neither crucial nor has it changed Swimme's behavior. Worse, if the new story hasn't changed him, how does he expect it to change anyone else? You would think that Swimme, in all his cosmological wisdom, would lead by example. Is not Mohandas Gandhi sufficient prooftext for that?

The rest of humanity need not worry about Swimme (or worry about his fellow ecoutopians), at least as long as he doesn't have power. My frank assessment is that the great majority of utopians really don't have what it takes to change anything, including themselves. One of the easist things a person will ever do is theorize. Swimme is proof enough of that. Beyond that, it's all work. And making things work.

Nevertheless, history teaches a few utopians gain power. Then they change things a lot. One very good example is Pol Pot. Another, who I consider the quintessential utopian of the 20th century, is Joseph Goebbels. A common theme of their thinking was to posit at least one segment of humanity with derivative value. It is not surprising that Brian Swimme essentially holds true the same view, but he elevates it to a new level, as he has written: "The well-being of the Earth is primary. Human well-being is derivative." Swimme's statement is not unique to the religion he practices, as his ecoutopian friend Rosemary Radford Ruether has spoken at another "earthspirit rising" conference thus: "We need to seek the most compassionate way of weeding out people." So now, all of humanity, not merely the Jew (as in the case of Goebbels), is of derivative value.

Nevertheless, my faith in humanity to overcome this sort of evil remains steadfast: history also teaches there are two constants associated with utopians in power. First, their power always comes to an end. Second, most unhappily, the end is always very messy.

As for me, I will continue to marvel at the antiutopians. The example of Gandhi comes to mind. Now here is a guy who knew the value of walking the talk. And then there's that quintessential antiutopian, none other than Jesus of Nazareth. This guy held the value of humanity above all else. Brian Swimme, you might want to make note of that.

The universe in a wildflower.
"There is eventually only one story," collaborators Swimme and Berry write, "the story of the universe. Every form of being is integral with this comprehensive story. Nothing is itself without everything else. Each member of the Earth community has its own proper role within the entire sequence of transformations that have given shape and identity to everything that exists" (p. 288). Beginning 15 million years ago (p. 7), THE UNIVERSE STORY follows the universe "from its original Flaring Forth through the shaping of the galaxies, the elements, the Earth, its living forms, the human mode of being, then on through the course of human affairs during the past century" (p. 241). The product of its writers' "imaginative power as well as intellectual understanding" (p. 237), this book "is not the story of a mechanistic, essentially meaningless universe, but the story of a universe that has from the beginning has [sic] its mysterious self-organizing power that, if experienced in any serious manner, must evoke an even greater sense of awe than that evoked in earlier times at the experience of the dawn breaking over the horizon, the lightning storms crashing over the hills, or the night sounds of the tropical rainforests, for it is out of this story that all of these phenomena have emerged" (p. 238).

This superb book shows that the universe acts "in an integral manner" (p. 26), everything in the universe existing for everything else (p. 263). For plants and animals, "the universe is a chorus of voices" (p. 42). We are told, for instance, "the winds speak to the butterfly, the taste of the water speaks to the butterfly, the shape of the leaf speaks to the butterfly and offers guidance that resonates with the wisdom coded into the butterfly's being" (p. 42). Similarly, we can "climb a mountain and get hit by something so profound, at so deep a level," that we will never be quite the same (p. 41). For humans, "the adventure of the universe depends upon our ability to listen" (p. 44) to "the mountain language, river language, tree language, the language of the birds and all animals and insects, as well as the languages of the stars in the heavens" (p. 258). We also learn Walt Whitman's sentience was "an intricate creation of the Milky Way, and his feelings are an evocation of being, an evocation involving thunderstorms, sunlight, grass, and death. Walt Whitman is a space the Milky Way fashioned to feel its own grandeur" (p. 40).

The moral of this STORY is that the Earth is "a one-time endowment" (p. 246). Through the destruction of the rainforests at the rate of an acre a day, by disturbing the chemical balance of the planet through petrochemicals, through genetic engineering, and through the "radioactive wasting of the planet," we are "eliminating the very conditions for renewal of life in some of its more elaborate forms" (pp. 246-7). "As the natural world recedes in its diversity and abundance, so the human finds itself impoverished in its economic resources, its imaginative powers, in its human sensibilities, and in significant aspects of its intellectual intuitions" (p. 242). This celebration of the unfolding universe will change the way you look at life.

G. Merritt