Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

chapter 5
The Spirit of Connection
Only connect.
—E. M. Forster
Thinking means connecting things, and stops if they cannot be
connected.
—G. K. Chesterton
Religio: to bind together.
—Webster’s Dictionary
The conversation about the future of human-
z
kind and the preservation of life cannot be bottled
up at the level of technology, economics, and politics, which have
to do with means, not ends. In a vacuum of meaning and purpose,
however, we don’t do well either individually or collectively.
Instead we are more likely to succumb to anomie, nihilism, and
insensate violence. But questions about the purposes and the moral
compass by which we might reorient ourselves have become much
more complicated.
At the dawn of the 20th century, optimism about the human
condition abounded. Science and technology seemed to promise
an unlimited future, and in various ways larger questions were set
aside in the intoxication with progress, the goal to master ever
more of nature, and the hive-like effort to grow economies and
eventually fi ght two world wars. But looking back across the wars,