Our world is being thoughtlessly damaged, and this damage will increase unless something is done.

It is easy to understand why things are as they are; why the very soil - which we depend upon for our nourishment and health - is being destroyed; why millions upon millions of animals are bred and inhumanely kept for slaughter; why millions upon millions of our fellow human beings are starving, or living in poverty, or in ignoble, oppressive societies; why millions upon millions of people every day suffer indignity, theft, and cruel violence; why every day tens of thousands of living beings are destroyed; why with every passing year some species of living being becomes extinct; why the sea, the rivers, the hills, the valleys, the very land and air themselves, become more and more polluted with the detritus and effluent of our societies.

These things are as these things are because of our greed, our selfishness, our lack of respect for and lack of understanding of Nature, of other human beings, and our lack of understanding of the true purpose of our lives as individuals. Thus do we who live in Western nations breed millions upon millions of animals for slaughter to feed our unnecessary desire for meat on a daily basis when in truth to be healthy we do not need to rapaciously eat meat in such a way. Thus do human beings all over the world - intent on gaining wealth, or prestige, or power, or material luxury - squabble, cheat, and steal.

Thus do people increasingly speed around in ever more vehicles along ever more roads in the pursuit of unnecessary entertainment or unnecessary leisure activities or unnecessary work undertaken to provide more unnecessary luxuries. Thus do more and more heavy lorries pound already heavily pounded roads to deliver more unnecessary goods. And thus do those who do not possess much desire more, often enviously so desiring more, thus continuing the unnecessary process of unchecked growth.

Human beings have become like a virus which has spread over the Earth, making the Earth ill.

Thus it is that in a country like England, urban, rural and road development - the destruction of Nature and the loss of our life-giving soil - now covers an area far greater than the size of the nation of Wales.

In our pursuit of unnecessary things, in our pursuit of our self-interest, our comfort, we have forgotten that we depend on Nature and forgotten that our purpose in life is to use our reason, our nobility, to evolve further in harmony with Nature and the very Cosmos itself.

In brief, we have forgotten - or never known - our humanity. It is against all reason that this world is as it is, with its glaring divide between those millions upon millions of human beings who are barely surviving, and those millions upon millions of human beings who live comfortable lives surrounded by consumer goods. And even most of those in the developed world - with its extravagant wealth and rampant consumerism and waste - are not happy, not content. It is against all reason that we continue to destroy our homeland and the life which depends on this homeland of ours. It is against all reason that we continue to inflict suffering on our fellow human beings, and upon the other living beings which share this planet with us.

To return our humanity, to even begin to express our humanity, we must restrain our desires: our desire for more luxury, for more comfort, for unnecessary material possessions. We must allow reason, and not emotion, to control us. We must follow, and strive to apply, noble ideals. That is, we must have a perspective beyond our own needs, our own desires, our own feelings and our own beliefs and ideas.

This higher perspective we need is of our own place in Nature and the Cosmos: how we relate to our fellow human beings; to Nature; and to the Cosmos itself.

Our Place In Nature:

To be human is to reason, to think, and to act in a reasonable way: that is, with fairness, tolerance and honour. To be human is to communicate in a reasonable way with others: that is, to use our power of speech, of using words, images and sounds, to inform others, thus communicating our experiences, our knowledge, our skills, our learning, our traditions. Above all else, to be human is to strive to change ourselves for the better based upon what we know and understand: that is, to use our will to alter our behaviour, our way of life, our emotions, our very thoughts.

Reason leads us to conclude that we, as a species, have evolved into what we are. That is, we have slowly acquired our human abilities. We have also evolved into different peoples, with different cultures and ways of living. That is, there is a diversity about our human species, as there is with other species of life on this planet.

Reason leads us to conclude that we should treasure, and seek to preserve and enhance in a natural and human way, this diversity of life, for this very diversity expresses Nature: in fact, this diversity is Nature, made manifest in the living beings of this planet.

Reasons leads us to conclude that our planet is but one of several worlds in our solar system; that our sun is but one of millions upon millions of stars in our Galaxy; and that our Galaxy is but one of millions upon millions of Galaxies in the Cosmos.

Reason also leads us to conclude that we should strive to create communities, societies - a way of communal living - where reason and humanity dominate. That is, that these communities are motivated by reason, by our humanity, and not by greed, desire for profit, and desire for wealth. These new societies, reason informs us, should consist of people who seek to restrain themselves and who thus seek to respect Nature, other human beings and all life itself. The people of such reasonable, such human, societies would thus seek to live a fairly simple life, understanding for instance that excessive material possessions, and the desire for such things - everything beyond what is necessary to live a reasonable life - are detrimental to our very humanity, since they have created and perpetuate the terrible, inhuman, and unreasonable way of living of the present.

Folk Culture, with its Cosmic Ethics, is a way of living which is striving to create, in a human, reasoned and honourable way, a new type of society which expresses both our humanity and the desire of Nature for us to evolve further in harmony with both Nature and the Cosmos itself.

David Myatt