Reuters<\/em>.<\/p>\nSpeaking on the general decline in social cohesion and human behavior accompanying the looting of the land and “growth,” a flower shop owner in Puerto Maldonado by the name of Alberto Fernandez expressed reserved hopes that the Pope’s visit might help some.<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s a lot of need here…every day there are more bars and cantinas, more prostitution (and human trafficking), more illegal mining…30 years ago Puerto wasn\u2019t like this,” Fernandez stated. “There were only a couple paved streets, but we lived in peace.”<\/p>\n
That’s essentially the story the world over, across the last few centuries, even if it is glossed over by those trumpeting about whatever new ideology or technology it is at the time that’s supposed to turn the world into some kind of paradise. The reality is that industrialization and endless growth has brought with it social disintegration, and the treatment of other humans as mere objects or fellow cogs in a machine.<\/p>\n
One need only look at the situation that followed from the original industrialization of England to know the truth of this — a rapid transition from a world where there was some degree of social responsibility and reciprocity, and also responsibility towards common lands and resources, to one where addiction to laudanum, widespread prostitution and trafficking of girls\/women, and crime led directly to the creation of some of the first police forces in the modern world.<\/p>\n
In other words, the social contract was shredded, leaving only the threat of consequences as a motivator against predation of one’s neighbors.<\/p>\n
That’s not to say that the past was some sort of paradise, but there is no argument that can be made honestly to explain away the fact that social disintegration follows resource over-exploitation (and “success”) around like a hungry, abandoned dog.<\/p>\n
Pope Francis noted in his closing remarks: “Special care is demanded of us, lest we allow ourselves to be ensnared by ideological forms of colonialism, disguised as progress, that slowly but surely dissipate cultural identities and establish a uniform, single…and weak way of thinking.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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