PERMACULTURE PICTURE HOUSE, Passing Clouds, London
I went to Passing Clouds, in Hackney, London, last week to watch : John Harris :
Common Law : Cause no harm, cause no loss :
This show inspired me to consider a deeper perspective, relating common law to empathic societal practices and to natural living processes. Here follows a ramble through those thoughts.
There was also a presentation on behalf of
The Peoples Supermarket, in London, a self organised supermarket, run by volunteers as a co-operative, and drawing on local food suppliers to reduce food miles, imports, waste etc etc….
Cause no harm, cause no loss.
Natural Hunting is not harm in the context of the entire living biology that we are emergent of.
Natural hunting is set within the context that all living cells, and therefore all organisms and macro entities (such as forests, plains, marshes, oceans etc) metabolise materials (eats) and creates more new materials, (new body mass) and releases those materials that are not required as nutrient (excreta, death and decomposition) such that the diversity, depth and fecundity of all life increases, year on year.
We are born, we eat, we shit, we die, life grows more abundant for all life as a result. All of us.
This is Natural Common Law.
Constantly nurturing living-ness in the habitat.
All cells do this. This is a natural constant.
It is neither enforced nor can it be resisted because it is inherent. It can be ignored, if only for a while. Ignoring Natural Law always leads to the undermining of the natural processes, and inevitably the failure or collapse of what ever community dependent upon Nature.
To cause harm or to cause loss in terms of those processes pertaining to the natural environment, culture, community, family or children of ANY species has to be understood as anything that, by way of human intervention, undermines or impairs the natural viability of that species or community, and this is, by definition, the measure most appropriate to this discussion.
And as we know, all organisms, in all known natural contexts, are embedded, connected, and integrated and therefore affects on one species will by definition impact on many other species, in a myriad of possibilities, as we are discovering in the science of
bio-diversity.
The non-linearity of natural processes is becoming more and more evident. Abuse on, and you abuse all.
Thus the value of the measure must always relate to the entire habitat, and this conversely requires profound local knowledge, intimate experiential knowledge of the habitat.
A living knowledge, that is shared across communities.
Common Law exists in and of the human being, the man, the woman, the child; it is intrinsic.
Common Law is a living and lived knowledge.
How does Common Law stand in relation to actual harm or loss arising within biological communities?
The communities of traveller peoples? The communities of whales? The communities of the San people, of the Yanomami, of the Inuit, of the first nation peoples of North and South America, of Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe?
We all know the harm caused and the loss caused to all those communities.
It is offensive that we have such a task to address... and yet here it is and we must address it.
This is all about the psychology of the Dominant Society, in it’s Institutions (Instruments) of Power, in the exercise of Power (action) and even the assumption of any Power disparity, (authority).
People, as individuals and Institutions, do knowingly cause harm or loss, in grievous ways that are known, undeniable; where much of the evidence is well documented and much of the evidence is living; it is in and of living people.
People, as individuals and Institutions, also cover-up, mask and deny that harm.
There is an ever growing database of scientifically described evidence of the damage emerging as time flows. It's certainly a 'growth area' of study.
It is fortunate much of use is also being learned about
how to avoid those damaging behaviours, how to break the cycles. In such manner that the cycles of abuse are stopped. So that healthy empathic relationships can then emerge, naturally. That's the point.
There's our true human nature, the child, the infant, the mother, the father and kin group, living empathically. It's inherent and intrinsic to who we are, what we are.
Our biology is perfectly 'adapted' to that in so many ways – and yet, one could say too that societal stress has become, the path-way towards addressing the full scope of the problem, (if only because the illusions and delusions of the Dominant Society, are breaking down under the stress and thus only remaining way out from there is total honesty)
This is both offensive, and a testament to the natural resilience and creativity of survivors.
And thus the diversity of voices, the telling of experience, the meaning of that resilience has to be known, sensed, it must understood as different shapes of the same pattern. Survivors must be heard as they are, they must not be made ‘media ready’.
Truth and Reconciliation cannot be subject to protecting the abusers –
Restorative Justice calls for more than a public Apology, compensation dependent upon the silence of the Survivors and the indemnity of those State and other Institutions responsible for the abuses.
Lose the enforcing pattern, make different shapes.
And for me, the unifying aspect is the inherent vulnerability that comes with what we Sense, the combined message set from all our sensory capabilities, when we 'get' that being truly human community is very much about empathy as an active experiential modality. (This means that as far as we know are emergent sensory organisms who are of nature, not some unique creation of a mythical God or some Alien cross breed! ;-)
How we learn, what information we process, is through the sensory systems nature has crafted within us. Babies are
conscious, and in many ways much
more conscious than adults who have been conditioned into conformity.
However, here we are, and for sure, right now,
the human community needs Institutional Whistle Blowers in every aspect of the community life of human being where it is founds, enlightening us by revealing exactly where there is harm or loss caused, or cover-up of harm or loss caused, and who is culpable.
There's a meeting place for ALL humans in this; this need to tell the truth, to cease abuse, is intrinsic, it is independent of faith, culture, language, colour, height, weight, age, gender.
We must all be understood. Not the merely our difference noted. Empathy. 'Got'.
‘Grokked’ was a 70s word. Comprehended, apprehended, understood. That's crucial for the healing and for the prevention. That’s how we will move forwards.
What so many people and the media – they really miss this! – don’t get is that the survivors are not ‘moving forwards’ in trying to facilitate restorative justice. When that happens we are at the equal level, and then, and only then will we surely move forwards, as people and as a diverse human culture.
Certainly with regard to the welfare of all children, how society dictates the 'treatment' of children has to be addressed, honestly, openly: because this is the reality, it’s toxic and it's harmful, and it causes loss, and that is qualitatively more vital to the well being of the human, and the entire living, community than perceived benefits that are paraded to mask what is being done to children, whole nations, to the habitat.
Faith
If faith is to mean ANYTHING it has to honour that benchmark of Common Law, of Natural Law : which is to cause no harm, cause no loss.
Any Faith allows harm or loss is a lie.
Those of Faith express the idea that their God made the Earth. We if that is the case, then that God also made the Natural Law, and Common Law, because these are intrinsic to all life, equally.
If that is felt and understood, then the only action is to tell the truth. That's the start of the end of the journey that human civilisation has taken for the past 15,000 years as far as current archaeology can determine.
It would appear that actually, nature works.
With regard to the harming of children, of entire indigenous nations and their children, that Institutional power dynamic has to be revealed as the human poison it is at the same time as the perpetrators are exposed, and brought to justice. As a writer, as me as a survivor, that argument has to be won.
Certainly the Institutions must fall. Change is not an option, in this regard. It's the very nature of Institution, of Empire Logic. Resistant. Rigid. Hard. Cold.
Those with Faith and Heart will have to 'step away from the structure, to let go of it, as a public narrative, just as the survivors story is part public narrative, (those what wish the knowledge be public).......... that action, more than any other deals with the Institutional rigidity - without support, it is powerless.
It's not a matter of ethics, nor of doctrine, it's a matter of restorative justice.
It's a matter of Common Law, which prefigures all other legislation instituted by what ever authority. Common Law is clear.
Cause no harm, cause no loss : That's it.
Yes we will continue this work and link, and share and learn, and be nurtured to do this.
Even though it IS offensive that we are in this sorry state - because our Society is based upon causing harm, causing loss.
We are speaking up for ALL human beings.. me as me., you as you. I am one of ALL human beings. You are one of ALL human beings. It's all or nothing. Being honest about lived experience, the meaning of lived experience is whistle blowing on any dominant power-relationship culture where harm is caused, where loss is experienced, where natural empathy disrupted and balance is disrupted.
Unite the 'causes'. Unite the 'causes'. Unite. Common Law.
Passing Clouds is a self organised hub of information sharing, grass roots self governance, exciting music and arts projects, within a larger hub that is Hackney, with larger still hubs that extend across the Earth.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe
