My mother recently returned from a trip to Phoenix and shared with me a magazine interview with Paolo Soleri that merits a broader audience. I've been a casual follower of his philosophy since the first time I visited Arcosanti in 1990 and his perspective is one from which we might all benefit. Because I have been unable to locate the source article online, I am excerpting part of it below:
Q. What does it reveal about people's desire's to live in this manner, in which they come home to their block-walled yeard, pull into enclosed garages and live behind walls in their privacy?
A.It's a hermit life. Amd I'm afraid this might be the destiny of this country, to become a hermitage in which small groups of people, families, become isolated physically. In terms of society, I think it's dismal.
Q. But many people with that lifestyle have ample social contact throughout the day. For them, it may be a great relief to escape the hustle and bustle.
A. That's part of the appeal, isolating themselves. But I'm afraid it's not going to go anywhere because it's really too much about materialism. We are a society dedicated to materialism. There is no escape because the engine of production and consumption is so powerful. You can not escape even if you want to.
Q. We have more than $8 trillion in just Federal debt. We, among the richest people int he world, have to continually borrow from some of the poorest people in the world just to keep going.
A. I think we are leading some kind of a dream life, a delusional life. We're beginning now to feel that something's cracking and breaking up. But it remains irresistible. It's very difficult to say we're uncomfortable with this or that because we're all in it so much so that we have to act out our task. That might cost us a lot. And youth is surely one of those costs. The very unhappiness of youth with all the resources we have, and the family breaking down and the retirees wondering if they can make it with $100,000 a year! It's fantastic.
Q. And they're the lucky ones!
A. Yes, the privilege is here. If you think that there are millions of people, over a billion who are living on $1 or $2 a day. This is a paradox that speaks poorly about equity and compassion.
I was speaking with somebody the other day about this notion of the "top of the line" for everything we have and we buy. It is a notion that has no limit. There is no ceiling because there is always a better object, a more sophisticated thing that we can produce and sell. So it's generating some kind of an envelope about which we understand that things cannot work. So if I have this much, I want to have double that, more excellent, top of the line. Nobody is really willing to question that...I have been advocating what I call "the lean alternative" for 30 years. And Arcosanti is an example.
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