What is a relic? It seems some things are treated as relics when they should not be – community, the arts and humanities, education – and others should be relics but are tolerated and even clung to – race and gender alienation, homelessness, gun violence, rampant mass consumerism…
Considering the photo challenge of ‘relic’ gave me pause to think. Adopting a broad sense of the term relic, what kind of relics are we creating and leaving behind? environmental relics, social relics, religious relics, consumer relics, urban and suburban relics…
Are we really satisfied?
“Of what use are poets in times of need?” it is a tragedy that the arts and humanities are seen as ‘unproductive.’ How can we expect to have a democratic society without the liberal arts and independent, critical thinking?
One of the many schools that have been closed in my region. I don’t even know what to say about the state of education in the U.S… It is tragic how we are destroying our future with the idea that education is not important.
After a storm,it becomes apparent how much junk is in our oceans… this went for miles and miles and miles.
as late as the 1950’s, 90% of the U.S. population were involved in their own food production. With the battle cry of ‘get big or get out,’ our food production has turned to monoculture corporatism, ruining the soil and impacting our diets, well-being, and connection with the earth.
After a storm,it becomes apparent how much junk is in our oceans…
MORE MORE MORE
Sports? Really? Can’t you find a more effective way to work for MEANINGFUL change?
Interacting with the ‘other’ usually means nothing more than ‘colonialism.’
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To me relics are generally associated with things past, yet we create the relics of the future and you ask a pertinent question about the types of relics we leave behind. Perhaps if we started thinking about what we are producing in light of this sense of the sacred, and leaving what is only valuable for the next generation, the market and its products would be very different?
So true Lorna.
While I focused the photos of the post on a very broad understanding of the term relic, I did somewhat focus on the word as some thing that is dated, antiquated, no longer valuable, and destructive. What emerged is a critique of some of the things I think desperately need to change in our modern society.
This of course is not the only understanding of the word, and it should be noted that a relic can also be something positive that should be preserved. Some of the things I feel should be re-introduced and preserved are the wisdom of the ancestors, mythology, and a more animistic and participatory worldview of the grand ecology of humans and nature.
I think such a shift of worldview will allow us to better determine what kinds of meaningful relics we leave behind for future generations. Though it is difficult (if not impossible) for us to know what those future generations will need and what kind of issues they will face, a more authentic framework (for lack of a better word) of psycho-spiritual development should be left behind. This will enable them to engage their unique historical situation from a more meaningful starting point.
Of course, there is one thing we can be sure that future generations will need, and that is a home. We must begin considering the relics we leave behind that are endangering that…