My 12-year-old son and I recently saw George Clooney’s film, “The Monuments Men.” What’s not to like about a gang of aging art curators and conservators snatching Europe’s cultural treasures from the evil Nazis? It’s based on Robert Edsel’s 2009 book of the same name.
Edsel’s research and writing project was a labor of love, funded by a $37 million nest egg from selling his Texas-based oil-and-gas exploration business in 1997. He became fascinated with the story of the men and women from thirteen nations who stopped Hitler and his cronies from pillaging cultural capital at the expense of present and future generations. Ironically, Edsel’s work in the fossil fuel industry was similar: pillaging natural capital at the expense of present and future generations, human and otherwise.
It’s a potent illustration of how anthropocentric we are. We think the human story is all there is. World War 2 is a great illustration of our myopia. War is an enactment on a grand scale of the Story of Separation, the belief that we are the Chosen, the superior, the more deserving. Who “we” are depends on your perspective. For the Nazis, it was the Aryan race, but the Allies saw it differently, and thankfully, our side won.
Winning the war didn’t change our unconscious allegiance to the Story of Separation. Industries quickly retooled from bomb-making to pumping out fertilizer and pesticides using the same ingredients. An undeclared war was waged on the natural fertility of the land during the so-called “green revolution” that boosted agricultural productivity at the expense of soil, water, and the small family farmer.
The Story of Separation also drives our use of fossil fuels, starting with how they are found and extracted. Our belief that humans are the superior animal in the great web of life allows us to justify our actions, no matter the cost to the living planet or to present and future generations.
Wouldn’t it be something if we had a posse of Monuments Men working on behalf of natural capital? The heroes of Edsel’s story knew that winning the war would be diminished by every piece of art and sculpture lost, every church destroyed by bombing. These treasures stood for something far greater than their physical, material reality. Our planetary Monuments Men would have the same passion and zeal, the knowledge of true connoisseurs. Even the backing of their countries’ leaders, who, while admittedly focused on human lives, sense there is an even greater purpose at stake.
Can’t you just see George Clooney and Matt Damon, riding herd on the Koch Brothers, seizing their propaganda and influence promoting oil and gas drilling and spreading lies about renewable energy? What’s the equivalent of Michaelangelo’s “Bruges Madonna” or the Ghent Altarpiece? The Great Barrier Reef? The Chesapeake Bay? The receding glaciers of Mt. Kilimanjaro? There are too many to contemplate.
You know I love your questions, Julie… if we might find the right answers for the next 7 Generations, sooner rather than later… love you! m
Thanks, Mare. A friend reminded me of Paul Hawken’s intro to “Blessed Unrest.” In a way, the many thousands of organizations he refers to are acting as planetary “monuments men.” Oh, what the heck, I’ll just paste it here: “There is another super power here on earth. It is an unnamed movement, it is far different and bigger and more unique than anything we have ever seen. It flies …It flies under the radar of the media, by and large. It is nonviolent, it is grassroots, it has no cluster bombs), no armies and no helicopters. It has no central ideology. A male vertebrate is not in charge. You can clap for that. The unnamed movement – is the most diverse movement the world has ever seen. The very word “movement” I think is too small to describe it. No one started this world view, no one is in charge of it, there is no orthodoxy. It is global, classless, unquenchable and tireless. The shared understanding is arising spontaneously from different economic sectors, cultures, regions and cohorts. It is growing and spreading worldwide with no exception. It has many roots but primarily the origins are indigenous culture, the environment and social justice movements, those three sectors. The subsectors are intertwining, morphing, enlarging. This is no longer or simply about resources or tractions or injustice. This is fundamentally a civil rights movement, a human rights movement, this is a democracy movement. It is the coming world.”
aho… julie… aho… and you and are part of that movement… doing our own beautiful part interweaving with all the other beautiful filaments of change coming from so many beautiful hearts that source from Love and Hope. indeed…
love you!
—- hey, just wrote this poem after watching this stunning short film of the photos that won a photo competition at the Kews Botanical Garden. these photos just sent me spiritually… sent me.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26065140
Oh, Mother, Sacred Mother,
How you bless us
With flowers and joy
That dance with the Great Father
Of Sun and Light.
Your waters coursing to the
Your oceans and winds teasing
Our hair, your grasses, your children
Sit in humble prayer,
Foreheads to the ground
In surrender to your stunning
Beauty and
Gifts.
thank you. thank you. thank you
thank
you
love
you.
– mare
2/14
linganore
Beautiful! Thanks for sharing your poem. You’re right – those photos are stunning. xo
;~)
xoxoxox