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Inspiration: the argument that we are as we are, and we are ferocious and savage in our appetites, desires, and jealousies.  For proof: have a glance at the “Middle East Conflict”.

My response —

I’m more hopeful.

Civilizational establishment and change involve unique conditions and experiences in place and in time. While we’re fond of saying, “The more things change, the more things remain as they were”, we’re really not happy dragging our yesterdays into our tomorrow’s if and when we’re aware of other and better possibilities.

Whatever the impediments have been in addressing nature, including our own, experience and biological evolution works through us as well: as a species, we may more incline toward conscience and empathy over time despite the demonstrated savagery of earlier eras.

On another day, I may have said such things were to be left to God,l nature, and the universe.  On this one: perhaps we are in some ways responsible for how we manage ourselves and our conditions as a species dependent on the health of the earth itself and on ourselves for the qualities experienced in living.

Alive in the background: Aesop’s wisdom having to do with the character of the dangerous organism, scorpion or snake; however, there’s also Thomas Berry’s emerging earth spirituality: with the power to destroy our species-wide platform for existence, we may have also the obligation and ability — very adult thing that ability with science and technology shaped by concern — to be careful with Mother Earth as well.

Regarding “Qualities of Living (QOL)”

Dimensions

Biological / Physical

Economic / Distributed Degree of Freedom and Security

Psychological / Spiritual

The “QOL” concept needs a build-out to meet up with both the Freedom House audience and those who read article with titles like “Best Countries in Which to Retire”.

Still: let QOL stand x Area Defined, from community to region, and what takes place within the same over some measure of time.

Civil services and reporters naturally look into the “negatives” of space — crime rates, for example — while the development and planning communities also consider the architecture and engineering of environments for habitation.  The end of so much effort — and widespread across time — should be improvements in good and secure living for all, not decay back down into greater anomie, conflict, crime, dictatorship, and living hell itself.

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