Philippe Cornu, ‘La Crise Covid-19: une opportunité pour changer?’ (An opportunity for change?) Second of two Television programs in the weekly series ‘Sagesses Bouddhistes’ (Buddhist Wisdoms), Sunday 14th June 2020
In his second broadcast on France 2, Philippe Cornu considers the implications for change in the present situation, indicating a radical solution which could come out of the current disorientation.
He began with a consideration of the fundamental Buddhist idea of interdependence, in which the coming-into-being of a phenomenon causes the self-destruction of other phenomena and so on ad infinitum. In this way all phenomena are both transitory and interdependent: it is impossible to consider one element without reference to the whole, and to all the individual phenomena that have contributed to its coming-into-being. This applies, naturally, on both the personal and the collective level.
Although it is in Buddhism that we find this philosophy developed to its most sophisticated level, it is to be found elsewhere, for example in the Stoics, in Spinoza and, perhaps most radically, in the 18th century Scottish philosopher Hume.
The present crisis, argues Cornu, is a direct result of a market philosophy in which everything has become delocalised, and we have become dependent on a global economy over which we have no control. This vertiginous situation was perhaps necessary to oblige us to reflect on the implications for the future, to examine where present suppositions are leading: for example, the implications of a world subject to the demands of the GNP, to growth at all costs. The very concept is nonsense, declares Cornu: how can we have infinite growth in a finite and closed world? Why do we always want more, when more will never be enough? But behind this will to endless expansion there is an increasingly obvious vulnerability, because we have not recognised our place in the whole, we have not taken account of interdependence. Here Cornu evokes the well-known French ecologist and writer Pierre Rabhi who, living on and from the land, claims that we should be aiming at a ‘sobriété heureuse’ (a happy sobriety), learning to do without many of the gadgets and accessories that the market increasingly tempts us with, claiming that the very survival of humanity is at stake. The astrophysician Aurélien Barrau, engaged also in the politics of climate-change, is right to be warning the world in increasingly urgent fashion of the dangers of our current way of life. We need more scientists of his calibre, argues Cornu, and we should listen to what they are saying. It is nothing short of a transformation of our civilisation that is necessary, he declares, enumerating the areas that need our urgent attention:
· Our food. Without necessarily becoming totally vegetarian, we should limit our meat intake, firstly thinking of the animal suffering that is involved in their rearing, slaughter and consumption. Animals should be allowed to “have a life”: we eat them only because our minds ‘make them into things’ (the French is “chosifiés”), rather than our companion living beings on this earth. Let us reflect on the old adage ‘we are what we eat’.
· The rearing of animals for slaughter consumes an enormous amount of water, an increasingly rare resource, and also cereals, which could be better used to feed people. The present agro-alimentary system is disastrously wasteful, and contributes to the destruction of the environment.
· Transport. This is another destructive aspect of our current civilisation that calls for a revolution in the way we think. In France at least, we should no longer think of taking an internal flight when there is an alternative train service, even if, paradoxically, the train can be more expensive. This is a choice we should consider making on an individual basis, as is the rather automatic way in which some of us still take several long-haul flights per year, with no thought of the cost to the environment.
· Water is an increasingly scarce resource, with some communities already desperately short of it, having to walk one or two kilometres to fetch it. We should think of that as we take a shower that lasts for half an hour, or draw a bath of water. We must learn to respect it as something precious and essential to life. As such we should pay for it ungrudgingly as individuals. The glaciers are already receding at an alarming rate, and as a result less water is being channelled into the rivers. The time may come when we have to pay for clean air too!
During lockdown, paradoxically, we have been able to appreciate nature better: we can hear birdsong once again, the animal world no longer fears us in the same way and ventures out into the space that we had occupied. The animals that humans accuse of being responsible for the Corona virus were never intended to be consumed by humans. Their habitat is deep in the forest, from which they have been driven by deforestation. Being more respectful of our environment is one of the reflexes that we must develop if we want to survive into the future.
To the interviewer’s question as to how we might reinvent human creativity, Cornu replied that this must become much more interior. We must stop projecting our desires outwards, as if we were somehow outside nature, a stance that betrays our belief that nature is there to be manipulated by us. We are also responsible for sterilising and impoverishing nature, in the form of the soils in which we grow things, leading to loss of nutrients and hence the increasingly poor quality of the food we consume. Humans are in fact the virus of the planet, whose multiplication and heedless behaviour destroy their environment.
If we do not want to be this virus, we must learn to think differently, turning inwards in order to make better contact with others – not just other humans, but animals, plants, nature in general, so that this planet may once more be good to live on.
Since the pandemic, we have become accustomed to take leave of people with the formula ‘Take care’, and in fact, without care for oneself, we cannot take care of others. The first thing to cultivate is a good relationship with oneself.
In these two short talks, Philippe Cornu gave a thoroughly convincing demonstration of the way in which Buddhist philosophy reaches into every aspect of our lives, and a powerful plea for a more caring attitude towards the planet we occupy and towards the other creatures and natural phenomena with which we share it. Cease wanting more – material goods, space, entertainment, things outside ourselves – and rather look inwards to reacquaint ourselves with the essential. In this way we may ensure a future for the planet.
Pat Little
Saint-Geniès de Malgoires, 19/06/20
Part two of the original interview can be viewed here
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