Exploration 9: Last Blog Post

In the essay "The Idea of a Local Economy" the author was trying to outline the major problems in our current economy. He starts off by explaining how there is a danger of oversimplification. "We will be wrong if we attempt to correct what we perceive as environmental problems without the correcting the economic oversimplification that caused them." This idea of oversimplification is created by big business corporations to make us believe that we should allow few large businesses to produce large quantities to the majority of the population. This gives power to a few people who make decisions that do not benefit the society and environment as a whole. When we give up our proxies to corporations we forget that we are destroying nature to consume these products. Because we do not see the true story behind the overproduction of our natural resources we continue to overuse products and continue to feed these giant corporations. The last segment of the essay promotes local businesses and highlights the term subsistence. When a local economy is able to provide for itself there is less waste and more benefit to that society.

The 1989 Noble Peace Prize was awarded to the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. In his speech he talks about inner peace and human rights. He explains that peace is not as simple as we think. "Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free." This gives us a better grasp on what peace actually is. Peace requires more than just the absence of war, it basically requires that all humans are treated with respect. Inner peace is a state of being where external problems do not effect your state of happiness and can be dealt with reason. The Dalai Lama explains that if we are immersed in peace then we create a contagious peaceful environment. So it is our serious responsibility to individually promote peace and reach inner peace with ourselves. He ends his speech with the problems occurring in his own country of Tibet. Chinese settlements are destroying the Tibetan culture and he pleads that their development must be reversed to save their spiritual culture of peace.