S05E06: Rethinking Our Values: Indigenous Values for a Sustainable Future

This episode explores the vital need for a value change rooted in indigenous perspectives, particularly the teachings of the Haudenosaunee. Listeners are invited to reflect on how our current monetary-driven worldview is unsustainable and how adopting a more relational and respectful way of interacting with the Earth can pave the way for a more sustainable future.

Themes
• Discussion of the urgency of changing our economic values
• Insights from the Haudenosaunee about the interconnectedness of life
• Historical context of the "Basic Call to Consciousness"
• Exploration of leadership through indigenous philosophies
• Introduction of the Rights of Nature movement
• Presentation of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth
• Importance of decolonizing narratives and changing perspectives
• Emphasis on our responsibility and connection to the Earth
• Reflection on the positive potential in adopting indigenous values

If you liked this episode, please check out our website at podcastdoctrineofdiscovery.org for more information and, if you like this episode, review it on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Chapters

• 0:07 Valuing the Earth for Survival
• 20:00 Value Change for Survival
• 28:16 Survival in an Era of Change
• 41:55 Rights of Nature and Value Change

Transcript

Jordan Brady Loewen-Colon: 0:07

Hello and welcome to the Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery podcast. The producers of this podcast would like to acknowledge with respect the Onondaga Nation firekeepers of the Haudenosaunee, the indigenous peoples on whose ancestral lands Syracuse University now stands. And now a special video episode with Phil.

Philip P. Arnold: 0:31

So, value change for survival. What does that mean? It means we have to change the way we value the world completely in economic, monetary terms. It implies that our survival, that our survival, is at stake in this value change. And one of the things that is consistently mentioned by the Haudenosaunee is that the earth and I've mentioned this to you before but the earth will be fine without us. The earth doesn't need us. The earth will be better off without human beings on it, right? So we have to get out of the framework that we're going to save the planet. Okay, we're not. The planet has to save us from ourselves. That's the indigenous values, the indigenous perspectives.

Philip P. Arnold: 1:29

Speaking, the modern value system of everything being connected to the bottom line is clearly unsustainable. Now, the weight of all this seems overwhelming, seems like how are we going to change the monetary system? It's what and you know I've said this numerous times to many, many students I hope you all get great jobs coming out of SU, that you make money, but that can't be the only thing that you're concerned about, right? And it seems like the change of values of the modern world could be really overwhelming. But it's really just a change of perspective and that's what we've been discussing in the class.

Philip P. Arnold: 2:26

So this book, this book basic call to consciousness, discusses a trip that various indigenous peoples from the United States, from all around the United States, took to the UN, united Nations in Geneva, switzerland, in 1977. So what, 47 years ago? And this delegation included Crow people from Montana area, the Hopi from the Southwest, the Haudenosaunee, so they were from all over. These are very traditional leaders and the Haudenosaunee delegation traveled on their own paths, as we talked about before. They delivered this dire message, called the basic call to consciousness, to the Western world that we don't have much time left.

Speaker 3: 3:28

That was almost 50 years ago.

Philip P. Arnold: 3:31

Okay, they said to the assembled uh nations, states from around the world the ice is melting in the north that that was their message. It's been their message consistently for the last 50 years. So I want to go into it a little bit. These quotes appear in the epilogue of my book and I'll just read from that. So this is page 223. All right.

Philip P. Arnold: 4:04

So in the beginning we were told that the human beings who walk about the earth have been provided with all the things necessary for life. We were instructed to carry a love for one another and to show a great respect for all the beings of this earth. We are shown that our life exists with the tree of life, that our well-being depends on the well-being of the vegetable life, that we are close relatives of the four-legged beings In our race. Spiritual consciousness is the highest form of politics. So this spiritual understanding that Jake Edwards so eloquently put in his discussion on Tuesday is a form of politics, is a form of leadership, of the organization of human beings into a polity. They go on to say ours is a way of life. We believe that all living things are spiritual beings. Spirits can be expressed as energy forms manifested in matter. A blade of grass is an energy form manifested into matter. Grass, matter, the spirit of the grass is that unseen force that produces the species of grass, and it is manifest to us in the form of real grass. So using grass, just the most basic kind of living force there is, we can appreciate how all of life is considered sacred, because all of life then participates in what they call the tree of life. So in the language of the history of religions that I was trained in, this is an example of the manifestation of the sacred, a hierophany. We talked about that earlier in the semester. So a hierophany, manifestation of the sacred, but not in some kind of big like God reveals themselves in a burning bush, we'll say. Like in the Old Testament or the Torah, god reveals himself to Moses. This is an everyday kind of manifestation of the sacred. That is what human beings are responsible for. So when the guy in that little clip from Buy Now says how are we going to reconcile being in these corporate entities as human beings I think that's what he's going for there how are we going to reconcile? How are you going to reconcile fitting in the bottom line in your job, making money, with being human right and depending on other living beings for your humanity? All right, so these are long quotes, you don't have to write them down and they're also in the book, so in another section called the Importance of Creation.

Philip P. Arnold: 7:21

So we're talking about creation not as a kind of moment in the history of the world, not at the beginning of things only, but as a kind of ongoing reality. Okay, so for the Haudenosaunee, all things of the world are real, material things. The creation is a true material phenomenon, and the creation manifests itself to us through reality. So it's not just about the creation story, it's about what the creation story points us to, how it imparts those values or relationships. The spiritual universe, then, is manifest to man as the creation, the creation that supports life. We believe that man is real, a part of the creation, a part of the creation, and that his duty is to support life in conjunction with other beings. That is why we call ourselves Ongwe Hongwe, or real people, the real people, right, because they're real human beings of creation. Okay, so you'll notice that in this cosmology, in this worldview, there are no things, no objects. Okay, In.

Philip P. Arnold: 8:47

English, it's almost impossible to talk without things. In our language, consumerism is all about things and the commodification of things. Okay, but there is a living world that surrounds us. The Haudenosaunee know this because they are alive, they are human, they are real people. They're ongwe hongwe, right? So creation, then, is something that is constantly unfolding every day. That's what Jake was saying when he said that's why we give the Thanksgiving address every morning. It's not about prayer, it's not about asking for anything, it's about being human, it's about being in proper relationship with the material world. So how does this modern self contrast with the indigenous self? A consumerist self? Capital S-E-L-F is the whole point of consumerism, right? All goods flow towards me. As a consumer, I'm the center of the world. For the indigenous self, the entirety of creation is involved in one's self, which is a kind of biological fact.

Philip P. Arnold: 10:26

We are in relationship to the world around us, where indigenous peoples understand that they are materially slash, spiritually connected to the entirety of creation, as they say in this book Basic Cult of Consciousness. Our roots are deep in the lands where we live. In the lands where we live, we have a great love for our country, for our birthplace is there. The soil is rich from the bones of thousands of our generations, okay, from the ancestors. Right, we are descendants from those people we don't even know, have never met. And yet they're the reason we're here and we talked about this. Each of us was created in those lands and it is our duty to take great care of them, because from these lands will spring the future generations of the Ongwa Hongwa, as they say, the seven generations. Right, jake was talking about seven generations. They're looking up at us from the ground. Their faces are in the soil we walk about with great respect, for the earth is a very sacred place. So, in the modern self, I'm sitting here in my house, which is a very nice house. I love my house, but it's mine. So the land, in this modern evaluation, belongs to me, the house belongs to me, but really the house is over 50 years old, almost 60 years old. I didn't create it, I'm not in charge of it, I'm kind of just a caretaker for my house. Someone else is going to occupy this place later. So consumerism, property gives us a kind of an illusion that it's ours. But what does that mean? But the indigenous self states very clearly that we belong to the land and not the other way around. The land does not belong to us really. In fact it doesn't. We belong to the land, and you know an illustration of that.

Philip P. Arnold: 12:53

Some of you might be Irish, irish-american. I've got some Irish ancestry. So we had the opportunity to go back to Ireland. I think I've talked to you about this already, but going back to Ireland was quite an amazing experience. We went to Galway and Dublin, and in Galway there's a very strong strong relationship to the language. The language is coming back and with it comes a very strong relationship to the language. A language is coming back and with it comes a very strong relationship to the land. So Irish political bodies have been very active in this front.

Philip P. Arnold: 13:36

For example and I mentioned this in the last class that when they build a highway, let's say, from Dublin to Cork or someplace right. When they build a highway, they will take into mind some of the sacred places along the way, and someone was just telling me about them building. A friend of mine, at the meeting in San Diego we went to over the holiday, he was telling me that they built a highway. You know, four-lane highway, modern, super modern highway. But they built it around what they call the fairy tree, because that's where the little people of the land come together and historically you know that is an important site for not only the little people of land but also the human beings and their relationship to it. So Ireland, I think, is experiencing a new kind of indigenous value. It's also one of the richest countries in Europe right now, at this time.

Philip P. Arnold: 14:49

So think about that how you can bridge a monetary, modern self with a gift economy, indigenous self Responsibility. We are not a people who demand or ask anything of creation of the creators of life, that's, all of the creators of life. Instead, we give greetings and thanksgivings that all the forces of life are still at work To this day. The territories we still hold are filled with trees, animals and other gifts of creation. In these places we still receive our nourishment from our mother earth. So it's not like they're not eating animals or eating the berries or tapping the maple tree. Right, they're consuming all of those things. But what do you do in exchange? We don't think in those terms. When we go into Wegmans, we're not thinking in terms of like, well, where does this come from? How was it harvested? What does it mean? Right, so taking something requires an exchange, a gift, if not there, if not there are dire consequences. Right, that's the thanksgiving address.

Philip P. Arnold: 16:20

So then they get into what, in religious studies, we call liberation theology. Right, liberation theology is a big category in the history of Catholic theology. It's not often taught, and what they're doing in this book Basic Call to Consciousness is changing the attitude. The reference points for what liberation means it's the liberation not just of human beings, but of all living beings living on this planet need to break with the narrow concept of human liberation and begin to see liberation as something that needs to be expanded or extended to the whole of the natural world. What is needed is the liberation of all the things that support life the air, the waters, the trees, all things that support the sacred web of life. So human beings are really not the center of the world. Physically speaking, biologically speaking, we're dependent on the world that surrounds us and we need to focus on liberating those elements of the living world upon which we depend. So I want to think of this in terms of slavery.

Philip P. Arnold: 17:54

The stain of American history is slavery. You could say the sin of American history is slavery. What is slavery? It's discussed as dehumanization of human beings. Right, there is such a thing today as modern day slavery, sexual slavery, right, all kinds of different elements of slavery. But really slavery just comes down to the commodification, the reduction of human beings to monetary value. They're for sale and they are consumables. Slaves are reduced, they take them from their human form and put them into a monetary form. That's the history of slavery. That's what it is. Now there's a difference. There's all kinds of slavery. I'll say there's all kinds of slavery, I'll say, because indigenous people of Africa were enslaved in the transatlantic trade, and that's chattel slavery, because they were enslaved for not just themselves but all their generations. That's where the one drop rule comes into play. Right, they're enslaved all their generations. So that's chattel slavery. That's, that's the most dehumanizing type of all. My folks came over as indentured servants, as a kind of slavery that you could buy off with, you know, working for one year, two years, three years in the fields, and then you are free. Okay, at some point the first arnold is called a freeman. Okay, and that's what that refers to.

Philip P. Arnold: 20:00

What they're doing in this book, basically called consciousness, is that saying? They're saying that slavery or enslavement happens when any living being is reduced to their monetary value, their use value, their exchange value, right? So you go into Wegmans. The idea is that what we're experiencing is enslavement of all of those elements of the living world, of living creation, right? So the question is how do we reconcile the enslavement of all living beings, not just human beings, but all living beings in a way that ensures our survival? Because that's what we're in the bottom line, that's what we're talking about.

Philip P. Arnold: 20:53

Then they talk about leadership, which is very interesting because it's like nothing in our world today, given our recent experience with the election. Because, as I said, it's obvious to me that we are in a kind of crisis mode right now and it's being reflected in our choice of leaders. Our choice of leaders have to look like strong men, look like strongmen, have to look like intolerant of diversity and elements of what the Haudenosaunee are talking about. It's just, it's obvious, and there's a certain kind of religious force that is sweeping them into power. According to the book, in accordance with our ways, we are required to hold many kinds of feasts and ceremonies, that is, leaders are required to hold many kinds of feasts and ceremonies that can best be described as giveaways. In the Northwest native people, like you know Kwakutl and others, hidatsa, they had elaborate forms of giveaways that they called potlatch. But this is true for many, if not all, indigenous peoples.

Philip P. Arnold: 22:24

It is said that among our people, our leaders, those whom the Anglo people insist on calling chiefs the real word for the leader is loyani, men of the good mind or women of the good mind are the poorest of us. They have the least because they give it all away by the laws of our culture. Our leaders are both political and spiritual leaders. They are leaders of many ceremonies that require the distribution of great wealth. As spiritual and political leaders, they provide a kind of economic conduit the distribution, redistribution of the stuff of life. To become a political leader, a person is required to be a spiritual leader, and to become a spiritual leader, a person must be extraordinarily generous in terms of material goods.

Philip P. Arnold: 23:26

So leadership in among the Haudenosaunee means, on the one hand, they're very tough, tough-minded, but also very humble. They're serving the people and they're generous. They're generous with their time, they're generous with all their worldly possessions. Okay, they're generous with all their worldly possessions. This is diametrically opposed to modern ideas of strong leadership. Strong leadership essentially if I'm to guess, over the next four years strong leadership means being extraordinarily selfish, extraordinarily focused on one's own personal gain, and this comes with a kind of monetary value system. Look out, because it's going to get really bad, I predict, in the next few years. It's going to get really bad, I predict, in the next few years. So I wanted to include that idea of leadership as well. All right, so now moving to value change for survival. So value change for survival is the title of the epilogue of this final chapter. Is the title of the epilogue of this final chapter, but it's actually a report that was given at the United Nations in 1991. So, celebrating its 40th year in 1995,.

Philip P. Arnold: 25:05

Remember, the United Nations was established in 1945, immediately after the Second World War. So in 1985, the United Nations established the global forum of spiritual and parliamentary leaders, in other words, spiritual leaders and political leaders coming together to discuss human survival. So this international group of about I don't know. I've seen a picture of this group at Oxford. There's probably maybe like 500 people in this group. It's huge. The Dalai Lama, mother Teresa, archbishop of Canterbury at the time, senator Al Gore, before he was vice president, president Mikhail Gorbachev, who's passed away, and that's just to name a few. And they met for six years in New York, moscow, oxford and Tokyo.

Philip P. Arnold: 26:06

Representing Native America was Oren Lyons, joe Aguisho, faith keeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation. At the forum's final meeting in Tokyo, the group was called upon to summarize their work by the executive coordinator, akio Matsumura. All agreed. The work could be distilled into four words value change for survival. Now Oren speaks about value change for survival regularly, and what I'm submitting to you is that the values that we have to aspire to should be indigenous ones, because indigenous peoples have been organizing themselves around their various language, with their various languages, around their lands for millennia, and it's something that we should really pay attention, to, listen to and think about. Do you need help catching up on today's topic?

Jordan Brady Loewen-Colon: 27:11

really pay attention to, listen to and think about. Do you need help catching up on today's topic or do you want to learn more about the resources mentioned? If so, please check our website at podcastdoctrineofdiscoveryorg for more information and, if you like this episode, review it on Apple, spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. And now back to the conversation.

Philip P. Arnold: 27:34

So I might have played this for you before, but I want to play it again in this context of it's a YouTube called Value Change for Survival. It's part of the Wampum Chronicles. It's a discussion with Oren, probably 15 years ago now maybe 10, at Onondaga Lake, where the Great Law of Peace was founded thousands of years ago.

Speaker 3: 28:06

We begin this conversation with a historical perspective and also with the understanding of where we are in these contemporary times. We're in a very, very serious situation and we're sending out an alarm. We're sending out an alert. We were told that when this begins to deteriorate, there's going to be certain, certain signals that will alert you to the degradation, and the first one was the acceleration of the winds. They said watch the winds, and the winds start to accelerate. You're in a downgrade. And they said and how people treat their children, watch how people treat their children when they're abused and misused the children. You're in the downgrade. You're in the downgrade. We're gonna have to go far to see.

Speaker 3: 29:20

So, 7 billion people, soon to be eight, soon to be nine, and we're caught in nature's law of compound. 1950, 2.5 billion people in the world. That's 64 years ago. And today, 64 years later, we have 7 billion people. That's a problem, that's a compound action that you're not controlling. And so we've created what they call a global warming situation, where carbon has got into the air to such an extent now that it's impacted the very system that supports this whole planetary system. You've been impacted the system. Now what's the result of that carbon? What is the result of that Toxic gases that we were releasing. It was that it too is compounded and so it's causing the ice to melt and the ice is melting very fast. Causing the ice to melt and the ice is melting very fast. There was a great writer, name was Hemingway, and he wrote a story about the snows of Kilimanjaro, and it's not there anymore, it's gone. We always think that that would concern people. We would think that they would be concerned that the ice is melting so fast. The waters are rising and we're experiencing really change, severe change. You're not going to fix that. There's no screwdriver, there's no wrench, there's no instruments going to fix that. It's only the conduct of the people, working with nature and its own laws that will bring that back into any kind of a peaceful, comprehensive way of life.

Speaker 3: 31:32

2000, year 2000,. We were invited to United Nations, our great gathering of religious spiritual leaders, and they asked us to make a message. And so we made that message, and that message was the ice is melting. Which was the ice is melting. And no matter how profound your declarations are and no matter how mind bending, influential those statements are, the ice is melting. It's not listening to your words, it's not listening to your ego, it's not listening to your ideas. It's simply melting Because that's the law, that's nature's law, and so nature's will prevail.

Speaker 3: 32:28

When the peacemaker planted that great tree of peace here, very symbolic tree that he planted, and he said this tree is going to reach to the sky and everyone can see it, this great tree of peace based on the spiritual laws, spiritual laws of creation. And he said to our leaders and all the people he said never challenge those laws because you will not prevail. That's good instruction, but something that we don't listen to and something that we haven't done. So we've challenged those laws right up to right now and we seem to be hell-bent. I guess, if you want to go in that direction, there will be plenty hell-bent from the consequence of what we're doing now.

Speaker 3: 33:25

And as global warming advances, when heat comes and rain comes, it will be wetter. Here it's going to get much wetter than it is. You'll have a hard time getting your plant in the ground in the spring because it will be too much rain and then it will dry out at the end of the year when you're looking for rain and then, when it's dry, it's going to get drier. Right now, california, there's no more crisis. And when you're a water level, can you imagine?

Jordan Brady Loewen-Colon: 34:00

Well, it's hard to imagine.

Speaker 3: 34:03

Here is the most brilliant, as they tell us technologically smart people in the world, running out of water and being surprised by it. Yeah, I don't know what happened. It's pretty late in the day. This goes Beetles, nature. You can't negotiate with a beetle. You might not listen to him. He's not gonna eat your trees. It's all intended. Everything was in balance. At one time, the beetle could eat the tree, the tree would survive. But now, with things getting warmer, the beetle has two life cycles. The second life cycle will kill that tree in one year. And that's what he's doing. He's chewing his way right up to West Coast, all the way to Alaska. He's cutting trees. He's over here, just coming over here. He's been chewing these trees down. Why do you negotiate with a beetle? Why you don't? You can. He's got a different leader. He's got a different leader. He listens to a different leader Nature.

Speaker 3: 35:43

It's what Peacemaker said Don't challenge those laws because you can't prevail. And so common sense and the message that we're sending you right now, the message we're talking to you about, what we're saying is listen. Listen. We're older people, and that's where indigenous people have something to add to this discussion, because they talk about language, thinking, they talk about seven generations. They talk about responsibility to the future. No discussion about gold or silver or money. Discussion about protecting water, protecting life. That's what this discussion is about.

Speaker 3: 36:29

Now we don't have a lot of time and so this message that we're sending, this message that we're sending right now is a message of common sense. It's just common sense to do what's right to share. The message is to share the messages to share, share equally everything. And then the prophecies that we have, that we've been told. We're careful with those prophecies because they're not good. They're not good. There is hope in that prophecy when you, actually, when the peacemaker said it's up to you. When the peacemaker finished this great work here, a woman asked him. She said well, now that you've done all this, how long is it going to last? He said that's up to you. So everything is in our hands, it's up to us. There's no lightning coming, no savior coming, no, nothing coming. We're only alone.

Philip P. Arnold: 37:50

One way or the other, we're awake me alone.

Speaker 3: 37:53

One way or the other and I wait. So when the time is on, I would say now over, start over now. I think we're at a good time. It's a good time to be here. It's a good time to be here. It's a good time. Let's see what you're made of, see how strong you are. Value change for survival, change your values. I don't know how cringy this is. What are they doing here? What's up?

Philip P. Arnold: 38:39

with that. So, as I said, that's Oren talking about value change for survival and I think in the end there he was really pointing us in a direction If it's not a solution, at least it's kind of a way through that we need to pay attention to what really matters protecting water, protecting life. So, as you move into your jobs and I hope, like I said, I hope that you all get great jobs, but you're going to be working for corporations that have different priorities. Some of them will be priorities that align with, kind of the future survival of the world. Others who are indifferent to that, that the bottom line is the only thing that matters. So how do we move ahead in a way where we have a viable future?

Philip P. Arnold: 39:43

Because consumerism and I want you to think about this, consumerism is built completely on a fabrication right. Consumerism is built completely on a fabrication right, a fabrication of values. We talked about how the monetary economy is completely an act of faith. So it is easily changed, easily manipulated. It has no intrinsic value in and of itself, and yet that's what we're all chasing. I include myself in it. It's what we're all chasing is the almighty dollar.

Philip P. Arnold: 40:22

So how do we? I think first step is to realize that this is all just a complete mythic, or a fiction we'll say a fiction Creation that came out of somebody's mind. It's not real, but it is kind of, so we have to pay attention to it and it's determining how we are going to be able to survive into the future. So there's another movement afoot. There are different kinds of solutions that are coming up, alternatives to this way of thinking. Some people, for example in the film by now there are people who are doing a kind of waste management practice. They're recycling goods, they're digging through trash, and this includes people in other countries where we ship our iPhones or old tablets or whatever. Right that we no longer use Millions of these a day and so they're focused on, you know, sort of the end process.

Philip P. Arnold: 41:39

One of the things that comes up in the film is that corporations really need to figure out how things can last longer and how things can enter the waste cycle more responsibly. There's another movement going on. It has been for almost 15 years now called Rights of Nature. So the Rights of Nature movements, for example, legally imbues, lakes like Lake Erie, for example, or rivers, or mountains, or trees, you know, old growth, forests with rights that they can, that they have a right to exist, right. So this is lawyers, lawyers working, environmental lawyers working through the legal system in various ways. I'll give you an example of that later. Then also, um um winona leduc, I think uh, in in this epilogue she she's a anashinabe woman activist but also a Harvard-trained economist, and she talks about how, when we create our mega projects, development projects for strip mines or whatever oil pipelines, those kinds of things we only think in terms of its profitability, right, its monetary value. That's how corporations think. But if we can think more long term seven generations thinking and think of a triple bottom line, something that she didn't create, but it's now taught in Whitman, for example now taught in Whitman, for example, a lot of business schools that we have to also think in terms of its environmental costs as well as its spiritual costs, sort of our you know the costs to our treasured environments, right? So thinking in terms of the triple bottom line when working on these projects. Anyway, there's a film called the Invisible Hand that kind of illustrates many of these movements that are going on right now. So in 2010,. Also in 2010, there was an indigenous president of Bolivia, ivo Morales, who created the changes in the constitution of Bolivia, which I think have been rescinded since then because there was a sort of hostile takeover of Bolivia by corporate interests, because Bolivia is known to have a lot of lithium and so that's going to be very important for our batteries, ironically, in sustainable vehicles or electric vehicles and that sort of thing.

Philip P. Arnold: 44:52

But anyway, at this time they came up with an inspiring statement that we can imbue the earth. We can take this indigenous perspective and really focus on how important the earth is as a living being. It says we, the peoples of nations of Earth, considering that we are all part of Mother Earth and an indivisible living community of interrelated and interdependent beings with a common destiny, gratefully acknowledging that Mother Earth is the source of life, nourishment and and provides everything we need to live well, recognizing that the capitalist system and all forms of depredation, exploitation, abuse and contamination have caused great destruction, degradation and disruption of Mother Earth. Putting life as we know it today at risk through phenomena such as climate change. Putting life as we know it today at risk through phenomena such as climate change. Convinced that in an interdependent living community, it is not possible to recognize the rights of only human beings without causing an imbalance within Mother Earth. Affirming that to guarantee human rights, it is necessary to recognize and defend the rights of Mother Earth and all beings in her, and that there are existing cultures, practices and laws that do so. Conscious of the urgency of taking care of decisive collective action to transform structures and systems that cause climate change and other threats to Mother Earth, proclaim this universal declaration of the rights of Mother Earth and call on the General Assembly of the United Nations to adopt it as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and nations of the world. And, to the end, that every individual and institution takes responsibility for promoting, through teaching, education and consciousness-raising, respect for the rights recognized in this Declaration and ensure, through prompt and progressive measures and mechanisms, national and international, their universal and effective recognition and observance among all peoples and states of the world. So that was their Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. That was done by Armara people of Bolivia. So these are ancient peoples with indigenous values of their own who saw that there had to be a reckoning right. And so all over the world there are these efforts that are trying to push back against big money interests, extractive economic interests that we read about in the Economic Hitman that we've inhabited throughout the Industrial Revolution, into the shopping season.

Philip P. Arnold: 47:57

One of the ways that we're trying to change values is to change the story of America. At the Scano Center I've gone through this in some detail but I'll just put it here at the end because I included in the epilogue that we're decolonizing the narrative of the French fort. The Jesuit relations present us with a certain idea that it was martyrs and not invaders, martyrs who tried to inculcate Christian values onto indigenous peoples. But the Haudenosaunee have their own record of that exchange, which is the Remembrance Belt just pictured here. It's the same history from different perspectives. We have settler colonial values versus the Haudenosaunee Onondaga values that are involved in that story.

Philip P. Arnold: 48:54

If we re-narrate our history in various ways and insist that that history be taught in various ways, then I think that we might also have a kind of solution to have a kind of solution to changing our values, as Oren was saying. So the good news is we don't have to save the world. We don't have to save the world. We need to save ourselves. We need to change our worldviews. The world is going to be fine without us. How do we transform our cultural values? How do we value the world around us in different ways? This is essentially the work of religion, in my view, and how we can change our values from a monetary system, and I hope to see you in the future and see you again soon.

Jordan Brady Loewen-Colon: 49:56

The producers of this podcast were Adam DJ Brett and Jordan Lone Colon. Our intro and outro is social dancing music by Oris Edwards and Regis Cook. This podcast is funded in collaboration with the Henry Luce Foundation, syracuse University and Hendricks Chapel and the Indigenous Values Initiative. If you liked this episode, please check out our website and make sure to subscribe.