Asking Questions, Tillich and the Existentialists

"I start with man asking questions about the ultimate meaning of life. People who listen to me are those who declare they don’t understand the Christian symbols that are given by the church and need them translated into modern language." --Paul Tillich

Paul Tillich emerged out of the Nazi regime and the era of Fascism to a world in wonder. The explosive force of the Atom bomb and the Hydrogen bomb left the known universe ajar. The pre-war answers to life's questions no longer filled a world searching for meaning at the world wars' end. While the First World War had been known as The Great War, its combatants, referred to as the Lost Generation. The Second World War gave way to the Beat generation, the Existentialists,  and authors such as Vicktor Frankl, a concentration camp survivor, who wrote titles such as Man's Search For Meaning.
Theologian Paul Tillich wrote about living in a Christian way within the revised world order of the mid 20th century.
Authors such as Jean Paul Sartre wrote books like Camus and La Peste also exploring the topic of Being and Nothingness, what has now become called Existentialism.

Existentialism is a view that was popularized, carried over into the arts-culture and into general society. While existentialism is sometimes called "the philosophy of the absurd," most existentialist thinkers would likely define themselves by a sense of free choice and lack of sense for past or future, only a present.
The one first identified as an existentialist was Soren Kierkegaard who wrote that this sense of self and time leads into humanism, a state where man in his own experiences, maintains the center the universe.
Paul Tillich wrote, "being religious means asking passionately the question of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
Such an idea of religion makes religion universally human, but it certainly differs from what is usually called religion. It is here that Tillich makes his contribution to the understanding of the modern, technological world.

Ethanol Drought

"Some of the drought’s impact will take months and years to play out." Roger Oliver, president and chief executive officer of Van Horn Inc

The US crop for year 2012 is a disaster; corn and soybeans are the major crops produced nationwide. The critical factor that many academics, ordinary consumers and other non agricultural policy makers did not give sufficient account for in their rosy analysis is nature. Yes, some years produce more crop volume and some produce less; this year is severe drought. It seems that the prospect of drought is not accounted for in the current plans for carbon emissions reduction in this country. What good is the buying and selling of carbon credits or reducing "greenhouse emissions" in a food stressed world?

The issue is that the current United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policy mandates an ever increasing percentage of fuel for gasoline engines be composed of ethanol, a non petroleum based substitute for refined gasoline made in this nation principally with corn; it is set to gobble up the majority of that crop in this drought year. It will leave insufficient supply to feed livestock, to feed chickens who produce eggs, to produce grain related products that consumers routinely use: baked goods, oils, syrups, starches, and industrial products made from corn and soybeans.

Compounding the pain is the synonymous hay crop failure. There is now insufficient supplies of hay to feed all grazing animals throughout North America, including the cows which provide the nation's milk supply and other products such as infant formula or "grass fed" beef. For many of us here in the United States, a look around our communities at the lawn grasses gone dormant or dead provides the confirmation that grass grown to feed animals must be no better. Nor is using grasses to produce motor fuel any better an option; it produces hardship on and off the farm; families will suffer from lack of food due to the fact that the agricultural oligarchy (AO) hasn't produced this year. The nation's unemployed, the indigent, the sick and the elderly will all experience increasing food insecurity due to a rise in prices for many foodstuffs and fuels. Everyone will pay more. The nation's health suffers as more consume lower priced, lower quality foods. All foods, including fruits, vegetables and grains like oats or wheat, require quantities of water for a successful crop.

For the nearly 98 percent of Americans who don't, won't or can't produce at least part of their food, we must now consider whether we have thrown over a primary responsibility for feeding ourselves to the agricultural few: the many university intellectuals (who also don't produce their own food), politicians, the governmental policy wonks and the AO -- even those "family farmers" with millions of dollars invested in their farms.

Have we fallen complacent, asleep at the wheel, about agriculture in this country-- so far removed that not only do we not grow any food, but we don't even think about it?
 We've left it to others to decide for us because maybe we live in urban areas and have no direct connection to the source. Even those of us residing in the country towns, large and small, have in large measure, let the issue to someone else. Is now in this time of natural disaster the time that we will wake up and become more engaged in food and its production?

Will the EPA continue its drive to consume well more than half of the US crop this year so as to produce ethanol? People and animals are suffering and we're putting what was to be food in our gas tanks? How does that happen? It seems we've unknowingly mandated it at the expense of feeding ourselves and parts of the starving world. Waiting until a better year is still a year away. And I don't know of any mortal who can wait a year to get enough to eat. We must act now, in this election year and beyond to engage the population in a better long term solution for this perilous issue, both for food production and a cleaner environment. Gaining knowledge and educating others is the first step because food must not be sacrificed for other goals.