The Ontological War

As people become more their realselves they become less alienated ontologically, and they develop a deeper and closer bond with reality and with the natural world—the life that exists other than our own. Men and women who reach this ontological state realize that the natural world is in fact their true home, and they develop what has incorrectly been called a reverence for it and all the life in it, when in fact all they have done has been to become aware of the way that people who are not alienated ontologically respond to the world of the realself: the natural world and reality.

Turning to the other side of this issue, there are many people who like to think they can pick-and-choose their alienation. But they are all wrong. If a person chooses to be alienated from anything, that person is inevitably also choosing to be alienated from everything: from his or her own realself, from the realselves of loved ones, from the realselves in all others, from life, and from reality.

One example of this multifaceted alienation is seen in a recent article on the Baptist Press: FIRST-PERSON: The $1 million tiger beetle, by columnist Kelly Boggs. In his article Boggs writes that million-dollar homes are at risk in Maryland because an endangered species, the Puritan Tiger Beetle, lives on shoreline cliffs, ocean waves are causing the cliffs to erode, and therefore the beetles are putting the houses near the tops of the cliffs in danger. To get an idea of the numbers involved, the Washington Post says ”5,000 Puritan tiger beetles are left on the planet, about 4,500 of them in Maryland.”

In his article Boggs writes

The federal government has blocked any attempt by the Maryland property owners to stop the damage because of fears it would disturb the habitat of the Puritan tiger beetle.

But according to the Washington Post, Boggs’s statement is not true:

After several years of planning with state and federal agencies, some Chesapeake Ranch Estates property owners were permitted in 2005 to install hollow concrete balls offshore to slow powerful waves hitting the cliffs.

The $200,000 project did not work, said Tony Vajda, a homeowner and primary point man for the effort.

Vajda has reapplied for a permit for a stone wall at the base of the cliffs to stop erosion. The Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommended that the permit be denied and instead proposed segmented breakwaters, large rock walls placed a significant distance offshore. They suggested the same idea in 2005.

Breakwaters, which have been successful in other bay locations, allow limited erosion, slowing the process for homeowners but maintaining beetle habitat, Therres said.

So what does all of this boil down to ontologically? Folks such as Southern Baptist who actively promote our alienation from ourselves also end up promoting our greater alienation from the natural world. And conversely, these same folks actively promote our greater alienation from the natural world, such as this article by Boggs, because they sense that by doing that they are also promoting our greater alienation from ourselves and from each other.

Southern Baptists aren’t fully conscious of what they are doing, because if they were they would never do what they do. But until they do understand the great harm they are causing, everyone who meets Southern Baptists should think in the back of his or her mind: Danger! Danger! Alienation! Alienation!