Evolution or Revolution

Again I was listening to Speaking of Faith and again I was struck by an insight. The guest this week was Xavier Le Pichon who is one of the world's leading geophysicists, and his pioneering research on plate tectonics revolutionized our understanding of how the earth works. He has also spent decades living in community with people and families facing disability and has emerged with a rare perspective on the meaning of humanity — a perspective equally informed by his scientific and personal encounters with fragility as a fundament of vital, evolving systems.

Somewhere along in the show there was discussion on evolution and revolution.

Mr. Le Pichon: Communities which are very strong, very rigid, that do not take into account the weak points of the community, the people who are in difficulty and so on, tends to be communities that do not evolve. And when they evolve, it's generally by a very strong commotion, a revolution, I would call them in French.

Ms. Tippett: You make that distinction between systems that incorporate fragility and evolve and then systems that become rigid and need revolutions to move forward.

Two things jumped out at me in the conversation, or better put, two ideas came to mind. First was the idea of evolution vs revolution. It is an old sermon illustration to contrast the rigid trees that will sway in a wind storm and not break versus those that re overly rigid and tend to crack in those same winds. This week we in the US celebrate a revolution. Probably the first successful and democratic revolution. There was a rigidity in the British monarchy/parliamentary system in 1776 that made revolution the only viable way.

But what probably allowed that revolution to succeed where so many others have not is in the foundation that Le Pinchon described- an awareness and acceptance of fragility. The American Constitution was built on a mixed view of humanity and on the need to take care of the weaker members. They built checks and balances into the Constitution because humans are very fallible and someone had to watch out for sin. But at the same time they were aware that the majority can be overpowering to those who are not.

This is based, of course, on the underlying Anglo-Saxon/Magna Carta society. There was already a semblance of caring and support that the American revolutionaries built on.

For Le Pinchon it all comes down to an understanding of God and society that he first learned in the slums of Calcutta and then in religious communities for handicapped people. The man who discovered plate tectonics then applied the difference between fluidity and rigidity in the earth's plates, went on to live in a powerfully humble way.

Mr. Le Pichon: Human people are not adults in full possession of their means. Human people, it starts with babies, it continues with growing people, it continues with adults, it continues with older people and with great age and people who die. All of that is part of humanity and humanity is not complete if you have some of the spots out.

And the way to build the society is the way to integrate these people in a way in which they can interact and each of them can find out that they have their place, that their life has a meaning, that they are needed by the others. So often I have found, for example, among very old people that they have the impression that they are not useful anymore. You know, nobody needs them. And then they want to go. They want to go. So there is this problem that the society cannot live by itself, if it doesn't recognize that it heterogeneous and highly diverse.

And that the weakest have to get their place in there.

--Link to Transcript