Civilisation's sell-by date

A learned professor who is glorified by the title of Professor of Complementary Medicine seems to have a mission to destroy the practice of homoeopathy. His zeal is fuelled by a belief that his chosen understanding of medicine is truer than that of homoeopaths. Meanwhile an old man carrying a fisherman's crook, strange hat and lomg, flowing purple robes and shoes, white simar with fringed fascia, pectoral cross and white     zucchetto gestures to a huge crowd in Rome. And nearer to home, I find fascination for a small group of once-hippies known as the Twelve Tribes, previosuly known as Messianic Communities who bake the most wonderful bread.
Where is the common thread in all this? It lies in the various myths that all these individuals respect, even in the face of much ridicule from the wider populace. The learned professor clearly feels his myth, that of "progress" and reductionist science trumps that of the homoeopath; the Pope is respected by those who follow his understanding of what God is and the Twelve Tribes have their own myth which bonds their communities together. 
So what about our myth- the prevalent myth of 21st century civilisation, the Myth of Progress? Why should this be any different from any of these other myths? And what role do these myths play in our lives?. 
The first thing to understand is that they ARE myths. And modern "man" unfortunately falls at this first hurdle, because we don't see the Myth of Progress as being a myth at all. We cloak it in robes of "science", "modernity" and "reality" and we feed our young children on this myth at institutions we call schools. 
And of course, all myths share the same fate. They all get destroyed by other people who don't share the same myth. The British have done their bit at destroying myths. When we "discovered" America, we realised we had to destroy the indigenouis peoples' belief structure and culture in order to pacify and "civilise" them. We stuffed them into schools and uniforms.
And today globalisation has taken over the role of chief myth debunker. Whether you are in Africa or China the Western model of "progress" is the only dish on the menu, and the eating place is called McDonalds or Burger King. The victims of course are all the local dishes that never get served. But we justify this vandalism in the name of efficiency, modernisation and a multitude of other constructs.
Wade Davis, in the film "Schooling the World" explains how myths shape the way we behave in our societies and that what is important is how we behave in response to these myths. Native Americans survived with their belief structures without damaging their environment. Does it matter what their myths are if they enable them to live in harmony with their environment and each other? And is our myth of "progress" any truer than theirs was? Does the reality of life in downtown Chicago or East London provide evidence to support this?
The role therefore of those of us seeking a post-civilsation model is surely to craft a new myth which can better enable us to live happily within our means and within our resource base.

Schooling the world

Humans are, to greater or lesser extents all creatures of habit. It saves energy to just repeat the exercise we last carried out, rather than re-evaluating the possibilities each time. But the danger of course is that we slip into habits which may later be seen to be destructive or otherwise inappropriate. And, on a cultural or societal level,  whole lives may fail to question certain principles or beliefs.
Money and its purpose is certainly one such example. I would imagine very few of us ask ourselves the basic question- "what is the purpose of money"? And its a fairly important question in today's world where the majority of us are almost totally dependant on cash for simple survival- it wasn't always so. Isn't it rather strange then that the "purpose of money", where it comes from etc  are rarely if ever taught at school?
Love is another example. The word is used glibly all the time in modern society- "falling in love", "making love", "love child" etc. But its one of those words and concepts which has almost totally lost any meaningful content. We use the word out of habit without really understanding its meaning.
And how about "education" or "schooling"? In the modern Western world it has become virtually synonymous with being civilised or associated with a progressive society. And yet the concept of education and schooling in particular are relatively recent developments in the history of man. Most indigenous societies would not recognise our understanding of what it takes to become "educated" and our practice of incarcerating young children for years to "educate" them would appear positively absurd to them.
As the film "Schooling the world"  http://schoolingtheworld.org/screenings/host/  points out, western imperialism used education as a strategic tool in its taming of conquered lands and peoples. In India, the British aim was to create a population brown on the outside but English on the inside. Similarly, the indigenous North American population was subjected to an education system which effectively extinguished all their cultural roots.
And now, one can find schools the world over using a Western education model, promoting Western principles and ideology, often in stark contrast to the cultural values prevalent in the host nation. Often, these schools were originally established by missionaries having a particular religious agenda, or by well-meaning foreigners who thought their efforts would improve the lot of the host population. Whatever the original motive, many of these schools promote an ideology which stands in stark contrast to the indigenous culture.
Even if our ideological model was perfect, imposing it on another culture cannot be justified. However, Western "culture" is increasingly displaying a raft of serious deficiencies and seems unlikely to survive too much longer and our energies would be better directed in developing a new cultural myth to replace the existing myth of "progress".