The term livingry was coined by Buckminster Fuller. I first came across the word while reading Bucky’s final great work Critical Path, a book that literally changed my life. I read the book in 1984, the year after Fuller died. When I finished reading the book I felt both discombobulated and inspired, my previous notions of reality and history blown to smithereens.
So I carefully read the first two-thirds of the book again, taking copious notes, and by the end of that weeks-long study I felt I understood the factual content and the metaphysical content of Critical Path. And I decided to follow Fuller’s dictates in terms of how to live my life as a human being devoted to the survival of our beloved spaceship earth.
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At the conclusion of Critical Path, Buckminster Fuller said humanity is at a crucial moment in our evolution, a moment that will decide the fate of the planet and our species. We have come to the moment when the forces of livingry are on the verge of being overwhelmed by the forces of weaponry. If that happens, then Universe’s collaboration with humans will be over. Fuller believed Universe very much wants us to choose livingry over weaponry and create a thriving egalitarian and ecologically regenerative society, though he was not optimistic we would collectively make that choice.
Now as we watch in horror as a regime of criminals and thugs continues to demolish our government and terrorize our citizenry and the other nations of the world, I cannot help but see these ignorant amoral people as the forces of weaponry. And I cannot help but see the non-violent protestors against this tyranny as the forces of livingry.
What is livingry? Non-violence, generosity, compassion, equality, kindness, inventiveness, non-polluting regenerative energy sources and forms of transportation. (Bucky was adamant that nuclear power was not a solution to anything and that the nearest safe nuclear power plant to earth should remain our sun 93 million miles away.)
Weaponry is violence, greed, cruelty, ignorance, racism, misogyny, bombs, missiles, armies of killers, dishonesty, criminality, and a collective dependency on fossil fuels.
May we never forget those who have died and suffered for the cause of livingry, and may we, collectively, overcome the terrible forces of weaponry.
Fin