Raymond Huo

Heard of Raymond?
He's a Labour MP who posts on Red Alert. Intelligently too. Today's post centred around the following passage from a talk by Dr John Hinchcliff, former president of AUT. Raymond thought it worth repeating and so do I.

 We can learn an interesting emphasis from the derivation of the words ‘economy’ and ‘ecology’. In Greek ‘eco’ means ‘home’ (from oikos). And ‘nomy’ (from ‘nomos’) used in ‘economy’ means ‘care of’ or ‘management of’.

The word ‘logos’ in ‘ecology means ‘wisdom’. Before we know how to care for the home we must know what it means and what it represents. So ‘wisdom’ takes priority. Thus, ecology should take precedence over economics just as wisdom should take precedence over knowledge.

Our existence is a wonderful phenomenon. But the fragility of our home has been threatened by our lack of care, and by our poor and unthinking management. Nature urgently needs our wise support, just as millions of poverty stricken people need our care, and our democratic governance needs our active engagement.