Editorial

Abstract

In the movies The Matrix (1999), Virus (1999) and Kingsman: the Secret Service (2014), humans are considered by villains to be like viruses. Meanwhile the Marvel movie, Avengers: Infinity War (2017), differently from the original comic story-line in The Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos, the film’s antagonist, kills half of the universe because of overpopulation. In the view of the villains of these popular superhero movies, overpopulation is to blame for the climate crises and many other human sufferings including famine, pandemics and war. This view is rooted in the idea that Earth has a natural limited carrying capacity but, on the other hand, there is also an underlying anthropological understanding that humans are alien to the ecosystem and therefore are damaging to nature, and ultimately to themselves. In reality, an increase in population should not necessarily result in widespread famine or other human sufferings. In fact, although the human population has increased dramatically over the past one hundred years from just 2 billion to the current 7.5 billion, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (2006, 2018) has reported that in the past 50 years undernourishment has decreased from 37% in 1969 to 10.9% of the continuously increasing total human population in 2017. In any case, we can leave the discourse on whether or not Earth has a limited carrying capacity to scientists and focus on how we humans understand our relationship with the environment and our place in the ecosystem, and examine the implications of such understanding to children’s spirituality. Widely held conceptions should not be underestimated since it is through concepts and metaphors that we regulate our relationship to reality and to fellow humans. Thus, it is easy to blame suffering and environmental problems on overpopulation even though the causes run much deeper than that since they are related to our understanding of human nature as well as to the narrative that regulates our relationship with our same species and with the whole of the environment. It is our contention that the main underlying problem is spiritual. On the one hand, it is how humans, particularly those in power understand our relationship to nature. For too long we have seen ourselves as masters of nature and thereby outside the ecosystem. On the other hand, over the past centuries there has been a growing awareness of individual autonomy and authenticity. Although, as Taylor (1992) points out, this per se is not wrong; this has also led to individualism and the resulting fragmentation in all areas of human experience. These twoways INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CHILDREN'S SPIRITUALITY 2019, VOL. 24, NO. 2, 101–103 https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2019.1629569