Limits or Liminality?

I have a small bust of Aristotle on my desk.  He watches me while I do my work here at home.  My wife wasn't a huge fan of him on our bookshelves watching us eat, so he has moved here.  My good friend and brother Daniel gave him to me along with one of my favorite quotes, which evokes a sort of Network-like feeling, that the real challenge and goal is to be "angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way."  I appreciate so much of what Aristotle wrote about, particularly about moderation and how the ideal is to live within two extremes.  When Paul wrote in Philippians 4:5 to let our ἐπιεικής (may be translated moderation or appropriateness) be known to all men, I think of Aristotle telling us to not be too courageous, nor too cowardly; not to be too gluttonous, nor too starving.


And yet today, we seem to have thrown most of that moderation out the window.  Everywhere we look is excess.  I think of enormous parking lots that drive traffic to those enormous temples of human consumption (translate: shopping malls, Walmarts, etc.) as places of excess that no longer serve the function that they could have.  In Aristotle's time, they had enormous markets, but they served not only as places to buy and sell, but as places to discuss ideas and meet new people.  The Greek markets didn't require enormous plots of land for parking because everyone walked.  Of course, I'm not simply bemoaning cars or malls - my wife and I have a few errands today and it's very possible that we will use my car to drive to a mall - but I'm bemoaning the fact that a bit of the social landscape has been lost.  I'll be the first to argue that Facebook is a bit of the modern Ἀγορά but Facebook inherently revolves around your preexisting social circles.  Try to befriend somebody new on Facebook.  I'm bemoaning the fact that our gluttonous use of cars is ruining the environment.  And I'm bemoaning the fact that our dangerous bent on consumption is unsustainable.


Capitalism is built on the necessity of growth.  Stagnation is death.  In order to pay off the loans required for startup, growth is necessary, which requires more loans and investments.  The cycle continues.  In order to keep growing, they must inspire us to use their products and services - therefore it's necessary for a business' survival to turn us all into bigger and bigger consumers.  The more we grow, the more we outstrip our planet's natural resources, and the more we face our own man-made deserts and dry wells.  Some experts already believe that in many places around the globe we are already reaching the limits of the planet's resources.  Cities are inherently parasitical - they require vast amounts of land to produce the resources they consume.  With the global urbanization being the greatest human migration in history, what does this spell for us long-term?


I don't mean to be apocalyptic, but I do believe that we should be at least cognizant of these issues.  I believe that there is value in Aristotle's virtue of moderation.  It seems that the concept of living within limits was very much alive and well until the relatively recent past.  It used to be a virtue.  Now buying securities on margin, credit card debt, and endless growth are the virtues.  The Latin word that has become our English word "liminality" refers to a threshold.  Are we abandoning limits and finding ourselves at liminality just before great danger?