There are all sorts of models used in economics, but it’s the ideas around extractivism that I started reading more about over the last while. Not because I want to enter into the fray of economic debate, but because I’m trying to better understand what’s taken hold of us as a people. The best descriptor I’ve found to illustrate what I’ve been noticing is the extractivism model which suggests that, in economics, value in the bounty of this earth solely resides in what profit can be made. What can we get out of the deal? I am now seeing that model overlayed in amongst our relationships with one another.
Traditionally, relationships were ones of cultivation. We meet, we talk, we offer time and energy to another. We ask questions. We listen. We remain open-minded and open-hearted. Relationships were an offering, a gift of our affection. There was an exchange and an investment in one another. But something strange has been increasingly showing up and I think it’s both a result of social media and the online