Stripped of arguments around correctness and efficacy,
humans are at base a ‘doing’ animal.
It is never that as a whole we do too little, but always a matter of
what is done.
There is a simple initial answer to the question of what to
do: you need to know who to trust concerning the several vital issues
confronting you personally, the political/economic structures in which your
social system functions and the issues facing humanity in general as we impact
the limits of the biophysical possibilities of the earth. There is another alternative, of
course: that you study all of these issues well enough on your own that you can
tease out from the various presentations those that are the closest to Reality. In one of those twists that can
sometimes save a bad situation: making a serious effort at the second creates
the possibility of the first.
We usually begin trusting parents or other significant
“adults.” From that uncertain beginning categories like teachers, preachers,
certain political and news media figures and, often, scientists and academics
are added. And far too often, because of the massive burden of nebulous
information and the swarming bees of self-interest obscuring every issue, we
retreat into a local cynicism, even anti-intellectualism.
These are vital considerations since they determine whether
our societies are to be functionally totalitarian or democratic (regardless of
what we call them). In a world
with great real latitude for action, a world that is forgiving, that has
effectively infinite resources and “unused” spaces, people and societies are
allowed many errors of judgment; in such a world it is often possible to throw
aside the consequences of mistakes and take up other options. But, in a world of narrow options, when
a 5 %, or even 1%, miscalculation ripples through the population with
starvation, disease or war, with the consequences spreading through all human
societies as well as nature’s essential processes, then decisions need to be
arrived at using the best information available, from the most trusted,
historically accurate sources.
A disengaged and therefore ultimately ignorant population
cannot support a democracy when the collective action of that population has
little room for error. This a
stark statement. It is not that a
totalitarianism will be, by any natural process, more aligned with Reality,
only that it has a chance while, with a disengaged populous, a democracy does
not; it would be a political system poorly adapted to its situation. To act quickly and massively in
situations of great moment requires the agreement of the significant actors in
the population…regardless of how that agreement is attained.
* * *
These are the options before us to the extent that we can
recognize them. They are
“theoretical” options, not choices, since the forces driving change are
generally beyond our understanding and certainly beyond our controlling,
especially as we move, more and more, into unforgiving regions.
And as is typical of our species, we have two opposing
reactions. One is to deny that we
are facing great demands for the most carefully considered change – thus
increasing the disengagement and ignorance – and the frantic and near frantic
effort to learn as much as we can, in the ancient habit of survival, so we can
overcome the obstacles confronting us.
The human animal will never form a global society of
philosopher/scientists dispassionately examining the detail of evidence,
evaluating, discussing and concluding by consensus. It therefore, falls to the
beliefs that underlie our actions to guide us. Beliefs that disengage us, that
lead to distrust and distortion must be replaced with beliefs that allow
engagement with the best designs and methods for approximating Reality.
Here are simple statements of belief and understanding that
need to be constantly presented to all who can be brought to listen – and
eventually to ‘everyone.’ These
must be simple statements, clear and unambiguous, regardless of how much they
might differ from present beliefs.
Reason, logic and scientific understanding may be used in making
arguments, but it is not argument that will ultimately prevail. It is repetition, recognition and
acceptance. Humans are a community
animal and, in their numbers, they believe and act in sympathy with their
comprehension of community’s story of itself.
• Humans can
change the environment in which they live:
a few humans with limited technology make small changes; many humans with
powerful technology make huge changes.
Corollary: humans must be personally and individually careful of what
they do to the world around them.
• Humans are
part of communities. Individuals are biologically unique
while also only being psychologically complete when acting as an element of
community and integrated into its functioning [1].
• Privacy
and secrecy are rights of individuals and never of collectives; collectives are too potentially powerful to allow
them to act in secret.
• No person
or group of persons can be allowed to act with impunity. Freedom is not to be understood as impunity.
Corollary: All human action must be limited by the needs of the living world,
other humans and biophysical stability.
• Each
person and community is responsible for the property in their care; property cannot be ‘that sole and despotic
dominion’ of English common law derived from the history of
kingship. Ownership must mean that
the owner learns about and cares for that which is held in the relationship
called property.
• The whole
community is responsible for its total economic product, its distribution and its excesses. Individual persons may be moved to lead
and innovate, but without the inherent design of community, its many forms of
social support, history and infrastructure, such motivations could form no
action. Corollary: all members of the community must have a just equity share
in the community’s economic product based on a full evaluation of their
contribution, not based on distorting power relations.
• Having
more wealth than is needed to be safe with basic comfort is obscene and not to be tolerated in our communities. As a natural function for the
maintenance of stability, communities should establish a maximum ratio of
wealth between those who have the least and those who have the most. Corollary:
desiring wealth in excess of needs is an emotional and ecological illness.
• Individual
humans must use as little of natural resources as they possibly can for the greatest possible gains in comfort and
safety. Corollary: using little is good, using a lot is bad.
• Health is
both a well-working body and a purposeful relationship with community and
environment. If living long is the primary goal of life, it
is then a long life wasted giving little account to that which forms a life of
value. Corollary: the hours spent
trying to live long are no substitute for the hours spent living with purpose
and joy and should not be traded one for the other.
Volumes of argument can be created (and have been) for each
of these propositions, but that is not what is needed. These statements, in
simple and direct form, can be the basis for a variety of sustainable
human-based belief systems. Of
course, these beliefs have little constituency at this time, and there is no
method or model to enforce them; in fact, an attempt to enforce them would
defeat them.
Some of the consequences of holding such beliefs can be
identified and some of them, that are appropriate, might be separately
legislated. But, only by these beliefs taken as a whole, forming the basis of
general understanding and action, will human action and the corresponding legal
structure increasingly comport with the Realities that humanity faces as the
result of our own prodigal behaviors.
The vital question is: how are these beliefs – or a better
set – to be made central to human thought and action? There are two basic answers. People need to see this
synergism of beliefs as increasingly commonplace, they must hear them from
trusted sources, see them working among their fellows and become comfortable
enough with them to speak and act on them for themselves. Simply, if we wish
them, we must act and speak them. And secondly, there must be an historically
relevant motive force to drive them into those recesses of the human domain
that will pay attention to nothing else: such as the imminent and undeniable
failure of ecological systems.
I see various groups of humanity poised to make the next
series of terrible mistakes, all based on beliefs that are almost in every case
diametrically opposed to the ideas above: terrible mistakes of war, economic
and social oppression, environmental damage and generally increased human
suffering; driving all of earth’s miraculous life processes to ruinous
extremes. There are humans who realize
that there can be no substantive change in our relationship with our fellows
and with the earth itself until there is change in belief moving toward those
offered here: there must be many more such people to make any difference. That
is what is to be done.
[1] Humans are also greatly variable in how some of them
might conceive ‘community.’ Most people will take on the common meaning of a
local heterogeneous group, living and working in mutual support, but some can
see themselves as part of a community of ideas or spiritual relations
transcending location and time. I
am, for example, denied community in its fullest manifestation by modern
economic ‘life’ and so have a few friends and family in real time, but have
extended my community to many others, through out history, who have written,
with what I sense as honesty, from their passionate interest in understanding
the world in which they lived.
