Why this was written:
If we were to project that people will soon be facing a climate-caused collapse of civil infrastructure (a reasonable scenario), what aspects of our civilization would we most need to preserve - and how could we do that? € Alternately, assuming there is not a catastrophic collapse of civilization in the foreseeable future - how can we make real now those things which we have identified as desirable, and then build a more healthy humanity for our future?In this age of crisis, the causes of our failure can be found in the parameters of socioeconomic alienation of the individual from our social nature and from the natural world. € At root this is a cultural problem, so therefore the solution must be cultural. € However it goes without need of argument to assert that the number of people holding such an understanding, and the power they hold is small. This means that our ability to catalyze and propagate a general cultural paradigm shift is close to nil. Yet, the existing culture which daily defines our living society while manipulating our own person is precisely that which needs to be uprooted and rebuilt in favor of a better way of living – perhaps even surviving. € In order to sustain ourselves and construct a better life we should look to create the communities which will carry us forward with a better, more positive and yes, “joyful” lifestyle.
Social psychology:
It is reasonable to assume that any member of a community or institution in his or her daily activities is seeking a positive affirmation of their status - the seeking of prestige and power is one of the most basic of human motivational categories. € Much of this complex dynamic will play-out within our milieu and subconsciously: for example, as in workplace social politics, the results of corporate marketing efforts, government policies, or even direct attacks. € Certainly most people do wish to avoid risk to themselves and to their status – and so tend to desire preservation of the status quo. € Understandably then we see people also relying upon commonly-held inherited, inculcated conceptions to support their social and political views. € For us here, this suggests that a way must be found to move forward even as most may lag behind.
Probably THE major economic mechanism wedging ourselves from a sustainable relationship within society and nature is brought about by the economic reductionism of “profit” and “costs”. € In our society it matters not at all whether the making of profit is a result of manufacturing pencils or missiles - nor what damage may be done. € “External” costs are poured onto the public and our living space as a central component of accruing profits. € € The severely abstract economics of the balance-sheet removes the reality of the activities of the enterprise from the business itself.
Transactions:
Another, closely-related mechanism of our alienation from the world is the assumption that material property somehow belongs-to or is inherently connected-to an individual. Within such a schematic, the individual becomes identified with the property, and his or her social status becomes measured by the amount of material property held. € A bit of reflection should show that there is nothing behind this shallow notion: we cannot individually and literally swallow our properties - making our person larger and thus bringing our property with us. € Nor can property follow us when we die. Property “ownership” is embodied in our social convention, norms, laws, and legal enforcement – nothing more. € This is not an argument that formal connections between people and property is morally a bad thing – only that we must understand that the modern concept of “ownership” of property is not an innate inborn human right, and is instead a social construct. € Our living community is both the origin and protector of our ownership, and all economic relations should flow from this realization.
€ Ordinarily today, a “transaction” is considered as an exchange between participants involving goods, or services, and abstract assets – usually within the associated context of financial profits and costs. Within this sparse context the financial measures of success do not carry any larger meaning outside of the scalar columns of figures themselves. € Yet, we have seen that the notion of property exists, and should exist, in the context of the community – and presumably within the context of a “common good” in that community. € Just because a particular transaction is legally or even ethically permissible, it does not follow that it is in the best interests of those involved. € € The dropping of the actual human values inherent in transactions into the tabulation of vacant marks is truly a serious mistake. € We can no longer afford the accounting of value within an estrangement of profits and associated external costs divorced from their relationships to the community. € Furthermore, no emancipation from our modern materialistic corporate nihilism can be achieved without the freedom of our very attention away from corporations and the manipulative media environment they depend upon.
Maker Communities:
Do not quit your job! We can continue to live in the larger society which engulfs us, perhaps by the construction of sub-communities - “maker” communities, communities which make and grow things, engaging in the arts of living. € This form of living can bring a far more healthy and human society sustainably into the future - joyful, perhaps, while also influencing the wider society in the present.
For the “maker”, for the artist or crafts-person, a product is an extension of the self into the community. € Craftspeople inherently understand this – they identify themselves with their work and with the use of the products. € Ongoing wants or needs for goods or services within the community generate a motivating force behind individual efforts, and subsequent interchanges with others are the mechanism which brings authentic value from the work. € This same generator holds true for services, arts, and entertainment. € So, our challenge becomes clear: it must be within the scope of our economic transactions that that which is “external” (i.e., the living environment and community) is made internal and brought into coherence with the common good. € This mode of exchange will be defined by human collaboration between makers and users, in an implicit open-ended, on-going relationship. € Living within a maker-community, each individual will experience a desire and strong tendency to engage in activities which satisfy and promote mutual well-being.
Community-wide, we can detail the notion of sustainable well-being into three self-affirming goals – self-affirming in that they will ensure the sustainable continuity of joyful community based upon a common good for all: € a community which constantly works to (1) provide, (2) protect, and (3) create better living. € Members of such communities will be able to realize their full being by engaging in the creation and exchanging of the material, artistic, and spiritual “things” of the community - the very things of living life € In such a community there will likely be no separation between what is art and what is a material consumable thing – our shallow notion of individuals’ life-fulfillment through bucket-list “experiences” will vanish. € Also, such things such as “copyright” and “patent” will be seen as nonsensical when the common good is the operational goal in place. € Sharing and celebration can dominate.
Teams:
Team-like cooperation for the provision of complex needs will be encouraged, and also the “lone artist” honored. € Apprenticeship relationships should be encouraged, but crafts-guilds and professional guilds should be avoided as divisive within the community as a whole. € These arrangements will allow those individuals and teams to exercise a real and ongoing influence within their own community, all in direct connection with the real, authentic dimensions of the enterprise. The better an individual or team fulfills an authentic, sustainable, creative relationship with community, the more honor they will wear, the more “status” they will achieve.
In Conclusion:
It can then happen that as such communities prosper, the combined and ongoing effects become more and more significant in the world at large. In this way it is possible for an increasing number and size of such communities to begin to change the projected future of the world at large.
We see that we are dealing with a cultural problem, at root; therefore we will have to continuously transcend the mechanisms of the dominant culture even from within that milieu. The strongest living examples in the US might be the Mennonite Church communities as a model – along with parts of the “Makers” and “Survivalist” movements. € Taking this idea yet another step further, Joyful makers communities could potentially be formed through social-media promoted political migration into an existing town. € A town or towns can be selected as appropriate destinations for the establishment of these communities, much as Mennonite communities have been established. € Perhaps this idea is worthy of further discussion in another paper. ⬆
Further Readings:
€ Silvio Eduardo Alvarez Candido Mauro Rocha Côrtes Oswaldo Mário Serra Truzzi Mário Sacomano Neto. Fields in organization studies: relational approaches?, https://www.scielo.br/j/gp/a/rysLrYr66GMrB4DFz9QwNSz/?lang=en, 2018.
Chris Hedges. Zero Point Of Systemic Collapse, https://countercurrents.org/hedges190310.htm, 2010.
Louis G. Herman. Future Primal, New World Library, 2013.
S. Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments, 1846, Translated by David F Senson, Lillian Marvin Swenson, and Walter Lowrie in “A Kierkegaard Anthology” Princeton University Press, Edited by Robert Bretall. € 1946.
Michal Marder. Sustainable Perspectivalism – Who sustains whom? € in “Values in Sustainable Development”, edited by Jack Appleton. € Routeledge, 2014.
Robert M. Pirsig. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, € William Morrow and Company,1974.
Author: € Thomas Grzybowski, July 2023 – License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode