The 3 E’s of Sustainable Community
The BIG picture … Ecology v Economy & Education
“The most pathetic person in the world is some one who has sight but no vision.” ― Helen Keller
Consider for a moment what EVERYONE seems to accept as axiomatic:
At some point there was no HUMAN LIFE on planet earth.
Yet who doubts that there was order [Greek logos] of some sort on earth inspite of the absence of mankind? And if we think of the planet as a great household [Greek oikos or eco] with a range of accommodations for all its occupants [plant and animal], then we can probably also accept that eco-logos or ecology predates mankind.
This pre-human ecology is an important idea, because when mankind is introduced into the household, it is not qualitatively altered … the logos simply welcomes mankind into “the nature of things” … and mankind becomes part of and subject to ecology.
However, mankind has physical and psychological capabilities that are different from the other co-inhabitants of the household. And, by discovering and using these capabilities over time, mankind is able to initiate and sustain what appears to be a sequential domination of the household and its other inhabitants [including human kind] … as the alpha predator or the resident manager [Greek nomos]. And so, with mankind comes the notion of eco-nomos or economy.
Now ecology “knows” nothing of [neither is it altered to accommodate] man’s economy … it merely continues to follow its inexorable and pre-human course of bringing natural order to the household as conditions change … and this presents a REAL problem when man’s economy becomes separated from nature’s ecology, because such departures are unsustainable.
Time: the revealer of unsustainability
"If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." ― Stein’s Law
"The four most expensive words in the English language are, 'This time it's different.'" ― Sir John Templeton
“In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.” ― John Maynard Keynes
At first glance, unsustainability does not seem like such a BIG problem. Afterall it merely means man is going to have to learn something new and to adjust … to change … to evolve. But it is not quite that simple because over time any departure by the nomos from the logos grows larger and larger. Think of two arrows shot from the same point but in slightly different directions. Over time, the distance between their paths becomes greater in correlation with the velocity of the arrows [which can be significant in a period of rapidly advancing technology]. If we look at the “arrows” in the following drawing of ecology and economy it will help us understand the divergence problem.
Each arrow begins in a part of the nomos and moves “through” [revealing parts of] the logos. The Greek word dia means “through” … and if we join this to the notion of the logos as the natural order, we get the complex word dia-logos or dialogue.
As we can now see, the very “nature of things” requires us to engage in dialogue with one another about the realities we face. The result of this dialogue is to help us discern more about the logos … so that we can conform our nomos to it more and more closely … which makes our nomos “more” sustainable. And if we extend time to include the entire period of human existence on the planet, we might say that we are merely part of an extended dialogue on sustainability … a Great Conversation … a conversation which, perhaps, was going on even before man arrived on the scene … which is why a liberal arts education still matters !!
Experiencing loss … or TBTF
“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” ― Rumi
What we have learned so far about the nature of things is quite encouraging … we have an opportunity to participate in dialogue … in the progressive exploration of and conformity to the logos over time … to learn. So what’s the problem?
The problem is “loss”. Because, as time passes and man learns, man also builds … including really big things like civilizations. And if the things built prove to be unsustainable because their foundation is faulty, man must lose them “for good” [so to speak] … so that something better [more along the line of the logos] can take their place. But loss means pain … and big loss means big pain … it always hurts to acknowledge and accept failure and loss so we can progress.
Indeed, we live in a time when our largest institutions [the very foundations of our nomos] are quite clearly failing … but we are in denial … and our panic-response is that they are TOO BIG TO FAIL … so we resolve to do “whatever it takes” [which changes dramatically as conditions worsen] to avoid the inevitable collapse … so that we will not have to change. We fight bravely [but unwisely] against nature [the logos] instead of
submitting our flawed nomos to honest dialogue,
articulating and acknowledging our errors and
together [and justly] embracing the loss and change needed for progress.
One famous lament which captures the problem well is contained in the Hebrew scripture of Ecclesiastes where the teacher concludes that “all is vanity” … which some translate as “futility” but which literally means “wind” … and the requirement of “wind” in our lives is what Jesus explained to Nicodemus and what Bob Dylan examines in his song “Blowin’ in the Wind”.
Humility … keeping your head down
“He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8
For the intrepid reader, the “requirement for failure” in order to “progress” can be examined in the ages-old philosophical dialogues about foundationalism and fallibilism which arise in every culture and were revisited and refreshed in the 20th century by thinkers like Karl Popper and RM Weaver [author of the very readable Ideas Have Consequences]. But rather than wade into philosophical waters at this time, let’s distill a principle from the dialogue which we will call humility in the face of the logos … and which some have summarized with this thought … “the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God” Proverbs 9:10.
At first, it is hard to see how humility and fear are good. Didn’t Jesus say “Fear not”? But these character qualities have two practical and powerful corollaries which are:
build small and stay local [to limit the inevitable losses] when you can
and, when you can’t, build so you can deconstruct and reconstitute when trouble arises [a nomadic approach of sorts that avoids constructing monoliths].
Put another way,
the real costs of centralized “economies of large scale” [like the Tower of Babel or Washington or Wallstreet] only become apparent when the buildings they inspire are on the verge of collapse … and
the real benefits of decentralized communities only become attractive when the real costs of “large scale economies” begin to bite!
Now that we have discovered the vital importance of dialogue and humility for sustainable living, let’s pause and examine how these priceless attributes can be used to reconcile economy to ecology … to address man’s epistemological problem in a way that will lead us to see the role Education must play in our lives.
Education: from ignorance to knowledge ... and beyond
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'" ― Isaac Asimov
“Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.” ― Arthur C. Clarke
A defining characteristic of human psychology is the ability to know there is much of which one is and will always be ignorant ... something we also call humility.
The Preacher in Ecclesiastes concluded that all our claims to knowledge are merely vanity. Descartes insisted we have an obligation to "doubt, as far as possible, all things" [which is the method he used to find his famous starting place for understanding reality - "I think therefore I am"]. So, as you can see, the alternative to ignorance is not as simple as it may initially appear.
For the sake of this dialogue, we will propose two potential paths for human thought and action:
ignorance>humility>information>knowledge>wisdom>foresight>understanding> ???
ignorance>information>vanity>knowledge>tech-knowledge> ???
... and for simplicity at the moment we will call them:
the MORAL path - what SHOULD/must be done [focused on the means] and
the INTELLECTUAL path - what CAN/may be done [focused on the ends].
The thoughtful reader will immediately see parallels with ancient stories like the Hebrew account of Eve’s apple and mankind's original sin or the Greek tale of Pandora's jar and the curse of unforeseen effects which both assert that a fatal danger accompanies seeking, acquiring and applying knowledge. What is this danger?
The simple danger of knowledge
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again. ― Pope, Essay on Criticism
How much knowledge is enough? ... and when can you safely stop acquiring more knowledge before beginning to apply the little you have?
One reason you cannot safely stop is that the planet is organic which means each part is connected to and dependent on all the others … so that changes in anything change everything [unfortunately including all those things about which you have not yet acquired any/sufficient knowledge to understand WTH you are really doing]. You see the problem ?!
The compound danger of technology
tekhne - Greek for "art, skill, craft in work"
gnostikos - Greek for "knowing, good at knowing, able to discern"
The process of putting your limited knowledge to work is known as technology. And, as would be expected, technology itself requires acquiring even more knowledge which must then be applied ... until you can easily imagine the chain of explosions in knowledge that advancing technology unleashes.
The problem is that as technology advancement becomes entrenched, the original reasons for pursuing it [which arose from some fragments of unapplied, acquired knowledge] can become obscured as the technology begins to feed on itself and becomes an end in itself [ie. per se] ... a thoughtless quest to do what is POSSIBLE not what is MORAL.
A case study: fintech
The obvious contemporary example of technology going awry is fintech … financial technology. Most people do not even know the word has been coined … even though it is the controlling normative force [ie. arising from nomos] in the world today, because governments have finally learned that the consequences of weapons technology are unsustainable.
The original reasons for pursuing fintech were embodied in Bitcoin … a blockchained, decentralized crypto currency … conceived and designed to provide ordinary people with a way to indirectly exchange goods and services while escaping the unrelenting encroachment of central bank financial plundering and federal government social control [ie. social credit and the people’s ledger] that have been built into the world's common currencies. And yet, as the new technology revealed new powers, those reasons were forgotten as central banks and central governments began to contemplate how to develop blockchained, centralized digital currencies to increase their plundering and control of the people. One insightful article put the 180 degree shift in purpose this way:
“[Central bank] digital currencies are set to upend paper [and private crypto] currencies, but it likely won't be the decentralized utopia some hope it will be.” ― Bye, paper currencies: How blockchain and fintech will soon transform money, The Future, Big Think, December 16, 2021
General and specific
We have briefly examined what we have called the moral and intellectual paths to the future. And what we have learned is NOT that morality must remain ignorant, but that it must temper our approach to knowledge. We used the words humility and vanity to make a distinction, but there are two other concepts we must examine before we move on … broad and narrow … or general and particular/specific.
Jesus said “Broad is the way that leads to destruction, but narrow is way that leads to life.” Some have interpreted this as a warning against all attempts to gain intelligence as misleading [for good reasons we have now seen]. But Jesus also said to his disciples, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
We might combine these two statements as follows: “If you have taken the narrow path by humbly assuming that there are sustainable and unsustainable choices you must discern and make in life, then you MUST continue along that path if you wish to know the truth.”
So how does one “continue along the narrow path”? Consider this thought by AN Whitehead in Process and Reality:
“The true method of discovery is like the flight of an aeroplane. It starts from the ground of particular [narrow] observation; it makes a flight in the thin air of imaginative generalization [broad]; and it again lands for renewed observation rendered acute [narrowed] by rational interpretation.”
Whitehead goes on to apply this same principle of continuously moving back and forth between narrow and broad to two familiar approaches to knowledge:
“Religion is the translation of general ideas into particular thoughts, particular emotions, and particular purposes; it is directed to the end of stretching individual interest beyond its self-defeating particularity. …
“In the infancy of science ... the main stress [is] on the discovery of the most general ideas usefully applicable to the subject matter in question. ... In their later stages, apart from occasional disturbances, most sciences accept without question the general notions in terms of which they develop ... [while] the main stress [shifts to] the adjustment and the direct verification of more special statements. In such periods scientists repudiate [religion]. …
“Philosophy frees itself from the taint of ineffectiveness by its close relations with [both] religion and with science, natural and sociological. It attains its chief importance by fusing the two, namely, religion and science, into one rational scheme of thought. …
Morality of outlook is inseparably conjoined with generality of outlook. The antithesis between the general good and the individual interest can be abolished only when the individual is such that its interest is the general good, thus exemplifying the loss of the minor intensities in order to find them again with finer composition in a wider sweep of interest.”
As we can now see, the task of the educator is no easy matter. But, perhaps, it can be summed up in two lessons which both arise from the same task of reconciling the general to the specific:
GENERAL: Love the logos which connects and holds all thing together.
SPECIFIC: Love all other things as you love yourself.