Personal impressions to follow in subsequent post. For now, here's the notes.
On the meaning of the term 'sustainable development':
* Yes, it has been hijacked by thousands of different, sometimes even contradictory uses. No, we do not need to abandon it altogether. To do so would be to be held hostage to these contradictory meanings which have gradually become hostage to it.
* We view 'sustainability' as living without hindering Earth's ongoing evolutionary processes. This means reducing our tread on the land to the barest minimum. Generally, living within our means. Gaining the same amount of - or more - fullfillment from each other, our communities, our surroundings, as we currently seem to gain from objects, cash transactions and material flows. This does not mean that we completely de-materialize our lifestyles. This would be the opposite extreme and not desirable or effective in the long term. It means that we begin to develop our crippled, latent sense of place, love of place, a recognition of the Earth's sentience and soulfullness. It means that we should switch from our current trajectory of economic growth - one based on scarcity, exponentially increasing demand, and individualism, to one based on cooperation, a sense of community, creativity, and abundance.
* The most urgent task in this endeavor is recovering lives of meaning. This is largely the task of a vastly reformed education system.
* How do you reconcile the personal with the political?
There is no distinction!
The way we come to this conclusion is by observing the process our students at Schumacher College go through.
First, they uncover their personal sense of connection with the Earth. Their personal sense of it, their embeddeness within it. In a tangible, physical way. Then, inevitably, they examine how their current lives 'fit' within this alternative perspective. This does not imply an automatic 'shift' to that perspective - but inevitably, the feeling of connection, embeddeness, and love of place tends to create a strong bond to this 'other way of seeing' oneself - as part of something greater, vaster, intelligent and loving. The process of examining how one lives one's life is often painful, long drawn out and uncomfortable. Everyday actions that one normally takes for granted begin to appear misguided. If the person then takes the decision to create alternatives to these unsustainable actions - to change their behaviour, to not blindly be part of something because 'everybody else does it too', this is the beginning of political action. His sense of right and wrong begins to become conscious. His actions begin to be motivated by a sense of love, rather than unexamined habit. And once on this path, the individual becomes an unstoppable force.
On development - Vandana Shiva and Gustavo Esteva:
* Three false assumptions regarding 'development' dominate current thinking:
1. Financial transactions indicate economic development. Low financial transactions - or an absence of financial transactions - denotes an undeveloped or underdeveloped society.
2. The 'developing countries' are intrinsically backward. They therefore need external help - and a 'push from the outside' if they are to overcome their present state.
3. The powerful have a right to design the lives of the weak.
* Living within local means is an effective antidote to globalisation. While not everything can be sourced locally, it is enough to stipulate that whatever can be sourced locally is given preference to that which comes from far away. Localization is also an antidote to localism. Today, we observe that the more globalized your economy, the more parochial your consciousness becomes. We want to localize the flows of environmental goods and services - and globalize consciousness and solidarity.
On agriculture and GM crops - Vandana Shiva and Gustavo Esteva:
* Remember that GM does not create traits. It simply relocates them.
* Flood, drought and salt resistant varieties already exist - their use has been pushed to the margins, their availability has been commercialized. To the detriment of both societies which were once empowered holders of local knowledge, adept at selective breeding and active monitering, as well as the environment. Typically, when one of the two loses out, so does the other. What is socially unjust is inevitably environmentally unjust, somewhere or the other.
* Seeds need to be brought back into the commons.
On environmental education - David Orr and Karen Blincoe:
What does environmental education need to impart?
- Above all, a love for the planet. This is a basic starting point, from which all other education must flow.
- Second, we need to give students the practical skills to deal with the upcomming period of transition.
- Third, we need to devise a list of what analytical skills they might need.
Above all, though, they will need a sense of hope. Optimism is essentially a prediction. There is no reason to look at the current data and be optimistic. There is, however, every reason to be hopeful. But hope in this case is a verb with it's sleeves rolled up. In the end, it is hopeful people who will save the world. It is not optimists, and it is certainly not pessimists who will do this.
We fail our students by not showing them their individual potential as human beings. If education can show people their own uniqueness and then highlight where they fit into the larger scheme of things, it can produce purposeful, directed and positive human beings. Show them that they are already complete! Lacking in nothing! Full of creative, unique potential. And then teach them how to recognize, develop, and love themselves for it. Teach them how to go out and be forces in the world. Passive education - listening, note-taking, reading and writing exams deadens their sense of active potential, delays it, numbs it.
What advice do you have for students within the current system?
- Use the system. Don't let the system use you. Don't become a product.
- Find out what you need to know - and then go after it and learn it.
- Don't become a technician, learning processes. Learn something deeper!
- Have fun! Do other things. Be brave. Start something of your own.
For every act of specilization, we need an act of synthesis. Rigour in lateral, connective, 'pattern' thinking is a key skill to develop.
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For A.
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