The last five posts were a story of how we globally came to be bamboozled by American Hyper-Consumerism. The problem is not so much consumerism as the economic drive that forced a tragic and mindless lifestyle onto people with the hollow promise of a wonderful life but gave instead loss of community, slavery to a debt system, and a separation from self, others, and the natural world as people became pawns in a system designed to build a global feudal hierarchy. In case you hadn’t noticed, I am not sugar-coating this situation. I have mentioned this throughout the blog without getting into too far down this rabbit hole. In another couple of posts I will delve deeper down the rabbit hole to show how this concerted effort by a powerful few is attempting to transform our lives to a feudal system. The late comedian, George Carlin, used to comment sharply on how the controlling hierarchy use techniques to create division among us all (politics, religion, borders, etc…) to create separation so we are easier to control. For the next couple of posts, however, I will emphasize how people have made changes to avoid this insidious control and have moved towards an empowered way of Living Sustainably.
I have discussed community as the primary way that humans evolved, whether that was in an original tribal system or in an agrarian village or township until relatively recent times. In a true community, you are free to be who and what you want to be – the free and relatively unfettered individual that you know you can be. It doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want that hurts people and interferes with their rights to be who they want to be. Foster Gamble (who founded the Thrive Movement) calls this the ‘Non-Violation’ principle. It is essentially the Golden Rule. In my Sustainable Living Text, I discuss this kind of idea as a principle to guide us in developing community that benefits everyone. I call it Communitarianism, and Citizenship is an expected aspect of participation. In its most simple form, Communitarians argue that the individual is a part of a community, which shapes their worldview and hence their values that are collectively derived, yet, people act as a community and still remain individuals. Communitarianism could be better seen as a modification of liberalism – liberal communitarianism, since social justice, cultural rights (including cultural community), and the common good are all important. I emphasize that this involves Civic Communitarianism or Civic republicanism because it requires we be active participants in the political aspects of a community and promote and positive rights (the right to do something such as a self-governing political community). Civic Communitarianism emphasizes Social Capital (definition: the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively) as the defining tenet of community not just a shared set of civic and moral values. The principle components of this idea are recognition and understanding of cultural differences rather than forcing adherence to a cultural view that is an attempt to deal with multicultural differences, the social capital of a democratic citizenship, a community of shared values and sense of place, and a concept of the group as a primary unit although institutionalizing group moral codes can be a challenge (Jurin SL text). As I have said previously, these new types of community will occur organically as they begin and grow. There are many examples of this in action, and I will cover more as I go along, but for this post I will cover one that is advanced reformational and one that is transformational. {addendum: I use the term communitarianism here, but I like to think of it as being the sovereign individual collaborating, not the subjugation of individuality, which it can mean}
One reform based one can be found in Scotland – Findhorn EcoVillage and The Findhorn Foundation (https://www.ecovillagefindhorn.com/). They are working within the larger system even as they create a sustainable system that is different from the status quo of the region. In 2010, I spent a week working, talking with people living there, and observing life in this ecovillage. I came away rather impressed not in the specialness of the place but how ‘regular’ it seemed. It just works at this time. It produces it own energy (wind towers on site), is approaching self-sufficiency in food, has a working Living Machine that treats all waste, and every building on site has to at least meet quite exacting specifications of efficiency. It began as a spiritual project, and to a large degree still is, although not everyone is committed that way, it has become more pragmatic in its approach to Living Sustainably. The Findhorn Foundation set out to demonstrate that a sustainable community could be work in environmental, social, and economic terms. The ecovillage was the first step, but the Foundation has a myriad catchment of organizations, businesses and agricultural activities all within a 50-mile radius that since the 1980s use the ecovillage principles of sustainable living. In 1998, the Findhorn Foundation won the UN-Habitat Best Practice Designation. It has a reputation as one of the soundest examples of Living Sustainably in the world at this time. I visited it again a year ago – and it just seems to be getting better from the ecovillage perspective. I wasn’t able to assess the community aspect this time, but the people I did meet all loved living there and liked the sense of community that pervaded the place, although the community seems to be happening rather than being designed as such at this time.
On the other side of the world in South Africa, an energetic individual, Michael Tellinger, has created yet another idea – Ubuntu – a transformationally new way of thinking (https://ubuntuplanet.org/). A central idea of Ubuntu is the idea of ‘Contributionism’ (unity within diversity, and cooperation). The movement for Ubuntu is international in scope and I was quite amazed just how many people around the world have already become spokespeople for the idea. In the website it says, “Ubuntu” is an African expression of ancient wisdom, which is echoed by all ancient civilizations. It simply means “unity within community” where everyone contributes their natural talents or skills for the greater benefit of all. The native American Cherokee have a similar philosophy that says; “if it’s not good for everyone, it’s no good at all”. This philosophy is one of the founding principles of our proposed system of Contributionism… The people behind the UBUNTU Liberation Movement and the philosophy of Contributionism are not politicians or corporations with profit or control in mind. We are a growing group of HUMANS from all walks of life who consist of mothers, fathers, scientists, teachers, doctors, inventors, housewives, old and young, and many other ordinary people who care about other humans. We have taken these steps to share our knowledge with everyone in the belief that it will help us move towards unity and abundance for all.”
These two examples are important in that they show how things can work. What makes Ubuntu different is that it wants to go beyond the status quo and start a new moneyless system that works on community as a central focus. Reform works as long as the hierarchy allow it to continue. If the reformed system is also resilient then it can easily transform as the need arises. I perceive Findhorn as one that is resilient, although the people that live there for the most part have the financial ability to invest in living there. The transformed system just ignores the hierarchy at the outcome and sets about to make a new world that benefits everyone that doesn’t require most people to have the financial ability to be a part of it. Before I deal more with how we can build community that works in a reformed or transformed system, a side trip down the spirituality rabbit hole.
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