A key aspect of a flourishing culture is one that allows people to be the creative beings they know themselves to be, in whatever form that takes for any one individual. I really believe that we are not meant to be just existing with no purpose. Societies all around the world have now created ‘mundaneness’ as the expectation for how we live. The structure is to have us be worker bees or Ant workers – compliant and obedient. If you feel that society isn’t working for you, then you now know why. If deep down you just know that there is more to life and you have something big to do and that the current system isn’t working, then know that a lot of people (most of humanity) feel the same way. Why do we need hunger, disease, or war? Destiny in not how you make a living through a career. Destiny is being who you feel you want to be and want to express your creativity.
Author Jeremy Lent and founder of the Liology Institute (The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning) talks about how humanity throughout history has made sense of the universe through underlying values that contributed to their worldview. These worldviews drive how we act. I agree with him that we all need to wake up (as we are actually doing) and do more than see what is happening, but to begin moving towards a new sustainable worldview. I have talked often about worldviews – these are the beliefs that drive our lives. A metaphorical story I heard many years ago is about a man wanting to drive to a city south of him. He leaves the town and mistakenly drives north. It doesn’t matter how fast or slow he drives, or how efficient he makes his vehicle, driving north will just continue to take him further from his desired destination. Until he stops and turns around and starts to head south, he will never get to where he wants to go. That my friends, is a very clear depiction of humanity’s current predicament. If you have a dream of living in a sustainable world, then we have to consciously make the decision to become sustainable. The path to sustainability is simple – start being and acting in a sustainable way. When we look at what is going on we can see the core values that drive our culture. In the world today, we see material wealth and a centralized, top-down hierarchical system controlling the world and heading in the opposite direction of where most people would like to go. A transformed world living sustainably will have core values and a common vision that center on quality of life with a decentralized, bottom up management.
While we continue to drive in the wrong direction in a daily frenzy of current events, the dream of a sustainable future remains just that, a dream. While we remain hypnotized in going the wrong way, a cultural metamorphosis is already occurring from the most unexpected sources.
- In China, President Xi Jinping has declared an ecological civilization to be a central part of his long-term vision for the country.
- In Bolivia and Ecuador, the related values of buen vivir and sumak kawsay (“good living’) are written into the constitution, and in Africa the concept of ubuntu (“I am because we are”) is a widely-discussed principle of human relations.
- In Europe, hundreds of scientists, politicians, and policy-makers recently co-authored a call for the EU to plan for a sustainable future in which human and ecological wellbeing is prioritized over GDP. It is already a part of the Dutch Political Constitution. The Netherlands possesses one of the most advanced frameworks for achieving sustainability of any industrialized nation – The National Environmental Policy Plan (NEPP-1989). There are numerous examples of large-scale thriving workers cooperatives (e.g. Mondragon in Spain) that demonstrate that companies can provide effectively benefits for workers, the local economies, and the environment based on a stakeholder model (see prior post Changing Business 3 – Shareholders versus Stakeholders – Creating Corporatocracies!). It uses values of cooperation, participation, social responsibility, and innovation to promote its business mission.
- Also as Jeremy Lent states: Think tanks such as The Next System Project, The Global Citizens Initiative, and the P2P Foundation are laying down parameters for the political, economic, and social organization of an ecological civilization. Meanwhile, visionary authors such as Kate Raworth and David Korten have written extensively on how to reframe the way we think about our economic and political path forward.
These are just some of the many models occurring that are driving sustainability. These models will become more obvious as the next few years show the current model is incapable of coping with the changing extremes we are now experiencing. We can make the decision to follow the companies and communities that are currently showing resilience or we can just bury our proverbial heads in the sand and go down the road to perdition – the CHOICE IS OURS. Will our personal sovereignty and wisdom prevail? If we empower ourselves it will. Sitting around waiting for superman is letting the powers that be take us to the edge of dystopia.
“One way or another, humanity is headed for the third great transformation in its history: either in the form of global collapse or a metamorphosis to a new foundation for sustainable flourishing. An ecological civilization offers a path forward that may be the only true hope for our descendants to thrive on Earth into the distant future.” Jeremy Lent
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