An unusual title about the cruise ship, but let me explain more. In my research on worldviews (see, Richard’s Research on Worldviews and why he is optimistic about a transformation {June 2018}) I describe four main groups of how people are people are likely move to a sustainable paradigm. The small group (1-2%?) ‘Absolute Utilitarians’ will be dragged kicking and screaming in to the new age since they consider the Earth as just a resource to maintain their consumerist lifesytyles, even if everything is going to hell in a handbasket. The opposite broad end of ‘Ecocentrics’ are already on board and willing to do what it takes – these are the ones to identify in your neighborhoods to lead the way with their ‘earth-wisdom.’ It’s the large middle groups of ready to act ‘Logical Idealists,’ and the stubborn ‘Utilitarian Conservationists’ that will both need convincing that a better world means letting go of consumerism as a path to live.
I not naïve enough to believe that everyone will forgo the consumer worldview and all their extensive collection of possessions straight away, and I am not sure I want a society where everyone is forced to be financially equal like some communistic dream. Yes, I want equity, fairness and the opportunities for each of us to reach our full potential, but we are a ways off yet from that kind of utopian ‘Star Trek-like’ dream and becoming ‘culturally competent’ (see, Finding sustainability and a life path without the Labels: part 3 – Becoming Worldcentric {October 2020}). Yet, we can begin now living fairly and equitably even while we learn to get past our consumer mindset. And while I advocate re-localizing the ways we live I do not advocate it as a withdrawing from the world at large in some isolated communes. We should live locally but still think globally as one humanity, sharing and communicating our successes and ideas with everyone on the planet. I certainly hope the internet will continue. It is one of the greatest tools for communication and sharing we have and while there exists some hierarchical manipulation, it is up to us all to be always be discerning and honest about the information we read and publish.
It may take an economic downturn of catastrophic proportions to get everyone on board with a new sustainable living paradigm, but those of us already on-board will be able to lead the way. I dream about a world in which we are post-materialistic (see, Spirituality, Service, and Connectedness – Part 15 – Post-materialism – A New Values Path {October 2021}). We will still have ‘stuff’ in our lives that makes life comfortable and pleasant, but ‘stuff’ will not dominate our thinking. If we aspire to a peaceful, just, healthier, and sustainable world we will have to become more spiritual and not remain absorbed with ‘stuff.’ So here is where the cruise ship metaphor comes in. In the heyday of ship-cruising when travelling to different areas (like todays air travel) there were different levels of service that separated the classes (e.g., first, second, third, and steerage) each with its own isolated levels of dining and entertainment services – the ships were merely extensions of society on land. Most modern cruise ships are predicated on vacations-holidays and are a lot different because of the economic realities of providing services to large groups of people stuck in one place together.
Depending on your current social economic status (SES) will mean different expectations of what luxury and comforts to which you are accustomed. Look at hotels. There are the elitist hotels like the Ritz’s and then there are the premium hotels that literally give you the bare basics. Cruise ships are similar. The key to understand here is that the cabin accommodations may differ, but the dining halls, the entertainment venues, the exercise equipment, the swimming pools, etc., tend to all be shared by all the different SES levels. Move this into a community mindset and you may see people with bigger homes than others, but like an ecovillage, all would share the facilities and resources of the community. Anyone expecting to monetarily pay to avoid their effort-sharing would be disappointed since money would now be a tool only and not a way to set them off from the rest of the village. Indeed, egalitarianism means favoring equality and real justice of some sort. People would be treated the same, or be treated as equals, in some respect to gain their status within the community – a status based on cooperation and personal contribution to the community and not the amount of money owned.
Modern economists view consumerism as a positive because it is driven by consumer spending as measured by GDP growth. But consumerism drives the need to consume and keep consuming. It is the drive to buy and own more stuff, and to define one’s identity through what they own. It is what keeps us separated and less than cooperative as we should be. It’s why we do not have real community despite the way that community is thrown around as a buzz word by politicians. I know it seems a fine line calling a neighborhood just that and not a community. In a community, people are bound together by all aspects of living together and not just because they live in the same defined area. Communities look out for each other in all ways (for my entry discussion on community see, Relocalization and Community {January 2018} and Reframing and Visualizing a New Society 1 {March 2018}) and its the focus of much of this blog.
Our economic paradigms would by necessity change to reflect egalitarian values and not consumer values, and at that time the SES problem would diminish. At the start of this post, I overviewed why we need to consider the ‘utilitarian conservationists’ and the ‘logical idealists’ in creating sustainable communities. It would be easy to leave them outside what we will build, but that would merely increase resentment and hence separation. Consumer living does that already. We must strive for full inclusion and we ecological (and spiritually) enlightened ones, work with their worldview limitations while we build a more egalitarian society. Otherwise, are just building another model of the hierarchical society that has created and perpetuated all the problems we want to resolve and leave behind. We ought to be looking for transformation where we live with earth-wisdom and resolve the root problems, and not just transition from one problem social system to yet another version of it waiting for the problems to simply flare up again.
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