Philosophy and Sustainability
The Wisdom Letter, a great Substack page that doesn't fill me with existential gloom, dropped five thought-provoking quotes in the inbox yesterday, each of which has a solid sustainability angle. Writing about it revealed a theme:
Live well, respect others, build community.
Let’s start with the Romans.
“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”
— Seneca the Younger
Once basic needs are met, the best things in life are free, e.g., connection with others, time in nature, and slowing down and having time to think. Yet so many of us chase 'stuff', trying to fill a hole. But it's like eating junk food when your body is screaming for nutrients and telling your brain you're hungry: you wind up obese but malnourished.
There is no rule that we have to consume more and more. [FN1] For most of our history humans have made do with limited resources. The carbon pulse has let us live beyond our means for 200-odd years, but now it's time for sobriété: not a life of privation, but of consciously living within our planetary means so we can all thrive. But you can't do this without the wisdom to see that a rich life comes from how you spend your time, not how you spend your money.
My take:
Slow down.
Consciously take the time to appreciate what you have and to build healthy relationships in your local community.
Whatever the future holds, we won't get through it on our own, but as part of a group.
“I heartily accept the motto, “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.”
— Henry David Thoreau in ‘Civil Disobedience’
This is a really interesting one that deserves more that a two-paragraph thought bubble.
On the one hand, we are in a meta-crisis with national and global problems that need good governance to effectively respond to them. We need organisations that can take a long-term, system-wide view and invest accordingly, over decades or even centuries. We also need enforceable rules and effective sanctions for breaking the rules. The private sector (under our current economic model) won't do that. You need government. [FN2] In fact, giving more power to corporations would make things immeasurably worse.
On the other hand, the current system isn't working optimally either. [FN3] Government can stifle necessary development (as written about in Klein and Thompson's ‘Abundance’)), is often too focussed on re-election and power, can favour one part of the population over the nation as a whole, and is not always independent of corporate interests. Anarchism, (local societies in free association with each other, organised democratically from below), looks pretty good in that light. But it also looks like Europe pre-Treaty of Westphalia.
The happy balance, I think, is not ‘no government’, but local organisation at the municipality level to take care of most things, national government to enforce the rules and (cue the angry comments), international cooperation to address global issues.
My take:
A better form of government won't emerge without a fight.
In the meantime, and in case your government one day collapses, invest time in building local community. It might make all the difference.
“Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little.”
— Michel de Montaigne in ‘Essais’
One sustainability angle here is that living well, especially thriving with what you have rather than accumulating things, is not only a better experience but also has less impact on the natural world. But another is that focussing on quantity rather than quality has perverse outcomes. A more crowded world, for one. More time to consume and pollute. In fact, having 8 billion people on the planet is already not sustainable. Prolonging the life of the individual is just reducing the chances of the species.
Some are even seeking immortality. This strikes me as supremely narcissistic, not to mention immature. And where the route is AI-powered transhumanism, potentially catastrophic for the rest of us. If you want to achieve a lasting legacy, achieve ‘immortality’ through your actions, not by sticking around and denying others their own shot. [FN4]
My take:
You never hear of anyone saying, on their death bed, that they wish they'd spent more time in the office, or had more money. It's always about the relationships they had in life.
Stop and be grateful every day for what you are blessed with.
Prioritise those you love and rewarding experiences over material wealth.
“Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.”
— Voltaire
Opinions are great... when they can be backed up. Otherwise they are fantasies. Sometimes dangerous ones at that, as Voltaire recognised.
Humanity faces existential problems. There will be different opinions on how to address them, and that's great, provided we first agree there are problems. The climate is changing. Biodiversity is falling. Perpetual growth is impossible in a closed system.
Why are we in this pickle of 'alternative facts'? We could talk about media ownership rules, social media and the like, but to what end?
My take:
Be sceptical of what you hear and read.
Listen to others to hear what they have to say, not to find a gap to say what you want to say.
Be respectful.
Focus on what you have in common with others, not where you differ.
“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.”
— Aldous Huxley (says The Wisdom Letter, but Hegel said something similar first [FN5])
Modern brains are no match for billions of years of evolution which prioritises short-term survival, but it is still frustrating that we can see we are driving the car of civilisation towards a cliff and yet do nothing to stop it. We know what happened to the Easter Islanders. We've read the Despotism Playbook. But the most we seem to hear, such as from the 'green growth' crowd, is that we should ease off the accelerator. If you suggest hitting the brakes or turning the wheel (because you know your history), you're a fringe lunatic.
We're not going to return to a mythical golden age from last century: things will get pretty sketchy in the next decade or two.
My take:
Focus on what really matters, not the accumulation of stuff.
Build local community.
Notes
FN1: Many economists might disagree, but their neoclassical model of continual growth violates the laws of thermodynamics, so we can safely write them off for the purposes of this article.
FN2: Well, you need governance, but that ultimately has to be underwritten by government. See also Chomsky's 'Understanding Power', relevant excerpts of which can be found here.
FN3: Exhibit A: climate change.
FN4: This is explored in the very entertaining Revolutions podcast covering the Martian Revolution.
FN5: Was die Erfahrung aber und die Geschichte lehren ist dieses daß Völker und Regierungen niemals etwas aus der Geschichte gelernt und nach Lehren, die aus derselben zu ziehen gewesen wären, gehandelt hätten.
Or: But what experience and history teach is that nations and governments have never learned anything from history and have never acted in accordance with the lessons that could have been drawn from it.
