Pillars
What are the load-bearing supports for an ongoing society?
When we parse the agglomeration of global society into its distinct parts, what do we come up with? I’m hoping we can have a discussion about the essentials, what might be overlooked, and where this leads us together toward a climate-changed future. Feel free to disagree.
There is prior established thinking on the subject.
For example, according to natural law proponent Robert George at Princeton, there are five key factors in a society 1: human dignity, the family, law/government, academia and economy. Some other lists single out religion as a pillar, or specifically culture and/or technology. Other lists include the 3Ps of corporate sustainability 2: people, planet, profits.
More than list-making novelty, this assessment becomes relevant when we consider the over-sized influence and power of government and industry, as supposed pillars of a society, in addressing, or not, a global climate crisis made worse by our current society’s ongoing priorities.
I’ve argued that the wrong players are in charge of the climate crisis — most specfically because there is no focus on the most important player. That’s a society-sustaining environment.
As part of the Bank of Nature thought experiment and in conversations with various global experts who are advising on our development, I’ve been trying to look at the major categories of our society to see what will continue into a climate-changed future because we want it to and what must continue to ensure there is some sort of choice for future generations.
At a minimum, 7.8 billion+ future humans will have some version of a society as our most powerful organizing principle. That’s a made up social construct that does not occur in nature but provides us structure that has become essential and, with time, run counter to what’s good for us. Again, feel free to argue.
For discussion: My list of pillars of a viable society based in nature.
Nature: Strangely, nature is not a “pillar” of society in traditional thinking and I’m not sure “planet”, which is lip service from corporate sustainability, zeros in on the oversight. In our climate-changed future there will be some sort of nature, but it will be altered by anthropocentric priorities from today. Whatever near future human story happens will take place with a nature that is less favorable — affecting food production for our planet of billions of eaters (also, strangely not a pillar), biodiversity (not a pillar), atmosphere (not), ocean acidification (not), dot-dot-dot. Nature is more than a tourist destination or a conservation focus. There is no society without society-viable nature. Bank of Nature acknowledges our society’s debt to nature in ways to protect it against our current snub.
Economy: We value economy, another social construct, more than humanity, which is nature-based biology. Like many social constructs, economy is so embedded in the way we live modern lives and in our purpose narratives — through jobs and trade and industry at global scale — that to throw it away now would be devastating. Money, commerce, transactions and some version of wealth creation will always be part of a future human story. It’s a prime driver of Bank of Nature, which reflects humanity’s need to trade and monetize. It also includes and respects the investment by nature in those transactions. In this way we can change our growth-at-all-costs priority to one that actually reflects the true cost of how we live.
Energy: Again, oddly, not an explicit pillar of society. Without energy, there is no society that can keep the majority of us alive. Energy-security is the argument that keeps fossil fuel production alive and discounting our future. Any future story for human society will involve a rethink on our relationship to energy — how it is acquired, used, wasted and distributed. We can’t support our billions without using energy so it ought not to deplete nature, infect it or make it toxic. Energy ranks, in priority, higher than human survivability. Bank of Nature, by design, works to detoxify our energy story — because we have options today that make continued toxic energy production, well, criminal.
Justice: Any future version of the law or government will need a rethink on justice, which I theorize will become more doable as we unwind our nature issues. Injustice, arguably, is a society pillar today and ranks, in priority, higher than human survivability. Civil strife due to arbitrary social constructs is an unforced error that we can address through Bank of Nature, affecting government, laws, privilege and distribution of human-supporting benefits. Government today is not about justice. Justice tomorrow could be government.
Inquiry: Bank of Nature is not some romantic notion that we should return to caves or some naive concept that overlooks the fact that nature is, itself, quite cruel. It’s a structural fix based on maximizing modern and forward-looking science, art, self-expression and even faith — collectively “culture” that is presently estranged from its wellspring. Curiosity through science, art and other adventures of learning will continue, with or without the formal academy or class distinctions between disciplines. Bank of Nature has developed with transdisciplinary thinkers. Culture evolves from inquiry, is fluid, and will evolve with ongoing inquiry — even in a climate-changed future.
Innovation: I’ve waffled on whether to call this technology, understanding that technology is integral to a modern society and without it, even something like Bank of Nature, may not be viable. Technology (as something more profound than a byproduct of science and more than a distracting toy) is the result of innovation, the true pillar. Innovation, like the implementation of Bank of Nature, comes with choices, like incurring negative externalities, or creating injustice, or dehumanizing our species. Awareness of that choice, rather than simply ignoring it, is where the negotiation can take place and innovation can be done in context of the planet-scale picture.
Goodwill: We live in a cynical society. Eye rolling, if you’re doing it, is proving the point. I have thought long and hard about goodwill as a pillar because I’m also guilty of cynicism, weary of the toll of human exceptionalism. Bank of Nature is based on molecules not sentimentality. Yet, there is a mystery that we rarely talk about. Tolkien called it The Flame Imperishable — that spark comprising sapience and sentience that has perplexed philosophers for as long as we’ve been aware. Today, we seem quite perishable and we have seem to have forgotten the mystery. Despite this, we have evolved the idea of togetherness. The definition of family is being revised. The traditions of marriage have been remade. Community, more like kinship than a competitive clan or clique, works through cooperation and understanding. Friendship, inclusion and diversity are intrinsic to human modern self-expression. The most fundamental aspects of humanity are based in compassion, empathy and love — states of being that seem quaint or idealistic when we are more dehumanized than ever. Kindness is not weakness. Equity, fair play, mutuality, commonality, context in the larger bio-chemical realm of nature, constructive dissent, civil disagreement, listening, truth-seeking, rationality are aspects of a society working, in good faith, together. We must acknowledge the extreme levels of trauma in our current world, along with the triggers and consequences from person to person, and how that translates to a planet-scale, climate-changed rock orbiting the sun. Goodwill is pillar that needs repair.
If you’ve noticed, government and industry are demoted as subsets of other pillars. That makes this list, of course, radical when it is really anything but.
The status quo is not a pillar. It’s a blind spot.
The status quo ignores the actual pillars that keep it in power. We might have a different sustainability story if we question what we think are load-bearing walls and what are partition walls. At least we should be more careful about what we lean on for support.
Good pillars! "Goodwill" is a good catch all for the most important bits- to me it boils down to practicing respect and upholding personal integrity = an ethos of respect (for humans and other living beings, including "nature"/ecosystems) An ethic of respect seems to me is what has dissolved from our society at so many levels, and without it all we have is individual self interest and something like goodwill (which to me seems softer than respect- more like a good intention that comes and goes as we have time/inclination to attend to it?). J. Rock
"Goodwill is pillar that needs repair." You are right. We need a new Economics of Goodwill to replace our current Economics of Rational Rabid Self-Interest in which, as Economist Dennis Snower teaches us: "no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off".