Democracy Inaction

I have, along with everyone else in Sydney, spent the last month and more dealing with smoke from bushfires across the state. This is however, obviously not the worst of the national disaster we are now in the midst of as there are countless families who have been burnt out or displaced in rural areas and even some suburbs of cities, millions of animals dead with some pushed to the edge of extinction from habitat loss, and over 5,900,000 hectares (15,000,000 acres) of forest and bushland up in smoke. The relentless news of this ‘new normal’ is really starting to wear on me (as is the heat; I did have plans to do some small projects and travel over the holidays but find myself just escaping in my flat under fans or A/C). Also, the places I was thinking of going are either on fire or blocked from road closure and evacuation. What are we to do other than taking short showers and having a bucket under us as we do? This afternoon I wrote my local MP, Linda Burney about my concerns. I’ve met her a couple times and know that these sentiments are already what she advocates for in Canberra; but I think it’s important as a citizen of what’s ostensibly a functioning democracy to voice them regardless:

Dear Minister,

I’m writing as I watch social media posts from one set of friends evacuating Mallacoota by navy ship and another picking up the pieces down the coast at Rosedale. For the past many weeks we have all suffered through smoke and heat here in Sydney and the months ahead look set to be much the same. What cannot remain the same are the responses and denial from Canberra as we enter a new decade. We, as citizens of a country both blessed with resources and limited by scarcity, expect leadership and coherence from our politicians; however, most of what we encounter is either nonsensical or farcical with little reference to the reality of what’s happening. 

I recognise you and your Labor colleagues have attempted to put forward sensible plans for our future but have been frustrated at the polls and hindered by misinformation; please persevere regardless. The alternative is that we, as a country, are blindly led further down the path we have traversed for years that has resulted in this emerging disaster. 

Please continue to advocate for immediate action to address both our international commitments and the advancement of changes that can surpass them where applicable. We have immense capacity for renewable energy (including retraining and new jobs for people currently working in the fossil fuel industry to justly transition workers from the old to new); however, the window to accomplish this with any sense of order is quickly closing. We cannot wait till all the coal is burnt and the rivers have run dry to decide it’s time to make the shift. We cannot close down every TAFE* in the country and expect to have the skill base needed to rebuild from the ashes. We cannot divert the flow of our watersheds to grow cotton and expect to have ample supply for our expanding urban populations. Something has to change either now or, alternately, in the future at the ragged end of chaos. Please do all you can to make it the former while that’s still an option.

*TAFE is Australia’s national vocational educational system; it’s gone from world class to massively privatised and decimated over the past ten years.

The story makes the world

I studied film production in University; our directing teacher was the venerable Dr Katherine Stenholm. One day in class she made this statement about filmmaking which, at the time, seemed ludicrous, "We make reality." To my young indoctrinated mind, that was beyond our human capacity; God made reality and it was so. However, I've grown to understand more of the nuance of what she meant. This morning I read George Monbiot's excellent Weekly Review article in this week's Guardian. His title and premise is, It's time to tell a new story if we want to change the world. He articulates much of what I've been ruminating recently about our individual and collective need for a better story from which we live. 

He says, "Stories are the means by which we navigate the world. They allow us to interpret its complex and contradictory signals. We all possess a narrative instinct: an innate disposition to listen for an account of who we are and where we stand. When we encounter a complex issue and try to understand it, what we look for is not consistent and reliable facts but a consistent and comprehensible story. When we ask ourselves whether something 'makes sense', the 'sense' we seek is not rationality, as scientists and philosophers perceive it, but narrative fidelity."

We are the storytelling creature and without a coherent story we fall into a kind of madness. We hold to our myths and legends because they give us a form to work from—the archetypes from which we can understand ourselves and our relation to others. One cannot remove the 'story' from the 'self' without either replacing it with another or causing significant trauma. This is evidenced—everywhere in countless ways. From the products we purchase out of 'brand loyalty' to the celebrities we admire, in our adherence to a certain sports team to a willingness to die in battle for the cause of a nation. It's often based far more on the story we've been told or tell ourselves rather than objective reality. 

I'd like to think of myself as a rational person but I know that my own life is not given meaning nor is it motivated by lists of facts. Monbiot, in his article states, "A string of facts, however well attested, will not correct or dislodge a powerful story. The only response it is likely to provoke is indignation: people often angrily deny facts that clash with the narrative 'truth' established in their minds. The only thing that can displace a story is a story. Those who tell the stories run the world." We aren't living in a 'post truth' world; objectively, truth is still truth. We are living in a world where the collective narrative can be powerfully shifted and driven on a mass scale. We are in a world where The Story is even more paramount than ever. All these matters we focus on, the economy, the environment, migration, human rights, resources—we discuss them all as if control of them is the goal and end of power. They are insignificant, or at most, secondary to the power derived from The Story. Consider this, twenty years from now will it matter more who has more control of all the oil in the world or who has shaped a story about how and what resources we use? Will it matter who controls a given swath of geography or how we consider the migrant and the other—how we consider identity? The Story is the basis for how the world continues and we shape that narrative as individuals and as a collective of societies. 

The point this keeps coming back to for me is the issue of immigration. Immigrants must be given a space to make a new story in our adopted homes. If we do not feel part of a place's story we will never feel part of that place. We cannot live as sane human beings without that story in place—if that's missing then one will latch on to another story and that's often one based on disenfranchisement and fear. ISIS provides a story of a place and identity that can call in all the misplaced people around the world who are hungry for a story to live under. They've taken up a story that's undergird Islam for centuries, re-worked it to their own devices and deployed it as a narrative to fit their own needs, "if you cannot feel at home in the place you were born; join us in making this new story for the future." We are suffering for a scarcity of healthy stories.

We have to find a new way to make The Story for us as human beings on Earth while, simultaneously, find a new story for each of us as we readily move about upon it. All that list of serious matters above are also real and increasingly weigh upon us; but, without new stories to guide our actions, we aren't going to have a remedy for any of them. We have to recognise the reality of where we are (both literally and metaphorically); we can't make the story up on a blank slate. We have to respect the place we are in and start from there. I'm trying to consider exactly from where that story begins. I think, perhaps having read too much Wendell Berry, it truly starts from the ground up—that our stories start from a place and that place begins with soil. After writing so much about the idea of stewardship, I'm convinced that we are, ultimately, stewards of the soil. There's not much point in anything else if we destroy the actual earth beneath us; so I'd propose we start building our stories, place to place and person to person on the stewardship of soil (however, that's probably another topic to explore). 

One final note though; back to where I began in directing class. The first thing to suffer in our education, when we tell the story that capital is primary, are the liberal arts. However, if you remove Humanities from the curriculum, you remove someone's capacity to both tell and interpret stories. People are rendered powerless to either understand or generate stories and can then be controlled. That's, of course, a purposed act by neoliberal governments and institutions who want to shape the story to their own ends. We may not feel we have great powers but, if we have the power to tell a story, the story makes the world. 

The ten-thousand dollar sandwich

Yes we drank bottled water in India—but that’s because they actually don’t have safe taps. And, I must admit, I’ve had a lot of bottled water in places where the taps were probably perfectly safe. But Annie points out the ludicrousness of it all here.

Mouth Water

This week, Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the Copenhagen Summit said (on the failure of heads of state to come to a worthwhile consensus), “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. We’ve brought 192 horses to water.”
I suppose it won’t matter soon; the water will rise to their mouths and there will be no more leading.

I know you've done it as well

I’m reading Good magazine’s issue on water (which is, despite what OPEC would have you believe, our most valuable resource). This morning, I came across this Brazilian public service ad outlining a way to save many thousands of litres of water a year.

A couple years ago there was a campaign in Australia called Save Water, Shower with a Friend. Just think how much water we could save worldwide if we join all this thinking up!

The Revolution

I was just searching for something else…and came across this reply I made concerning a post by Alex Steffen on WorldChanging. (There was also a good discussion on small arms trade that’s worth revisiting as well.) I walked past a Tamil protest in the city today and, once again, am considering the effects of revolutions on revolutionaries and—especially—on people caught in the middle. The comment below concerned The Green Revolution; however, as I think that political and environmental revolutions are closely entwined, the discussion is parallel. The comment:
“Revolutions are rarely bloodless (in the quite literal sense); you and I would have it so. We all discuss ways of positive change; we begin a thousand incremental movements toward a sustainable place for all living things. But as Jonathan mentions above, there are billions of people who are not necessarily thinking about this right now. They are not taking those steps. Our revolution may be velvet; though we must consider all the clouded rhetoric that surround these issues, at least we have the power to discern and determine our futures through “lifestyle choices.” We have in our hands a spectrum of paths that point to any number of futures. But, I fear, there are so many in the world who face a starker and much bloodier tomorrow.

If we are to have any future, the revolution (and I’m using that term without a solid definition here) will come. But, nothing dealing with ideas at such a large scale comes overnight; nothing comes to all of us at once. We’ve begin in the Global North, we take [those] steps (though more slowly that some of us would like to see); we are hopeful these will negate the damages done. We are hopeful that it’s not too late to heal. But, while we change, we ride on a cache of social order and wealth. Most of the South has no such buffer; the revolution will hit them hard and suddenly (we can already see this happening in places with scarce water resources and where food supply is endangered by global warming; the knock-on social effects are apparent).

I say all the above to consider this: You and I know that radical change is needed; we have good hopes of determining what this is and living it out. Though I’m not completely living it now, I hope to do so in the incoming years so that all is well and I am not detrimental to society or the planet. All of “us” commit to this; we manage to become a positive encouragement in our society and change it for the better. Millions of “us” change; however, there are still billions of people on the planet who were not part of this initial revolution. There are still billions operating under “the old systems.” How do we bring the revolution to them?

Alex, you are right, we have the responsibility to dream a new future for the world; it’s not enough to sit tidy at home. I do not think it grandiose to say that we must now think ideas that are better than what humanity has ever thought. All action springs from ideas, we must have the best ideas and inspire people with them.

What ideal world do we advocate? I think we do not yet have anything that would unify humanity to change in the radical way needed. We don’t have, for lack of a better metaphor, a scripture for the future of the world. (Or, perhaps, we haven’t properly interpreted the text written in nature all around us.) I can make the changes needed to save my world; that decision is relatively painless (though it require a complete restructuring of all my thought and action). The difficult part of a revolution is not changing me; the difficulty is generating and disseminating the ideas that change others. How do we shape the ideas of all the people in the world in the short time we have to do so? How do we make the green revolution velvet for us all?”

Furnishing the landfill

My office is next to the main square in Strasbourg. There is a posh shop across the street that is either closing down or about to be renovated. All day I’ve watched workmen rip out the very nice cabinetry and displays and fill a large skip. This is stuff that most people would be glad to have as living room furniture—off to the dump (or, at least I’m assuming; they are breaking stuff up into pieces).
(Oh, by the way; I’m in France! Update coming shortly.)

Parts and pieces

I spent a good chunk of the day yesterday thinking through how to organise and parse and compile and collate and collect the data for my dissertation research. I’ve looked at several word processing programs (as I detest Microsoft Word and don’t think I could be compelled to use it under any circumstance). I’ve actually used Apple’s Pages program for several assignments this year; however, it’s not really up to the task of a dissertation length work. After trying out various demos, I think I’m smitten with Scrivener it seems to have all the necessary components to organise large amounts of material and aid the writer. It’s not exactly a word processor, the layout and typesetting is handled by a separate program (thankfully it exports to LaTeX, so I will probably export to TeXShop where I can have detailed control over the fit and finish). Will report on how all that progresses.
One of the aims of my research is to make it accessible to others; I’ve set up a simple wiki here to make available my research. Perhaps, after I’m finished with the research, it will grow into a larger collaborative effort.

Also, I’m going to start a new weblog category for “Stewardship” to set apart entries pertaining to the dissertation.

Now I need to make another cup of tea and go back to reading; it’s raining today in Glasgow and perfect for book perusing. (Of course, it’s raining most of the time—no wonder there are so many Scottish writers!)

Dissertation Proposal

I’m preparing to begin dissertation work in earnest; this is the latest draft of my proposal (which will evolve as I begin research and writing). I’ll post a little excerpt and here is the full document as a .pdf
“We violated nature and, therefore, if nature is going to be set to rights we would begin by setting it to rights in our own domain”.
—Sir Roy Strong

Working title:
Defining Stewardship: Human Accountability and the Care of Place

Abstract:
The subject of land stewardship (and the broader topic of “environmental stewardship”) is a primary social and environmental issue. This dissertation explores the historical understanding of the word “stewardship” in the context of land management in Scotland. Further, the work examines the implications of the word and concept in the 21st century regarding individual and collective responsibility.

Scope:
This dissertation shall examine the history and current understanding of the word stewardship as it relates to land “under human care”. The primary consideration shall be who appoints stewards and to what end is their mandate for stewardship (e.g. are stewards appointed communally or self-selected from people who are concerned for the land under stewardship? Do we have a choice to become stewards or are we all, of necessity, stewards at some level?)

The secondary considerations are: What are the responsibilities of humans in relation to the land? Who are the benefactors of stewardship? What historical baggage does this word carry (specifically in Scotland)? How has the Christian concept of “dominion” shaped our current understanding of stewardship? How does one’s belief system inform the activity of stewardship? How does this play itself out in a multi-cultural, multi-faith society? How is the concept of stewardship evolving in the 21st century? With whom are we stewards (e.g. with only fellow humans or are we, in some way, co-stewards with the environment itself [ref. Gaia Theory])?

The topic is vast and will need careful paring for the limitations of this dissertation; it will only tangentially examine the secondary considerations listed above (though each of them could probably become a book-length work). I propose to mainly examine one’s personal obligation for stewardship and how that relates to a community.