For the love of Women

I’d like to share with you the most ridiculous proposal coming from an established political party that I’ve heard for a long time. I don’t know whether to burst into laughter or into tears. Let’s say that it serves as an indication of a world driven by materialism to its extremes.

In Holland we have a social democrat party. Although I am not in any way a socialist, I have always considered this party a serious, responsible and relevant segment of our political spectrum.

At present the party is serving its time in the opposition quarters of our parliament. Of course this is not an enviable position, but all in all it allows a party to seriously rethink its strategies without the burden of government responsibility, and sure, this sometimes induces the members of the party to take up extreme positions. To test the public waters so to speak.

I first thought some party member spoke out too loudly on television, loosely lipped, stupid, forgettable. But this wasn’t the case.

Here is the serious proposal.

Quote: women who enjoyed full education, e.g. including university education, should repay the cost of their education if they choose not to work (for instance: when they decide to have children and attend to them). Unquote.

Argument: when women throw away their education, this constitutes capital destruction, and therefore this should be corrected.

Horror. It was a relief to see that objections came instantly from almost all other sides of the political spectrum.

So really, all this talk about woman emancipation was nonsense all along. Women should be educated, so they can work and contribute to the cycle of supply and demand that so fascinates our western world as the measure of all development.

The greatest horror in my view, is that this proposal did not come from a male specimen of the social democrat party, but from a female specimen. What other indication of female self degradation does one need in order to understand the fundamental disturbance that has come to underpin almost everything in our present world?

And even if this particular proposal, obviously, will not stand the slightest chance, it still merits serious thought why it surfaced at all, and whether in fact it may reflect rather wider held rigid views about the role of men and women in society and in the economy. Well, that’s a stupid question. We all know that the answer is yes. It is evident that the main thrust of the socio-political evolution in the past decades has been to join the bandwagon of salaried jobs, that ‘employment’ in monetary terms has become synonymous to ‘welfare’, and that men and women should enjoy this ‘welfare’ in equal terms.

Let me put this straight: I am a strong proponent of equality. I am moreover fully convinced of the benefits of women participating in our society at all levels, in all trades etc. It would be a great benefit to our planet if the feminine side of humanity had greater bearing on the course of history than in fact it has. But to reduce this potential benefit to (the obligation to) ‘work’ is a serious deminishment of the actual potential of women and of the status they should be able to enjoy in our societies.

I have known many women who didn’t ‘work’ in their lifetime, but whose contribution (greatly influenced by their education) to the lives of others, not merely their families, has been far greater than any paid job would have allowed them to make.

But even sticking to the family: what kind of capital destruction does our social-democrat have in mind if a woman (probably together with her husband) decides to spend her education on educating her children? Good God, what a grim view of life, if this doesn’t count for anything.

Anyway, the proposal won’t stick. But even if I don’t have to burst into tears, it is still impossible for me to laugh. For the love of women, for the love of all our children and grandchildren, let us allow the best education for all, and the fullest freedom for everybody on how we re-invest this in our future world.

A life to benefit all

Some thoughts on the survival of humanity beyond our time

II

The resolutions needed to achieve welfare for all and sustainability across our planet at the same time should not be extensive or especially restrictive. More over, they should essentially encourage humans – and not cage them – to be productive in their best possible way, to their own benefit but not less to the benefit of the community of which they are part.

Secondly they should encourage a human enjoyment of life far less determined by individual material consumption and possession, and far more determined by the equilibrium between our material needs and the capacity for regeneration of our consumption. We cannot sustain life, nor can we effectively contribute to the prosperity of all mankind, if we allow ourselves to be simply driven by the laws of supply and demand, whether at the level of consumer markets or at the level of labour markets.

Human life primarily geared towards the well being – and continuity - of all does not by definition go against the principles of a society based on individual choice and political freedom. Nevertheless it should serve as a countervailing value – or countervailing purpose. The degree to which we contribute to the purpose of our community – which ever its scale - most certainly should have a bearing on our actual individual benefits. Individual efforts should make a difference – to all, and to ‘self’.

If anything the western world, i.e. if it desires to continue its level of welfare and its potential for future welfare creation, should embark upon a conscious program aiming at equilibrium in terms of its use and regeneration of resources, both ‘at home’ and in the rest of the world. We should redress our current claims on the resources of other parts of the world in as much as we cannot effectively secure its regeneration capacity.

Secondly the family of nations is in need of a program aimed at the happiness of all human beings living on this planet and at the secured sustainability of life and diversity on our planet over a longer timeframe. There is no reason why we should not apply the wealth of our technology in reaching this objective. However we would still risk an unhappy ending if we were to sit back and simply rely on technology to solve our problems for us.

Humanity has the capability to add new opportunities to its survival and prosperity as a species. We should redress the current process leading to the diminishment of such opportunities.

In this process ‘community’ – i.e. the circle of humans with whom we share our economic and social life – will acquire a new importance but also: new appearances. We have progressed from tribal communities to nations, from nation to nation treaties to federations (or unions) between states. At a larger scale we have already experimented with the unity of most of not all nations on our planet. At each of these scales the human society will continue to evolve. But what is most needed in the immediate future is the re-appearance of ‘community’ in our individual lives. It is an economic necessity, it is a political necessity, and it is a necessity immediately derived from our needs as human beings, ranging from the enjoyment of life – and love - to that of ‘purpose’.

In the course of this development we may also bear in mind that whatever we wish for, as a human being, or as a community, is best served if first of all we give – whatever we have to give – before we receive; that contributing to the well being of others, as our prime objective, is much more satisfactory in our own lives than spending all our energy primarily to take, or acquire for the sheer satisfaction of ourselves. If the animal world has already grasped this concept, a fortiori we can expect humanity to grasp it – and enjoy it.

If however, for our happiness and continuity, we continue to rely largely on commercialism, and on capitalism driving it, as the prime force shaping our lives, we will seriously risk destroying it. Indeed we will perish by the force our own selfish desires. But we do not need to abandon commercialism, the force our markets, all together. Nor do we need to install a rigorous dictatorship to plan and execute the production and distribution of goods according to ‘needs’ determined by tyranny or absolutism. We can still foster a world governed by individual responsibility and individual liberty. Political freedom should govern our societies and our human ‘mindset’. In this sense, liberalism can still serve as a legitimate and responsible basis for the government of human communities. But in economic terms this force of individual freedom should primarily be directed to serve the prosperity of all: the continuity of our community or society, which ever is the level at which we are capable of contributing.

One of the dividing lines between the animal world and humanity is how we deal with (and care for) those who are unsuccessful – or incapable of (fully) competing - in the ‘winning game’. In a world based on the prosperity of communities, there should be sufficient incentives for every member of society to contribute, whatever the level and limitation of his (or her) capabilities. Their individual prosperity will continue to be a function of their contribution but in as much as wealth is independent of labour, they should enjoy it in equal measure with their fellow human beings. Individual health and well being as well as individual security will be a function of individual (previous) contribution but also on the total wealth (=added value) created of the community – either at regional level or at nation-state level. In such a system, the employment of labour should be encouraged (through premiums or otherwise) and it should pay towards our social security according to the wealth it creates (not according to the number of individuals employed). There is the possibility for every one to contribute – and to share -, there is no need for any one to be left out or to beg on the streets.

Are we talking about yet another Utopia? Is this another attempt to bring humanity back to its primitive existence in a herd? No I don’t think so.

First of all, we are living in a world which runs the risk of becoming a huge nightmare. We have to substantially refocus our ‘way of life’ in order to avoid such a nightmare. Technology without doubt will play a large part in addressing that risk. It will help us create more efficient and sustainable sources of energy, more efficient means of production – and recycling –, with improved productivity of the natural resources which provide us with food, clothing and other material provisions. Technology will come a long way to help us redress pollution and the pressure on our eco-system. But even if we push these developments to their utmost potential, there remains the fundamental requirement for humanity - the western world in particular - to adjust to the natural limitations of our world – as much as it may continue to enjoy its opportunities.

Secondly, there is a need to construct a new fabric of society to guide, inspire and sustain the human community. We need not necessarily to go back to the classic foundation of the family community or of ‘neighbourhood’. We have the ability to create communities of common interest, of shared skills, professional networks, communities of parents (families). It is conceivable to re-form existing corporations into communities with a broad social and economic function.

How should we look at the emerging competition between the family of nations (representing man the herbivore) and the amalgamate of global corporations (representing man, the predator)? What role should we aim to assign to our democratic institutions – and democracy in its entirety? It is interesting to note that an increasing number of scholars quite independently from one another raise this question and that they do so very much on the basis of their understanding of life’s evolution and the progress of humanity to date – in all its dimensions.

“Management is essential to produce an effective, cooperative planetary society. But our current forms of government are seriously limited in their ability to discover and adapt the management that is needed. If humanity is to fulfil its evolutionary potential, it must discover new and better processes for establishing the various levels of governance. The development of a managed planetary society is not enough. The next great evolutionary challenge for humanity will be to invent a new form of governance that will overcome the serious flaws in our existing processes” (Evolutions Arrow, John Stewart, Australia).

I have taken this citation out of randomly selected documents on the internet, and if anywhere in the world one can read numerous articulations of these shared concerns, it is on the world wide web.

But before the internet can effectively bring us together in a living intellectual community, the existing community of nations – whatever their weaknesses – should already come some way towards a shared view of the world in which we want our future generations to progress and flourish. We don’t need to answer how they do that, as long as they have a chance to do that.

And whether or not we allow our religious (communal) beliefs to have a bearing on the direction we take, the application of our rationality should largely suffice to respond to the call of the entire community of life to make sure it will no perish long before its time by virtue of the most primitive instincts which we carry as a human being: the hunger for more, more, more... It should be possible to make life a happy experience for all if we decide to do with less for ourselves and a little more for the others.

The Abstinence from Greed

Picture: Maya mural painting, 100 BC

Some thoughts on human survival beyond our time

I

Life’s evolution is a history of winners. For each individual plant or animal, the passing of its genes is subject to its survival in the continued struggle both against stronger members of its own species and against adversaries of other species which either compete for the same food or hunt them to be their food.

The laws of nature are severe but clear. If you wish to survive, you compete. And if you are not a winner, you perish. You either perish instantly or your genes perish.

But even if life on Earth has largely progressed along the lines of an action thriller without happy end, it has not simply favoured individual competitiveness as the prime condition for survival. It has been equally favourable to the development of competitiveness based on co-operation. The first and foremost unity is the bond between males and a females striving to secure the survival of their offspring.

And life on Earth did not wait until the advent of humanity to prove the potential advantage of co-operation between individuals in a larger unity. For even before the Dinosaurs, animals became responsive to the call of community – the unity of the herd - as a prime force towards their security and prosperity. Human evolution has been possible by virtue of this sense of community. Community has been fundamental to the ascent of man in the animal world; it is not, as we may think, an invention of our humanity. The community of the herd perhaps didn’t provide for happy endings in all cases but it made life at least a little more pleasant for the animals.

The morality of community precedes all other moralities of the human mind. Without it, humanity is incapable of survival even at the level of the most primitive reptile. The same is true for the morality of preservation: if we consume more than we need, next time nothing will be there to eat. Like Baloo the Bear, we enjoy most prosperity when we aim for just ‘the bare necessities’.

Yet it seems as if humanity, or at least that part of humanity which inhabits the western world, believes it can survive in defiance of these two fundamental rules of nature. For what other view can we have of the icons of individualism and private wealth creation as it pervades our lives both in economic and in societal terms today?

We have come to challenge even nature’s most fundamental unity of the family as a safeguard for our survival. We are tolerant, if not increasingly indifferent to the absence of any kind of community in the fabric of our societies to the point where society as such looses its relevance altogether as a contributing, meaningful factor in our pursuit of welfare and happiness.

The development of ‘society’ as we have known it and as it has functioned in many different shapes and at many different scales in human history, has culminated in the organisation of the (nation-) state. The rise and prosperity of the nation-state is a history not limited to the western world. It has been the common story of all humanity in our time. Throughout the past two centuries, efforts have been made to create a society of nation-states, a unity of all nations, to secure survival and prosperity for all mankind.

We still have a long way to go before we can really speak of a family of nations. More over, this process of ‘globalisation’ is being challenged by another, competing globalisation process which emerged near the end of the last century. This is the winning game not geared to prosperity for all but to the wealth of the few. This process favours those most capable to efficiently produce as much as individual humans can possibly consume to satisfy their greed.

In our world we foster human consumption beyond our true needs. Increased supply pushes demand. We herald individual wealth and prosperity as an example for us all. We applaud the rich and the beautiful. We do all this even if at the same time we harbour reservations or disgust when confronted with human misery as it persists in our time. We disregard the fact that the unhappiness of many humans in our world at least in part is caused by the hero’s whom we reward or who we wish to be ourselves.

Wealth creation and wealth distribution is largely geared by consumer votes rather than by conscious deliberation. Key decisions regarding the exploitation of Earth’s resources are governed by ever larger conglomerates of commercial enterprises, operating across national boundaries. The prime motivator for these enterprises is their own profit. There is no immediate incentive for them to consider the long term sustainability of their claims on our resources and thus, their output.

In evolutionary terms, we have, in the western world, moved away from being a society of communal herbivores to becoming a wilderness of single minded predators, requiring ever larger territories to satisfy our thirst for things to have.

It is furthermore arguable that in fostering a process of wealth creation and wealth distribution based on commercialism and on the perfection of markets up to and including markets targeted at global scale, we live in defiance of one of the basic commandments of humanity if not of our living as fundamentally communal animals: thou shall not kill. Indeed, commercialism is in the hands of the new great predators, the Tyrannosaurus Rex’ of our age: the oil companies, the car companies, the companies spewing out innumerable electronic gadgets, Microsoft and others, in short: us.

When you look at it this way, there is nothing incomprehensible about our fascination with story of the Dinosaurs, their awesome appearance, their impressive size and varied abilities and so on. We share this fascination most of all because we are looking at the mirror of our own evolution. But do we actually understand the world of the Dinosaurs?

We tend to forget that we are still subject to the same forces of continuity and discontinuity that made the Dinosaurs so evidently successful in their struggle for survival and to those that led to their eventual demise. There is no way humans can deny let alone eradicate these forces. Nevertheless, if perhaps we do not deny them, at least we underestimate them, such as the forces which so far have allowed us to breath and enjoy fresh air, filtered sunlight, clean water. The same forces may one day pose a serious threat to these enjoyments, either because we have tampered with them or because of some other, natural occurrence. We equally underestimate the challenge to humanity posed by viruses and bacteria, the smallest yet by far the most successful representatives of the animal world in its war against mankind.

The history of man may end up as just another tale of Dinosaurs. We may wonder who - or what species - in 65 million years from now will live to re-tell or dig up our story. We may wonder whether that species will even remotely resemble humanity, physically and otherwise. Just think of it. They may conclude that the Neanderthal man, having lived for over two hundred thousand years, was far more fit to survive than ‘modern man’, who lived and thrived for only fifty thousand years, or less, and who became extinct not by another, more ‘superior’ species but by himself.

But we should not be too concerned about such questions today since we cannot possibly influence every single eventuality in a time frame of millions let alone tens of millions of years nor does it make sense to speculate about such eventualities. However, some questions must be addressed in our time.

Indeed, the question here is not about speculation, nor about the actual destiny of mankind in the next 65 million years. What should concern us however is that we have trespassed the limits of our own lifetime in our influence on life’s future: human life as much as all other life. Already we have sniffed the life out of a vast number of plant and animal species. We have done so irrevocably and with as yet unknown consequence. Already we have unleashed a virtual K/T meteor of epic magnitude to do its ravaging work. Already we have created a story which will echo long, long after us; a blast of extinction which will continue to awe generations well into the unimaginable future.

We can still survive and live in prosperity, and allow future generations to flourish even beyond our current capabilities. But we have to consciously choose to do so. We can allow all of humanity to live in happiness if only we express our wish for it – and live up to the rules required to achieve it.