Perennialism

Deep Roots for a Resilient Culture

Bill Vitek, PhDSOAR PresentationApril 6, 2012

Our Work TodayPut on your Philosophy Goggles!Consider the deep questions, and the concepts and systems advanced to answer them.Consider three transformational or axial periods in history that reflect different approaches to the big questions.Help us to see that we may be living in the third period right now.

My AssumptionsNature/Natural World left out of or abused by the first two transformations.The world is showing signs of this exclusion, and theyre not positive or healthy signs.We are 150 years into a new transformation that puts nature back in.Its an exciting time to be a philosopher!

Terms of EngagementParadigms and WorldviewsTypes of Paradigm ChangeConnections between Collapse, Complexity and Paradigm Change.Isms as systems of meaningThe big Philosophical QuestionsMaterial and Formal cultures

The Original Great TransformationAxial Age War and violenceTeachers and philosophersSocial changeAxis of changeDivided earlier peoples from modern humans Psychological shift in consciousness

What is new about this age...is that man becomes conscious of Being as a whole, of himself and his limitationsHe asks radical questions. Face to face with the void he strives for liberation and redemption. By consciously recognizing his limits he sets himself the highest goals. Karl Jaspers

The Two Great IsmsMonotheismJudaismChristianityIslamHumanismGreek and Hellenistic philosophyBuddhismConfucianism

Homo Sapiens: Happiness is the pursuit of Wisdom

Where is Nature?CosmosAn And it was good creationLogos..Expressed MathematicallyOrderedApplicable to Social SystemsButThe central relationships, goals, and goods of human life are expressed in human relationships with God, each other, and by understanding our own minds.

Left Behind in the Pre-Axial AgeHumans-Nature-Divinities part of one wholeTotemismAnimismMany godsImmanent DivinitySpirit in all things

Corresponding Material CultureScriptures, manuscripts..WritingPlaces of study/worshipForms of education designed to further the paradigmComplex and stratified civilizationsAgriculture.The first human break from nature

A Great TransformationIn consciousnessIn beingIn valueIn customs, rules, practices, social systemsIn material cultureOver a long period of timeStill with us today

Second Great TransformationThe Enlightenment: 1691-????Three great revolutionsScientificPoliticalEconomicThe Age of Reason: Dare to KnowFocused on individuals pursuing happiness as sovereigns in a limitless way

Enlightenment Assumptions

Nature is a Boundless Source and SinkHuman Mind/Knowledge is SufficientHuman Concerns are First and ForemostTransgression of Limits is a Right and a DutyScienceEngineeringEconomicsEthicsNature is a supermarket, laboratory, playground and dump

Material Culture

Focus on Economics as the Engine of HappinessThe Great Transformation, Karl Paul Polanyi Nation state had to co-evolve with self-regulating markets in order ensure market survivalIf not, markets would break away from the stateThe state would become secondaryMarkets would no longer be sustainable Consumerism is the new Ism

Homo Economicus: Happiness is the pursuit of stuff

ReviewPre-Axial

GodNatureHumansAxial

NatureGodHumansEnlightenmentEconomicsSocial Systems NatureReligion

Our World DeliveredThe Disturbing Data of our TimesIllustrative of the desacrilization of nature, and economics disconnection from social and natural systemsA call for another Great TransformationAlready underway

The Age of Environmentalism1836 - ????Emerson-Thoreau: TranscendentalismCharles Darwin: Evolutionary BiologyErnst Haeckel: EcologyJohn Muir: Nature as CathedralAldo Leopold: The Land EthicRachel Carson: The End of NatureJames Lovelock: Gaia

Environmentalisms Assumptions Nature is not passiveWhole not equal to the sum of the partsAll life is interdependentLiving systems are complex, emergent, diverse, self-organizingThere is no environment or downstream Natures rules RuleHumans are more ignorant than knowledgable

American EnvironmentalismSources: 1880s-1940sConservationSinks: 1950s-1980sPollution Control and Risk ManagementSystems: 1990s-PresentSustainabilityLife Cycle AnalysisIndustrial EcologyPrecautionary Principle

An Expanding Ethical CircleSourcesConservationUtilitarianismAnthropocentrismSinksRightsIndividualismSystemsSpeciesEcosystems

Weak Sustainability

Strong SustainabilityStrong sustainability refers to the need for human activity to reflect the asymmetric interdependence of the economic, social, and environmental spheres of life. The health of the worldwide economy is totally reliant on the existence of a healthy society, which is totally reliant on the existence of a healthy environment. The reverse is not true.http://nz.phase2.org/glossary

The New Paradigms Goal?Prosperity in a Sun-Powered Ecosphere

Homo Ecologicus

Our EarthNot just an Earth, but the only Earth there is. Our additionally indicates a sharing with others. It is not my or your Earth exclusively, whether as property owners or as human beings.

Sun PoweredSolar energy, as we are discovering in the race to build solar panels and wind turbines, is steady, but not particularly dense. Over long enough time frames the suns capacity to do the work of fueling life can be stored as soil fertility, water in high places, wood fiber, coal, natural gas, oil, and even plutonium. But it is otherwise more tortoise than hare.

A Living EcosphereThe local staran auspicious distance from our Earthin cooperation with a long list of elements (around thirty) left over from long-ago stellar explosions, and combined with mechanisms we still dont fully understand, created single cell organisms. The rest, they say, is (evolutionary) history. Its a localized 4.5 billion year enterprise that even asteroids the size of Manhattan could not destroy. Despite this resilience it is nevertheless a precarious venture since what is living (individuals, ecosystems, and even the ecosphere itself) can cease to live or have its life degraded.

Systems ScienceResilience TheoryComplexity TheoryThresholds and Adaptive CyclesPanarchy: The cross-scale and dynamic character of interactions between human and natural systems (Walker and Salt, 89)

Perennial AgricultureNature as MeasureNatural Systems AgriculturePerennial Polycultures that mimic natural systemsFocus on the grains (wheat, corn, rice)

Wes Jacksons WorkKernza: Perennial Intermediate WheatgrassCheck out those roots!

EngineeringHolistic BiomimicryLife Cycle AssessmentCradle to Cradle DesignDfE (Design for Environment)The Precautionary Principle

Merging Formal and MaterialSustainability Movement too much about the material cultureThe Need to put Economics back in its PlaceThe Challenge of putting Sapien back in the PictureGiving the Formal Culture its Due

An Ecological First PrincipleProsperity on a living planet requires limits, broadly construed.Aldo Leopolds definition of ethicsThe grudging recognition that we cant have it allEdens message: You may have all of this, but not thatBiophysical principlesThe CSA autumn bountyof root vegetables and squash!

With Three AxiomsNo Harm

Knowingly destroying life- systems or limiting the diversity and co-evolution of life is a moral and social wrong on a living planet.

http://www.whole-systems.org/extinctions.html

No Hubris

Areas of certainty are small relative to the large field of ignorance. We should behave as if our ignorance will always exceed our knowledge. It will.

No HurryAll life depends on sunlight and the complex and integrated chemical and thermodynamic processes it powers (Net Primary Production). NPP is constrained by many factors and cannot be substantially improved, increased or sped up over time without the addition of inputs from outside the system. Since we cant substantially speed up these natural processes, Our only option is to slow ourselves down.

A Paradigm Without a NameSustainability?Deep Ecology?Resourcefulism?Stoicism?Escapism?Survivalism?Locavorism?

How About Perennialism?

Resource: To rise againDeep roots that hold the soil togetherIn one place for the long haulSlow accumulation of fertility Welcomes diversitySelf-renewingResilientSlow and steadyProsperous within well-defined limits

Imagine a Perennial CultureBoth Material and FormalAgricultureEconomicsEducationTechnologyTransportationArt, MusicCulture

Why This Transformation is So DifficultFlashy BrainsGenesisPrometheusThe EnlightenmentManifest DestinyGeological InheritanceCrediting the Brains (the Pumps) rather than the Inheritance (the Well)The Evolutionary Disposition to Live to Excess http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/u/up_the_creek_without_a_paddle.asp

A Necessary TransformationA New FoundingRevolutionary Thinkingand ActionAt the Outer/Inner Most BoundariesThe EcosphereThe Human MindA True Test and Testament of a Well-Developed Neo-CortexTheres Still TimeTransformational Thinking is in Our HeritageIts already underway

In Wildness is the Preservation of the World!Thoreau-Muir-Leopold-Rowe-JacksonNature Alive!The source of our prosperityResilient, Complex, CreativeEcosystems Science and EngineeringCreating A New Material and Formal CultureHumanitys Greatest Challenge

The most meaningful work that we can do is to

Build receptivity into the still unlovely human mind.*

Beginning with our own..

*Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

****Polanyi was a philosopher and a economist**One of the worlds oldest moral codes: Hippocrates. The ancient Hindu notion of ahimsa. The Golden Rule. Now applied more broadly.*One of the worlds oldest moral codes: Hippocrates. The ancient Hindu notion of ahimsa. The Golden Rule. Now applied more broadly.*Learning to live within the creative boundaries of a solar economy.*