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Archive for June, 2025

The limits of utility

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »

In his “A Sand County Almanac”, Aldo Leopold writes…..

The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: “What good is it?” If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.

Now, this language, from the late 1940s is too mechanical for my liking, but, actually it’s still not uncommon today. We humans are not machines. Plants are not machines. No living organism on the planet is “machine-like”. As a result of the dominance of left hemisphere thinking, reductionism, for all its results and benefits, has blinded us to reality.

A human being cannot be reduced, cannot be broken into separate, isolated parts, without, at best, ignoring the consequences of changes in the whole body which come about from changes in a part, and, at worst, without killing the individual human being. Reductionism can only ever be a stage on a journey towards an understanding. The reductionist work of the left hemisphere needs to be integrated back into the holistic perspective of the right in order to understand the connections and consequences.

The same can be said of any living form. There isn’t a plant, an animal, or any other living creature which can be fully understood except by exploring their relationships and connections with the world in which they live.

One of the most unfortunate consequences of reductionism (I don’t know if it results from it, or simply accompanies it), is a focus on utility. What use is this? What use is this plant? What use is this creature? What use is this person? Utility can, or should, only be considered as one aspect, one perspective. We know this instinctively, don’t we? We wouldn’t reduce a loved one to an assessment of their “usefulness”, unless we were suffering from some kind of psychopathy. So why do we allow that to happen when we create businesses and factories? Industrial capitalism has a tendency to reduce human beings to “human capital”, or “Human Resources”, to be weighed, assessed, and judged, only on the criteria of utility. If they aren’t useful towards to the goal of increasing profits, then they are “useless”. A sad, miserable way to view the world.

What’s the utility of music? What’s the utility of art? Of gardens, of beauty, of poetry, of stories? What’s the utility of love, compassion and care? What’s the utility of joy, of wonder, awe and happiness?

Do people think that way?

Actually, it’s not uncommon to find that they do. Have you read anything that tells you about how gardening is “therapeutic”, of how music can improve “your mental health”, of how sharing a meal with a loved one can be “good for your health”?

The thing is, a good life, a life worth living, is full of activities and experiences which we pursue, not for their utility but for joy, for love, and because they touch our souls. Don’t wait for “science” to “prove” that music is beneficial to your neurones, to your immune system, or your hormones. Don’t wait for “science” to “prove” that a walk in the forest modulates your immune system, or stimulates your vagus nerve. Live for the everyday moments of wonder, joy, love and delight. One day, “science” will catch up, and tell you what you already know…..music, nature, poetry, caring relationships, love, wonder and joy are all “good for you”.

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Growth

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »

We hear a lot about growth these days. The Labour government in the UK seems to think achieving economic growth is the answer to all our problems, and, frankly, every other capitalist country agrees. Perhaps that’s because capitalism as a system requires continuous growth to exist.

But the thing is, when I was a teenager I read the Club of Rome’s “Limits to Growth”. That scientific report caused quite a stir since it came out but then the usual suspects mounted their attacks and derided it, so, not much has happened since then. Well, I say not much, but we do have Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics, and also the de-growth movement. What I mean is the world has failed to respond remotely adequately to climate change, several governments are rowing back their “green” targets, and Trump and co are all in for “drill, baby, drill” and abandoning environmental protections. So, it doesn’t look good.

However, I come back to a point I’ve made elsewhere – growth of what, and for whom? Because the logic on which “Limits to Growth” was based is still sound. We live on a finite planet, so even if we use technologies to make “better” or “more efficient” use of physical “resources” (by which they mean the natural world), at some point, if every country “grows” every year ad infinitum, at some point, there is going to be nothing left to extract. We just can’t keep grabbing more and more and from the planet, creating more and more pollution, killing off species after species, and expect to have a planet our grandchildren’s grandchildren can thrive on. It just doesn’t make sense.

What is growing? Well, CO2 in the atmosphere. That’s growing. Microplastics in our brains. That’s growing. Insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, I-don’t-know-what-icides, in our water, our food, our bodies, even in our babies before they are born. And the wealth of the wealthiest people on the planet. That’s growing. Maybe we haven’t reached peak inequality yet, but we sure aren’t going to reach the point where really rich people think “OK, I’ve got enough. I don’t need any more than this”.

The planet, Nature, Gaia, grows. But she grows without creating waste or pollution. We see her growth in evolution, and in the history or evolution we see a growth in diversity of species. We see a growth in the interconnectedness of environments, biospheres and individual living creatures. Nature doesn’t grow exponentially in a straight line. It grows in a vast interconnected web of feedback systems, in competition and collaboration with all the other parts of that web. It grows in cycles. Cycles of seasons. Cycles of birth, development, reproduction, maturity and death.

What does healthy growth look like in a human being? Development, maturation, increased skills, abilities, knowledge and intelligence (not artificial intelligence, but the real intelligences of the mental, emotional and social kind). Are our societies doing well at fostering that in their populations? I mean, for ALL the people in their countries? Not so much, huh?

We’re going to have to take on board the basic insights of the “Limits to Growth” scientists, and to create a better system that makes better choices about what it wants to grow. Aren’t we?

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What do the DEI haters want? UEI?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I’m not sure I was aware of the term “DEI” before it became a fairly recent political issue, led by the current US regime who seem to really, really hate it. I had to look it up to find out what the three letters stood for – Diversity, Equality and Inclusion.

Seriously? Which bit do the haters not like? Diversity? Well, this is a diverse planet. It’s diversity of all the species and lifeforms which has enabled evolution and life as we know it to develop. Loss of species, or loss of “biodiversity” breaks the complex bonds and relationships between the elements of the biosphere – that includes us, we humans. It disrupts food chains, impacting on animals, plants, and, in fact, all forms of life – that includes us. A loss of diversity is just that – a loss. Maybe it’s the Equality bit they don’t like? After all, our current economic and political model of society is extremely successful at one thing in particular – increasing inequality. So maybe that’s the aim? Maybe they see equality as just a bad thing. Maybe they don’t like that other people, and other life forms, should be valued as much as they value themselves? I don’t know. Or maybe it’s the Inclusion bit they hate. Maybe they don’t like certain people to be included. Maybe they’d rather certain people were kept on the outside – not allowed into a country, or into the education system, the health care system, or into work. Again, I don’t know.

So, I started to wonder what kind of society these anti-DEI people envisage? What do they hope for? Is it the opposite of DEI? What is the opposite of DEI?

Maybe it’s UEI.

UEI?

Yep, the direct opposites of each of the elements of DEI – in other words – Uniformity, Exclusion and Inequality.

What would society look like if we built it on those three values, uniformity, exclusion and inequality? It would probably be very prescriptive, authoritarian even, because the reality is that every individual is different, and human being are a species of diverse members, so to achieve uniformity there would need to be an enormous amount of coercion, persuasion, pressure, propaganda, even force. Have you looked at what appears on social media recently? Have you watched any mainstream media recently? Have you heard the stories about immigrants, and how “they are not like us”? If we had a society built on exclusion, then there would always be minority groups who were kept on the outside, some people who didn’t receive the same justice as others, some who were prevented from taking up opportunities offered to the “included”. And if we had a society based on inequality? There would be a very small number of people who held the by far greatest amount of wealth and power, and a very large number who possessed very little of either.

Wait a minute…..isn’t that the kind of society we have now? One based on Uniformity, Exclusion and Inequality? Corporations pursue monopolies, borders are getting harder to cross, blame is cast on “the other”, and financialised capitalism is leading to ever greater concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny minority (and, no, it doesn’t “trickle down”)

What do you think? Do the principles of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion appeal to you? Or are you more a Uniformity, Exclusion and Inequality kind of person?

I think, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, in fact, even if you are new to it, and you see the title of “heroes not zombies” and read what I mean by that – that we should live a conscious life, a mindful life, celebrating uniqueness and diversity and freedom, not one of unconscious coerced conformity – then you’ll know I’m likely to be a supporter of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion.

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