I Hate Advertising

(Essay #7)

After six completed essays, I want to report on three essay efforts that I started but, for various reasons, decided not to pursue to completion. I want to share these stories with you because I believe they each contain valuable nuggets.
 
Advertising
 
The first one is about advertising. Here is how the essay began:
 
I hate advertising, and this is my diatribe on the subject. 
 
It is not just that advertising interferes with my TV viewing and other pleasures. If it were only that, I would be in a quandary since the ads sponsor many of the shows and games I watch. No, I hate it because of the deep damage it does to American society and its people. Advertising is one of the world’s most pernicious businesses.
 
In protest, I fast forward through ads whenever possible and mute others. And I have installed ad blockers. But that is like holding a little umbrella in one of today’s climate-fueled rain rivers.
 
Here is the good news: there are answers short of returning to the caves.
 
I thought I was off to a nice start. I had addressed advertising in my books, and I knew a few things, like that advertising to children was once tightly restricted in the United States. Then, in 1983 at the urging of the Reagan Administration the FCC deregulated it, and within a year the ten top toys all had ties to TV programs. By 2011 marketing to children had swelled to a $17 billion a year juggernaut. Children and adolescents now view 40,000 ads per year on TV alone. My plan was to develop the idea that advertising has been both key to our runaway consumerism and a huge barrier to needed transformations in our social values.
 
But I needed updating, so I started doing a little research—and my confidence fell apart. A decade or so ago, digital advertising in the US was a small part of the advertising industry. Now, it’s the mainstay, consuming almost 80 percent of rapidly swelling advertising expenditures, with mobile devices taking a major and growing share of that. Meanwhile, there are strange things going on. Tens of billions are being spent on influencer marketing, of all things. What’s driving this is not hard to figure. Screen time for US adults and teenagers is 6 to 8 hours a day. Digital platforms carrying ads typically get paid by how many clicks the ads get, so the platforms provide content that keeps eyes on the screen, no matter how socially destructive. Algorithms! 
 
I realized that ancient I, who spends zero time on social media and almost none on a phone of any sort, had no insight into this new world or what to do about it. What good would it do to write about highway billboards or other traditional ads? I also discovered that the First Amendment is now being used in new ways to protect “commercial speech” from regulation, adding a whole new and complexifying area for this old law professor. 
 
So, as much as I would dearly love to see advertising dramatically curtailed and reshaped by regulations, especially ads aimed at children and the vulnerable, I knew I was not the right person nor an essay the right format. As an alternative, do watch or rewatch the gripping, compelling Netflix doc, The Social Dilemma, available on the official Netflix site.

Climate
Another essay effort began with the thought that, despite the media attention the climate issue is finally getting, most of today’s climate news and discussion is focused on the immediate effects of climate change and neglects the horrendous downstream consequences.
 
I hope it is clear why I would want to present such distressing information. Understanding the full dimensions of the climate threat can drive home the need to head off the worst. That much we can still do. It can spur crisis readiness for what is unavoidably coming and, importantly, encourage people to ask what's wrong with a society and a world that has brought the climate tragedy to our doorsteps.
 
Here is what I had prepared:
 
A new and frightening world is unfolding around us. It is difficult to face, but please do. The scenarios I describe here are likely, some inevitable and some more speculative than others. The question for us now is whether societies will act with swift determination to minimize their prevalence and severity. 
 
Already underway, the first order effects of climate change are droughts, extreme heat, wildfires, severe storms, floods, unwelcome new weather patterns, melting of glaciers and landed ice, sea-level rise, and more.  
 
You know this world. It's the world we see emerging today.
 
These effects will lead in turn to second-order consequences, what economists call knock-on effects. Entirely predictable are widespread biological losses and ecosystem degradation, the spread of diseases into new areas, water and food shortages, persistent crop failures and famines, large-scale economic disruptions, uninhabitable zones along coasts and elsewhere, scorched cities, and major loss of human life.
 
Simultaneously with these changes, we will likely see still more consequences such as climate refugees and mass migrations, resource and other disputes within and between countries, and costly efforts at adaptation, much of it futile, as well as risky geo-engineering.
 
These impacts will greatly stress governments around the world. They will struggle to cope. We could see police forces and militaries called upon for social stability and invoked as solutions. There are already a number of countries tallied as “failed or failing states,” and climate change will drive these numbers up. At the international level, the multiple inadequacies of global governance, never strong except in economic spheres, will be magnified by the international tensions and domestic preoccupations caused by climate change. 
 
Equally telling will be the psychological burdens. The loss of homes, communities, and livelihoods; the many “excess deaths;” the destruction of much-loved natural and cultural resources including species, forests, and coastlines; the pall of grief, dread, and powerlessness—these will weigh heavily, especially on the young.  
 
There's more, possibly worse, for example the tendency of frightened, overwhelmed people to reach for authoritarian, strong-man solutions, but I’ve said enough.
 
Why did I move on from this essay?  I first paused because the draft was too bleak standing alone. As someone once said, things are much too bad for pessimism. An essay with this disturbing material would have to offer ways forward to contain the scope of climate disaster. And just then an invitation arrived from Yale University Press to reflect on my 2004 book, Red Sky at Morning, and that effort evolved into the vehicle to say better what I wanted to say about the climate situation. See the resulting Essay from the Edge No. 4. The above material didn’t make it into that essay, but it is important, so I present it here. 
 
Here is a current assessment of the climate situation and what must be done from top experts, Bob Watson and colleagues.  https://theconversation.com/the-overshoot-myth-you-cant-keep-burning-fossil-fuels-and-expect-scientists-of-the-future-to-get-us-back-to-1-5-c-230814. From the UN on through to the local level, I don’t think we are prepared for the climate impacts and calamitous changes that are coming, and there seems to be no concerted effort to get prepared at any level.
 
Federalism
A third essay I began and then halted was to focus on the possibility of shifting more of our progressive efforts away from the stalemate in Washington DC and towards other levels of government. 
Here is a draft I started toward that end:

The United States is faced with the unsettling combination of unprecedented challenges requiring strong, effective governance and a politics so broken that Washington rising to multiple challenges seems remote.
 
An apt metaphor for America’s national politics is trench warfare. Both Democrats and Republicans are dug in, with hardened, almost unmovable attitudes and positions.  Red and Blue forces face each other in stark opposition and mutual rejection. Massive efforts are expended for small gains that can be rolled back when power shifts.
 
This situation raises an important question: Is it time for progressives to adopt another, perhaps primary approach that involves shifting out of Washington? This alternative strategy might (1) identify what is most needed from Washington and devise and pursue strategies to secure these outcomes and prevent negative ones, (2) concentrate far more progressive energies on other levels of governance—international, state, regional, and local, and (3) seek a new level of non-governmental governance, for example involving civil society and enlightened elements of the private sector. The core idea is to locate public policy at the most effective level of governance, depending on the issue. The old saying that the nation-state is too small for the big things and too big for the small things doesn’t quite get it right, but you get the idea.
 
Already, many encouraging initiatives are underway across the country at the local and state levels. We recall the go-it-alone initiatives in California and elsewhere in response to the Trump administration. And perhaps there are things to be learned from other federal countries, like Canada.
 
Should efforts be pursued to bring together a new strategy for progressives of many stripes to get behind?  Might progressives see enough positive in decentralization and a New Federalism to support such an approach?  Might decentralization mean abandoning large numbers of people to reactionary state governments or diminishing our centuries long struggle for a more perfect union? There is sadness in seeing the national experiment come to the distressing situation in which we now find ourselves. Still, might it be that thinking, planning, and acting in a new way is now the best path for making real progress? 
 
I halted on this one for two related reasons you may have guessed. First, I decided that a full essay would make more sense if—damn the thought—Trump were unfortunately to win the presidential election this year. That said to me: shelve the idea for now. And second, I am totally excited and energized by the Harris-Walz ticket, and I want to join with others now in focusing on building a new and positive era in our national politics! Still, it’s worth keeping this range of issues in mind as we proceed. For the period ahead, we will need vital governance at all levels, from local to global.
 
***

Signing off for a while.  Thank you for reading. I have enjoyed preparing these essays, and I hope you found them helpful. 
 
It’s time now to go get out the vote. There are several great programs for writing postcards. Third Act has one. It is estimated that there are about 13 million environmentally inclined Americans who don’t vote regularly in federal elections. Check out the Environmental Voter Project for how you can help on that.

For more on the author, see www.gusspeth.org.

The Essays from the Edge are being posted at https://www.democracycollaborative.org/blogs.

New System Possibility

Good reason to despair, yet grief was purged 
by tracing how creation reigned supreme. 
The pupa cracked, the butterfly emerged: 
America, still emerging from its dream.    Clive James

(Essay #6)

My previous essays have tried to describe some of the major challenges our country faces. We have, as Clive James notes, “good reason to despair.” But we know that is not an option.
 
Instead, many of us think the situation we face calls for transformative change. By that we mean major change in our existing political and economic systems. The goal is to imagine and then seek a new system of political economy that ensures the priority of people, place, and planet and leads to flourishing human and natural communities. 
 
But how would this new system look and work? Often there is a lack of clarity about the actual shape of a transformed society. There’s comfort in staying with a generous dose of generality, and I, on occasion, have stayed there. But the first step is surely to have a good sense of the directions to pursue. So in this essay I will describe rather concretely what I mean by transformative change to a new system of political economy.
 
Different folks have different ideas about what transformative change would look like. There is transformation lite and transformation deep. At the lite end of the spectrum are welcomed changes that look a lot like traditional reforms but can contain the seeds of fundamental shifts. The ideas I will present here tend towards the deep change end of the spectrum. They are not as radical as some, but a portion of readers may think, indeed, he has gone off the deep end. 
 
As I present this new system, I keep in mind this bit of wisdom from author Richard Flanagan: “What we cannot dream we can never do.” We do need dreams! But we have more than dreams now. We know a great deal about how to promote the changes I will describe. Pioneering initiatives are being pursued here and abroad. Moreover, there are mounting pressures moving us in these directions, including climate change. 
 
Transitions
 
I believe system change in America can best be approached through a series of interacting, mutually reinforcing transitions. Such transformations—some aborning, some farther off, and all difficult but none impossible—would alter the current system’s key motivational structures. Note that they are transitions: progress can be made over time, and there are partway houses.
 
The growth transition. GDP—think “grossly distorted picture”—is recognized as a poor guide, ignored in favor of measuring progress toward democratically determined priorities and social and environmental wellbeing.
 
The corporate transition. Profit becomes a relatively minor motivation for businesses. Producing social and environmental wellbeing comes first. Economic democracy is everywhere and takes many forms: worker ownership, co-ops, community and public ownership, credit unions, public-private and for-profit, not-for-profit hybrids. For big corporations, stakeholder boards are mandated as are high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability.
 
The market transition. As a governing force in economic life, the market is now powerfully complemented by cooperation and by planning. Tight market regulation keeps prices honest and wages fair.
 
Transition in investment and finance. Investment for high financial returns is largely replaced by investment for high social and environmental returns. Public and community banking predominates over private. Main Street tops Wall Street.
 
The social transition. Powerful social justice measures—tax fairness, a job guarantee, fully adequate minimum wage and unemployment compensation, strong unions, equal pay for equal work, good child care and paid leave, paid opportunities in social and environmental services—ensure fundamental fairness and genuine equal opportunity, defeating both economic deprivation and gross inequality.
 
The lifestyle and culture transition. Vain attempts to satisfy non-material needs with material possessions give way to new lifestyles based on the recognition that other people are our main source of happiness. Nature is seen not as ours to exploit but as a communion of subjects in which we are integral. (For a full description of the all-important transition in cultural values, see my Essay from the Edge No. 5.)
 
The communities transition. Runaway enterprise and throwaway communities are replaced by vital communities that prize human solidarity, local control, and rootedness. Joy in diversity supplants racial and religious discrimination and intolerance.
 
The democracy transition. Creeping corporatocracy and plutocracy are rolled back as political reforms bring true popular sovereignty and empowerment of marginalized groups—actual government of, by, and for the people. Governing is focused where it is most effective—local, state, national, or international—with decisionmaking on issues guided to the most decentralized level feasible.
 
These transitions provide the truest escape from the currently failing system and the foundation for an attractive next system. (Note that transitions about international and defense affairs, though omitted here, must be added.)
 
American Dreamscape
 
Here is a dreamscape of an America made possible by these transitions. Down these paths, we can envision interesting aspects of life in this new setting.
 
For starters, much of economic and social life is rooted in our communities and surrounding regions. Production of food and much more is local and regional. Enterprises are mostly locally owned and committed to the long-term wellbeing of employees (their neighbors) and the viability of their communities (their towns).  
 
Worker and community ownership are prominent, often taking the form of co-ops and credit unions. Community wealth building, where communities have ownership and control of their assets, is commonplace. Cooperation moderates competition, and companies stress wellbeing and not profit. Indeed, the profit motive has faded into the background. 
 
Production systems are designed to mimic biological ones, with waste streams eliminated or becoming a useful input elsewhere. The provision of services replaces the purchase of many goods, and sharing, collaborative consumption, and community ownership are commonplace. Few people own things they can borrow or rent. Products are more durable and are easy to repair, with components that can be reused or recycled.
 
Growth in GDP is not seen as a priority, and GDP is viewed as a misleading measure of wellbeing and progress. Instead, new indicators of national and community wellbeing—including measures of social and natural capital—are closely watched. 
 
Socially, formal work hours have been cut back and paid leaves added, freeing up time for family, friends, hobbies, continuing education, skills development, caregiving, volunteering, sports, outdoor recreation, and participating in the arts. Life is less frenetic. Mindfulness and living simply carry the day. 
 
Because large inequalities are at the root of so many social and environmental problems, measures have been implemented to ensure much greater equality not only of opportunity but also of outcomes. Because life is simpler and less grasping and there is less advertising and people are not so status conscious, a fairer sharing of economic resources is possible. 
 
The overlapping webs of encounter and participation that were once hallmarks of America, a nation of joiners, have been rebuilt. Trust in each other is high. Community bonds are strong; civic associations and community service groups plentiful; support for teachers and caregivers high. Personal security, tolerance of difference, and empathy predominate. 
 
Special attention is given to children and young people. Their education and receipt of loving care, shelter, good nutrition and health care, and an environment free of pollutants and violence are the measures of how well society is doing.
 
Consumerism is supplanted by the search for abundance in things that truly bring happiness and joy—family, friends, the natural world, meaningful work. Communities enjoy a strong rebirth of needed skills and trades, crafts, and self-provisioning. Conspicuous consumption is considered vulgar and has been replaced by new investment in natural amenities, education, and community wealth.
 
Voting rights everywhere are secure, and almost everyone votes, but voting is considered only part of popular democracy. Local governance stresses participatory, direct, and deliberative democracy. At the national level, a host of pro-democracy reforms are in place. Citizens are seized with the responsibility to manage and extend the commons—the valuable assets that belong to everyone—through community land trusts, public spaces, and more. 
 
Despite the many ways life will be more local, and in defiance of the resulting temptation to parochialism, Americans feel a sense of citizenship at larger levels of social and political organization, including at the global level where there is a new sense of global citizenship and a strong global citizens movement.
 
There is a palpable sense that all economic and social activity is nested in the natural world and dependent on it. Zero discharge of pollutants, toxics, and greenhouse gases is the norm. Renewable energy is used everywhere, with maximum efficiency. Green chemistry has replaced the use of toxic solvents and hazardous substances. Organic farming has eliminated pesticide and herbicide use. Biophilic design has brought nature into our buildings and communities.
 
Businesses are forced to pay for their “external” environmental damages, like climate change impacts, as some economists have long preached. Schools stress environmental education and pursue “no child left inside” programs. Ecosystem restoration, especially repairing the damages caused by climate change, is a main focus of community action. Major efforts are made to return carbon to soils and forests.
 
As humorist Dave Barry often exclaimed, “I’m not making this up!” Around our country there is actual evidence of all these things, some in place and some still only as proposals for new policies. They do not predominate, not yet the norm, but they are there. They provide guideposts showing the way.  And there is a world out there of non-profit groups and coalitions working for these changes and ready to help. The path, a poet said, is made by walking.

Coda: The Complication

I so wish I could end here with this delightfully positive story. But it would not be honest to fail to mention the great complication looming over this entire essay. There is a problem in the path of any positive future—the climate problem. Possibilities like the ones just sketched could be severely limited by the slow pace of climate action here and abroad. The reality of global warming and climate change is already hard upon us, and it will worsen. My guess is that the world will soon be consumed with the consequences of climate change. How America and the world address the climate issue will be a powerful determinant of what future is possible. 

To that end, we must proceed with urgency to do what is so clearly needed: a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in all the major countries. But along with emissions reduction and adaptation to climate impacts, we must also pursue the system changes needed to correct the fundamental flaws that have delivered the climate crisis to our doorstep. 

We should not see climate as a separate problem. The climate crisis is the world’s political economies at work. The oncoming climate calamity is the strongest argument for transformation of America’s political economy. Elsewhere, I have argued that the system changes advocated in the essay—the transitions—are what we need to cope with climate change over time. My hope is that the US and other countries will see the wisdom of fusing measures for transformative change with measures to address climate threats. The two should go forward hand in hand.

For more on the author, see www.gusspeth.org.

The Essays from the Edge are being posted at https://www.democracycollaborative.org/blogs.

New Consciousness – The Brass Ring

(Essay #5)

Let’s face it, it is going to be damn hard to protect the human and natural communities we love. Big changes in public policy are needed as well as big changes in individual and social behavior, moves that are difficult and far-­reaching by today’s standards. It is important to ask what might make them possible. 

Strong social and political movements come to mind, but I believe the changes needed will also require the rise of what we will call a new consciousness. For some, a new consciousness can arrive as a spiritual awakening—a transform­ation of the human heart. For others it is a more intellectual process of learning to see the world anew.  From a society-wide perspective, it involves major cultural change and a reorientation of what society values and prizes most highly. 

The father of the land ethic, Aldo Leopold, came to believe “that there is a basic antagonism between the philosophy of the industrial age and the philosophy of the conservationist.” Remarkably, he wrote to a friend that he doubted anything could be done about conservation “without creating a new kind of people.”

Paul Raskin and his Global Scenario Group have developed many scenarios of world economic, social, and environmental conditions, including scenarios where there are no fundamental changes in consciousness and values. But without a change in values, all their scenarios run into big trouble. So they favor the “New Sustainability” worldview where society turns “to non­material dimensions of fulfillment...the quality of life, the quality of human solidarity and the quality of the earth.... Sustainability is the imperative that pushes the new agenda. Desire for a rich quality of life, strong human ties and a resonant connection to nature is the lure that pulls it toward the future.” 

My early mentor, Charles Reich, the author of The Greening of America in 1970, concluded that, “At the heart of everything is what must be called a change of consciousness. This means a new way of living—almost a new man.”

I would never say that no progress can be made until America’s dominant culture has been transformed. But I do believe that we won’t get far in addressing our major challenges unless there is a parallel, ongoing transformation in values and culture. Einstein said that today’s problems cannot be solved with today’s mind. That is a difficult conclusion but one with which we must contend.  
 
So, two important questions emerge. First, what are the social values required by today’s circumstances? And second, what forces can drive cultural and consciousness change of the type and on the scale needed?  

The most serious and sustained effort to date to state a compelling ethical vision for the future is the Earth Charter, which has gained wide endorsement and support around the world. The Earth Charter is an eloquent statement of the ethical principles needed to “bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace.” Over 2,000 organizations representing tens of millions of people have endorsed the Earth Charter. 

After a lot of reading on this subject, here are the value transformations I believe we need. We want our dominant culture to have shifted, from today to tomorrow, in the following ways:
Instead of viewing humanity as something apart from nature, and nature as something “other” to be dominated, we will see ourselves as part of nature, as offspring of its evolutionary process, as close kin to wild things, and as wholly dependent on its vitality and the services it provides.
           
Rather than seeing nature as humanity’s resource to exploit as it sees fit for economic and other purposes, we will see the natural world as holding intrinsic value and having rights that create for us the duty of ecological stewardship.
 
We will no longer discount the future by focusing so intently on the short term, but instead take the long view and recognize our duties to human and natural communities well into the future.
 
Instead of today’s corrosive individualism and narcissism, we will foster a powerful sense of community and social solidarity, in all venues from local to cosmopolitan (from me to we).
 
Violence will no longer be glorified either at home or abroad, nor wars easily accepted, and peace will be a priority. 
 
The spreading of hate and invidious divisions will be rejected. We will move from racism, sexism, and nativism to tolerance, an embrace of cultural diversity, and protection of the rights of all.
 
Materialism, consumerism, and the primacy of ever-more possessions will give way to a culture that grants priority to family and personal relationships, learning, experiencing nature, service, spirituality, music and dance, sports, the arts, and play.
 
Rather than tolerate gross economic, social, gender, and political inequality, we will prize and demand a high measure of equality and social justice in all these spheres.
 
I agree, that’s a mind full! The good news is that we don’t need to wait on these changes but can help bring them about. This jewel was from Senator Pat Moynihan: “The central conservative truth is that culture, not politics, determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”
 
As Moynihan suggests, we actually know important things about how values and culture can be changed. Here is a partial inventory to consider.
 
One sure path to cultural change is, unfortunately, the cataclysmic event—the crisis—that profoundly challenges prevailing values and delegitimizes the status quo. The Great Depression is the classic example. I think we can be confident that we haven’t seen the end of major crises that will shake things up.
 
Milton Friedman was an accomplished economist and a fierce advocate. I did not often agree with his positions on policy, but he was right to point to the way crises can bring ideas to the fore: “Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change,” he wrote. “When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.”
 
I think ongoing climate change is a crisis of sufficient potential to be transformative. The reality of global warming and climate change is already hard upon us, and it will worsen. My guess is that the world will soon be consumed with the consequences of climate calamity. The climate crisis is the strongest possible argument for transformation of today’s dominant social values.  
 
A thorough look at this issue is Thomas Homer-­Dixon’s The Upside of Down. Homer-­Dixon believes that foreshocks and breakdowns can lead to positive change if the ground is prepared. “We need to prepare to turn breakdown to our advantage when it happens—because it will,” he says. Breakdowns, of course, do not necessarily lead to positive outcomes; authoritarian outcomes are also possibilities. Turning a breakdown to advantage will require being crisis ready.
 
Two other key factors in cultural change are leadership and social narrative. Harvard’s Howard Gardner has written, “Whether they are heads of a nation or senior officials of the United Nations, leaders . . . have enormous potential to change minds . . . and in the process they can change the course of history.
 
“I have suggested one way [for leaders] to capture the attention of a disparate population: by creating a compelling story, embodying that story in one’s own life, and presenting the story in many different formats so that it can eventually topple the counter-stories in one’s culture. … The story must be simple, easy to identify with, emotionally resonant, and evocative of positive experiences.” 

Bill Moyers, a powerful force for good in our country, wrote that “America needs a different story. … The leaders and thinkers and activists who honestly tell that story and speak passionately of the moral and religious values it puts in play will be the first political generation since the New Deal to win power back for the people.” 

Others like the cultural historian Thomas Berry have written about the need for a new story. The Rev. Jim Antal, author of Climate Church, Climate World, is one who recognizes that need. “It’s the very structures of the world that need to be challenged if we are to live into a new story.”

There is some evidence that Americans are ready for another story. Large numbers of Americans express disenchantment with today’s lifestyles and offer support for values similar to those discussed here. But these values are held along with other strongly felt and often conflicting values, and we are all pinned down by old habits, fears, insecurities, social pressures and in other ways. A new story that helps people find their way out of this confusion and dissonance could help lead to real change. I was once part of an organization with the fetching name Center for a New American Dream.

Another source of value change is social movements. Social movements are all about consciousness raising.  In my lifetime, I have seen hard-fought change in civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, and other gender, race and ethnic issues including Black Lives Matter. Two of my heroes here are the Rev. William Barber on social justice and Bill McKibben on climate.

Another way forward to a new consciousness lies in the world’s religions. Mary Evelyn Tucker, an authority on world religions, has noted that “no other group of institutions can wield the particular moral authority of the religions.” Faith communities played key roles in ending slavery, in the civil rights and voting rights movements, and in overcoming apartheid in South Africa. Led by the remarkable Pope Francis, they are now turning special attention to issues of social justice, peace, and climate.
 
An awakening to new values and new consciousness can also derive from the arts, literature, philosophy, and science. Consider, for example, the long tradition of “reverence for life” stretching back to Emperor Ashoka more than 2,200 years ago and forward to Albert Schweitzer, Aldo Leopold, Thomas Berry, Terry Tempest Williams, Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver, Oren Lyons and many others. Consider as well the wisdom traditions of Native Americans and other indigenous peoples.
 
In 1977, the elders of the Iroquois Confederacy issued a remarkable statement, Basic Call to Consciousness: Address to the Western World: “the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy has existed on this land since the beginning of human memory…. Our essential message to the world is a basic call to consciousness. The destruction of the Native cultures and people is the same process which has destroyed and is destroying life on this planet. The technologies and social systems which have destroyed the animal and plant life are also destroying the Native people…. It is the people of the West, ultimately, who are the most oppressed and exploited. They are burdened by the weight of centuries of racism, sexism, and ignorance which has rendered their people insensitive to the true nature of their lives…. The people who are living on this planet need to break with the narrow concept of human liberation, and begin to see liberation as something which needs to be extended to the whole of the Natural World.”
 
Another major and hopeful path is seeding the landscape with innovative, instructive models. A remarkable but under-appreciated thing going on in the United States today is the proliferation of innovative models of community action and business enterprise, many promoted by groups like the Solidarity Economy, the New Economy Network, and the Wellbeing Economy Alliance.
 
Local currencies, co-ops of several types, community wellbeing indicators, slow money, community supported agriculture, downshifting and living simply, community wealth building, community owned power and solar net metering, and on and on—these are bringing a positive future into the present in very concrete ways. These actual models will grow in importance as communities search for answers on how the future should look, and they can change minds. Seeing is believing.

Finally, there is the great importance of sustained efforts at education. Here one should include education in the largest sense as embracing not only formal education but also day-­to-­day and experiential education. It includes education we get from personally experiencing nature in all its richness and diversity. My Yale colleague Steve Kellert stressed that such exposure to the natural world, especially for children, is important to well­being and human development. 

Education in this broad sense also includes social marketing. Social marketing has had notable successes in moving people away from bad behaviors such as smoking and drunk driving, and its approaches could be applied to larger themes as well.

These are all things within the power of citizens to make happen! The psychologist Tim Kasser has provided good advice about two factors that can improve receptivity to messages conveying new values. One is to turn down the incessant triggering of our materialistic impulses, e.g. escape from advertising! And the other is to improve people’s sense of economic security, personal safety, and social connectedness, good advice for many ailments. 

***

With great thanks to all the insightful authors who contributed chapters to Kellert and Speth, The Coming Transformation: Values to Sustain Human and Natural Communities, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, 2009, available at https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/fes-pubs/5/

For more on the author, see www.gusspeth.org.

The Essays from the Edge are being posted at https://www.democracycollaborative.org/blogs.