West
and Non-West, Ego and Alter-ego:
Technological,
Communicative and Microvita Futures Explored
Sohail
Inayatullah.
Professor, Department of Futures Studies, Tamkang University;
International Management Centres Association, University of Action
Learning; the Communication Center, Queensland University of
Technology.
Keywords:
Civilizations, Alternative Futures, Agricultural, Food, Macrohistory,
Scenarios
Summary:
The argument made in this article that there are generally two
foundational global futures
the artificial (globalization-technologization) era and the
communicative-inclusive era. The basic perspective in the first
scenario is that things rise more progress, more technology,
more development, more wealth and more individuality. This is
generally the view of older age cohorts and those in the center of
power. The second scenario is focused on inner and social
transformation, whether because of green or spiritual values or
because of the wise and moral use of technology. This is the vision
of those marginal to the system - youth, women, the
"others" - it is idealistic, and not beholden to the
values of the Market or State but firmly entrenched in the People's
Sector. In contrast to the exponential curve of the first scenario,
this scenario has a cyclical curve (returning to a more stable time)
in some variations and a spiral curve (a return to traditional
values but in far more inclusive terms) in other variations.
These
two scenarios, images of the future, oscillate in the West. The West
needs the latter, its alter-ego, to refresh itself.
Within this over all pattern, Collapse remains the fear
(technology gone wrong or overpopulation from the South either
because of the exploitation of nature or over-concentration of power
and wealth) that spurs the West to constantly create new futures.
The image of collapse is used as a call to action, to either join
the technology revolution or the consciousness revolution, than as a
firm belief in the end of the world.
We
also argue that the West is by definition in crisis, indeed, crisis
the threat of collapse or a return to a slower time (an imagined
past when men were men and economies were local, with chaos
controllable) is how it refreshes itself. Without these two pillars,
the West would have fallen to the way side and other civilizations
would have reigned supreme.
In
contrast to the West, the non-West follows a different pattern. The
ego of the non-West has now been constructed by the West, such that
as much as the non-West resists Westernization, it embraces it,
becoming even more Western than the West, as, for example, Japan or
Malaysia. The alter-ego, however, comes across in two ways: first as
traditional, ancient indigenous knowledge, generally, focused not on
the Western utopia but on the Indic and Sinic eupsychia the
cultivation and perfection of the self.
Related to this concern is the self-reliant, localist,
community model of development and social relations. Second, as
attempts to not only limit their understandings at local levels but
making new claims for the universal. This perspective is best stated
by the Indian philosopher, P.R. Sarkar. His theory of agriculture as
well as the worldview behind it, which he terms Microvita, offers a
new vision of the future of science, society and particularly of
food and agriculture. The article concludes by exploring the impact
of Sarkar's theory on the future of agriculture and food.
Contents:
1.
Technological Fatigue
2.
Western Worldview
3.
Scenarios Of The Future
4.
Case Studies
5.
Values And Behavior
6.
Structure Of The Future
7.
The Non-West
8.
Local and Integrated Farming
9.
Sarkar's Vision Of The Future
10.
The Microvita Revolution
1.
TECHNOLOGICAL FATIGUE
Based
on the massive 10 nation study of how individuals envisioned the
Year 2000, Johan Galtung writes that the most pessimistic
respondents where those that came from the richest nations. [1]
In particular, young people,[2]
relevant here to us as potential carriers of a new worldview or at
least as idealistic visionaries who can transform Industrial
civilization, expressed a development fatigue. They had seen the
limits of technology, and understood that social transformation and
inner transformation was required. While respondents generally
desired social and inner change, what they received were more
technologies.[3]
The
result of unfulfilled desired has been cognitive dissonance, at a
foundational level, civilizational level.
The dissonance can be described as: a desire for social
transformation but the reality of globalized technocracy: a
discourse of fairness but global, national and corporate policies
that discriminate against the poor, the indigenous, the young
the most vulnerable.
At
one extreme it is the rush to join the MBA set (and now e-tech
culture), to globalise, to work hard to ensure that one's own future
is bright, even if the rest of the ship is sinking (the Titanic
metaphor of the future). Agriculture and farming in this
perspective/strategy are not just seen as uneconomical but as dirty,
as part of pre-industrial history. With history defined in linear
terms, the past is to be avoided (and specifically left to the
Others, the backward countries and races).
The
second response has been the global backlash of the right to
resist multiculturalism (specifically, the alternative ways of
knowing expressed by other cultures), and the other, through a
return to extreme forms of one's identity. This is the Islamic right
wing or the Christian right wing and localist/nationalistic
movements throughout the World.
In
more respectable forms, this is scientism, wherein science (like
god) is seen outside of history, the truth for all once they convert
to the open inquiry of the scientific method.[4]
Science delivers the future, creates the future, for one and all. As
famed physicist, Michio Kaku said in reference to the new world
being created by the technologies of genetic engineering, nano-technology
and space research: get on the train or forever be left behind.[5]
The reality of not being able to get on the train has, as in earlier
times, as resistance to the march of progress in the American
Western Frontier, been an attack on the train on globalisation,
on gene research, as well as on other ethnicities (since they are
most easily visible when it comes time to determining who has taken
away the jobs).
Farming
in this alternative future of resistance to globalization is
considered bright, largely because it is associated with the past
simple technologies - and with mono-culture. The past is
considered far less chaotic, time was slower, one lived with the
rhythms of nature, and Others lived far away.
A
third alternative to the rush of the future is common in OECD
nations, that of suicide, especially suicide among males. They end
their physical life partly as they see no future, they are missing
moral male role models and the only rituals left are those around
consumption the shopping mall as the great savior.
Agriculture
and farming seen here not merely as an economic activity but as a
ritual, as a way of life. It can be considered the antidote to the
problem of modernity and post-modernity. The agricultural ways of
life brings discipline and hard work. There are clear rules, corn is
corn and is not seen as part of discourse, but living reality.
However,
for technological globalists, it is exactly this past that must be
creatively destroyed by higher and higher forms of capitalism
the train must go on, eventually become a plane, then a starship.
However, with limited portals to the gates of the globalization
train, what results are not only attacks on the train (as with
fundamentalist movements) but jumping in front of the train (suicide
and depression by those who cannot cope with an accelerating future,
or who sense that they will have no part in this future).
Irrespective
of the strategy taken by young (and old), at heart then is a crisis
in worldview. However, generally research on how people see the
future rarely explores these foundations. Instead data is presented
focused on whether individuals are optimistic or pessimistic about
the future the search is for signs of despair and hope. Causes
of suicide are either individualized (no discipline), blamed on
unemployment and other social and economic problems, or related to
genes.[6]
However, for causes to be sensible must be nested in the
limits of the industrial and postindustrial worldview wherein
reality is segmented into work (profit-making) followed by years of
retirement. An analysis
of worldview must as well speak to an even deeper sense of myth and
metaphor. At this level of analysis, the issue is what stories do we
tell ourselves?
For
individuals outside of the mainstream of the present (and thus open
to alternative futures), the problem
for them is a story of the universe in which they are expected to
behave in certain ways (become a worker, rational human being) and a
reality that either denies this possibility (unemployment) and is
utterly divorced from their world (the limits of the European
enlightenment with respect to accessing other ways of knowing).
There is thus a contrast to the world of globalization and
secularization and the realities of emotions and identity creation.
So
far we have pointed to the alternatives taken to jumping on the
train to the future. First, there is cognitive dissonance since
people do not want a train to the future but rather want the
worldview behind the one-train perspective to be challenged. They
want inner transformation and social innovation not the latest
technology. Those that can not get on attack the train and yearn for
earlier days. Others see no hope and jump in front of the
globalization train. A fourth alternative is the postmodern, to see
the entire exercise as socially constructed, so not only one train
to the future but many trains and many other forms of transport (jet
planes, camels, teleportation, telecommunication, walking, sitting
still and imagining).
However,
a problem with postmodernism is that it gives endless choices
virtuality but with no foundation.[7]
Without this foundation, the result is a reality with too
many selves the swift Teflon vision of the future, where
identity is about speed and the collection of a multitude of
experiences, not about understanding the Other not about deep
communication wherein others (nature, other cultures, new
technologies, even) are understood in their own terms.
Moreover
the terms within which postmodernism includes others remains defined
within the confines of the Western limitless worldview of
accumulation. The choices, apparently multicultural, in fact, are
about consumption, consuming other cultures. Virtuality merely
creates the illusion of endless choice but not the fulfillment of
having met and responded to a challenge. Nature, conditions of
inequity and authentic alternatives to the postmodern are lost in
this discourse. It is the response to the challenge that leads to
inner growth, to economic and social development. The end result of
postmodernity is depression, a condition that the World Health
Organization has already made dramatic forecasts about. WHO
estimates that by 2020 depression will be the leading cause of
disability adjusted life years dramatically increasing
the demands for psychiatric health services for young and old.,.[8]
2.
WESTERN WORLDVIEW
However,
as Galtung argues, it is too simple to say that the problematique is
of the Western worldview, of the crises of the West. First since the
West is ubiquitous and second since even closed societies exhibit
similar problems. Third, it is a conceptual mistake to argue that
the West is in crisis since this is a tautological statement.[9]
The West by definition exists in this way. That has been the West's
success in expanding the last 500 years.
The West is not just linear in its evolution, it is also
dramatic, apocalyptic (the end of the World, the collapse). The West
by definition searches for the latest breakthrough, the victory, the
challenge that can propel onwards.
But
the other side of the West is its alter ego. This alter ego is
focused not on expansion but on human rights. Not on the businessman
but on the shaman, not on the mature adult ready to life and retire
from the company (or kingdom or church) but on the youth that
contests reality. Not on domination focused masculine principles but
on partnership focused feminine principles. Not the city but the
wild.
The
challenge to official reality comes also from the outside, the
periphery, for example, the Bedouins not vested in the normative and
coercive power of the state, as Ibn Khaldun argues.[10]
Indeed, youth, women, mystics, those from traditional
society, are the periphery. Even as many are part of the ego of the
West (I shop therefore I am) many are of the alter-ego (I love
therefore I am and I protest therefore I am). It has been the
capacity of the West to appropriate counter movements the
challenge to official reality - to use youth, women, non-western
cultures and others to transform itself from within that has been
the success of making the West universal.
The incredible growth in the organic food industry is an
excellent example of this. In this sense, the crisis in the West is
not new, it is merely the alter-ego expressing the alternative West.
Farming
and Food:
Within
the framework of agriculture/farming, this
ego/alter ego oscillation comes out in two ways. The dominant
is clearly the technological with the subservient the organic, the
manual. In the technological, this has moved from industrial
farming, and in recent times, to GM foods (for example,
"everything from pickles and peanut butter to tofu and tomatoes
is in the US injected with genes from arctic fish to make them frost
resistant"[11]).
The GM food future will eventually leading to functional foods,
wherein foods will be injected with various vaccines (Tetanus or
polio, for example) or fruit juices flush with psyllium for fibre or
grapes with high amounts of lycopene for treatment of prostate
cancer or applies spliced with an antioxident gene from
strawberries)[12].
The alternative is community farming, a return to nature. Women are
of course playing a leading role in the switch to consuming organic
foods partly as the suffer more from health problems (as one would
expect in patriarchy) but also as they are generally more concerned
with future generations, with the health of their children.
However,
it is mistake to see organic farming (community farming, perma-culture,
etc) as outside the Western worldview, it is merely the shadow side
of the technological.
We
should this within the futures of agriculture expect to see a
continued rise of both Wests the transgenic food industry and
the organic food industry (as well slippage in the organizational
paradigms behind them, ie the former may become decentralized and
localized while the latter may become like a real industrial era
industry, moving away from its community "small is
beautiful" roots).
Understanding
Structure:
Returning
to our exploration of what individuals do when desires are
unfulfilled (attack the train, jump in front of the train, etc),
part of the problem with those responding to globalization is that
they base their politics on a visible identification of the enemy.
In the metaphor we have used, evil are corporate heads or mad
scientists. The metaphorical dimension of the train representing
progress, the one-track as mono-culture nature of technology
and the uni-direction is the commitment to progress at all costs.
Thus
what is harder to see beyond the visible litany is the
worldview, the codes that define what is real, what is important,
what is beautiful, truth and reality. This becomes possible to see
when one steps outside one's own terms of reality and enters other
cultures or time frames (creating an epistemological distance from
the present and future). Less
difficult but still challenging is understanding structure, that is,
historical processes that are actor invariant, such as class,
patriarchy or varna (from
sanskrit, loosely meaning color but generally a structure of power).
While Marxists have focused on structure (the imperialists are the
problem) as have muslims (Western Satans) but by resorting to
conspiracy theories (using structure but unfortunately moving to
specific cultures) they have lost legitimacy. Indeed, by focusing on
evil and attempting to eliminate others, a war of attrition has
resulted, where whomever is not the purest is bombed, as in South
Asia and Yugoslavia.
Thus
for those attempting to transform society, change appears to be
easier when evil is clearer whether a tyrant or a multinational
such as General Motors or more recently Microsoft) or a world
organization such as the World Bank. It is more difficult when
structure (inequity) or worldview that must be challenged and
transformed, that is, not the visible hardware but the harder to see
software (actually, the problem is in the context that makes sense
of hardware and software the entire computing metaphor).
However,
there is a worldview that comes across in a multitude of movements,
each touching some dimension of the critique of what has come to be
called globalization. These
are expressed in the form of the spiritual movements, the vegetarian
movement, the green movement, the community movement, the human
rights movements All these movements are generally supported by
youth as cadres even if managed by aging hippies.
Thus, there is a clear age-cohort dimension to the future. As
these young people age, what might the forms of social resistance
take. What might be the mixture of cyber-protest, social movements,
for example?
Later
in this paper, we will investigate the structural parameters that
may lead to success or failure for these movements. Suffice to say
at this stage that how one sees the futures of change largely
depends on whether one sees social change as linear or cyclical or
spiral. For linear developmentalists, youth movements, spiritual
movements, animal rights movements, community farming movements, are
generally signs that (1) progress is occurring since history is
complaining (2) these movements should be listened to since ignoring
them only increases the costs to the system (but only if they cannot
be mocked, avoided, imprisoned, first), and (3) generally the voices
of morality have always complained, and technological/economic
progress has always won. So as they in Australia: no worries. Stay
on the track.
For
cyclical thinkers, for example, such as Pitirim Sorokin,[13]
systems reach their limits. Once reached they return to other
periods in history. Each system can only express a certain level of
reality. For example, as West qua materialism reaches its sensate
peak, it marginalizes the spiritual. The system goes in crisis, and
once it reaches this limit, it returns to an ideational system,
focused on ideas, on morality. Progress becomes defined by proximity
to God and not the capacity to purchase the real. Thus the current
system has reached its natural limits and the alternative Ideational
system is about to begin.
For
spiral thinkers such as the late Indian philosopher and Master, P.R.
Sarkar[14]
whom we will return to later human social history move
through stages. The workers era (shudra)
focused on meeting basic needs. This led to the warrior era (ksattriya)
where
strength, challenges, honor were crucial. Empires resulted as power
was centralized. Next comes the Intellectual Era (vipra)
power controlled by priests and monks - wherein ideas and their
circulation is the key. The limit was reached when economic growth
was avoided. In the battle between the monarch and the priest in
European history, for example, it was the trader, the burghers
outside the city walls, that emerged victorious. The capitalists (vaeshyas)
entered the cycle and commodified workers, warriors and
intellectuals. This is where we generally stand now. Next is a
global worker's revolution when the entire system will transform and
move to a new era of Warriors (a centralized world governance system
based on global ethics, honor and the meeting of new challenges,
space, most likely). The spiral comes in that once the pattern is
seen a new leadership can emerge and ensure that while the cycle
turns, no group is exploited neither worker, warrior,
intellectual or trader - allowing the cycle to become a spiral.
The
hypothesis then is that the crisis that the West faces are part of
the West's own renewal and clearly part of the fatigue of
development. They can
also be nested in the structure of the time, the guiding worldview
and the myth/story behind it.
Delay:
This
fatigue, and resultant futures, has been delayed because of the
internet revolution. Earlier,
calls for transformation where focused on the reinvigoration of
farming and agricultural, of challenging industrial modes of family,
organization, religion and sexuality. The farm meant a return to
community, a rejection of the paradise of the (sub)burbs. A new
age-cohort, screen-agers, as Douglas Rushkoff accurately calls them,
have found a different way to express individuality.[15]
It is quick time, quick communication and a chance to immediately
lead instead of to follow. This will likely be even more delayed
because of revolutions in genetics and nano-technology. While at one
level delayed, at another level, the .com revolution is a youth
explosion, of an expression of an alternative paradigm of social
relations. Many small start- ups are multicultural,
gender-partnership based and challenge traditional notions of
working 9-5 and wearing black suits. They also offer a network
vision of work and organizational structure. In this sense, they
renew even as they delay more basic (needed) changes to
globalization.
The
issue then is the technological transformed promised by the Gene and
Net revolution merely a continuation of globalization and
technocracy or a structural and ideational foundational change?
Are
the carriers of new social codes about the transformation of the
dominant World culture the West or as part of the success of
the West, itself?
3.
SCENARIOS OF THE FUTURE
Let
us leave these questions for the time being and explore what types
of futures are desired by groups and individuals throughout the
world. Interestingly but not surprisingly, the ego and alter-ego of
the West comes across in foundational scenarios of the future. These
can be seen in popular and academic images of the future, and have
certainly come across in visioning workshops in a range of
countries.
Focusing
on these scenarios is not to restrict the importance of individual
trends such as disintermediation, aging, multiculturalism, the
rights movement, global governance but to frame trends in the
context of larger patterns of change. Scenarios or pictures of
emerging futures is a far more integrative way of capturing such
information.[16]
Globalized
Artificial Future
The
first is the globalized artificial future and the second is the
Communicative-Inclusive future.[17]
The
globalized scenario is high-technology and economy driven. Extreme
features include, the right to plastic surgery and an airplane for
each person. Generally, the vision is of endless travel and
shopping, and a global society where we all have fun by having all
our desires met. It is
the Western vision of paradise.
Food,
while plentiful, in this scenario is identity based, ie food that
defines self. Food is fun, food is exotic (Thai or Indian). Food is
also mixed, eg Tex-Mex. Agricultural, as mentioned earlier, while at
one level considered dirty, at another level, it is not considered
at all, even if the reality is that world population increases
require increased food production. Food, like other commodities,
should be not scarce. It definitely should be globalized, all sorts
easily available wherever one is. This is part of the postmodern/globalized
thrust, of having all perspectives quickly and easily available
In
the long run, in this future, food will move from globalized food to
transgenic food, moving not just from cultural diversity (many types
of food) to genetically engineered food. For example, "the
world market for transgenic products is projected to increase to
$8billion in 2005 and 25$ billion in 2010. Corporate transactions
related to ventures in GM seeds, agro-chemicals and research, valued
at more than $ 15billion (from 1996-1999) is expected to keep
pace."[18]
Overtime, food, will merge with pharmaceuticals, with the creation
of functional foods, created for particular health needs.
Rural
communities will be so not because they are agricultural based but
because they are different from the city, indeed, they provide areas
of respite for Earth as City: City as planet. Rurality may become
redefined as areas of elite wealth and not as areas of cultural
backwardness, as areas of limited choice, as, for example, the
Australian Bush or the South Asian village are seen today.
More
specifically, this scenario of the future can be defined as:
·
Genetic
Prevention, Enhancement and Recreation New Species , Germ Line
Engineering and the End of Natural Procreation
·
Soft
and Strong Nano-Technology End of Scarcity and Work
·
Space
Exploration Promise of ET Contact or at Least, Species
Continuation in case an Asteroid hits Earth.
·
Artificial
Intelligence and ultimately the Rights of Robots - development of
personal artificial bots
·
Life
Extension and Ageing Gerontocracy and the End of Youth Culture
·
Internet
and the Global Brain
·
Globalization,
large transnationals organizing production of needs and desires.
The
underlying ethos is that technology can solve every problem and lead
to genuine human progress.
At
a grand level, this vision of the future challenges traditional
notions of truth, reality, nature, Man and sovereignty. Truth is
considered multiple, socially constructed. Reality is physical but
as well virtual (cyberspace). Nature is no longer considered fixed
but can be challenged and changed by humans, largely through genetic
manipulation. While previously human evolution was stable, with
cultural evolution quicker and technological evolution the quickest,
now the technology has the potential to quicker human biological
evolution itself. This fundamentally shifts the tension between
culture and technology, to technology and biology, leaving culture
where? The category Man has been has been deconstructed by feminists
and shown to be historically constructed. And finally economic
globalization makes sovereignty problematic and cultural
globalization makes the sovereignty of the self (one stable self)
porous, leading to far more liminal selves.
The
impact of this vision and the underlying trends in the food area are
singular. Genetically modified foods are the solution, especially
since global agricultural production has been steadily declining
since the Green Revolution of the 1960s' and will continue to do so
at 1.8% a year. With population increasing, along with a purchasing
power (and technology and gene) divide, food production must
dramatically increase.
Communicative-Inclusive
In
contrast is the communicative-inclusive society, which is values
driven. Consumption of every possible good in this scenario is far
less important to communication. It is learning from another about
another that is crucial. While technology is important, the morality
of those inventing and using it is far more important. Instead of
solving the world's food problem through the genetic engineering of
food, the reorganization of society and softer more nature-oriented
alternatives such as organic foods are far more important.
Food is not only necessary for our biological growth but food
is social (creating community) and food is spiritual (the correct
foods helping one become more subtle and incorrect foods, crudifying
one's body/mind/spirit).
The
goal is not to create a world that leads to the fulfillment of
desire but one wherein desire is reduced (the Buddhist perspective)
or channeled to spiritual and cultural pursuits. While earlier
incarnations of the scenario were to make everyone into a worker
(the Marxian distribution dream) or everyone into a shudra
(a worker, the Gandhian sentiment) or a peasant (the Maoist), recent
articulations are far more sophisticated and focused on what Sarkar[19]
has called Prama or
dynamic balance. Prama means inner balance (of material/spiritual),
regional balance (of nations, no one nation can be rich if the
neighbor is poor), of industrial/agricultural production (not
leaving the land but seeing it as part of national development) and
of economic balance (self-reliance in basic needs plus export
orientation of non-essentials).
Of
course, in the USA, where only 2% work directly in the agricultural
sector, balance should be defined differently. However, As Steve
Diver argues in "Farming the Future,"
Though
a dramatic increase in the farm sector is not appropriate in a
developed economy, clearly more people would take up farming were it
economically feasible. In
addition, when so many people are removed from the land and the
experience of living and working around Nature, a cumulative
collective psychological effect of dislocation and disconnectedness
from self and one's environment is likely.
Indeed, eco-psychologists suggest that many of the social
ills present in industrialized countries are the result of such an
imbalance. "[20]
Along
with balance, in this future, is diversity. In particular the
pitfalls of reliance on genetic intervention are crucial here since
they threaten biodiversity. Indeed, the Irish potato famine of the
1840s is largely because everyone plotted one crop. "Had the
crop been biodiverse, the catastrophe would not have occurred."[21]
The
alternative scenario gains credence as well since the logical
conclusion of GM foods are nano-foods, or the fabled meal-in-a-pill.
Of course, the pill will not be tasteless or odourless or
emotionless (as currently imagined) eating it will be a real
virtual programmed experience. The pill will not just provide
nutrients but evoke emotions, stimulate glands and for all practical
purposes be everything we currently and historically associate with
eating. Of course, the meal-in-a-pill still has to be invented but
when it does, the issue will be what type of social situation will
go with it? Once the collective meal is lost, what society will
result? What ways then will there be to slow time down, to connect
with others? How will the meal-in-a-pill fit into the food qua
spirituality perspective?
It
is these concerns that the communicative-inclusive scenario
articulates and presents. Far more important than the meal-in-a-pill
is the communicative nature of eating, of the importance of work for
those producing food (work gives humans dignity), of the social
design of food producers (not collectives nor corporations but
cooperatives, sharing land and wealth), and of the health (physical,
mental and spiritual) issues associated with food.
More
specifically the communicative-inclusive scenario has the following
characteristics:
·
Challenge
is not solved through technology but through creating a shared
global ethics;
·
Dialogue
of civilizations and between civilizations in the context of
multiple ways of knowing is the way forward;
·
A
balanced but dynamic economy. Technological innovation leads to
shared co-operative economic system;
·
Maxi-mini
global wage system --incentive linked to distributive justice;
·
A
soft global governance system with 1000 local bio-regions;
·
Layered
identity, moving from ego/religion/nation to rights of all;
·
Holistic
science --life as intelligent.
The
underlying perspective is that of a global ethics with a deep
commitment that communication and consciousness transformation can
solve all our problems.
The
trends that underlie this scenario are as with the earlier scenario
challenges to Truth, Reality, Nature, Man and Sovereignty but with a
different angle. Instead of genetic science it is new paradigms in
physics. Instead of a world ruled by multinationals, it is the
growth of Green Parties and social movements associated with
transparency that are
far more important.
Truth
and Reality are seen as both ultimate (spiritual) and physical. It
is multi-perspectual in that we make are own realities, however,
there is an underlying non-constructed unity to reality that of
a moral universe driver by cause-effect. In one word: karma.
This comes out from the growth of the spiritual movements and
cosmological exchange (the non-West creating cultural bridgeheads in
the West) as well as through the dramatic new health paradigm, which
while essentially spiritual focuses on integrating mind-body, seeing
both as essential to well-being.[22]
Nature, however, is not to be tampered with. Urbanization is the
problem and nature is given, indeed, a sacred trust given to
humanity. Man is contested as humans are among the many species on
the planet nature, animals, with spiritual entities, Gaia
herself. Sovereignty is challenged as nation-states are considered
passe' part of the problem. A solution could be a planetary
civilization based on the self-reliance model. Food would certainly
be locally grown and regional when required -
with the world government setting up policy standards (what
level of chemical fertilizers what level of meat consumption
allowed, and what levels of food can be exported).
However,
this scenario should not be seen as anti-technology, although there
are certainly groups that prefer aspects of this vision who are more
luddite than others. But most likely technology is likely to be
driven by ethical values. For example, technology could be used to
give information on the caloric count of foods, so as to avoid
high-fat foods. These health-bots could also immediately let one
know the level of pollutants in the food, where the food was
produced, and over time the social conditions that the food was
produced in. Thus the net, cellular phones could be used to
transform globalization from within, giving consumers information on
products so that they could make choices consistent with their
worldviews. Technology would thus serve as a moral guide, an angel
over one's shoulder, helping one do the right thing. [23]
However,
while this is a change in paradigm, at a deeper cosmological level,
it is not a foundational change, in that this scenario represents
the alter-ego of the West. It is the West, contracting, searching
for that identity it has unconsciously repressed.
4.
CASE STUDIES
Within
the theoretical context developed above, we now explore specifically
what futures are likely to result. The likelihood of a particular
future occurring is partly based on the desired future, that is,
individuals are likely to work to create the futures they want.
However, there are structural parameters that influence, that limit,
the future as well. A later section of this article will explore
these considerations.
In
terms of the case studies presented below, they are based on the
visions of young persons between the age of 15-25. This means that
in 15-20 years they may be in policy positions to impact the future
(at least the official ego future of the West and not the alter-ego,
which they currently impact). The case studies below focus on how
young people imagine their preferred futures as well as the type of
alternative futures they see emerging. Of course, these case studies
should be seen as indicative instead of conclusive, as among the
signs of the emergent future.
1.
Undergraduate Students at the Centre of European Studies, University
of Trier- Agriculture and the Futures of Europe. [24]
Community/Organic:
The
first and most popular scenario was the Community/Organic.
In this scenario, young people moved away from the chemical
corporate way of life and searched for community-oriented
alternatives. Local
currency networks, organic farming, shared housing and other values
and programs favored by the counter-culture were favored.
When asked why individuals would prefer this future, they
responded that the current (1999) Dioxin contamination in Belgium
(with similar scares in the future even more likely) could lead to
quite dramatic changes away from artificial, pesticide and genetic
foods, in the longer run.
Food
was part of a larger life-style, paradigm issue. These young people
imagined a community household system where goods and services were
shared. However, one participant
imagined Europe not within the urban/community dichotomy but
saw the entire of Europe as becoming community-oriented. This meant
a clear move away from the view that
I shop therefore I am to
I relate therefore I am.
In this sense, the key way of knowing was not philosophy qua reason;
or religion/state qua authority; or science quo empiricism, or even
spirituality qua intuition but communication qua relationship. The
self was no longer alone but nested in communities of care, each one
expanding eventually leading to Gaia, herself.
This
focus on relationship was also central for other participants, who
did not specifically share the community/organic future. Indeed, it
was the return to a strong family life that was pivotal in terms of
how they saw the future of Europe. Taking care of children and
ensuring that the state provided funds for this taking care of
the elderly, and in general living so that familial relationship
were far more important then exchange relations.
Clearly
this scenario reflects the communicative-inclusive scenario
identified earlier.
The
Family:
In
minor contrast to the community scenario, this future was far more
focused on the nuclear family the Family
Future. Indeed, efforts to maintain this institution were
considered crucial by some participants especially with the rise of
genetic engineering, and the possibility of test-tube factories in
the not so distant future. Indeed,
while more formal visioning workshops with technocratic experts
examine scientific variables (such as the nature of future
populations or income levels or possibilities of global
catestrophes)[25],
these students asked, "will I have children? How many? How will
I spend my time with them?"
Issues of food/work etc were not as important as the personal
nature of one's family.
This
of course should be understood in the context of the age of the
respondents. Most likely, as they age and have families, this group
will find itself drawn to the organic/community scenario.
Celebrating
a Plastic Future:
However,
other participants believed that the new technologies would be
dominant and instead of resisting them we should rejoice. We should
celebrate in artificial intelligence, plastic surgery, gene
enhancement creating a Plastic
Europe. Anonymity in fact gives freedom from other; it allows
the individual to express herself, while community and family
suppress the individual. The organic/community scenario, they
believed, was reflective of the agricultural era a time when
individuals, especially women, did not have rights.
The
new technologies as well promise great wealth. Indeed some argued
that far more important than family life was single life. It gave
choice; it was not steeped in outdated institutions such as
marriage. Europe was flexible and it should remain so when it came
to formal relations.
However,
behind these preferred futures was the reality of disaster.
One
participant argued that oil reserves would certainly run out, and
Europe would quickly decline, while Africa, with its plentitude of
sun, and eventually solar energy,
would rise. Mass unemployment in the context of Castle Europe
keep the barbarians out was the likely future. AIDS, Ebola,
and many other disasters loomed ahead. Nuclear technology could also
lead to serious problems and new forms of energy were needed.
Unless alternative forms of energy were developed, the future
was bleak.
However,
a last perspective was that of technology transforming the future in
a positive manner. The new technologies could create the possibility
for a network instead of national identity. They allow creativity to
grow, and along with more spiritual views of what it means to be
human, let humans transcend their narrow limitations.
What Europe could offer was its multilingual focus, its
vision of a multicultural society.
Food futures, in this scenario, were likely to be focused on
diversity, that is, space for the organic, space for the industrial
super market model and space for the genetically modified model.
No one model of how to farm, what to eat and who to eat with
would become hegemonic. Social movements and the state (through
electoral politics) would reduce the power of corporations.
Corporations would as well be influenced through consumer spending,
which more and would be focused on alternatives to the current
shopping center, "food magically appearing in aisles"
model.
These
scenarios are echoed by Richard Eckersley in his research: Eckersley
writes that young people: "expect to see new technologies
further used to entrench and concentrate power and privilege: for
example, they were almost twice as likely to believe that
governments would use new technologies to watch and regulate people
more as they were that these technologies would empower people and
strengthen democracy. They want to see new technologies used to help
create closer-knit communities of people living a sustainable. [26]
This is at essence a mixture of the green/sustainable and
transformational future and points to the fact that not all young
people are experiencing cognitive dissonance that many
understand the system, and find strategies to work with it without
being subverted by it.
These
issues are not only European. For example, in a similarly structured
visioning workshop in Taiwan, the following emerged as
preferred futures.
2.
Taiwan in Global Futures -
Taiwanese Students at Tamkang University, Tamsui, Taiwan, May
1999.
One
group imagined a globalized Taiwan with each citizen being
super-rich, with their own airplane (the globalist artificial
society). Another group imagined a softer, slower, organic future
where farming was crucial (the communicative-inclusive). Technology
linked them globally but there was no email imperative. Quality of
life issues were as crucial as wealth issues. The China/Taiwan issue
would be resolved by both entering a supernational federation where
nation did not matter any more.
This
latter scenario was quite surprising to older participants (one
saying that it was a dangerous vision for the nation).
However, it can be explained by the fact that this younger
new age-cohort do not have the memory of fleeing China, nor with the
poverty of 50 years ago. As with their western counter parts, the
have development/science and technology fatigue, and desire a far
different life a green, spiritual future.
5.
VALUES AND BEHAVIOR
While
these are exemplary case studies via visioning workshops,
interestingly we find isomorphic results from Paul Ray's and Sherry
Ruth Anderson's study
on Cultural Creatives.[27]
Arguing
that the best single predictor of real behavior
are values, they divide Americans into three value groups.
The first are the moderns. "The simplest way
to understand today's Moderns is to see that they are the
people who accept the commercialized urban-industrial world as the
obvious right way to live. They're not looking for
alternatives," say Ray and Anderson.[28]
They are committed to the "get on the train of progress view.
Worldviews are generally those that others have since they believe
that their definition of reality is the norm.
In
contrast are the Traditionalists. They generally yearn for
community, for small town life, traditional notions of nature. These
notions are strongly nested in patriarchy, nationalism, and
traditional texts (in the US, the Bible). One can easily see that
this category is exportable throughout the world. In Taiwan, for
example, to Confucian KMT nationalists. Or in Pakistan to the
leading Islamic parties (focused on the Quran, here). All are
equally distrustful of foreigners, desire to regulate sexual
behavior and traditional gender roles.
They
would likely reject the Communicative-Inclusive vision of the future
(and of the course the Artificial Society) and prefer not a Back to
Nature but what we might call, An Imagined Past, when the world was
defined by nations and capital and labour mobility was restricted.
Ray
and Anderson as well offer a third value orientation, where the
believe lie the seeds of a cultural revolution the Cultural
Creatives. They:
·
love
nature and are deeply concerned about its destruction;
·
are
strongly aware of the problems of the whole planet and
want to see action to curb them, such as limiting economic
growth;
·
would
pay more taxes or higher prices if you knew the money
would go to clean up the environment and stop global warming;
·
give
a lot of importance to developing and maintaining
relationships;
·
place
great importance on helping other people;
·
volunteer
for one or more good causes;
·
care
intensely about psychological or spiritual development;
·
see
spirituality and religion as important in your own life but are also
concerned about the role of the religious Right in politics;
·
want
more equality for women at work and want more women leaders in
business and politics;
·
are
concerned about violence and the abuse of women and children
everywhere on Earth;
·
want
politics and government to emphasize children's education and well
being, the rebuilding of neighborhoods and communities, and creation
of an ecologically sustainable future;
·
are
unhappy with both left and right in politics and want a new way that
is not the mushy middle;
·
tend
to be optimistic about the future and distrust the cynical and
pessimistic view offered by the media;
·
want
to be involved in creating a new and better way of life in their
country;
·
are
concerned about what big corporations are doing in the name of
profit: exploiting poor countries, harming the environment,
downsizing;
·
have
finances and spending under control and are not concerned
about overspending;
·
dislike
the modern emphasis on success, on "making it," on wealth
and luxury goods;
·
like
people and places that are exotic and foreign, and enjoy
experiencing and learning about other ways of life.
Along
with these characteristics, Ray and Anderson believe that [29]
cultural
creatives in their personal lives, they seek authenticity -- meaning
they want their actions to be consistent
with what they believe and say. They are also intent on finding
wholeness, integration, and community. Cultural Creatives are quite
clear that they do not want to live in an alienated, disconnected
world. Their approach to health is preventive and holistic, though
they do not reject modern medicine.
In their work, they may try to go beyond earning a living to having
"right livelihood" or a vocation.
Their
vision is consistent with the Communicative-Inclusive vision of the
future. While we would assert here that this is merely the alter-ego
of the West, Ray and Anderson believe that the cultural creatives
represent the future, what others have called the Promise of the
Coming Dark Age, or what Johan Galtung has called the Rise of the
Middle Ages.[30]
The Middle ages where, at least in the first part, about recovering
the community lost in the nation-empire building of the Roman
Empire. The Middle-Ages were fare more distribution than growth
oriented. Of course, the vision of the cultural creatives is
community but not with patriarchy or other types of feudal
hierarchy. It is a response to modernity and postmodernity and not a
reaction to it.
If
we then see the West in historical phase shifts from expansion
to contraction (both being natural phases of the West) then we can
image the future of the West become far more diverse, far more
concerned with meaning, community, gender fairness, smaller. Does
this mean then that expansion will then come from other
civilization? Or is it possible as Ashis Nandy has argued for the
creation of a gaia of civilizations.[31]
That is, as the West contracts - finally understanding the Indic
perspective that each civilization is incomplete in itself and needs
the other - the garden
metaphor of a multitude of civilizations in eco-relationship with
other may take root.
Instead
of GM foods, organic foods might flourish. Instead of only growth,
distribution might again become important. With a more balanced
world system, especially in terms of gender relations, population
would find a steady level (women would fine their economic and
social power from themselves instead of through male children), and
instead of the meal-in-a-pill, the image would be of a sharing of
foods on community table. But what of the carnivores?
6.
STRUCTURE OF THE FUTURE
It
is the question of the carnivores that leads us to the next section.
Essentially this is an issue of power. In the Gaian model
diverse but generally non-violent, reality created through shared
negotiation vegetarians modes of social and economic
organization are far more likely. Vegetarian modes are softer on the
Earth, allow for far greater production, and are non-violent. The
values behind this perspective is one of self-reliance (lack of
dependence on giant corporatist anonymous systems). But what to do
with those that differ, what of the giant global system. Are there
any possibilities that it will transform? Said, differently, can the
West genuinely transform?
Thus,
what is often lost in these important attempts to understand the
future are the structural constraints and structural possibilities.
In this sense, few scenarios go beyond the dictates of the
present (trend extrapolation) and the dictates of vision (aspiration
scenarios).
Structural
approaches explore the parameters of the possible future. What is
probable, not because of current trends (although these are often
defined by structural forces) or agency or but because of real
historical limits.
If
we begin to explore the long term, from a macrohistorical
view, there are range of possibilities that define the shape
of the long term. In
this essay, we focus on four factors.
We add Sarkar's theory of varna [32]with
Sorokin's notion of super cultural systems[33]
already presented with Wallerstein[34]
and Eisler.[35]
Wallerstein's is based on class and Eisler's is based on gender, as
derived from her theory of Patriarchy.
Simply
stated and glossing quite a bit of history - there have been
four structures.
1.
World Empire victory of warrior historical power
coercive/protective sensate patriarchy - ksattriya
2.
World Church victory of intellectual power normative
ideational patriarchy - vipra
3.
Mini-systems small, self-reliant cultural systems
ideational androgny - shudra
4.
World economy globalizing economics along national
divisions sensate - vaeshyan
The
question is, which structure is likely to dominate in the next 25 to
50 years? Can a new structure emerge? And of course, what does that
mean for the futures of agriculture, food and rural communities?
Option
1 of a world empire is unlikely given countervailing powers
given that there is more than one hegemon in the world system and
given that there is a lack of political legitimacy for
recolonization, for simply conquering other nations. The human
rights discourse while allowing intervention in failing nations
still severely delimits nation to nation conquest.
Option
2, a world church, is also unlikely given that there are many
civilizations (from Muslim to Christian to Shinto to modern secular)
vying for minds and hearts. While the millennium has evoked passions
associated with the end of man, and the return of Jesus, Amida
Buddha or the Madhi, the religious pluralism that is our planet is
unlike to be swayed toward any one religion. In this the Gaia model
is possible.
Option
3 10000 nations/communities -
is possible because of potential decentralizing impact of
telecommunication systems and the aspiration by many for
self-reliant ecological communities electronically linked. However,
small systems tend to be taken over by warrior power,
intellectual/religious power or larger economic globalizing
propensities. In the
context of a globalized world economy, self-reliance is difficult to
maintain. Moreover, centralizing forces and desire for power at the
local level limits the democratic/small is beautiful impulse.
Option
4, the world economy, has been the stable for the last few hundred
years but it now appears that a bifurcation to an alternative system
or to collapse (and reconquest by the warriors) is possible.
Crises in environment, governance, legitimacy all reduce the
strength of the world system.
Revolutions
from above (global
institutions from UN, WTO, IMF) and regional institutions (APEC) and
revolutions from below
(social movements and nongovernmental organizations), revolutions
from technology (cyber
democracy, cyber communities and cyber lobbying) and revolutions
from capital
(globalization) make the nation far more porous as well as the
chaotic interstate system that underlies it.[36]
However,
none of these problems can be solved in isolation thus leading to
the strengthening of global institutions, even for localist parties,
who now realize that for their local agendas to succeed they must
become global political parties, globalizing themselves, and in turn
moving away from their ideology of localism and self-reliance.
Thus
what we are seeing even in the local is a necessity to move to the
global. There is no other way. Again, this tallies with the cultural
creatives as well as with the modernists (but not the
traditionalists). The issue, of course, is which globalism? The
technocratic version or the gaian version? Can th
