Photo: Krisjanis Mezulis
Can Earth Day Be Exciting Again?
The Sunshine Ecovillage, the Cobb Eco-Academy,
and Process Communitarianism
Perhaps now more than ever we need Earth Day. With one apocalypse running its course, the pandemic; and another well underway, global climate change; and with so much violence and suffering and repression in the world; wouldn't it be nice if people felt and acted upon a new found allegiance to the well-being of life on earth?
I mean all of the Earth: people to be sure, and also the hills and rivers, animals and plants, air and water. Wouldn't it be nice if people all over the world felt an allegiance to the Earth the way, say, they feel allegiance to their nation, or their religion, or their philosophy of life, or their favorite football team?
Yes, Earth Day 2020 has its enthusiasts. See Earth Day: The Official Site. But here there's a need for honesty. Unfortunately, many people aren’t really that excited about it. Not like they were in 1970 when it started.
“Why aren’t we excited about Earth Day anymore?” The question is the title of an essay by Devi Lockwood, an opinion writer at the NY Times. The very question will anger some people who are excited, or who are trying to be excited, or who think everyone ought to be excited about Earth Day.
A Middle Class White Constituency
Devi is simply asking why Earth Day seems to martial less collective enthusiasm that it did in 1970 and the early years. One of his answers is that Earth Day lacks diversity. As one of the early organizers laments, at the top levels “you’ve had only white, middle-class male leadership; it’s very difficult to move beyond that.” Earth Day enthusiasts “didn’t bother to reach out beyond what is a middle-class, white constituency, and that is not enough people to fight off the kind of attacks that are happening now.”
A Neglect of the Human and the Local
There's another reason why Earth Day isn't exciting for some today. For people, especially working class people and the poor, the struggles of daily life, and the desire for satisfying community at a local level, surpass calls to “save the planet.” They are just trying to save themselves and their families in situations of poverty, repression, and sadness. And for one reason or another when they hear “the Earth” as a rallying cry, they don’t hear their own immediate concerns. They want to live in communities that are just, sustainable, and joyful.
The Idea of the Earth is too big without complementary attention to the Small and Beautiful
Related to this is that, when it comes to rallying cries, the idea of the Earth is too big. Here I’m not speaking about the biophysical planet: the hills and rivers, the plants and trees, the soil and sunshine, the animals and us. I’m speaking about the idea of the Earth and its evocative power. To be sure, the idea of the Earth does have evocative power, but not quite enough. It is incomplete without complementary metaphors of the small and beautiful, the human and the humane. As a friend in China once put it to me: "I'm not interested in saving the earth; that seems too large to me. But I'd like to save these farms for the sake of fresh tomatoes."
I wish things were otherwise. I wish that people would rally around the Earth the way they will rally around, for example, their nations or their local communities or their football teams. But I suspect that other ideas and language are needed to help marshal the needed enthusiasm. We need poets!
The Idea of Ecological Civilization
What to do? A step in the right direction has been taken by advocates of Ecological Civilization. I am among them.
For more on the idea of an Ecological Civilization, see the pioneering work of the Institute for Ecological Civilization. They define such an ecological civilization as a world that works for all!
'Ecological Civilization describes a world in which human communities (our systems of economics, agriculture, education, production and consumption, etc.) are designed to promote the overall well-being of people and the planet. It's a vision for a more sustainable and just society; a world that works for all."
An ecological civilization is not simply an environmentally responsible civilization. It is a holistic, constructively postmodern civilization. It consists of local communities where people live with respect and care for the community of life, knowing that they are small but included in a larger ecological web – the living Earth -- that has value in itself. The local communities are creative, compassionate, participatory, diverse, inclusive, humane to animals, and good for the earth, with no one left behind. They have fresh tomatoes.
The Need to Think Locally
Advocates of ecological civilizations often reiterate the well-known saying “think globally and act locally.” Of course they - we - know global thinking and local action are insufficient. The need in an ecological civilization is to think locally, too. It is not enough to talk about the big and large, it is necessary to talk about the small and beautiful. This neighborhood, this community, these old people, these children, these animals, this portion of the good earth. This is the kind of thinking that many agrarian peoples have, and that urban people have lost. This is the kind of thinking you find, for example, at the Sunshine Eco-Village and the Cobb Eco-Academy.
Meijun Fan of the Institute for Constructive Postmodern China, and the primary mentor for the Cobb Eco-Academy, calls it process communitarianism. She is influenced by John Cobb and his idea that what the world needs to become is a community of communities of communities; and also by process philosophy, indebted as it is to the organic perspectives of the late philosopher and mathematician, Alfred North Whitehead. As she sees things, a process communitarianism does indeed think locally as well as globally, but it bypasses the liabilities of capitalist individualism and socialist collectivism. Capitalism has indeed been too individualistic at the expense of community-centeredness; and authoritarian socialism has indeed been too collectivist at the expense of respect for individuals. The need is for a third way: process communitarianism.
If we think in terms of a process communitarianism, she says, we feel that we belong to a local community of friends, we take care of people and the rest of creation, and we do so in a way that honors the “you” of each person, with his or her own unique selfhood. We know that our local community is itself in process, which means that we learn from traditions and are open to the unforeseen future, neither to the exclusion of the other. Our economic relations are guided the idea that the well-being of humans and the earth, in local settings is the norm by which economic well-being is measured. Economics serves community, not the other way around. And our spiritual sensibilities are guided by the idea that we and other living beings can flourish, living in creative harmony with one another. If we are religious, we may well believe that the web of life itself is enfolded within a larger and loving context, a Great Compassion, in whom all things live and move and have our being. But religious or not, we recognize that there is something sacred in life itself, and in the local community.
I wish I had a better metaphor for process communitarianism than, well, process communitarianism. Like I said, we need poets! But I do suspect that, if the metaphors are found, Earth Day can be exciting again, and for more people. And, truth be told, every day can be Earth Day, without even calling it that. We can simply call it flourishing society at home in the Ten Thousand Things. That is the only real hope today. And it is a beautiful one.
I mean all of the Earth: people to be sure, and also the hills and rivers, animals and plants, air and water. Wouldn't it be nice if people all over the world felt an allegiance to the Earth the way, say, they feel allegiance to their nation, or their religion, or their philosophy of life, or their favorite football team?
Yes, Earth Day 2020 has its enthusiasts. See Earth Day: The Official Site. But here there's a need for honesty. Unfortunately, many people aren’t really that excited about it. Not like they were in 1970 when it started.
“Why aren’t we excited about Earth Day anymore?” The question is the title of an essay by Devi Lockwood, an opinion writer at the NY Times. The very question will anger some people who are excited, or who are trying to be excited, or who think everyone ought to be excited about Earth Day.
A Middle Class White Constituency
Devi is simply asking why Earth Day seems to martial less collective enthusiasm that it did in 1970 and the early years. One of his answers is that Earth Day lacks diversity. As one of the early organizers laments, at the top levels “you’ve had only white, middle-class male leadership; it’s very difficult to move beyond that.” Earth Day enthusiasts “didn’t bother to reach out beyond what is a middle-class, white constituency, and that is not enough people to fight off the kind of attacks that are happening now.”
A Neglect of the Human and the Local
There's another reason why Earth Day isn't exciting for some today. For people, especially working class people and the poor, the struggles of daily life, and the desire for satisfying community at a local level, surpass calls to “save the planet.” They are just trying to save themselves and their families in situations of poverty, repression, and sadness. And for one reason or another when they hear “the Earth” as a rallying cry, they don’t hear their own immediate concerns. They want to live in communities that are just, sustainable, and joyful.
The Idea of the Earth is too big without complementary attention to the Small and Beautiful
Related to this is that, when it comes to rallying cries, the idea of the Earth is too big. Here I’m not speaking about the biophysical planet: the hills and rivers, the plants and trees, the soil and sunshine, the animals and us. I’m speaking about the idea of the Earth and its evocative power. To be sure, the idea of the Earth does have evocative power, but not quite enough. It is incomplete without complementary metaphors of the small and beautiful, the human and the humane. As a friend in China once put it to me: "I'm not interested in saving the earth; that seems too large to me. But I'd like to save these farms for the sake of fresh tomatoes."
I wish things were otherwise. I wish that people would rally around the Earth the way they will rally around, for example, their nations or their local communities or their football teams. But I suspect that other ideas and language are needed to help marshal the needed enthusiasm. We need poets!
The Idea of Ecological Civilization
What to do? A step in the right direction has been taken by advocates of Ecological Civilization. I am among them.
For more on the idea of an Ecological Civilization, see the pioneering work of the Institute for Ecological Civilization. They define such an ecological civilization as a world that works for all!
'Ecological Civilization describes a world in which human communities (our systems of economics, agriculture, education, production and consumption, etc.) are designed to promote the overall well-being of people and the planet. It's a vision for a more sustainable and just society; a world that works for all."
An ecological civilization is not simply an environmentally responsible civilization. It is a holistic, constructively postmodern civilization. It consists of local communities where people live with respect and care for the community of life, knowing that they are small but included in a larger ecological web – the living Earth -- that has value in itself. The local communities are creative, compassionate, participatory, diverse, inclusive, humane to animals, and good for the earth, with no one left behind. They have fresh tomatoes.
The Need to Think Locally
Advocates of ecological civilizations often reiterate the well-known saying “think globally and act locally.” Of course they - we - know global thinking and local action are insufficient. The need in an ecological civilization is to think locally, too. It is not enough to talk about the big and large, it is necessary to talk about the small and beautiful. This neighborhood, this community, these old people, these children, these animals, this portion of the good earth. This is the kind of thinking that many agrarian peoples have, and that urban people have lost. This is the kind of thinking you find, for example, at the Sunshine Eco-Village and the Cobb Eco-Academy.
Meijun Fan of the Institute for Constructive Postmodern China, and the primary mentor for the Cobb Eco-Academy, calls it process communitarianism. She is influenced by John Cobb and his idea that what the world needs to become is a community of communities of communities; and also by process philosophy, indebted as it is to the organic perspectives of the late philosopher and mathematician, Alfred North Whitehead. As she sees things, a process communitarianism does indeed think locally as well as globally, but it bypasses the liabilities of capitalist individualism and socialist collectivism. Capitalism has indeed been too individualistic at the expense of community-centeredness; and authoritarian socialism has indeed been too collectivist at the expense of respect for individuals. The need is for a third way: process communitarianism.
If we think in terms of a process communitarianism, she says, we feel that we belong to a local community of friends, we take care of people and the rest of creation, and we do so in a way that honors the “you” of each person, with his or her own unique selfhood. We know that our local community is itself in process, which means that we learn from traditions and are open to the unforeseen future, neither to the exclusion of the other. Our economic relations are guided the idea that the well-being of humans and the earth, in local settings is the norm by which economic well-being is measured. Economics serves community, not the other way around. And our spiritual sensibilities are guided by the idea that we and other living beings can flourish, living in creative harmony with one another. If we are religious, we may well believe that the web of life itself is enfolded within a larger and loving context, a Great Compassion, in whom all things live and move and have our being. But religious or not, we recognize that there is something sacred in life itself, and in the local community.
I wish I had a better metaphor for process communitarianism than, well, process communitarianism. Like I said, we need poets! But I do suspect that, if the metaphors are found, Earth Day can be exciting again, and for more people. And, truth be told, every day can be Earth Day, without even calling it that. We can simply call it flourishing society at home in the Ten Thousand Things. That is the only real hope today. And it is a beautiful one.
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John Cobb, age 95, giving online address to entering class at the Cobb Eco-Academy on March 16, 2020, held at the Sunshine Ecovillage in Hangzhou, China. For more in the academy see below or click here.
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Introduction to Cobb Eco-Academy
by Meijun Fan "We all participate in and contribute to the times in which we live, as we aspire for our own destiny. With reflection and discernment, our minds free us from concerns yet doubts still trouble our hearts. Where is the distant poetic beauty? There is a rural life, where traditional wisdom listens to the wind and appraises the moon for shifting environmental conditions; where a |
new generation of farmers are stepping on the live-giving ground and harvesting its seasonal yields. It is both local and global, and it can heal and rebuild the beautiful countryside while allowing us to reconnect with the earth.
In the Sunshine Ecovillage, you can talk and listen to perceptive men and women who can offer practical knowledge and help you navigate the trails of life. Imbuing traditional wisdom with the latest communitive technology, this learning community blends in-person and online instruction.
Participants will experience a different lifestyle, fostered by a strong, committed community that has a profound local impact. As this promising education inspires more people, more and more ecological villages will appear instilling new values and lifestyles that will be universally emulated. This is the turning point of social change.
Removing ourselves from the current consumerist model and returning to a cultivating of living persons, we will see a paradigm shift in human development. There levant knowledge and technology are already available; what is needed is the imagination and exploration of ecological lifestyles.
Cobb Ecological Academy (Sunshine Ecovillage) will be the place where your life and the world turn for the better. Your destiny awaits you.
In the Sunshine Ecovillage, you can talk and listen to perceptive men and women who can offer practical knowledge and help you navigate the trails of life. Imbuing traditional wisdom with the latest communitive technology, this learning community blends in-person and online instruction.
Participants will experience a different lifestyle, fostered by a strong, committed community that has a profound local impact. As this promising education inspires more people, more and more ecological villages will appear instilling new values and lifestyles that will be universally emulated. This is the turning point of social change.
Removing ourselves from the current consumerist model and returning to a cultivating of living persons, we will see a paradigm shift in human development. There levant knowledge and technology are already available; what is needed is the imagination and exploration of ecological lifestyles.
Cobb Ecological Academy (Sunshine Ecovillage) will be the place where your life and the world turn for the better. Your destiny awaits you.