The following is an essay published by Eiichiro Ochiai in Global Educator, Winter, 2011, p14-17
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Humankind is currently in a deep trouble. Whether human civilization will survive
long is now really questionable.
An immediate issue is the economic crisis; the current capitalistic
market economy is now critically wounded.
The basic idea behind the current economy is “growth” (of economic
activities in terms of quantity), which is contradictory to the “sustainable human
civilization”. Our economic
activities (consumption) have now surpassed the carrying capacity of the earth,
and are on a brink of collapse.
Besides, a few individuals, the so-called “economic elites” have
cleverly or grossly (depending on the point of view) steered the whole economic
system into such a direction in which only they benefit from the economy and
the great majority of humankind suffer economically. The impetus for growth economy would make nations to compete
for the limited resources on the earth; this threatens to lead to perhaps an
ultimate war between big players. In
order for the humankind to avoid such dangers and establish a sustainable and
peaceful civilization, all mankind, young and children above all, have to learn
how to approach it. This short
essay tries to show very briefly what needs to be implemented in the education
system for the purpose.
Peace and sustainability are intimately intertwined, and cannot be
separated. Peace is a precondition
for sustainable human civilization, but peace on the earth would not be
realized unless the human society attains a sustainable status. These issues are the basics for human
survival and hence should be the basis for education. We will first discuss what “peace” and “sustainability”
entail, how these states might be attained, and then how the issues should be
incorporated in the education.
Let’s focus on “Sustainability” first. The word “sustainability” is not well delineated, and means
different things to different people, it seems. It should not be “to sustain a status quo”, though most
often it is used to mean just that.
That is, it is often meant to sustain one’s condition without regard to how
it affects others (other people, other communities, other countries, other living
organisms, the environment, the earth as a whole, etc.).
Let us define “sustainability” here to mean that the entire human race,
not just the advanced societies, sustains itself and that each and every individual
of human race has a right and enjoy to live a best life within this
sustainability constraint; this is the basic human right. This does not necessarily imply that
all the people on this earth should attain the same material standard. Each region (country) has its unique
and limited ecology, and the people in it should live more or less
self-sufficiently and happily within the sustainable constraints, with some
resources equitably distributed among regions. In other words, renewable material (i.e., plants) can be cultivated
and raised in each region to the extent of being capable of sufficiently
sustaining (feed, clothe and house) the population. Nonrenewable resources are distributed unequally among
regions. In a sustainable
civilization, these resources would be regarded to belong to all human race and
other living organisms. These
resources are distributed among different regions according to the need, and
used in sufficiently sustainable manners.
This presupposes cooperation rather than individual egotistic
competitive activities at every level at human endeavors.
Currently the people in advanced countries are enjoying enormously
affluent material lives, at the expense of the people in the developing
countries, the majority of whom are living miserably in terms of material. This
is far from the condition of the sustained human civilization outlined above. On the average, the humankind is currently
using renewable resources in excess of renewable rate by more than 20%, and
this is rising.
To attain a sustainable use of resources, the people in the currently
affluent nations need to significantly reduce their consumption of energy and
material, and measures should be taken to raise the wellbeing (in terms of
material) of the people in the developing world, so that all the people on the
earth should attain comparable levels of material affluence, though not
necessarily the same level. The
overall consumption level should be much lower than the current level (i.e.,
overall by more than 20%). The
crucial point is that people in any region should feel they are living happy
worthy lives. To attain such a sustainable
human civilization, with the majority of people feeling happy, is a very tall
order. But that is what we should
aim at attaining in future. We
will discuss shortly how we may attain such a state.
Now, let us turn our attention to “Peace” or rather “War”. Many ancient civilizations could not
sustain themselves and collapsed due to overexploitation of the
environment. Their living
conditions were usually precarious, particularly in nomadic, pastoral
regions. A tribe in such a region
might have been living reasonably well, but usually did not have any extra expendable
luxury due to lack of proper technology and the territorial limitation. They had to move to another place when
their living had become untenable.
Or when another tribe tried to come and occupy their territory, they had
to fight back to defend themselves by killing the invading tribe or capturing
and enslaving them. They needed to
do so, because their territory simply could not accommodate another bunch of
people. The people created and
resorted to a God who would protect them.
The God was a supernatural being, omnipotent, and the people were told
that their God was “good”, protecting the people who believed in it. But the other God another tribe
believed in was “evil”. Hence it
was permissible to slaughter those people who believed in a wrong God. Thus, nomadic people have created
“monotheism” and they believed that they were “chosen people” by the true God,
as, e.g., Zionists and their Christian supporters believe.
In other words, “war”, i.e., to kill others to defend themselves became
a normal human behavior, sanctioned by God, and codified by sacred
manuscripts. The war of this kind
may be designated as “War of 1st kind”, a sort of natural condition for
“war”. This might reflects the
ancient living condition of nomads, i.e., limited resources that could not be
shared with another tribe, so that the invaders should not be allowed to coexist. This spirit (animosity toward other
tribes) seems to be still prevalent among many tribes, and also among people
who believe literally in the sacred books of monotheism, despite the fact that
humankind has attained an enormous improvement in the living condition in
general, so that today people should be able to share and live together. The ethnic conflicts still rampant in
today’s world are essentially of this kind, though the basic reasons are
varied, economic, cultural and political, and, maybe, not the basic survival
need as in the ancient time.
An extension of this kind of war has become aggressive expansion of the
territory, as seen in the war by Alexander the Great, that of the Roman empire,
and the Mongolian invasion of the western half of the Eurasia. War of this kind was fought beyond
necessity; this is simply an aggressive kind of war (“war of 2nd kind”). Colonialism prevalent in the 15th
through 20th century was carried out by force; essentially it was
“war of 2nd kind”.
However, “war” in today’s world is often fought for the sake of
financial benefit for some influential elites, though it is usually claimed
that it is for the sake of security of people (i.e., protecting people’s lives
and livelihood). In reality,
people are victimized; soldiers are killed and a large number of civilians are
also killed as a collateral. Meanwhile,
some elites and corporations gain an enormous amount of money by providing war
machines and supplies. The Iraqi
and Afghan wars are good examples.
They have little to do with the security of American people, though
initially they were meant for preventing “Terror” attacks on the American
soil. They had a lot to do,
instead, with the money making of the military-related corporations and the oil
companies. This is “War of 3rd
kind”.
“War of 4th kind” may be waged to secure precious resources. This is in a sense an extension of the
“war of 2nd and 3rd kind”, but it has a very different connotation. Corporations forces the government
to go to “war” in the 3rd kind, but the national government is the cause of war
of 2nd kind. Resources on the earth
are becoming ever scarcer, and nations are eager to grab resources still
available. Take China as an
example; of course there are a number of such candidates including India,
Brazil and others. The Chinese
government, having such a large population, needs a large quantity of resources
of all kinds to feed and make them happy.
It has been estimated that resources equivalent to those of two and a
half earth’s is necessary for all the Chinese people to enjoy the material
wealth comparable to that enjoyed by the people of the today’s advanced
nations. The Chinese government is
trying to expand their sphere of influence so that it gains access to resources
all over the world, especially in the resource-rich Africa. The former colonial power and dominant
nations, of Europe and the US, are also trying to secure the natural resources
as much as they can, and seem to have already started to prepare for an eventual
confrontation with China. China is
of course rapidly building its military power. The confrontation could become a war (of 4th kind). If this happens, the entire planetary civilization
will be destroyed, as the major contenders are all with nuclear arsenals that
have not been abandoned. This has to be avoided by all means.
However, even if it (resource grabbing) is resolved peacefully, the
consequence of such a pursuit of resource use will be a very rapid depletion of
resources on the earth. This will
end, though in a different sense, in the demise of the current human
civilization; in other words, such a civilization cannot be sustained long.
The humankind is now at a very crucial moment in its history; our
civilization as currently taken for granted is facing an imminent death in two
directions. One is “War” and
another is “Excessive consumption of material (resources of both renewable and
non-renewable)”. “War” may be
inevitable, i.e., “Peace” may not be attainable, unless human race attains the
wisdom of living within the sustainable constraints. On the other hands, “Peace” is a precondition for a
sustainable civilization, because “War” simply wastes precious human and
material resources. We need to
realize that both issues, “peace” and “sustainability”, are two faces of the
same coin.
Dr. Vanadana Siva, an eco-philosopher and activist began her acceptance
speech at the Sydney Opera House for the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize with these
words: “When we think of wars in our times, our minds turn to Iraq and
Afghanistan. But the bigger war is the war against the planet. This war has its
roots in an economy that fails to respect ecological and ethical limits --
limits to inequality, limits to injustice, limits to greed and economic
concentration.” She equates our
current growth economy to the war against the earth, and implies that it is not
sustainable. But, changes needed
to reduce the assault on the earth should include the abolishment of “wars by
force on people and nations”.
In order to attain such a sustainable and peaceful civilization, people
have to learn to respect each other and other cultures, restrain one’s urge to
own/consume more, and consider that non-violent resolution (not war) is the
human norm in resolving conflicts, particularly those among nations. And this has to be the basis for
education (in its broadest sense) for everybody.
The education starts as soon as one is born. Her (his) brain will be wired through her (his) experience
in every sense; interaction with the environment, parents, siblings,
grandparents and others. In this
early life, the education is done mostly through the upbringing by parents. Therefore it is up to their world view/ethical/value
system, which has a strong influence on the child.
When children come to the formal
education, they will be subjected to the educational norm imposed by the
authority, the majority of which still cling to the unsustainable political/economic
view. To change the formal
education system requires awareness of people regarding its shortcomings. It is difficult and cannot be
accomplished soon. Meanwhile, the
people in the educational circle can start changing the fundamental tenets of
educating children even within such a constraint as imposed by the authority.
Here are some basic tenets that need to be learned by all the people in
order for the humankind to sustain itself for long. At the formal education level, these concepts should be conveyed
to children, not necessarily explicitly, but be touched upon on every
opportunity in many different ways of phrasing, in conjunction with any subject
matter. And some practices should
be found to impress these concepts on children.
(1) It
needs to be understood by everybody that every human being is equal in every way
despite different skin color and other physical characters. No single human race can be regarded to
be superior than others, i.e., a “chosen (by God) race”. There is no such distinction in nature.
(2) We,
human, are only one of several million living species present on this planet,
and are dependent for our livelihood on “Nature”, i.e., other living organisms,
the environment (ecosystem, the earth), and the sun. We should live in harmony with “Nature”.
(3) There
are limits to the material resources on this planet. We need to use them very judiciously in order for the human
civilization to last long.
(4) To
satisfy the above conditions (2, 3), people have to learn to restrain their urge
to obtain more or consume more. It
can be termed “self-restraints” or “to know when enough”. We need to regard “extravagance,
excessiveness in possession” not desirable. For example, one should not buy things beyond one’s
capability, charging to a credit card.
It is a good thing for us to live modestly but happily.
(5) The
basis of economy should not be “to make profit” but be “to make happy as many
people as feasible”.
(6) We
have now enough, though barely, to share with all the people to sustain us, so that
there is no need to resort to wars or other violent means to grab resources. Cooperation and peace have to be the
norm in human civilization.
(7) For
now, the resources on the earth are barely enough to sustain the current large
population of human species. But
soon the population will likely exceed the carrying capacity of the earth. In an estimate of ecological footprint,
it is said that we have already surpassed the carrying capacity of the earth a
decade ago and by more than 20% by now.
This is not simply the population problem, but we need to look into the population
of human race, and have to learn to maintain it at reasonable level.
(8) War
is an ultimate evil that is now promoted by people who gains from war, not for
the security of people. It is an
enormous waste of human lives and resources, and of course causes enormous miseries
for people.
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