The following was published in "Global Educator, 2011 winter" (WWW.PAGEBC.CA)
Peace and Sustainability:
Basis for Education
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.
There are other
concepts (morals) to be eventually ingrained in the human minds for us to be
able to sustain ourselves. A critical thing
in this regard is that children (people in general) develop a habit to evaluate
carefully what they see everyday and on every occasion, to see if it may make
sense in terms of “peace and sustainability”.
An example of “sustainable human civilization” in the near future is
described by this writer in an unpublished book: “A Sustainable Human
Civilization beyond Economic Crisis”.
This can be distributed to anyone who wishes to read it. Just e-mail to eo1921(at)telus.net.
