ECOLOGICAL ETHICS

A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.  It is wrong when it tends otherwise.  

Aldo Leopold,  The Land Ethic, A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC

Whatever preserves and enhances this meadow in the natural cycles of its transformation is good; whatever opposes this meadow or negates it is not good.

Thomas Berry, The Meadow Across the Creek, THE GREAT WORK

Aldo Leopold included the quote above in one of the last chapters of his book THE SAND COUNTY ALMANAC.  The chapters preceding The Land Ethic highlight experiences that Leopold had with the natural world, with the ecosystems where he lived, worked, and played. Click here to read his essay "The Land Ethic".

The quote from Thomas Berry comes from his essay where he tells the story of how as a boy, he came across a meadow across a small creek near his new home that was filled with lilies rising above a thick grass. “It was not only the lilies.  It was the singing of the crickets and the woodlands in the distance and the clouds in the clear sky. “   Click here to listen to Berry tell about this experience.

It is our experiences with the natural world, with the ecosystem that sustains us, that shape our response, that craft our ethics.  When our experiences are distorted by our complicated human inventions - these ethics become driven by things like economics, politics, or religion.  When these experiences occur naturally - our ethics are guided by the simplicity of the ecosystem of which we are but a part. 

FEARING PASSION

Every now and then I need to remind myself to face my fears.  Normally when I do, they seem to mostly fade away.   So the other night I decided to face one fear I have had since I was a child and that is the fear of darkness.  I went outside and started walking down a trail not far from my house. 

Walking along, I neared a place where someone had spray painted the word “FEAR” in white letters across the black asphalt pavement.  The word was located in a remote part of the path, far from any houses, and where no light reached the trail.  I began to think about the word and then all of a sudden was startled by a rustling noise in the trees next to the path.  

My body responded by injecting adrenaline into my bloodstream which got my heart pounding and I quickened my step as I tried to figure out what made the noise and if the noisemaker was a threat or not.  All this happened in a split second, and I soon realized that a small animal must have been dozing in the woods and my approach down the path startled it as much as it startled me.  I continued my walk, smiling to myself at how thinking about fear, had essentially increased my fear. 

Passion is another feeling I need to face.  Somewhere along the fear dominated paths of life I came to believe that one should not follow their passion – for that could lead you into dangerous places, places where people were out to get you or where strange creatures might be lurking.  But as I face fears and get out into the darkness, I have learned that following passions is much more interesting than avoiding fears.  Following passion sheds light on the darkness.  

   

Today on another walk down the path during the daylight, I was happy to see a number of positive messages written along the path in pastel colored sidewalk chalk – a good reminder to me to follow the passion – because as the sidewalk chalk writer reminded me - “YOU CAN DO IT!”

That's It

In the last scene of the movie BROKEN FLOWERS, Bill Murray plays the character Don Johnston, a middle age bachelor who just returns from a quest to meet with five former lovers to figure out which one may have sent him a mysterious note on pink paper claiming he was the father of son from their relationship 20 years ago.  He meets up with a young man, played by Mark Weber, whom he saw at the airport the night before and wonders if this kid might be his son.  He buys him a sandwich and they sit outside and talk. 

The kid asks, “So a, as a guy who just bought another guy a sandwich, do you have any philosophical tips or anything, for a guy on a kind of road trip?”  Johnston replies, “Are you asking me?”  The Kid responds, “Ya”.  Johnston says, “The past is gone, I know that.  The future isn’t here yet, whatever it is going to be.   So all there is - is this - the present.  That’s it. " 

Reflecting On Stars

For just as the Milky Way is the universe in the form of a galaxy, an orchid is the universe in the form of a flower, we are the universe in the form of a human.  And every time we are drawn to look up in the night sky and reflect on the awesome beauty of the universe, we are actually the universe reflecting on itself.  And this changes everything.

Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker, Journey Of The Universe.

Reflecting on stars, something we all have done at one time or another can be difficult in our electric world.  Where I live, the lights that we think we need to keep us safe from the unknown that the darkness harbors, blind us from being able to even see the multitude of stars that make up the galaxy we journey through the universe with.  But despite our best attempts to overwhelm the darkness, a few hundreds of stars are still able to break through our artificial lights and share the nighttime sky with us. 

Yesterday, I experienced another form of blindness, what I think is called an ocular migraine.  While reading a book, suddenly a bright jagged image of light began flashing in my eye, making it difficult if not impossible to be able to focus on the words on the page.  Being unable to read, I walked outside and sat in a chair trying to figure out what the flashing in my eyes was all about.  

 I noticed my neighbor mowing his lawn across the street, and it seemed strange that the flashing in my eye seemed to resonate at the same frequency as the gasoline fueled engine in my neighbor’s lawn mower. As I sat, I wondered if it was just a coincidence between the flashing light in my eye and the roaring engine, or if there was a connection.  Suddenly, my neighbor put his mower in to neutral resulting in a reduction in the RPM of the mower engine and the flashing in my eyes stopped.  When he put the mower into gear again, the flashing fortunately did not start up again.  

Coincidence or connection  ̶  the incident reminded me that in our electric motorized world  ̶  the noise, electrical lights, and other waste we spew into our environment prevent us from being able to fully interact with the world around us.  If we want change the way we are, we need to create space where we can find the connections that will lead us to a better way.  

So the next time you feel blinded, take some time to use your other senses to understand what it is that you are doing that is causing you to lose your vision.        

Sustainable Cake

This week marked the 49^th time that the earth has circled our sun since I entered the world in 1962.  In his birthday greeting to me, my older brother asked me if I had a sustainable birthday cake in honor of my one year from being on the earth for half a century.   His question along with an article by Greg Breining in today’s Star Tribune titled “Is Sustainability Sustainable?” got me thinking about what it means to be sustainable.   

On my part, I have sustained (or continued to exist) on this earth for 49 years.  During this existence, I have experienced much growth – from the nurturing I received, and much learning – mostly from my mistakes.   I have not led a stagnant life, despite my attempts at times to fight the changes that I experienced.  There is a part of me that would like to take the credit for this accomplishment, but there is another part that realizes that my continuing life has much to do with forces beyond my control.  

I was fortunate to have been born into a family that had the available resources to keep me alive and relatively healthy as a child.  It was from my family and the community in which I grew up that I learned some of the tricks of sustainability.  These include the simple things like living healthy, avoiding unnecessary risks, and to have a basic respect for and participation in the community around me. 

As I continued to grow, I began to understand that the community that sustained me included not only the human community, but also the land on which I lived, the air I breathed, the water I drank, and the plants and animals that fed me.  It was not only their basic life sustaining functions that kept me going, but that these components of the ecosystem exist -- without them, my life holds little meaning. 

I also began to understand that my actions and the actions of the other human beings that lived in my community could play a big part in determining whether or not the other members of my ecosystem would be sustained or perish, and in effect continue to be able to sustain my own existence.  And so the bigger question for me becomes not whether my cake was sustainable or if sustainability is sustainable, but how do I need to act to avoid destroying the ecosystem that sustains me?   

After reading Breining’s article, I am not sure what he is recommending to his readers as far as whether or not sustainability is sustainable.   He seems to imply that sustainability cannot be defined, or that its numerous definitions make it incomprehensible, or that to know it presumes ability to “divine the future”.    Breining writes that “‘sustainability’ is a reflection of the human abhorrence of change and a desire for stability”.  He concludes by telling us to “look to advances in technology and planning, in production of energy and treatment of land and water, and the surprises they will bring in an unknowable future.”

As I reflect back on my life, it is not knowing my future that has sustained me, nor has living a stagnant life.   I also don’t believe that technology deserves much credit, nor planning or energy production.  The land and water and other components of the ecosystem however do deserve credit for my sustenance and how I treat them will play a big role in whether I continue to grow and adapt or perish.  In other words, if I respect the entire community that has sustained me to this point in my life -- I can have my cake and eat it too.

Grounded Leadership

 The above image comes from the website for the book SEVEN PILLARS OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP, by James Sipe and Don Frick. Anyone who has visited this blog in the past will know I am definitely a believer in servant leadership as professed by Robert Greenleaf. Because of this I looked forward to delving into Seven Pillars, especially since I found Don's Frick's biography of Greenleaf a great read. 

As I came across the image above in the "Introduction" to the book, I was at first intrigued by the simplicity of the diagram, the structural metaphor, and the components of servant leadership that make up the structure.  As a former civil engineering student, I recalled one of the basic lessons from a structures class that for any structure to be stable, there is a need for a foundation supported in the earth.  Unfortunately, the well conceived design by a psychologist and leadership-communication professional wouldn't pass the basic structures test.  

My first clue to the pillars instability came from the second pillar, "Put People First".  At first glance this seems like a great concept, one that often seems to be forgotten by most organizations.  But on deeper reflection, it is this concept of putting people first and separating ourselves and our institutions from the rest of the planet that actually drives most organizations. This separation from the Earth allows us to treat it as an endless source of resources to consume and manufacture products from; dump the resulting wastes into the air, land and water; and fuel our primary drive for profit.  Once we separate people from the earth, the next step is to start segmenting people into those like us and those different from us, and use them as resources the same way we use the earth.  And these are the structures that build our hierarchies and these are the stories we tell ourselves and our children. 

An example of this process of accepting the division of people into the haves and have-nots can be found in the chapter that highlights the pillar "Person of Character".  Sipe writes about a client of his who "was a highly successful attorney, founder and CEO of an influential lobbying firm" and "a man of character" and "of principle, humble in spite of his considerable wealth and power".  He "was in the process of trying to secure a six-figure account with a healthcare organization that was up against a much larger competitor for the right to build a new medical complex" and "he was reasonably confident that he had a strong shot, given his track record in healthcare and  his thirty-year friendship with the district's popular state senator, whose vote would tip the scales in favor of his prospective client."

Unfortunately for the lobbyist, the health care organization did not hire him, and got the needed votes to gain the contract without having to pay the lawyer his six figure contract.  Apparently this "humble" CEO demonstrated character by not using his influence with the senator to have him vote against the health care organization who spurned the lobbyist.  It seems to me that it is easy to keep your integrity when you lose six-figure contracts when you already have considerable wealth.  That is not the humility that finds its roots in humus - the earth.  

What keeps these messed up concepts about humility and character being passed on from generation to generation has much to do with the stories we tell ourselves and our children.  Sipe uses his passing on the "tooth ferry" story to his five-year old daughter as one of the "Defining Moments in Action" of his life.  In his reflections, he tells how early in his psychology career he found himself spending long hours at the office at the cost of lost time with his wife and daughter.  His "defining moment of his character formation" occurred when his daughter lost her first tooth at the breakfast table and then lost the tooth to boot.  He and his daughter lamented the lost tooth, the lost opportunities for a visit from the tooth ferry, and lost opportunities to earn some booty in the form of cash for the pain suffered in loosing the tooth.  His daughter burst into tears, and Sipe found himself unable to perform at work that day. 

So in order to avoid his own pain of facing his saddened daughter after work he concocted a scheme to obtain another child's tooth from a dentist and with surrogate tooth in hand he happily went back to work.  After work, he lied to his daughter telling her they found the lost tooth, the imaginary tooth ferry came, and his daughter earned her reward of cash in the bank.  Sipe was rewarded by an easing of his guilty conscious for spending too much time at work, "a barrage of hugs and kisses" by his daughter, and to top it off "an expression of understanding and admiration" from his wife.  

I don't mean to criticize Sipe for his parenting methods as I can recall similar instances in trying to raise my own daughters.  But telling lies to our children is not what servant leadership is about and telling stories of tooth ferries leaving money in exchange for teeth will not help our children to understand the aches and pains of life. Defining moments in life occur when we can be honest with our children about our mistakes and when we realize that making money is not what life is about. 

Its too bad that Sipe and Frick could not come up with better examples of what real servant leadership looks like.  The corporations they highlight as servant led, demonstrate regularly that without a foundation based in the earth -- people get laid off, unions get busted, and safety problems get hidden.  See the headlines below for examples. 

Medtronic plans huge job cuts, impact in Minn. unknown

Spilling the Beans About Starbucks' Union-Busting Tactics

FAA inspectors: Southwest tried to hide safety problems

Cloaking a corporation in servant leadership does not make it an ethical institution any more then putting lipstick on a pig changes the the pig.   

So despite some good efforts by the authors to simplify Greenleaf's concepts, you cannot make the model work, unless it is grounded in in a solid foundation.  If we want institutions to serve people, we need to put the earth, and the ecosystems that sustain us first.  When we do this, we won't have to worry about putting people first anymore, but rather keeping ourselves in the proper perspective of our ecosystem.  Perhaps the model below might be a beginning  example of how we can do this. 

 

ECONOMICS UNMASKED

It is rare in the world today to find people willing to speak the truth. More often then not, most of us simply go along with the crowds and compliment the emperor on his new clothes, despite the fact that he is naked.  We worry that if we speak the truth, we will be ostracized for going against popular opinion, or be labeled stupid or ignorant. It is that fear that keeps us from reaching the wisdom we need to see things they way they really are and become courageous enough to be able to speak that truth and act accordingly. 

Like the imaginary cloths woven by the two weavers in Hans Christian Anderson’s story THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHS, the economic system that cloaks the world today dupes most of us into avoiding the truth about it, in order to continue our plundering and pillaging of the earth and our neighbors.  Phillip B. Smith and Manfred Max-Neef honestly expose this economic system in their book ECONOMICS UNMASKED.    

Smith the physicist and Max-Neef the economist combine their efforts to expose the economic system that is primarily designed to “protect the wealth and power of the rich” and “threatens all forms of life” on our planet.   They review the history of our economic system and reveal that unlike the hard sciences of physics or chemistry that uncover the mathematics behind the real world, economics imposes it’s invented mathematical models in order to justify a system of consumption and control that ignores scientific consequences. 

They explore the lifeblood of our current economic beast, infinite growth and point out the impossibilities behind fueling this growth with a limited energy supply.  Instead of policies related to globalization driven by competition, they remind us that motivations driven by compassion rather then greed will be needed if we want an alternative to catastrophe and collapse. 

They propose an alternative “human-scale economics” based on five postulates:

1.  The economy is to serve the people, not the people serve the economy.

2.  Development is about people, not about objects.

3.  Growth is not the same as development, and development does not necessarily require growth.

4.  No economy is possible in the absence of ecosystem services.

5.  The economy is a sub-system of a larger and finite system, the biosphere; hence permanent growth is impossible. 

In their Introduction to the book, Smith and Max-Neef remind us that “words do have power, and perhaps the power of these words will help move humankind toward a better future”.   If a better future is what we desire, then we all need to find the courage to speak words based on truth.