The Ecology of Work

This is a wonderful article on sustainable living that was forwarded to me by my sister Melissa Hussain. I have tried to abridge the article below to capture the most critical points, but I strongly recommend that one reads the entire article linked below.


The Ecology of Work
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/267/

by Curtis White
Published in the May/June 2007 issue of Orion magazine

“ENVIRONMENTALISTS SEE THE ASPHALTING of the country as a sin against the world of nature, but we should also see in it a kind of damage that has been done to humans, for what precedes environmental degradation is the debasement of the human world. I would go so far as to say that there is no solution for environmental destruction that isn’t first a healing of the damage that has been done to the human community. As I argued in the first part of this essay, the damage to the human world has been done through work, through our jobs, and through the world of money.

We are not the creators of our own world; we merely perform functions in a system into which we were born. The most destructive aspect of our jobs is that in them we are mere “functionaries,” to borrow Josef Pieper’s term. Just as important, we have a function outside of work: consumption. Money in hand, we go into the market to buy the goods we no longer know how to make (we don’t even know how to grow and preserve our own food) and services we no longer know how to perform (frame a house? might as well ask us to design a spaceship).

…Responding to environmental destruction requires not only the overcoming of corporate evildoers but “self-overcoming,” a transformation in the way we live. A more adequate response to our true problems requires that we cease to be a society that believes that wealth is the accumulation of money (no matter how much of it we’re planning on “giving back” to nature), and begin to be a society that understands that “there is no wealth but life,” as John Ruskin put it. That is the full dimension and the full difficulty of our problem.

…For all its sense of moral urgency, environmentalism too has abandoned humans to the inequalities, the exploitation, and the boredom of the market, while it tries to maintain the world of nature as a place of innocence where a candy wrapper on the ground is a blasphemy. It’s a place to go for a weekend hike before returning to the unrelenting ugliness, hostility, sterility, and spiritual bankruptcy that is the suburb, the strip mall, the office building, and the freeway (our “national automobile slum,” as James Howard Kunstler puts it). Ideally, the map of natural preservation and the map of economic activity would be one map.

… the violence that we know as environmental destruction is possible only because of a complex economic, administrative, and social machinery through which people are separated from responsibility for their misdeeds. We say, “I was only doing my job” at the paper mill, the industrial incinerator, the logging camp, the coal-fired power plant, on the farm, on the stock exchange, or simply in front of the PC in the corporate carrel. The division of labor not only has the consequence of making labor maximally productive, it also hides from workers the real consequences of their work.

If all this is so, it is only possible to conclude from our behavior for the last two hundred years that ours is not a human society; that it is a society outside of the human in some terrible sense. And, in fact, it was one of the earliest insights of Karl Marx that the kind of work provided by capitalism was alienating. That is, it made us something other than what we are. It dehumanized us. And so, in our no-longer-human state, it became perfectly natural for us to destroy nature (which should sound to you just as perverse as the situation really is). Alienation in work means that instead of knowing something about a lot of things concerned with human fundamentals like food, housing, clothing, and the wise and creative use of our free time, we know one small thing. One task in an ocean of possible tasks.

We need to insist on work that is not destructive, that deepens the worker, that encourages her creativity. Such a transformation requires a willingness to take a collective risk, a kind of risk very different from capitalist risk taking. The kind of risk I’m suggesting is no small matter. It means leaving a culture based on the idea of success as the accumulation of wealth-as-money. In its place we need a culture that understands success as life. For John Ruskin, humans should make “good and beautiful things” because those things will re-create us as good and beautiful in their turn. To make cheap and ugly and destructive things will kill us, as indeed we are being killed through poverty, through war, through the cheapening of our public and private lives, and through the destruction of the natural world.

…The risk I propose is simply a return to our nobility. We should refuse to be mere functions of a system that we cannot in good conscience defend. And we should insist on a recognition of the mystery, the miracle, and the dignity of things, from frogs to forests, simply because they are.

…In the end, our problem is that the busy, destructive work of functionaries has taken the place of a thoughtful, spiritual understanding about how to live. Our problem is not that we are ignoring what science has to tell us about environmental destruction. Our problem is that we are spiritually impoverished. Bankrupt, if you will.

Spiritual rebirth will mean the rediscovery of true human work. Much of this work will not be new but recovered from our own rich traditions. It will be useful knowledge that we will have to remember. Fishing as a family and community tradition, not the business of factory trawlers. Agriculture as a local and seasonal activity, not a carbon-based scheme of synthetic production and international shipping. Home- and community-building as common skills and not merely the contracted specialization of construction companies and urban planners. Even “intellectual workers” (professors and scholars) have something to relearn: their own honored place in the middle of the community and not in isolated, jargon-ridden professional enclaves.

...The turn away from this ugly, destructive, and unequal world is not something that can be accomplished by boycotting corporations when they’re bad or through the powerful work of the most concerned scientists. It will not be delivered with glossy brochures by the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, and it will certainly not be sold to you by Martha Stewart. A return to the valuable human things of the beautiful and the useful will only be accomplished, if it is ever to be accomplished, by the humans among us.”

Stubborn Optimism

Its hard not to fall into the allure of cynicism these days. Indeed, it seems to abound in the blogosphere as well as other communication mediums. Some of my favorite blogs from the past and present relay heavily on appealing to your darker, more pessimistic side (For example, one of the most popular blogs and one I only recently quit reading is Wonkette, a bitingly sarcastic and humorous political blog).

In some ways it is easy to understand why people in the United States are feeling rather cynical. We are in a dead-end war with no end in sight and young men and women dieing each day, we live in a time when weather patterns seem to be dramatically changing due to greenhouse warming, political bickering and partisanship is as strong as it has ever been, almost locking our country in gridlock.

School and college shootings continue to happen with terrible frequency, poverty and aids continue unabated on the worldwide stage, religious animosity has been greatly heightened over the past several years, even to stable honeybee is abandoning us! Are you depressed yet? There seems to be legions of folks coming out of the woodwork to capitalize on this darkened national mood. Pundits on both sides of the political spectrum wag their tongues about the ethical and moral failings of the other, no longer debating the issues but rather engaging freely in ad hominem attacks.

And yet….

I do believe there are many reasons to be stubbornly optimistic these days. Its all a matter of perspective, or vantage point if you will. I would suggest that many, if not all, of the problems being addressed today have been around throughout human history, albeit in slightly different forms. Certainly violence against each other, racism, poverty, religious wars and natural disasters have always been with us. Other issues, such as pollution and greenhouse warming, are new problems, yet the roots of such issues I believe lie deep in the human psyche (particularly in the Euro-Caucasian desire to subdue and conquer nature, as certainly other societies have done a far better job at leaving in harmony with nature).

If we can grant that many of the issues of today have been around in some form for many hundreds of years, why do they seem so starkly evident today. Why the dark pessimism that abounds at least in much of the industrialized world? I would suggest that globalization and the incredible technology boom of the last fifty years have made us more aware of pre-existing issues. This is not to be confused with creating new issues, although there are certainly some cases where that has happened. This awareness has led to a lot of strife and anger, as people and societies struggle to understand where we went wrong. Unfortunately far more energy is spent attacking speculative sources instead of fixing the issues.

The good news is, awareness is the first step. Indeed, awareness is the most important step in transformation. This might seem unfounded, as being aware of a problem is not the same as fixing the problem. However many times the solution unfolds as one becomes aware. That is to say, the problem was sustained by lack of awareness. A strong corollary can be made here between the psychology of personal growth and of societal change. The distinction being that a society has an incredible spectrum of diversity compared to a single person, so the process of change is invariably more complex.

Indeed, I do claim that these are good days. We are aware of and confronted with more problems than ever before in human history. Aid, poverty, global warming, unsustainable use of our resources, confrontation between religious groups and societies, all of these issues and many more challenge us on a daily basis as we watch the news, surf the web, and talk with our friends and colleagues. Change is hard and often painful, but the results are absolutely worthwhile. Key to being a productive and active participant in this process is refusing to engage in the dark cynicism of those around us, and instead stubbornly hold fast to the big picture that is unfolding, the growing pains of our society and of the world, refusing to give up the notion that this world can and will become a better place.

Late Industrialization - The Brain Drain

As I move through my day at work, I notice that the most common direction I end up heading is the coffee machine (yep, its instant). There are always people crowded around to grab a fresh cup of unimaginative jo. Behind the coffee machine is a food vending machine that has two full sections full of Red Bull cans. These apparently sell quite well as they represent 20% of the “food” inventory. Next to the food vending maching are two soda machines, depending on if you want a 12 oz can or a 20 oz bottle. By the end of the week the only soda left for purchase are the caffeine free varities, all the “good stuff” having been consumed during late afternoon “crunch” meetings.

My company also places a high emphasis on exceeding your weekly hours expectation. Although we are not a law firm and thus do not have billable hours, the expectation is that with more employees working longer the company can accomplish more and achieve greater results. Performance rewards target those employees who show a high level of “commitment” by working 50-60 plus hours a week. For those of us mavericks who work the amount of hours that our salary is based upon, there is reoccuring pressure to “get the numbers up,” lest your commitment be questioned.

So my question is, if companies rely on coffee, red bull, and extended employee hours to achieve high performance, are we really creating an intelligent and sustainable system or seeking short term gains with long term negative consequences such as burnout, stress disorders, etc? Indeed, just as coal laborers suffer for the remainder of their lives due to the havoc they wreaked on their bodies, might also folks with a “desk job” suffer mental degradation due to the overuse of their minds. Depression and anxiety related disorders are on the rise through the US and Europe, forgetfulness and attention disorders no longer seem relegated to the occasional individual, but rather seem to have become an almost universal malady.

Imagine a ghetto of people who’s brains had been “used up” in order to feed the machine of our late industrialized society. Intelligent and highly educated people sitting around with brains that were many years older than their bodies, taking medication for chemical imbalances that cause anxiety and depression. All because we forgot that the brain is not only a tool, it is an organic part of our entire body. Abuse the tool and the person suffers. Not to mention that exclusive focus on one’s mental processes makes little to no room for other types of perception, such as emotions, intuition, and spiritual awareness. The question is, how does one get unplugged from the machine, or is this even possible?

False Binaries

Often acts of social injustice are due to false binaries, also known as the logical fallacy of the excluded middle (wiki). False binaries occur when a person or society distills a complex set of options or ideas into two mutually exclusive options. This can also be called “black and white” thinking. Of course most of us would never consider ourselves guilty of views dependent on a false binary, but it is amazing how subtle and how strongly we are tempted to think this way. I wonder if the way the human mind is wired lends itself to think in terms of two opposing ideas, or if it is simply the pervasive influence of Platonic thought. I have not read a formal study on the subject, but my impression is that cultures that have had limited encounter with Plato and “Western” philosophy do a better job handling the reality that most options represent a continuum instead of a binary. If anyone has supporting evidence for this observation please post your comments.

Some examples of the subtle binaries that infiltrate my thinking:

Fundamentalist vs. Progressive – Particularly in the religious sphere I am often guilty of characterizing someone either as a fundamentalist or a progressive thinker. Fundamentalist representing someone who seeks to maintain a tradition and resists change, and progressive representing someone who is intentionally seeking change do to perceived inadequacies in the current system. The real truth is that all of us adhere to some “fundamentals,” ideas or traditions that we are not willing to change. Additionally, everyone is progressive in some sense of the word, even those who very intentionally hold onto a tradition are still adhering to something that was handed down to them by former progressive thinkers. Indeed, the tradition or idea itself resists becoming static, changing as people and society change.

Third world vs. First world – This distinction is so assumed that to question whether it is a viable concept is to induce incredibility in your listener. Yet First world vs. Third world is simply a way of talking about the world, not a geographic or cultural reality. Certainly economic distinctions might provide the clearest distinction between “first” and “third” worlds, but even these are based on certain assumption that income and a particular standard of living qualify a country to enter “first” world status. One has only to talk to a desperately poor person in a “first world” context, or a comfortably well off person in a “third world” context to recognize how this distinction breaks down. I don’t mean to suggest that there aren’t factual differences between countries in terms of GDP, income per capita, standard of living, etc, but to reduce these differences into a false binary of “first” and “third” world is clearly an overly simplified way of thinking. Indeed, this way of thinking can even be harmful as it disallows the middle, pushing a country or people group artificially under one label or the other. Regardless of which label a country falls under, there are people with desperate need everywhere, as are there those who are comfortably rich by manipulating the economic system to their advantage.

Terrorist vs. Non-Terrorist – This distinction is so often assumed to be real, yet in accordance with Einstein’s theory of relativity, it entirely depends on your perspective. An Iraqi man fighting to save his country from subordination to America would absolutely view himself as a patriot and defender of peace, even if forced to us non-traditional forms of force. Yet in the end, how different is the suicide bomber from the Navy pilot dropping a bomb on a rural village? I don’t necessarily mean to say that both men are terrorists, but certainly both men are intentionally engaging in acts of terror and violence. Indeed, if civilian casualties are the primary identifier of terrorist activities, then we as Americans should be very cautious about calling anyone else a terrorist, when our munitions have claimed more innocent lives in the past decades than any other country in the world.

Any other false binaries that you have observed?