[statecom-discuss] Change and Emergence

[Yarden]

In accordance with a promise to contribute thoughts about Green-Rainbow 
Party foundations to the ongoing SWPG conversations, I am putting 
on-line the fourth of these contributions, entitled "Change and 
Emergence," as part of my response to concerns expressed by fellow 
party members.  The first two; Attitude, and Distance, appeared on the 
statecom-discuss list on May 9 and on May 14. The third; Fetishes and 
Values appeared in the StateCom (Official Business)on May 18, by error. 
I am returning to the discuss list with this 4th piece. And I will 
continue here.

These writings are not part of the SWPG agenda, and are intended only 
as a back drop for our undertaking. If any of what I have to offer 
happens to excite new ideas for strategic planning, so much the better.
Elie Yarden
Cambridge

Change and Emergence

Noticing change may undercut the surface of attitude, pessimistic and 
other.   But failure to notice change is likely more due to 
insensibility than to attitude.

Because the knowledge of change over time, comprehending the sources 
and conditions of such change (evolution), is observational rather than 
experimental, its mythos is burdened by teleology.  Modern Science has 
tried to purify (scientificize) evolution by a few theoretical 
constructs, usually tautological, such as "natural selection," or "the 
survival of the fittest" which, though uninformative, serve to defend 
the integrity of the causal myths that underlie scientific doctrine.

But, withstanding the limitations of scientific explanation, changes do 
occur.  And new forms do emerge--and even new societies.  Thus, 
Evolution, despite Aristotle and philosophies that he fathered.  We 
have in our own lifetimes had opportunities to observe, through 
language itself as well as through the information transmitted by its 
means, that  change occurs.

We need not play Why and Whence games, or posit beginning versus 
beginningless, or toy with a conceptual game of "Evolution versus 
Revolution" unless we really want to.  This last one, a badly named 
Nineteenth Century controversy about gradual and sudden, encouraged 
speculation about discontinuity of development, which entered the 
theory of the evolution of species under the name, "saltationism."  
Much fun!  But has had little to do with furthering biocentric wisdom .

An image of how-things-change that once flashed into my head might be 
traced to the experience of watching a hot mud flow at a hotspring on a 
soft slope.  Half hidden by the steam, surface differences would form 
and, from the bubbly flow, retain for a few moments a semblance 
distinct from the turgid mass for at least as long as it took to see 
it, and never yielding to rapid erasure except along the central path 
of the flow's movement.  As though whatever shapes emerge, sink, and 
influence, are embodied and never fully disappear, allowing for an 
alteration of  substance that will embody the earlier forms and the 
earlier shapes, are most easily observed at the edges.  Evanescent form 
is the being that we can grasp.  And if what emerges is to be judged 
good or bad, that judgement might turn on whether what is fails to 
bring an end to what might be.

When conscious being arises in some such process, the possibility is 
there to shape the formal opportunities into stronger—more 
persistent—ones.  That is as far as I can get.  And allow another to go 
further.  But let's watch for what happens at the fringes of our 
society rather than at the media, if we wish to set ourselves free, and 
thus prepare to see ourselves.  Or do I mean the reverse "if we wish to 
see ourselves, and thus prepare to set ourselves free."

Look at how formulations shift and wonder at the significance of these 
shifts.  Some time around 1989, people thinking about the basis of a 
new politics, deriving from the ecological understandings of society 
and nature stirring about in the post World War II U. S., decided on 
engaging electoral politics, running partisan campaigns for public 
office, as a way of bringing this understanding into our political 
decisions.  This 'new politics' was to be a value-based politics.  Ten 
values.

The Committees of Correspondence engaging this task went about defining 
these named values by questions and in the beginning placed:

1.  ECOLOGICAL WISDOM
How can we operate human societies with the understanding that we are 
part of nature, not on top of it?
How can we live within the ecological and resource limits of the 
planet, applying our technological knowledge to the challenge of an 
energy efficient economy?
How can we build a better relationship between cities and countryside?
How can we guarantee the rights of non-human species?
How can we promote sustainable agriculture and respect for 
self-regulating natural systems?
How can we further biocentric wisdom in all spheres of life?

and the Green Party of the United State, in its version places, 
Ecological Wisdom third:
3. ECOLOGICAL WISDOM
Human societies must operate with the understanding that we are part of 
nature, not separate from nature.  We must maintain an ecological 
balance and live within the ecological and resource limits of our 
communities and our planet. We support a sustainable society which 
utilizes resources in such a way that future generations will benefit 
and not suffer from the practices of our generation. To this end we 
must practice agriculture which replenishes the soil; move to an energy 
efficient economy; and live in ways that respect the integrity of 
natural systems.

but the Green-Rainbow Party, from an earlier stratum, moved Ecological 
Wisdom to second, coming right after  "directly including citizens in 
the decision-making process." (of the value statement dubbed Grassroots 
Democracy)  And this particular juxtaposition almost begged a question 
that is unaffected by the version I would argue:
Ecological Wisdom
Human societies must operate with the understanding that we are part of 
nature, not separate from nature. We must maintain an ecological 
balance and live within the ecological and resource limits of our 
communities and our planet. We support a sustainable society that 
utilizes resources in such a way that future generations will benefit 
and not suffer from the practices of our generation. To this end we 
must have agricultural practices that replenish the soil; move to an 
energy efficient economy; and live in ways that respect the integrity 
of natural systems.

Noting the differences leads me to ask how it came about that this 
first member of the 'Ten,' Ecological Wisdom, fell to second and 
landed, nationally, in third place.  Is this not an instance of how 
change occurs,  an instance of how any new idea, having its prominence 
mitigated by placement closer to the middle of the flow, must, to allow 
reassertion of its primacy be pulled forth again.  Without attempting 
to restore Ecological Wisdom to its 'rightful place'--in the schema 
that anyone might propose, the very use of the term, describing the 
interconnectedness that establishes an 'ecology' assumes its 
pervasiveness throughout.

One has to return to it, and it is for this reason that the 
not-very-well-put question, "How can we operate human societies .   .   
." demands, "Human societies must function .   .   ." [not "operate"].  
My prejudice against 'operate' may derive from a preference for the 
transitive usage; e.g., to operate machines; to the intransitive to 
'operate' on; i.e., to perform surgery. But my preference for the word 
'function' is due to mathematical usage and not to any anthropological 
doctrine.  And a few other changes:
[GRP, GPUS]" .   .   .  live within the ecological and resource limits 
of our communities and our planet." seemed carelessly limiting but 
easily improved by removing unintended redundancies and contradictions 
and writing[EY] " .    .    .     living with due regard for the 
resource limits of our communities and our planet.
[GRP, GPUS] "We support .   .   ." had the feel of "we favor" 
(partisan) or "we favor" (present tense, like it's there. All ready?) 
and was remedied by [EY] "We seek .   .   . " and this allows for 
ongoing effort 'to bring about,' rather than preference for something 
available.  Similarly with [GRP]  " .   .   . we must have agricultural 
practices that replenish the soil;" [GPUS] " .   .   . we must practice 
agriculture which replenishes the soil;"
taking into consideration that such practices that are available can be 
integrated better, I wrote
[EY] " .   .   . we must further develop agricultural practices that 
replenish the soil;" and, with the knowledge that if humans are part of 
nature, then, respecting "the integrity of natural systems," might 
involve us in an discussion of specific ecological systems that well 
sustain their presence, lay the changes to rest. Thus:

the most recent version that I suggest:
Ecological Wisdom
               Human societies must function with the understanding that 
all are part of nature, not separate from nature. We must maintain an 
ecological balance, living with due regard for the resource limits of 
our communities and our planet. We seek a sustainable society that 
utilizes resources in a way that future generations will benefit, and 
will not suffer from our practices.  To this end we must further 
develop agricultural practices that replenish the soil; move to an 
energy efficient economy; and live in ways that respect the integrity 
of natural systems.

Here again, as in the earlier discussion of Grassroots Democracy, I 
find not only a statement of value(s), but an ideological imperative, 
and a program for action rooted in an understanding  of human  
evolution.

Ecological Wisdom
1.	Human societies must function with the understanding that all are 
part of nature, not separate from nature.
2.	We must maintain an ecological balance, living with due regard for 
the resource limits of our communities and our planet.
3.	We seek a sustainable society that utilizes resources in a way that 
future generations will benefit, and will not suffer from our practices.
4.	To this end we must further develop agricultural practices that 
replenish the soil; move to an energy efficient economy; and live in 
ways that respect the integrity of natural systems.

Taken as above, one could initiate actions in:
1.	Education, constructing human freedom on fuller knowledge of the 
human.
2.	Consciousness and Community.  The recovery of Person in Community as 
against Person as Commodity in the Economy.  Wealth and wisdom.
3.	Develop technologies that are self sustaining and balanced. Improve 
the breathable air.  Clean the water that flowed before civilization 
arrived.  Restore the land that civilized humans laid waste.  Build 
cities to conserve, not dissipate, wealth.
4.	Growing and manufacturing our sustenance, we are mobile animals, 
healthiest when relying on our own bodily energy systems to gratify our 
desires.  We live best within the ecological systems in which we have 
evolved when we respect their integrity, and understand their nature.

But necessary understandings are rarely available from any one source.  
Amartya Sen can read Adam Smith as a moral thinker; so too could Marx.  
Much of our knowledge comes with the language we use.  Let us protect 
discourse for the work it has done and might yet do, and offer a 
greater respect for our own speaking, as for that of others.   
'Wealth', as we used the word in the numbered sentences refers to weal, 
not lucre.

[Interpolated speculation: Need every utterance or response be 
completely tied to the means of its delivery? Does a group of people 
speaking to to one another on e-mail, replicating the natural language 
of interpersonal communication do better than a group of people sitting 
around a table talking in Corpomediaspeak or PCspeak?  Or does it not?  
We do not know until we have been doing it for a while--and with due 
regard for the ecology.  While the American experience has been 
influential in the development of the Green Parties in the U.S., it is 
also important to notice that we, as agents, are subject to the 
antinomies of evolutionary change as much as are the social behaviors 
that we seek to alter.  Dealing with regression may require  taking 
care in how we engage language, and other traits peculiar to our 
species.]

The Environmentalism that developed in this country, both as an 
appreciation of scale—the grandeur of an environment that seemed 
untouched by civilized (viz. European) hands, and (with the coming of 
the transcontinental railroads) a desire to preserve some aspects of 
that environment from human depredation.  But it was also in the early 
study of this environment, as well as of other unfamiliar environments, 
that there developed an 'Oecological' orientation, the one that has led 
to the " .   .   . understanding that we are part of nature 
[biocentric]. not on top of it." [anthropocentric].

This view has remained so revolutionary, so very much at the edge of 
the hot mud flow of  the growth of consciousness, that a special effort 
is needed to keep that vision in focus.  It is perhaps more useful to 
wonder at the retreat, from first, to second and even third place in 
the list of the Ten, than it is to attempt reversal.  Distinctive to 
ecological study and ecological political action is not the ordering of 
observations (analyses), concerns (issues), or values (desires), but a 
recognition of the inter-relatedness of beings, of things.  
Anthropocentric  'environmentalism,' can then be seen as an aspect of 
the behavior of a highly predatory mammal whose peculiar brain, 
allowing for ideology, has only recently evolved to the point of 
non-egotistical self-study.

Given the narrative of Genesis, we need not be surprised that current 
consciousness in the civilized world imagines the human as not subject 
to natural law.  But even so, observers from outside, mainly European, 
have noticed for more than two hundred years peculiarities of the 
society that developed on the North American continent after the 
European colonization and the establishment of plantation slavery based 
on the large scale importation of black African captives.  Descriptions 
of U. S. society dating from the 1830s, not long after the foundation 
of the constitutional federal republic, make one aware of many traits 
developed on native soil, that separated the cultures of the U.S. from 
its European roots, and that persist to this day.  And a knowledge of 
American history makes us aware of enormous cultural changes, as well 
as of the destructive changes in ecosystems wrought by the extensive 
and deliberate looting of of natural resources--there for the taking.

Ideological lag remains problematic.   Let a single illustration 
suffice:  the persistance of the association between individual freedom 
and range, characteristic of hunting and gathering societies, that 
leads people to believe in the superiority of their privately owned 
Private Wheels (no matter the enslaving attention they may require) to 
any public mode of transportation, even if the public mode gets them to 
where they wish with far less delay, danger, expense, and harm to 
others.  Perhaps the illusion of non-scheduling of moving about can 
persist through the careful scheduling to avoid rush hour.

The centrality of the ecological orientation to the imagining and 
making of a viable political alternative to current political 
orientations, whose limitations show up so poignantly at this moment in 
the American anti-war movement, makes the placement of  ecological 
wisdom, in any list, unimportant.  Such transfer of the consciousness 
trained in the prioritizing of political issues simply does not work.  
It is difficult to understand the implications of the Ten, or any such 
schema, except in that recognition.  As a Green value, Grassroots 
Democracy, is rooted in the recognition of the individual, finite 
biological human, characterized by language, and thus culture of a 
particular highly adaptable species in the variety of ecological niches 
it may occupy in various parts of the earth, as a factor in those local 
ecological systems.  It is observationally grounded, more than 
ideological.

Animal freedom, in primates, seems an aspect of their sociality—groups 
whose individual members, more or less free to come and go as they 
please, and not so numerous that any one would be unable to 
differentiate a troop member from a stranger.  This allows ability to 
successfully resist aggression from individuals or groups of  their own 
or other species.  Grassroots Democracy, as a value attached to the 
ecology of any particular human grouping on any given ground, 
establishes the  importance of Decentralization as well as Personal and 
Global Responsibility--responsibility for the globalizing technologies 
that, in their lack of Respect for Diversity, are so disastrous to  
existing ecosystems, including those that contain humans, and thus to 
the planet as a whole.  One need not go to the Andaman Islands to 
observe this: it can be seen in Massachusetts.

The primacy of the ecological world-view in Green politics is what 
distinguishes any Green political party from other democratic political 
parties;  and in the context of any governmental system that relies on 
the consent of the governed as reflected by their electoral selections, 
such as the U. S., or Germany, distinguishes us from political parties 
that tend to represent congeries of fluidly defined 'interests' rather 
than persons.  Especially in the U.S. political context, if anything is 
to be accomplished politically, it is necessary for the GPUS to 
distinguish itself as an alternative to the continuation of the 
destruction wrought by the existing duopoly.  And this distinction can 
only be established by an understanding of our foundations; an 
understanding that cannot occur if confused with 'environmentalism.'  
Such a confusion should be treated as innocence, or if coming from a 
progressive -- Democrat or other -- as an expression of ill-will toward 
our very existence as a party.  The 'progressive' impulse that 
contributes to waste in the replacement economy (in areas of academic 
discourse), and elevates intellectual fashion as a source of new 
commodities, recruits candidates for disappointment to our party who 
will easily leave for the Greener activities provided by the omnivorous 
establishment.  In party building, I can think of no remedy for 
floundering other than a deeper and a less fuzzy understanding of who 
we are.