By Tony Weekes on December 3, 2009
… it’s about a whole, faulty paradigm.
In almost any gathering of people concerned about the state of the world, the conversation turns to “climate change”, and the demand for some action by the governments of the world.
This emphasis is understandable, but it carries several dangers: the first seems to be an assumption that – whether there is ‘action’ or not – our ‘standard of living’ will fall. This presumes that the term ‘standard of living’ is somehow well defined, and what we believe we have is as good as we can hope for. The adverse aspects – economic instability, poverty, inequality and social exclusion, pollution and waste, stress and ill health (among others) – are being ignored. It is a matter of personal opinion whether one ranks climate change as ‘more important’ than these, but they are, surely, matters for concern? Changes to the way our economic system is regulated to address these are could well improve whatever we regard as our standard of living.
They are symptoms of faults in the system, a serious set of which lies with the present financial system, both institutional banking and the nature and creation of money. These aspects are discussed by our Friend James Wells-Bruges in a post almost two months ago; a post which attracted NO comments, critical or supportive! Another unquestioned – but curious – assumption is that public expenditure must be cut. But how else will the structural changes required be brought about, if not by public action?
A subtlety is required in writing about these matters, and in framing responses and comments. The few words (rightly) permitted by contributors cannot convey the nuances required. Only vigorous debate – with appropriate courtesy to each other – can do that.
There’s much to debate, but the Quakernomics blog has become almost silent. Where has the concern gone, that brought around 350 of us to Friends House at the end of September?
2 Comments
Are we not at the point where we are under going a change in paradigm? In recognising and acknowledging that position it is often difficult to put into words observations that might help incase they are misunderstood by the use of the current paradigm thinking (including our own). The result of which maybe something which sets out to be constructive but may fall short. Yet if no attempt is made then no progress results. One of the difficulties of words on the net is you do not have the visible aids that face to face dialogue offers. Good dialogue requires emphasis on listening skills; for good blogging to be achieved is there a change of awareness required in our reading skills? So that if we read something which appears to be unhelpful can we re-read it in a different way to transform it and then feed it back?
Thank you Paul for helping to clarify the source of the difficulties in getting new ideas across in this medium.