I received an email from a reader who noted that I omitted one of the key players from Interface Carpet’s “Dream Team.” See page 124-125. I left out Karl-Henrik Robert, the founder of The Natural Step (TNS). Interface used the Natural Step in developing their program.
Continue ReadingThe Power of Idleness
One of my colleagues on the Case Western project I have written about here sent me this quote. It is most relevant to this blog and to my writings about flourishing. One of the essential domains of care in my taxonomy is that of idleness/leisure. Here is a good explanation as to why it is explicit in the scheme. Being and Doing The fact that our being necessarily demands to be expressed in action should not lead us to believe that as soon as we stop acting we cease to exist. We do not live merely to “do something” –… Read More
Continue ReadingMindless Consumption and the Media
The electronic news media has been suffering a continuing decline for some time. A typical half-hour show has only about fifty percent news (if it can be called that) and the rest is advertising. I tend to watch the ABC national news whenever I turn on the TV around dinner time. I haven’t taken a stopwatch to time each segment, but I estimate that there is less than 15 minutes of good hard news. There are nightly specials, like “Made in America” or “Real Money” and a few others that I cannot name even after watching them. These are followed… Read More
Continue ReadingStruggling to Keep Our Humaness Going
I read an interesting [article](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/learning-how-to-die-in-the-anthropocene/?emc=eta1&_r=1&) in today’s NYTimes about life in the Anthropocene, our emerging geologic era. The I found the headline, “Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene;” compelling. In the previous era, the Holocene, the forces of nature dominated the planetary system. There were many fluctuations during this, perhaps 100,000 year-long, period of our Planet’s history, but nature’s forces were in control and relatively well behaved. The steadiness of this era promoted an explosion in species evolution, including that of our own species, Homo sapiens. But now human activities are competing with nature for control. We have begun… Read More
Continue ReadingSpirituality and Flourishing
I am finding it harder and harder to come up with topics for this blog, but I am still working on it. Today, I am going to use some materials I prepared for an online class I am teaching. It compresses the sequence I gave previously over two years into a 10-week course and generally follows my first book, Sustainability by Design. In putting this course together, I now recognize, as I have written, that I got quite a few things wrong, some important and some not. I have tried to correct my use of sustainability and flourishing in this… Read More
Continue ReadingFilling a Semantic Void
I am finding it increasingly difficult to come up with ideas for this blob. I don’t feel right in always being critical even as I see more and more reasons to think that way. I don’t see much out there that suggests that global society is waking up to the havoc our modern ways are wreaking. I find it harder and harder to explain why I am not pessimistic, but remain hopeful. I think it possible to hold these seemingly opposing thoughts. I believe that there is a way to move toward a flourishing world away from the deteriorating condition… Read More
Continue ReadingChaos, Complexity, and Care
Last night after finishing the online class I am teaching, I had a breakthrough in the way I think and speak about flourishing and sustainability. Mostly about flourishing because, as I wrote a few posts ago, I do not think that “sustainability” is the right word to use when speaking about our present dilemma, the deteriorating state of the world. There is little present that we should even attempt to sustain because the existing institutions are virtually all broken and the beliefs on which they have become established no longer bring the good life to both humans and the globe.… Read More
Continue ReadingOur Broken Social Contract
I find it exceedingly difficult to think about flourishing or sustainability under the immediate circumstances, but I have a gnawing sense that it is very important to maintain my focus. Life in the US has come to a halt, not in the sense of everyday activities, although the shutdown of government has clearly stopped some people’s lives in mid-stride. As it so often happens, some other unrelated event has accentuated my concerns here. Synchronicity at work once again. My wife and I are part of an informal group that meets from time to time to discuss what is upon our… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Language We Use Really Matters
One of my regular commenters, Boudewijn, wrote me after I posted the last entry. He picked up on the postscript where I mentioned a different way of placing flourishing into context. You can go back one post to see this, but I also copy his comment below: > Thanks for your post. It reminds me of your article of which the title said: “Sustainability needs to be attained, not managed.” Here sustainability seems like the quality of a system that can be attained, like equality and beauty can be described as qualities of a system. In your definition of sustainability,… Read More
Continue ReadingChanging the Subject
As I noted a few days ago, sustainability is in a lot of trouble on two fronts. One is the continuing deterioration of both the social and the environmental pieces of the system that enables us to live. The other is the failure to come to any kind of social agreement on what the problem is and what should we do about it. The second part is grounded in the way people talk about the subject of sustainability. I have grown increasingly skeptical about almost all initiatives aimed at “sustainability.” It has gotten much clearer that virtually everything being done,… Read More
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