Message-ID: <970105195243_1890080592@emout09.mail.aol.com> Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 19:52:44 -0500 From: mailto:EUNSteve@AOL.COM> Subject: Re: pushing development--or pushing the status quo? To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Dr. Hanson,I thank you for your essays on the human condition.
Since you cite Berger and Luckman with admiration, you understand quite well that your view of "reality" is itself a social construction, one that you and "interpretative community" or "community of discourse" share and elaborate and revise.
I assume that pointing this out is no surprise and is not at all disturbing.
That being the case, your construction of reality raises several obvious questions.
Granted that in the realm of assessing the present and predicting the future there can be no guarantees or certainties, is your constructed reality the best guess of our condition and future that the community of those with the ability to study these matters has to offer? That is, do the knowledgeable scientists, for example, agree a)completely or b) predominantly with your constructed reality, or disagree, or is opinion divided?
Another obvious question your constructed reality raises is this: if your analysis and predictions are our best guess about tomorrow, what ought we to do to insure the survival of the planet and its life?
As to the first question:
I do not know of your scientific credentials, but mine are limited. I am now far less believing that your assessment and construction is accurate than I was when The Club of Rome and THE LIMITS OF GROWTH first frightened us all into attending to the matter of planetary degradation and survival.
Heilbroner, for example, now admits that much of his forecasting about the future of capitalism and the future at large were wrong.
The predictions of the Commoner's and many of the other doomsday school have proven wrong.
Many serious scientists are writing essays based on their research that predict a far different future than the one you have constructed. I am not talking of capitalist imperialist lackey, but reputable researchers, nor am I talking about such works as THE ULTIMATE RESOURCE, although Simons' prediction of the reversibility of environmental damage have been startlingly correct, and he has won his bets with the prophets of doom.
I do read Lester Brown and colleagues, and admire their honesty and dedication--but their are more and more voices saying World Watch is flat wrong.
And that you are flat wrong.
______
However, I would agree that prudence suggest we prepare for the possibility that your version of tomorrow might be right, in whole or in part.
What then ought we to do, can we do?
How, for example, do we get the attention of good hearted Americans: say, the 40% of American who attend church on Sunday?
How do we get them to see what their autos and air conditioners and spray cans are doing to the planet?
For that matter: how can we get those on this list to attend, and change, and by their taking up bicycles and abandoning autos model the only kind of behavior that will prevent your constructed story from happening?
I don't know how to do the job, but I do know how to fail completely.
My prescription for failure is to assume the holier than thou position, attack all Americans as Western capitalist despoilers who are bent on destroying the world--and then ask them to change their ways.
Meanwhile isn't there some evidence that the air is getting cleaner, lakes are coming bakc, the reserves of fossil fuel are larger than predicted and we are finding renewable resources?
Isn't there another social construction of reality that is at least as "true" as yours, and that offers more hope that modest growth along with appropriate changes in destructive behavior allows for all of us to survive and have a life that includes some of the amenities?
I appreciate your instruction, and your constructions.
Steve Eskow