Message-ID: <19981015021018.AAD15101@LOCALNAME> Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 23:10:45 -0400 From: Kerry Miller <mailto:kerryo@NS.SYMPATICO.CA> Subject: Re: Requesting for contribution in my field of research To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
~Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 13:35:47 +0000 ~From: Richard Flyer <mailto:rflyer@EARTHLINK.NET> ~Subject: Re: Poverty, values, and sustainable development ~To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>Hello All. I have been a lurker for many months. The dialogue below is an attempt to link spirituality, dealing with material poverty, and community development. I know much of the discussion here has been in other fileds and areas of thought, but I wanted to see if there was any interest.
The reference to Gary Flyer ( I am Richard Flyer) below actually relates in part to a post I made to this seminar and may be of interest to you all. My post is below. It is long. Forgive, but may be food for dialogue.
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Date:Thu, 5 Sep 1996 06:41:30 +0900 Reply-To: Poverty and Sustainable Development mailto:<IAS-CR1@MSIAS.IAS.UNU.EDU> Sender: Poverty and Sustainable Development <IAS- mailto:CR1@MSIAS.IAS.UNU.EDU> To: Multiple recipients of list IAS-CR1 <mailto:IAS-CR1@MSIAS.IAS.UNU.EDU>RICHARD L.MEIER (prof, emeritus) Institute for Urban and Regional Development University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, California 94720, U.S.A.
----------forwarded message----- Prof. Meier said: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Dear Jacky, the Parikhs, and the poverty vs. sustainability crowd:I was truly impressed by Gary Flyer"s disquisition on poverty. The concepts are remarkably similar to Amartya Sen (in three volumes, closely argued).
In effect, what is propsed is a strategy for solving the problem of poverty through a change in outlook. The means would be a social movement, propagated through person-to-person transfer of concerns and values (like the Sarvodaya in Sri Lanka). snip........ Planners recognize that social movements can be extraordinarily effective changing social conditions. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hello Bryan and everyone. I will take up your challenge to answer your specific questions and try to be specific and solution oriented. By the way, I graduated from UCSC in Biology in 1981.
Bryan Farrell said: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
1. How you see the problem? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
By problem, I will assume you mean the problem of poverty and sustainable development and the specific suggested solutions of "rapid economic growth" and "education."
Poverty: Many people define poverty in primarily material terms. For them, poverty can therefore be eliminated by material advancement---economic growth. For many poverty is a result of socio-economic dominance--the rich getting richer, etc. For them, poverty can be eliminated by redistribution of wealth. Neither in themselves are satisfactory or for that matter effective.
Poverty is more complex. From my experience working as a community developer/organizer and living in a poor neighborhood in the USA, and from working with other groups around the world, from Tijuana, Mexico to Sri lanka, poverty has to do with issues of feelings of powerlessness and a sense of hopelessness and a breakdown of the human spirit. Within families there is a breakdown from individual despair and isolation. People live in a depressed environment and internalize that they have no control, that they are in fact controlled by others, usually from outside the neighborhood or village and learn that they have no value or wealth---in fact we become depressed---these are deep causes of poverty.
Simply, you just get tired of surviving day after day. It takes its toll on the creative spirit. This process leads neighborhoods and villages to be divided and in many , especially in the urban area, family breakdown comes from the loss of basic spiritual and moral values (capacity for love, sharing, cooperation, compassion, and wisdom.). The loss of values is also found in middle-class and wealthy communities, but material poverty there is not a major problem.
I would like to submit that this phenomenon of community disintegration is also happening in many affluent areas as well.
So, the problem of poverty is multi-dimensional and at root is a mental-emotional-psychological formation (deals with moral and spritual issues) as well as material condition. This is certainly not to "blame the poor'---- certainly we all suffer from this malady--- the middle and upper class simply have aquired enough material things and conforts and can pretend that it does not exist. That this is true is the movement among a sizable portion of the middle class searching for authentic spirituality (as opposed to the canned belief and dogmas of dying churches). According to the recent Integral Culture Study of the Fetzer Institute, nearly 35 million Americans (USA) fit into this category.
Bryan Farrell said: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
2. Should we all attempt to see it your way? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It would be nice if we all try to see each others point of view.
Bryan Farrell said: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
3. How do you believe the collective rest of us see it? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
To generalize, a predominant view is that poverty is a material phenomenon that results from a variety of social, political, cultural, and economic factors.
The establishment solution is therefore a material one and rooted in the philosophy of "rugged individualism" , rapid growth, and consumerism. This view has more in common with the Marxist notion that material conditions shape social and thus an individual's consciousness. Therefore, in the predominant view an attempt is made to try to change the material conditions in order to change an individuals behavior.
Bryan Farrell said: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
4. How should we resolve the problem? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Obviously economic growth is necessary.
What kind of economic growth are we talking about though?
The Western growth model is based on the idea of competition, becoming a big consumer, and rugged individualism and working alone to improve yourself. This is rooted in a materialistic world view--- that the material world is primary, so they see things in terms of production, how many jobs created, etc. No matter how much believers in this view say that they are beyond the "superstition" of religion, IMHO they have erected a belief system (now global) that is equivalent to any Religion. Just look at this seminar. You will see a predominant view with so many unquestioned assumptions--- such as, "rapid economic growth", narrow definitions of poverty, "oh human nature is unchangeable" or "there is no alternative to the existing institutional framework", etc. ad nauseum.
Because this economic model (rapid growth, rugged individualism, consumerism, etc) is now a global phenomenon does not mean it is either correct or useful.. There is enough evidence that this model leads to increased poverty planet wide (not less); leads to habitat destruction; has resulted in uprooting indigenous people's and cultures world wide in the name of modernization; etc.
Instead of just focusing on a Western style competitive pro-growth strategy, one way to deal with the fundamental problems discussed above is to adopt a community-building and community organizing strategy. We need to enhance the capacity of people to take back control of their neighborhoods or villages staring with their own home environment. We need to reverse all the negative trends that occur as a result of community and village disintegration---by encouraging cooperation and unity and by demonstrating that people can understand the root causes of their village/community deterioration and decide to create a better life. So, primarily we need to encourage community cooperation.
We need to reverse to process whereby villages and neighborhoods continue to lose energy and wealth that is being expropriated by the global economic system. We can help people to release their creative energy and to realize that they have value and great wealth inside them. Then, from the inside going out, people can start generating material wealth and turn a decaying village into a vibrant healthy one. The economic strategy here would be community-based economic self-reliance.
This view of personal/spiritual change happening at the same time as material growth is a more balanced view than much of what is heard on the professional developers circuit. The materialist view says individual consciousness is shaped by material conditions. There is truth to this. But, an alternative and equally valid view is that the growth of human awareness, consiousness, and spirituality can actually shape our environment and change our material conditions.
Do we really believe that an individual and a community can make a difference or do we just believe in numbers, statistics, demographics, and in large masses of people, and worn out supposed solutions?
COMMUNITY AWAKENING/ VILLAGE REBUILDING The long-term goal of this process is community awakening and rebuilding from the person/family/street/ village level outwards. Instead of focusing on education and rapid economic growth, we need to develop a comprehensive program integrating all of the aspects of village life.
These aspects include 1) Personal awakening. (Moral and Spiritual growth) 2) Family development; 3) Community linking network 4) Clean and healthy environment. 5) secure and safe neighborhoods. 6) Grass-roots and community- based economic development (Promoting entrepreneurship and small business creation/ local banks). 7) Health care and mental health. 10) Shared Culture, etc.
This is a strategy of community organizing. Right now, all over the world people are engaged in thousands and millions of community efforts. There is a global movement already happening but unrecognized. It involves local people in their own development. It awakens a dormant civil society into active participation. It helps develop a sense of personal and community control. Yes, it generates jobs and can alleviate poverty. One of the world's best examples that I have mentioned is the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka. 10,000 villages are participating to a greater or lesser extent. This includes thousands of newly built schools, microenterprises, and village banks.
Why are we still talking about rapid economic growth? Why aren't we talking about helping to build a global community/village development movement controlled by local people? Is it because we have lost hope or belief in people? Is that why we keep talking about "realistic" solutions like rapid economic growth? IMHO we have lost a certain sensibility that is very precious and important. Can we discover what we have lost in time?
Bryan Farrell said: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
5. The viewpoint of sustainable development is so embryonic, that I daresay ninety percent of the educated public could barely hazard a guess as to what it is. So what is it you contend, is being expressed by "the establishment"? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
A common view of sustainability is from the United Nations--- "Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
Who could disagree? But, when it comes to actually changing the way we do things, the UN never challenges, but instead embraces economic globalism and growth oriented solutions.
A different view is that of Jakob von Uexkull, the founder of the Right Livelihood Award, who said: "you cannot simultaneously empower the people and the multi-national companies, you cannot combine local self-reliance with the primacy of global 'free' trade. The major components of the present order--- scientism, industrial developmentalism, and nation-statism--- tolerate no other gods."
Sustainability comes from the Latin Root meaning to "support from below." To sustain means to maintain, to supply with nourishment, and to support the vitality of something.
According to the Context Institute "A community must be supported from below - by its inhabitants, present and future. Certain places, through the peculiar combination of physical, cultural, and, perhaps, spiritual characteristics, inspire people to care for their community. These are the places where sustainability has the best chance of taking hold."
Spiritual growth is the foundation for a healthy society. Unless individuals develop the capacity for Love, compassion, sharing, self-control and self-governance--- no unified basis for cooperation would exist and true sustainability would be impossible.
This applies to rich and poor alike.
FMI: see http://home.earthlink.net/~rflyer/index.html
SARVODAYA at http://home.earthlink.net/~rflyer/sarvodayausahp.html
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