A Sustainable Train of Thought

I just attended a conference in New York City where it became immediately apparent to me that I didn’t fit in. Not that it’s a bad thing or a good thing; I simply realized that my priorities and focus over the years have changed significantly. While I enjoy a stimulating conversation as much as the next person, I’ve also developed a point of view which now includes Charles Eames’ observation that “Design is a plan for action.” And I must admit, I didn’t see much in the way of action at this conference. A lot of talk about concepts and theories and definitions, but very little in the way of concrete contributions to a cause.

Maybe I’m biased because my entire thesis year was spent looking for ways to make concrete contributions to a cause. But my observation from this weekend’s events is that a common cause might prove useful in harnessing all of this intellect and creative energy and focusing it towards real change.

Perhaps a step back is required to explain my position. In my first thesis presentation (way back in 2005) I proposed that the challanges posed by the climate crisis hold the potential to unify us towards a common goal, just as the Apollo missions captured the imagination, attention, and enthusiasm of the American people forty years ago. We have an opportunity to define real goals, produce real results, and instill real change. And this opportunity is nothing less than an opportunity to bring meaning to many peoples’ lives.

Now before the two people who read my blog get all upset, I use “meaning” as a framing device for actions and decisions. So just as a larger goal of buying a house would probably frame the choice of whether or not to max out your credit card, the climate crisis (and the other attendant ills that humanity faces as Jared Diamond so comprehensively presents in Collapse) provides a framing device for decisions and actions by both society and individuals.

So let’s talk about something controversial. I think most of the so-called “social networking” stuff out there is suspect. Sure, it’s fine if you want a diversion, it’s fine if you want to make money selling Google adwords, it’s fine as a commercial enterprise. But what has “social networking” really accomplished for society? What is its lasting contribution? How has it helped humanity to take a step forward?

I’m not saying that “social networking” is useless. Rather, I’m saying perhaps the energy behind its current application is misapplied. Look, we have more computing power available to us through the personal computer and the Internet than at any other time in the known history of man, and the best we can do is MySpace?

As I’ve said many times before, we face a multitude of very real problems and we have a very real opportunity to instigate change, to gather and focus human enterprise and enthusiasm towards a compelling, worthwhile, and meaningful goal.

Read the following passage from this Salon.com article, Calculating the global warming catastrophe, and tell me that current “social networking” sites are addressing these very real issues of community…what I would term social sustainability.

The technology we need most badly is the technology of community—the knowledge about how to cooperate to get things done. Our sense of community is in disrepair at least in part because the prosperity that flowed from cheap fossil fuel has allowed us all to become extremely individualized, even hyperindividualized, in ways that, as we only now begin to understand, represent a truly Faustian bargain. We Americans haven’t needed our neighbors for anything important, and hence neighborliness—local solidarity—has disappeared. Our problem now is that there is no way forward, at least if we’re serious about preventing the worst ecological nightmares, that doesn’t involve working together politically to make changes deep enough and rapid enough to matter. A carbon tax would be a very good place to start.

While this passage makes the point that our lack of community has made it difficult to pursue change politically, I think the more important point is the lack of community, period.

Think about that for a moment.

In a time when, theoretically, anyone can contact and connect with anyone else in the world, we are experiencing a lack of community.

Does anyone else find this curious and frustrating?