01 Oct Who Are We?

In our moving towards a sustainable relationship with the world, certain assumed aspects of our present dominance culture must be brought to the fore and questioned. Firstly, though, I need to define my terms. Who are we, and what is this culture?

When I say “we” or “us,” I’m not referring to green folk or the human race in general. When I say “our culture,” I mean a self-reinforcing set of beliefs, attitudes, conventions, stories, and practices that inform people who live in cities anywhere in the world. In a few paragraphs, I hope to convey to you my profound excitement that “we” are not humanity.

Up until recently, most enviro-types traced the beginnings of our problems to the Industrial Revolution. Certainly the increased use of fossil fuels has made a dramatic impact on just about every aspect of living, but these changes were but an acceleration of trends begun in the deep past. Ten thousand years ago, a certain bunch of people in the Middle East began experimenting with a lifestyle that was distinctly different from that of the other people around them. This group decided that the world belonged to them and that they could do whatever they wanted with it.

One of the first things they wanted was a reliable source of nourishment that did not require migration. They settled in one place and figured out how to grow most of their own food. That seems harmless enough, but soon these people realized that they could, in fact, grow more than they needed for their immediate consumption. They created a surplus. But instead of returning or sharing this surplus, they invented ways to store the excess in case they might need it later. Storing extra grub required keeping it secure against other critters who might want it, and also devising a way to distribute it.

The obvious solution was to assign a few individuals to do that job, and those few delegated several more of their friends to help them. Unfortunately, the distribution of the collective wealth was by no means equitable. Wherever there was a stored surplus, almost immediately the folks in that village found themselves in a stratified, hierarchical class system: royalty to decide who gets how much, nobility to assist and insulate, and peasants to subsist on the dregs. This agricultural and social system extended the notion of control not just to their food supply, but also to politics.

First big mistake: the commoditization of a necessity, food; second big mistake: creating a rigid hierarchy.

Another effect of this new agro-kingly situation was a quick increase in human population: more food begat more people. With an expanding population, the rulers needed more land to grow more food. If the neighboring folks didn’t want to participate, the king would conquer them by force. This vector continued until the present, when almost the entire world is overrun by civilization. But it is only since it has spread worldwide that we realize it’s a dangerous deal. The culture of empire is flat-out toxic and not sustainable.

This history lesson is important because of its good news: the human race lived sustainably within its environment for hundreds of thousands of years before this “experiment” began a brief 10,000 years ago. For the majority of our time on this planet, people enjoyed a balanced existence. Not ideal, of course, but a life that could be securely carried on into the indefinite future. Our present way cannot. Those ancestors achieved this, and so can “we” if we (who aren’t the only humanity) leave behind such suicidal notions as control and individualism. We don’t have to change human nature, but we do need a new story to be in.

To correct the two big mistakes our culture made at its inception, here are my goals: Free Food and No Bosses. The only way I see people surviving and thriving is collectively, and to that end I dedicate myself to building community resilience on a local basis.

Thanks for joining me!

Howie Richey owns Texpert Tours [http://www.TexpertTours.com] and speaks weekly on KOOP’s Shades of Green [http://www.io.com/~zow/ecopods] program.