The Kolding Manifesto - Introduction
• We consider the following to be self-evident facts:
The solutions
exist
• Problems come in lumps - and so do solutions
• The simpleton manifesto
• And who are these simpletons?
Viable technology
• The Democracy Project & The Enlightenment Project
• Features of a viable technology
• Viable technology implies a rich
knowledge and organisation structure
• Viable technology generates meaningful culture
Responsible
economics
• Some thrive on destruction
• Irresponsible - and responsible money
• Two modes of growth
• The winner - not always the best man
• Societal contracts versus competition
• Quality
• The democratic bottom and the mafiose top
• Criteria of a reasonable technology development strategy
Global enlightenment,
development, and democracy
• A political two-way ticket
• Free us from over-exertion
• To the simpletons all the power!
On Oct. 3-5, 1997 a good hundred people met at Kolding Højskole, a Danish folk high school, under the heading:
Should the numskulls save the world, since the eggheads won't?
This was the year when Mariager Fiord died, when Limfjorden, another Danish fiord, died (though just by 30 percent), and when Denmark's CO2 emissions increased by 23 percent. This very year our government announced its goal: a doubling of road haulage over the next 10 years, and a 40 percent consumption increase.
With our manifest we wish to voice our criticisms of such a society, and also set up a few goals for the kind of social development that any sensible and thoughtful person will agree is wanted and needed - however impossible they may call it. Thus, the subject-matter is bound to amount to truisms - and with a purpose. Let's get back to simple truths and common sense. That's our challenge!
There is a need for a radical break with how we think of progress, how we 'know' things, and with our entire way of living and organising. It's time for the simpletons to try their hand, without more ado, since the eggheads have already done enough harm. And in order to progress we need to resort to a few of the insights, virtues and technologies that have been engulfed in the abysmal churning money-maelstrom.
The manifest-ness of our manifesto does not consist in pompous paroles, but in the inevitable and to some extent general nature of its standpoints. We'll leave the debate and means for a future talk - one that will make sense only if taking place among people who want or have the power to rule - true democracy. Our political latitude will have to be recaptured. It is time for the political politician to be reinstated. As for necessities, truisms, terms of Good and Evil, the curse of expert dominance and not least, respect for common sense and common rule, we will be unyielding.
This manifesto has not been put to the vote, and consequently has not been formally adopted. Nor is it the work of any single individual. It is a status report - the cross-section of a long-standing, multifaceted communication that has still a long way to go. The manifesto was put together by a working group. It was first presented under the heading, 'Ecology suspended between Humour and Earnest' during our network seminar and annual meeting at Snoghøj Folkehøjskole, Denmark, January 23-25, 1998.
We wish to extend our thanks to Den Grønne Fond (the DK Green Foundation) and Græsrodsfonden (the DK Grassroot Fund) for financial support, and to Per Marquard Otzen, 'Information' (a DK newspaper) for his illustrations.
To further encourage the debate our website www.eco-net.dk/english includes reference literature. Additional suggestions are welcomed.
Lars Myrthu-Nielsen
Secretarial manager
Network for Ecological Education and Practice
-----
We consider the following to be self-evident facts:
• Planet Earth has limited dimensions, implying that there is a limit to what it can sustain.
• Man is a biological, cultural and social being, implying that there is a limit to what he be made to suffer.
• Man has right to search for happiness, but no right to destroy planet Earth.
• Man is part of the biosphere, and the biosphere is prerequisite for human life. We merely have the power to destroy it - which does not entitle us to do so.
• Improving nature is beyond the reach of mankind. We need to satisfy ourselves with living in, off and with it - the latter being a must.
• The number one reason why Planet Earth is increasingly endangered is the ongoing expansion of production and productivity in countries already overconsuming.
• If today the poor parts of the world were to have a standard of material wealth comparable to the present rich world, this would require seven more Planets Earth - which we do not consider realistic.
• The number one reason why Planet Earth is increasingly endangered is the ongoing expansion of production and productivity in countries already overconsuming.
• All over the planet considerations and rights associated with nature and human life are giving way to a statutory, global boundlessness for money and its managers‹.
• The social and cultural poverty of the rich world is closely intertwined with productivity increases, global economy, money's fundamental rights of freedom and the democratic deficit.
• Only a consistently democratic organisation can handle such overall conditions, and above all the discrepancy between economic power and common sense.
• Gradually, our production of knowledge has grown so fragmented as to produce massive ignorance, non-knowledge and downright stupidity.
• Our respect for common sense has to be reinstated, experience-based knowledge rehabilitated, and expert knowledge reduced to what it actually is, mere technicalities.
• State-of-the-art technologies have grown so complex and immense that no human systems, let alone humans, can control the emerging risks.
• It does make a difference whether a dairy or a nuclear plant goes down. We need to develop technologies that will take us back to manageable types of risks.
• Technologies have to be developed that allow and call for democratic administration practices.
• Such basics are not confined to the latitude of the ordinary
political framework. With some caution they should be seen as absolutes for
which only the means are debatable.
-----
The solutions exist
As we see it there are four basic problem fields:
democracy,
social life,
environment, and
culture,
We view them as derived from one another, and their deterioration as interdependent.
At present, they are dealt with individually, the result being that the number
of impotent problem-solvers and the costs of problem handling are increasing.
The driving force of this run-amok development is economy, alienation and professionalisation
of the most private corners of social life.
Problems come in lumps - and so do solutions
The interdependence of these problems has to be reversed, in order
to make them each others’ solutions. Such a process cannot be started
at any one place; however there is one area where we can get down to it: technology.
We want an environmentally and resource-friendly technology development, one
that will enable or call for a meaningful democracy, and one that will re-anchor
culture in everyday life. One with a platform and a need for everyone. Faced
with such an objective all expert knowledge is bound to falter and become a
stumbling-block for a different development. Only amateurism will do here, and
the most simpletonic rule of all times: democracy.
The Simpleton Manifesto
Simpletons are not smart enough to save the world, so they don’t
risk destroying it either. They have no manifest solutions - what makes issuing
a manifesto rather numskullic. Consider it done!
Simpletons are aware that you need cheerfulness in order to bear a lot of pain. For indeed, it is quite distressing to realise that mankind is getting so smart that we can do without a head, and are unable to see beyond the tips of our own noses, anyhow.
Simpletons keep stumbling over the world as it is. That’s why they
never forget about it. Time and time again they are reminded of something beyond
themselves. All they have left to do is: loving nature and the world for what
they are. That could be our rescue.
And who are these simpletons?
Hard to say, but here is a few specimens: At all times, on all levels
simpletons have been developing, slaving and inventing. Not experts with labs
and pension schemes. But folks staking their modest livelihoods to solve problems
for the rest of us, and for future. Problems, created by others for the money,
the power and the glory.
• In Aarhus, Denmark, service workers adopted a praxis, as concrete as politics are dirty, demonstrating how a limited workload can be distributed on an ‘oversized’ workforce. By sharing! There is a wonderful ambiguity in the fact that the knack of solving our biggest social problem, became known as the ‘dustman model’. Created by dustmen - and then placed on the dump of history by experts and politicians in tandem. The concept of ‘sharing’ was to much of a challenge for the eggheads!
• Years back, when Tvindmøllen, then the biggest windmill of the world applied for a minor funding for a measuring programme, the eggheads of our Energy Ministry justified their refusal as follows: In their opinion wind power did not hold major promise for Denmark. Today windmills are Denmark’s third-largest export, the wind is still blowing - and those experts have not been fired! But then the continued use of oil and coal fired power plants has grown into a problem threatening the entire planet. - So much for the eggheads!
• Decades before pesticide residues were first established in our groundwater (where, according to the wise and mighty, they would never be found), ecological farmers started (re)developing production modes that would generate less income, but were able to a few of the problems that politics and finance were passing on to future generations. Many of these people broke their necks in the process. And as true simpletons, they were made the laughing stock. Today these people make out the most rapidly growing foodstuff production sector; in the meantime pesticides have been identified in our groundwater, and allergies are on the increase. So much for the eggheads! Yet our society continues to support the ongoing poisoning, by overpricing products that will not harm nature and people.
• A good hundred years ago farmers all over the country started firing anything that had the least savour of management. They wanted to set up co-operative dairies and folk high schools. Which, being true numskills, they did right in the middle of a global agricultural slump. Later, when offered state funding, they said ‘Thanks, but no thanks!’ Shortly after they introduced parliamentarism. Really - how simpletonic can one be?‹
During the entire process the state power has proved a total failure - perhaps
a blessing in disguise; for now we have a free offer:
Technologies are largely available And even more so:
Strategies are largely available
Organisational structures are identifiable
and have a name There is a clear-cut goal
- but state power is much too strong and democracy much to weak.
-----
Viable technology
Viable technology LOGOS stands for knowledge - which makes technology
more than just technique.The term also denotes knowledge. Both our own and nature’s
wisdom. And ways of organising a given technique. And how we and our own minds
are structured by any technique. This makes technology an inclusive term for
technique, knowledge and organisation.
A nuclear plant is not a proper vehicle for democratic control and does not encourage democratic modes of organisation. By contrast, windmills profit from democratic management. In fact, shared ownership around the production of energy, milk, pork and water did account for superior quality, large incomes, modest prices and a vital democracy in a prolonged, simplistic period of Danish history. This era, alas, has become a thing of the past. Put on shares and offered for sale together with the right to dispose. Put to rest by an unequivocal triad - experts, free competition and greed. We intend to learn from that past.
Decisions are ‘soft’. They can be undone, and they are susceptible to their own consequences. As for technology it is a different matter. Once established, a technology can never be undone. We will never be able to forget how to produce a nuclear plant - never forget that it is possible.
Physically speaking, there is another difference. Technology is ‘hard’. Once there it cannot be removed at a stroke. And the bigger and more expensive, the harder to get rid of. This fact is being increasingly exploited. The use of large-scale, and above all: cost-intensive - technologies is gradually eliminating our possibilities of changing, rethinking, redoing - which actually means that we are losing our potential to learn by experience and thus get wiser. Obviously, this is the underlying intention, when mega-technologies are being pressed on against the wish of the population.
If asked, we do not want highways; nor do we want the big shopping malls. However, once they exist, we are sure to use both - of course. And such large-scale technology will not be demolished - even now that the problems have begun to surface. Thus, the unviable mega-technologies have become efficient tools in the combat against common rule.
The Democracy Project The Enlightenment Project Any history is also the history of technology. Deeply religious farmers once populated the American South states with black slaves. The steam engine freed the slaves. But does that make the steam engine a viable technology, or farming an unviable one? It is not all that simple. Slavery or pesticides, both are plagues, and cotton production remains wrong. They are as ambiguous as industry and steam engine.
The question ends up right on our table: How do we use things, and how do they mould us? This point is promising and optimistic as well, for if anything, technology is our own doing: If we want to shape our life and history (and we do), then it is a also a question of technology. Today social life, environment, culture, and democracy are falling apart. This, too, has technological reasons.
A different pathway requires a different technology. Proper management of the
familiar one won’t do it. There is no such thing as a ‘proper’
way of managing nuclear plants, highways and pesticides. In that case we would
be discussing adopted, and not adapted technology. What we need is applied technology,
integrating four sustainability elements: environment, culture, social life,
and democracy. Only so can technology development follow through a solution
where doing the right thing is sometimes an uphill job.
Technology, a viable technology, also implies a democracy project and an enlightenment
project.
-----
Features of a viable technology
What are the features of a viable technology and its techniques? They include:
• reversibility, i.e. of nature enabling removal without irrepararable consequences.
• a local basis, i.e. that they respond to local conditions, and are based on local resources, climate and soil.
• integrating, meaning that any technology whose remains can be used as raw material for others, or which utilises the remains generated by other technologies will be preferred regardless of its economic feasibility.‹
• ‘cyclicity’, that is, applying reusable or recyclable materials.
• essential, including that it helps stop the shareholders of the agrochemical industry from increasing their profits.
• democratic, i.e. call for democratic organisation, and of a scale and risk profile open to control by democratic bodies.
• balanced, meaning that no technology should reach such dimensions or complexity that it can no longer be controlled by man or democratic bodies.
• be substitutive, meaning that by comparison any technology
is viable whenever substituting a less viable one.
Viable technology implies a rich knowledge and organisation structure Technology
has to be rich in knowledge and organisational structures, but light in matter.
As an example, ‘rich in structures’ implies that,
- the biogas plant will discuss slurry and sludge deliveries with the local
water treatment plant and the organic farmers;
- the organic farmers will contract with the biogas plant to have the residual
product returned and distributed. Such an approach will require that a social
dialogue on sludge quality is already in place - which in turn implies decisions
regarding agrochemicals; and the entire local community need to be involved,
since such manoeuvres are often not feasible from a purely economic viewpoint.
Other values will have to be thrown into the feasibility scales, and someone
will make sure to keep management people and economists away from the meetings.
And once the fish have returned to the sea, the farmers will agree with the
coastal fishermen for phosphate deliveries from landed seaweed and refuse -
and also with the local community, since this won’t be feasible either,
seen from the speculator’s viewpoint. And the CHP plant will supply
surplus heat for producing green-fodder pellets. And the biogas people, windmill
people and CHP people will get together for talks about how to optimise and
co-ordinate the heat and power supply. And everyone will meet and talk about
the school, the local co-operative bank and a local commitment to pension savings.
The same goes for the towns, even cities, and will invariably require productions
to be small-scale and viable. What we have at hand makes the technological landmarks
of something with a reasonable chance of evolving into common rule; however,
this cannot be done on a large-scale basis. It is only possible in a local way.
But then we might have the beginnings of some decent and meaningful harvest
festivals - and then we can let in the management folk. For a start, they might
just try to learn dancing with someone different than themselves.
Viable technology generates meaningful culture
Harvest comes before the harvest festival, in terms of chronology as well as
inspiration. Harvest is the ritualisation of a reality and an effort. As such,
the harvest creates the festival, and not vice versa - a true celebration. Obviously,
the local evening school is free to arrange a harvest festival, without having
completed a harvest; and of course the drivers of the machine pool are free
to arrange a harvest festival some late night, when they’ve taken
the station’s combine harvester to the garage; but such a lot won’t
amount to much of a dance. Which of course makes an excellent argument for returning
to men with scythes and harvest girls with rakes; it also underlines the simple
truth that the crop (the product) and the harvest (the effort) go before the
dance (culture). This is equally true of the topping-out ceremony and the launching
of a ship - all that we have left by now.
Or take the first strawberries of the year (in the days when they were seasonal) - an occasion in its own right, culture or not. Anyway, eating dilapidated insipid strawberries all the year round has nothing to do with culture. Detached from effort and occasion culture has deteriorated into entertainment - and one often used for compensation right where people have been excluded from efforts and occasions. Then they will make a little culture by themselves. Viewed in that light, it does somehow make monstrously sense when democratically elected politicians are insisting on more TV channels as the target of a major political effort. Increased air time is used for increasing the number of utterly stupidifying and violence-glorifying serials. Children are spending more and more time in front of the tellies, which all respectable politicians regret - only to canvass their voters using catchwords such as ‘more television channels’. If that’s supposed to be a culture policy we’d be better off without it.
A viable technology does not aim to create the basis of a meaningful culture;
however, it will .... There will be occasions to celebrate because we’ve
joined in, done well and can answer for it. Who knows, harvest festivals in
the Mariager Fiord area may have been a bit lame in 1997?
Horsecart and/or tractor?
Experiments have shown with irrefutable results that if you abstain from trimming
their tailtufts, cows are perfectly able to whisk the flies off their udders.
Considering the fact that no eggheads were involved in contriving the said tail,
it is quite a marvel what such a cow can think of; and compared to diverse technical
and chemical fly repellents this is what we could term a viable technology -
and nature’s own. Muscovy ducks in cowsheds is yet another viable fly-limiting
technology, a knowledge-intensive one that solely relies on the farmer’s
proficiency. So are genetically manipulated insecticides, of course; but in
their case the knowledge lies somewhere else, padlocked and patented. Reasonable
technology is rich in knowledge triggering action - in this case involving cows,
flies, and ducks. Obviously, it is harder to comprehend the intricacies of protein
synthesis and whatever else belongs to the paraphernalia of genetic manipulators.
Yet there is more inherent wisdom in the cow’s tailtuft - only, the cow
has it! The knowledge required on our part is about interacting with living
organisms. It’s the horse versus the tractor, or is it the horse and the
tractor? Could Little Claus and Big Claus be one and the same?
Looking at organic farming, we find the same picture, though with radically
increased requirements regarding the farmer’s insight, knowledge and intuition.
Drawing on nature’s wisdom is not simple and requires more than just knowledge:
intuition, insight and respect. While, in agrochemical agriculture, we may just
as well leave out the three aspects. With agrochemical agriculture you can grow
the same crop on the same spot of land for year and year again. The soil is
exhausted, encouraging plant disease and pests. In terms of plant diseases,
large monoculture areas, year by year, become just like refugee camps with cholera:
sheer pest-incubators. Making skilled farmers redundant, craftsmanship, liberating
us from nature - be it earth, climate or the vital requirements of organisms
themselves - that is the ambition of agrochemical agriculture. An unbelievably
primitive technology that has reduced agriculture, once a provider of necessities,
into the profit-generating vehicle of the agrochemical industries.
-----
Responsible economics
In many avenues of life we will balance benefits against drawbacks
- e.g. the agony of having a tooth filling against the consequences of not to.
- a reasoning with some economy and common sense to it. However, when it comes
to economic theory, any such common sense evapourates into thin air. It is based
on the assumption that it is in the basic 'nature' of money to make comparable
the incomparable, separate whoever reaps the profits from those who suffer the
drawbacks, sever the action from its aftermath. This produces the most peculiar
nonsensicalities, and deadly serious ones. Top-ranking economic scientists apply
the concept of 'optimal pollution' - meaning the break-even point where the
benefits of any polluting production will balance the disadvantages of this
same pollution. Obviously, this does not make sense; thus, in order to make
the approach make sense, a third unit is introduced: 'Society'. That is: a fictional
subject for whom plus and minus may balance (almost like the toothache-case).
And 'society' has absolutely nothing to do with being social. On the contrary
- The benefits are reaped by others than those who suffer the drawbacks!
Such a manoeuvre requires a common yardstick. Something enabling a comparison of benefits and drawbacks - MONEY. 'Environmental economy' is the name of the game, a mechanism for pricing a lark's trill, the cost of illness, loss of farmland, and of death. That is, 'price' instead of 'appreciation'. Losses associated with illness and death are calculated by the cost of treatment (what makes death the cheaper option), or lost working days. This implies that losses will decrease with lower wages and poorer education. Quite simple, you see, and the scientific basis of the sweeping statement that 'Africa is under-polluted'.
It is a bit harder when it comes to non-convertible entities, such as the lark's warble, culture, or ethics. However, economists manage to deal with that, too, though their mindset is a sick one. It is based on the assumption that the most valuable things are those that most people will pay the most for. Let's take an example: Mols bjerge, a hilly landscape in Denmark is quite an asset (this has been studied), while the Amager Fælled area, an open space in Metropolitan Copenhagen, is worth nothing (which has also been studied). And how come? Well, because some German tourist on a trip in Mols Bjerge was asked the following question, 'Let's assume there was an entrance fee to this area. What would you be prepared to pay?' - The tourist replied by stating a certain amount. However, if asked a similar question, a copenhagener (a Dane) would have asked the researcher economist with the questionnaire if he was nuts. 'Not a nickel. Damn it, this is our own place!' - So much for the technicalities of the case. The implications are worse, since the value such assets does not lie with the price we are prepared to pay, but with whatever they are and do to ourselves. Mols Bjerge and free public libraries are most valuable to the rebellious brat who is willing to pay ten Danish kroner for not having to go there, an assumption based on quite a different set of values than the economist's - assuming that we do have a set of values. One that makes us simplistic enough to venture a judgement to the effect that 'this is good', and 'that is bad'. Venture to insist that the brat would actually benefit from a walk in Mols Bjerge or from paying a visit to a Danish public library.
Such an argumentation is sheer Simpleton Jack and way beyond the comprehension
of the market. Nevertheless (or rather, therefore) such judgements should lie
at the foot of any attempt to let the economic rationale unfold.
Some thrive on destruction
'Benefits from economies of scale' - that's what they call the
fact that the number of Danish farms is steadily declining, at present at a
rate of 11 units a day. - Benefits to whom? This is a major issue. Whenever
things go completely wrong, it's actually because someone profits from it. And
surely the large farm units do. It has been politically decided that the number
of DK farm units should be shrunk to about 10,000 - due to economies of scale.
However the process has a lot of adverse effects, including a transfer of people
from agriculture, the DK population segment with the lowest mortality figures,
and to the unskilled labour sector, the population segment with the highest
mortality in this country. A post World War 2 transfer of minimum 200,000 people
from the lowest mortality group to the highest one! Did our economic soothsayer
include this aspect in his forecasts, when counting the blessings of economies
of scales? Or the pollution load on our groundwater, or the declining sperm
quality found in agrochemical farmers? Or the medicated fodder and resistant
bacteria in large-scale pig production? - He didn't. But then, did the minister
who gave the soothsayer the title and the task include it? For presumably, it
would be fair to consider this a political issue, since it isn't an economic
one? Nor yet. His task is to suspend the political powers, using the economic
ones - with large scale production and monotony as the result.
So now, perhaps, the top manager of the Danish National Broadcasting Company
will merge all editorial staffs, broadcasting and television into one unit.
“There are economies of scale to be earned from only employing one reporter”,
says the manager-guy, on behalf of a profession that once considered comprehensive
coverage a virtue.
Irresponsible - and responsible money
Economy has been polluted, too. Economy and people are being
pressed by the 2-in-1 pesticide and fertiliser - interest. And money needs no
help, when it comes to running up the biggest yields and the most brutish production.
That's why billions are travelling the globe each day, on the quest for even
more. More money. Giant conglomerates are breaking international law, and are
knowingly allowed to - fair enough, since intervention would lead to mass unemployment,
social unrest, civil war and national collapses. Nationally, banks are manipulating
our public administration and politics. We have no way of fully understanding
what's going on. Money matters have grown too big, too complicated, so even
levying taxes on motor vehicles is too difficult. The result is everlasting
cases of politicising civil servants , politicians reduced to civil servants,
the Danish folketing acting as a judiciary, and the legal profession being interdicted
from drawing legal conclusions. Common rule and administration mores are collapsing
under the burden of complexity.
By contrast, finding the road to maximum usefulness and responsibility will
require judiciousness and decisions - and legally competent bodies - democratic
ones. We need a community open to announcements such as, “We want our
savings and pension scheme payments to stay with this company with lower returns
- for then we can also keep our school. We want to place our savings and pension
scheme payments in these farm units, for then we can avoid pesticides in our
groundwater.” Such communities need to be created, in the form of co-operative
banks, local contracts for pension scheme savings and groundwater resources.
The foolish thing of it all is that some people are already working along those
lines, and not so long ago there was a lot of them. We are facing a productive
retreat. The issue is not whether it is possible or not. It's a question of
just doing it - and then stop whoever wants to go the opposite way in doing
their thing. There is a need for a structural pruning of economy; we'll have
to return to small-scale local money with responsibility and commitment, of
dimensions where we are still able to handle fraud and swindle - an economy
that can go bankrupt without pulling entire archipelagos nations along in its
fall.
Two modes of growth
Everything grows. Plants do, and animals, and people - and economies
grow. This has caused some people to mistakenly believe that plant growth and
economic growth are related phenomena. They are not, they are complete contrasts.
Any living organism will stop growing, once it has reached maturity. It will
grow only until its destiny is fulfilled, being capable of breeding new life.
At that point any additional growth (often horizontal!) is undesired. For economy
(the way we've organised it) growth is imperative economic growth being a function
of economy itself, self-referential, right until its implosion. By contrast
Organic growth relates to its own environment. A rain forest has no growth as
such - though everything in it grows more lushly and exuberantly than anything
we know. The evolution history has gradually minimised growth and replaced it
with an 'expert system', a variety of dynamically balanced functions. Economists
could learn a lesson or two from such highly sophisticated systems.
The winner - not always the best man
Competitive sports involve competition. Fair enough. The outcome
is a winner whom, with unfailing logic, we call 'the best'. This makes sense,
in this simple sense - which has clouded the brains of economic scholars: They
believe something similar applies to the realm of economy. They believe that
economic competition makes a guarantee that the best man will invariably win.
This is not so - not even by a long shot. In the past, when the ploughshare
was developed to perfection, this was not the outcome of competition between
ploughmen, but of day-to-day working with plough and soil. Experience-based
knowledge, evolved through a dialogue between man, tool and matter is sure to
produce running optimisations.
With the advent of money economy something new occurred. A shift from optimisation to maximisation. Competition is a deteriorating force, and once competition was installed as a religion, such deteriorations were made legitimate. An example: Decades before culture became tititainment, television was commercialised, and children were targeted for marketing - people knew that competitive media would produce consistently poorer quality. Provided, of course that you measure quality by another standard than just quantity. In those days they did have a set of values on which to base their judgement. - Economy and contemporary politicians don't.
Groundwater, food and sperm quality are allowed to deteriorate, day by day
- in the interests of competition. Vast sums are invested in having necessary
as well as superfluous tasks done by fewer and fewer people. More and more people
have to live on income transfer - in the interests of competition. And in the
interests of competition we still insist on pouring antibiotics into healthy
piglets.
Societal contracts versus competition
The very concept of competition has changed. Once a device for improving
things, more efficiently and cost-effectively, competition is now made the justification
of all serious deteriorations to our lives, environment and future. However,
the fact that large-scale technologies outperform small-scale ones does not
imply 'the bigger, the better'. Not by a long shot. The explanation lies with
the very nature of competition: it will favour whoever is the more brutal, more
single-minded; whoever can think of the best way to pass the bill on to the
next generation. A junk-chicken-producing, salmonella-ridden farm is not 'better'
in any sense of the word. Nor is monoculture pesticide-apple-production 'better'
in any sense of the word. 'Better' are those apple orchards where hens have
taken over as weed and insect controllers and manure providers. In order to
find the best solutions we will need some radically different approaches. This
will call for dialogue. Dialogue between those performing a given action, and
those affected by this same action: people, living and unborn, and nature. Only
then will a dialogue between hens, trees and producers emerge - an approach
that will call for landstewardship.
Quality
World-wide, in embassies and emperors' palaces, we find Danish furniture,
rightly considered the world's most outstanding. These products were not made
with emperors or ambassadors in mind, but indeed from a simpletonic democratic
vision of quality, mediated by such a simpletonic contraption as the Danish
co-op society. Quality for people. For the people. And by people who took no
orders from any market, and who were uncompromising when it came to materials,
aesthetics or craftsmanship. People who took the snooty position of actually
knowing better in their own field of expertise - which is the prerogative of
any democracy. Some feel this is democracy - including a few politicians. It
isn't. This is business and opportunism, something entirely different. Democracy
requires everyone to uncompromisingly do his or her best. This goes for traffic
ministers and for politicians in general. Only so can we achieve a quality that
will ensure our sense of quality; the same could understanding could very well
be extended to our relationship with nature. In Hans Christian Andersen's fairy-tale,
the emperor prefers the man-made nightingale. Only on his deathbed, when the
natural nightingale sings him back to life, does he realise his mistake. The
natural nightingale is better. Nature is better. Nature is actually good, for
very obvious reasons: This is how it was made. All organisms were produced by
nature, in nature and for nature - and above anything: for one another. This
is not just goodness. It is pure love of a gender that will not stand for being
crucified. It simply cannot be done any better.
What we call for is a new deal with competition. Wherever competition proves
destructive, it will be replaced by societal contracts. Such contracts should
be coined for many levels, and bodies to participate in those contracts should
be set up. This will require us to meet and discuss how we want to organise
ourselves - the way we've always done it, whenever Denmark went upwards.
In this country, competition has closed down 100,000 farm units since World War II, and continues to do so at a rate of 11 units a day. We know the winners, a new squirearchy. (In region Thy, Denmark, one of those land sharks has purchased 49 farm units so far). And they all use pesticides. But then, all farmers are using pesticides, except for the eco-simpletons. For without pesticides they cannot make their properties accrue interest - so they say, as though they owned their own land, including its groundwater. OK, let's just assume they cannot make their 'properties' accrue without pesticides; but then, presumably, they bought them too dear - and then it might be about time for them to strike a social contract with future generations?: That once they sell their 'properties', they will sell them so cheap that their successors can make them accrue without using pesticides. Simply by agreeing with the estate agent that he will of course sell the land, including rain and groundwater, as cheap as possible, and at least 15 percent below market price - enough to drop the pesticides. Looking at major social contracts, we could have a look at co-operative farming, land rent, shared ownership, or a re-allocation scheme. In Danish history such schemes, initiated by the Danish 'Enclosure Movement, have proved highly successful, and have yielded high grade foodstuffs.
The democratic bottom and the mafiose top Democracy is based on the numskullic notion that ordinary people are able to control themselves and their own society. But we aren't any longer. We don't rise to our tasks any longer, neither as a democracy, politically, nor as people. On the contrary. We are growing smaller, relatively and in absolute terms - a situation that has a technological component: New chemical compounds are being developed a hundred times faster than we are able to have their consequences assessed. With the implication that impacts of our technologies are growing faster than our knowledge can keep pace - a gap widening at an exponential rate.
So relatively speaking, we are getting smaller. And so we are in absolute terms, with heavy implications for democracy. Considering the technological advances that politicians are promoting so eagerly, politics have gradually shrunk into nothing; so the truly smart are shrewd enough to stay clear of politics. They'll stick to production and send in their puppets instead, and make them provide the desired conditions. Which in numerous fields means 'doing nothing whatsoever'. Making sure that democracy is dismantled - just enough for money and technology to expand freely, and just enough to prevent too many of us from finding out too soon.
On the bottom floor of Danish agriculture we find people spending their money on developing productions that do not pollute the groundwater for other people and future generations. Numskulls staking their livelihoods and dwellings on their quest for new sustainable modes of production. On the top floor of Danish agriculture we find people who are dead earnest when claiming compensations if polluting our groundwater is disallowed. Really, that's a thoroughly mafiose invention, tantamount to protection money - like pressing money from a merchant for not smashing his shop.
On the bottom floor of Danish politics people are slaving. Danes are democrats, and they insist on advancing an ever so numskullic notion - that a democracy is ruled by the people. We elect people to rule, and our hopes for a democratic alternative continue to thrive on these people. On the top floor of Danish politics a targeted effort is being made to drain democracy of its substance: Common rule is redefined as state rule (and not in the benign sense of the word), while the marketplace is called democracy. And access to this top floor is only for those who are prepared to renounce power - i.e. mostly those prepared to secure the dominance of economy by abstaining from doing anything at all. These puppets disclaim every responsibility. 'It's the consumer's decision', so they say, at the same time throwing obstacles in the way of the political consumer - presumably the only rescue within sight. All of which, of course is only possible where politics have ceased to exist.
So that's the top floor of Danish agriculture - busy dismantling our political democracy, at a time when practically any major enterprise is discussing responsibility and ethics. Even the most hard-core private enterprises are working out their own goals for democratic management structures, within reasonable limits, and democratic goals in relation to markets and human rights, and within reasonable limits. Coerced, not politically, by the political consumer. Even Shell Company recently launched their own human rights and environmental policies. Before long the top people of Danish agriculture will be the only group management to insist on freedom from responsibility. Which, of course, is only possible where moral standards have ceased to exist.
A political upgrading of the market on the cost of politics and democracy has
set free the forces which are now driving technology and economy towards a sheer
run-away. Technology and structures increase in scope and complexity beyond
our control. In our wisdom we have constructed a world that we are not smart
enough to manage - so we just don't.
Criteria of a viable technology strategy
How to assess - for we need to. Technologies must be assessed, and
more than anything, the production of non-knowledge. Can we do such a thing
- assess what we it is we don't know?
An example - a dairy and a nuclear plant. Are we able to assess the quality of everything we do not know about these two? Surely, but things are not necessarily that simple. We have to set up criteria, new criteria for the assessment of knowledge and non-knowledge. The mere assessment of the 130,000 registered chemical compounds already in production an impossible project. New substances are added faster than existing ones can be assessed. What could these compounds cause, when mixed - within the human body or in nature? We've plainly decided to stop thinking about it. Quite understandably so. The project is impossible. No scientific effort will suffice. A different set of criteria is needed:
• The cautionary criterion: Reasonable doubt should always be to the benefit of the most reasonable technology.
• The tendency criterion: Allergies are on the rise, sperm quality is deteriorating, diabetes is increasing.
We do not know the reasons underlying such trends, apart from the vague explanation of ' development'.
We should respect this, and the general development trend should be changed.
• Substantiality criterion: Is a given technology essential, or even necessary, and if so: to whom?
• Motivation criterion: What is the basic motive: Solving a vital problem, covering a legitimate need, or simply greed?
• Consequence criterion: Can we think of negative impacts of a technology that - to an isolated view - appears reasonable? Will it solve a problem by producing other, maybe greater problems for future generations?
• Nature criterion: Does a given new technology co-operate with or work against nature's processes?
• Sympathy criterion: Do we like it?
The child
The child A pioneering educator once said that something is missing
at the Danish Wartime Museum: The spitball of the unknown schoolchild!
Staffs from day nursery, youth clubs and schools - professionals are increasingly influencing the education and socialisation of our children, and someone even earned a doctorate by proving, on a strictly scientific basis, that making hideaways and climbing trees are good for children. So now they know, the kiddies!
10 to 16 year olds watch TV the most. The lingo of the commercials has become children’s language. Distorted, idolised and caricature versions of something resembling people’s everyday lives are presented as models. Disguised as humour we let them go down. For we are a good-humoured people who like to be snug and cosy in prime time. And prime time ends up being the primary part of our children’s lives!
School should instil democracy into our children, as it says in the ‘writ’. This creates a dilemma. Developing a child for the world of free enterprise, or bringing it up to face life itself - these things are not the same, they are contrasts. Life - and then a business world using the media to structure the everyday lives and values of schools and children alike; a business world that is increasingly exploiting our children in order to increase turnovers. - an effort that our society has rewarded with Denmark’s only tax-free business activity so far: advertising.
And it does sink in. Into our language, our social conventions, and our minds. The result is lack of self-esteem and identity, loss of roots and values and a quest for fullness. Life is for sale, idolatry, unattainable instead of life-size ideals. The force of example is creating constantly insecure teenagers - do I look right, smell right? - Which in turn boosts turnovers. The more efficient the manipulation, the weaker the value basis - and the more are children prepared to behave in a self-centred and opportunistic manner. No reflections on their individual actions, merely reactions to actual situations. Forming friendships and communities gets harder, and they are constantly at risk. Disagreements on music or idols can make a group split up in a rabid reaction. And reaction does not produce insights; only action does.
Our children’s world is deliberately being split into discrete realities, where the real one often has an ever so slight role to play. Children are constantly moving between institutionalised worlds, covered one to one by people paid to nurse, care for, teach and educate. But what children really need is involvement. - Involvement in the reciprocal commitments of a community with values miles apart from those of ‘The Wheel of Fortune’. Experience-based learning-by-succeeding. Children can to things on their own, if we let them.
Politicians keep saying that we need to relieve our children and their parents.
Not for going home to their Hoover - but to their kids instead. What we need
is time for our children. ‘Time’ - is the talk of the town, and children
- and all the while, parenthood leaves suffer cutbacks, and the pace is forced
up. But actually, our politicians are in no state to do anything about it. Actually,
they are stark naked. Actually, they oughta have a spitball right in the back
of their heads!
The adults
• Universities and schools of commerce are training
people in ‘leadership’, sheer and pure ‘leadership’, management.
And such managers may then flip-flop from hospital administration to journalism,
from the ministry of war to The Royal Theatre, from Denmark’s Communist
Party to surveillance, mass lay-offs and commercialisation of the postal services.
Ballet or war ministry, illness or parcel post - they are all the same. Just
like money, management will wipe out any qualitative difference. Such people
are called symbol analysts. And they are the folks who insist that ‘elderly
ladies have anything to fear from unserviced railway stations, for we have provided
service phones right next to the ticket machines!’ - The statement (an
authentic one) was offered by one highly educated/salaried illiterate from the
top floor of the Danish railway administration. And illiteracy is his very qualification:
our man just doesn’t know what he is talking about; that’s how he
merits his salary. A service phone, indeed! When filling stations lay off their
staff, they became service stations. And this perverting language is now helping
the service society gain foothold. In the virtual reality of the management
folks there are no risks. But they are - a mortal one, and very modern.
• In Copenhagen, the capital: For a start, the non-polluting tramcars were discontinued, because they were blocking the cars, and trolley buses were introduced. Then the non-polluting trolley-buses were discontinued, because they blocked the cars. Now cars are blocking the cars. So the most recent proposal is to launch a rocket with a satellite, which is to look down at each and every car - how does it move, for how long - and then bill it. And this happened the year when the same Danish minister inaugurated a freeway extension which on a daily basis (so the annotations to the Bill) would convert 1,000 rail commuters to Copenhagen into car passengers. And the very same year our government proclaimed their goal: a doubling of road haulage over the next ten years. And that year our Ministry for the Environment announced that exhaust fumes are killing 500 people, on an annual basis. In our own capital.
• The progress of the nation: Productions are launched that pollute our environment, poison our groundwater and supply inferior foodstuffs. Next thing, these foodstuffs are ‘enhanced’ with additives. This is what they call ‘functional food’, a field in which our government hopes to see Denmark as a pioneering country.
No wonder that people’s humour and good spirits are taxed: No school revue
would ever get away with inventing such stories.
Retreat
In case of emergency: Please stay calm. Our staff is trained to handle
any situation. The relevant authorities have been informed, and help is under
way”. This is the message of the mandatory ‘safety video’ of
CatLink ferries, featuring a soft male voice reassuring the passengers with
the picture of a controlled emergency. A study covering several ferry services
showed that 60 percent of the staff did not know how to put on their life vests.
‘Handle any situation’, yes indeed!
Our technical potency is growing faster than our understanding of risks and consequences. This has produced a new type of risk that we might term the ‘modern risk’. We do not know much about it, and that’s a point.
When a windmill drops a wing, hitting the windmiller’s head, then the local newspaper can spread the news that ‘Miller has died’, and everyone will know why. That is a classic risk. But when the EU agrees on threshold values for radioactive isotopes, meaning that radioactive steel will be ‘diluted’ with non-radioactive steel to be used for producing tin-mugs for kindergarten kids - then we have no idea what is happening, and who will be ‘hit’. What does not have a name passes unnoticed, except for the one hit - who will never know why.
Science is able to supply every information about the desired qualities of many new compounds - they are actually advertised. For a few compounds science can also tell us about their non-desired qualities; but scientists cannot tell us what we do not know about such new compounds. Each new compound will produce additional non-knowledge. Not just in terms of the relevant compound and ourselves, but also regarding the compound’s synergisms with innumerable other compounds, and against man. The amount of non-knowledge is on the increase. We are made dumber by virtue of the huge research effort. This is part of the modern risk.
We use to talk of ‘the enigma of cancer’, most often when pleading for new advanced research, such as genetic engineering. The very same genetic engineering technology is used for producing plants that will tolerate a number of herbicides, one of which (banned in the USA, but not in Denmark) is carcinogenic! The greatest enigma of cancer is that we are politically determined and hell-bent on spreading carcinogenic substances in our own environment.
Diabetes is treated using insulin produced by genetically engineered yeast
cells. Surely an advance; but still diabetes is a condition that emerges with
a number of other diseases wherever industrialism and the modern way of living
are in progress. The man-made increase in several diseases is greater than what
medical research can ever hope to cope with - it could be called a modern syndrome.
Especially since no research is investigating what caused the increase.
What the Old Man does, and what the Old Lady understands
What the Old Man does, and what the Old Lady understands “I’d rather
have a sore back from hoeing turnips than from pesticides”; thought The
Old Man when he swapped his agrochemical shares for an old, rusty hoe. For that
he was kissed, and not slapped as his bank adviser had betted. And the hoe got
shiny with wear.
Bringing about a reasonable technological development will involve a retreat
to classic risks, and in more than one respect. By using technologies that respect
the environment, are democratic, involve their users and strengthen the social
bonds within local communities, we will be able to act far more prudently, and
above all, show greater responsibility. Even illness has a democratic aspect
with technological implications. Our transportation policy, a democratic decision,
is inflicting a particularly high cancer risk on the children of our cities.
This is not just tragic; it’s non-democratic, too. A democratic health
concept would automatically point to the fact that the estimated, though anonymous
500 annual deaths caused by exhaust fumes are a lot more interesting than a
handful of ever so personal heart transplants. Such considerations could produce
different technologies, and different modes of organising our traffic and transportation,
etc. Our assignment is a production which is more sustainable in every respect,
by which we can reverse our planet from modern risks towards more classic ones.
For this to materialise we shall need people whose knowledge is based on experience
combined with theory. Which in turn requires respect for common sense.
-----
Global enlightenment, development, and democracy
In two major respects our planet is heading towards a confrontation:
• In the poor world population figures are still rocketing, for biological and social reasons, and with good reason.
• In the rich world we have founded an economy that has to grow exponentially, for financial and political reasons, and with very little reason.
The rich world is carpet-bombing the poor world with air-borne propaganda for the ‘rich’ lifestyle. These poor people are made familiar with cars, videos and energy consumerism - so that’s how they want to live, too. The process has been set in motion, and those images can no longer be deleted.
Getting on from that point will require an enlightenment project, a development project, and a democracy project of vast dimensions. The greatest project could be the enlightenment project, to make these people understand that whatever images of the wealthy world they are watching on their tellies are all lies. The development project involves a consistent stake on viable technologies for the agricultural and industrial production that we need so urgently, in order to provide material safety. Our luck, that we only know three effective means of reducing population growth: material security, education and women’s liberation. In a similar way, the democracy project is closely linked up with security, a prerogative for the equitable distribution of goods and for a sustainable resource management.
In the rich world growth springs from simple greed, though necessitated by
structural need. This makes modesty an irresponsible behaviour. We have opted
for an economy that will collapse without growth. This choice will have to be
redone. Consumption must go down, the McDonaldization must be stopped, quality
and meaning must fill the gap of junk-food and junk-culture ... This will call
for organisational modes in which are able to navigate, and which make visible
the impacts of our actions.
A political two-way ticket
Creating true and necessary advances will have to be a combination
of two movements - forward and back.
• Forward - towards new viable technologies - in which energy consumption and violence are replaced for insight, co-operation with nature and resourcefulness. Technologies, and an economy household in which resource efficiency implies that any resource will generate a maximum of human effort, instead of a minimum. Communism’s and capitalism’s joint, imbecile quest for the so-called economies of scale has to be exchanged for sound judgement and usefulness.
• Back - to productions re-specting nature’s wisdom,
as well as the experience-based insights of craftsmanship. Back to a culture
rooted in the process of life and production, instead of consumption. From consumerism
to consumption, from McDonaldization to versatility, from tititainment to standpoints,
from mass-produced idiocy to meaningful merriment.
Free us from over-exertion
As for the societal management of what considers itself a consumer
society, ‘the political consumer’ is a central figure. Central
enough for some (mostly politicians) to confound consumption with democracy,
and therefore refuse to control it. What we get is a democracy in which money
is power, much money is much power, and over-consumption is over-power. Advocates
of the system think of the money note as the most important ballot-paper. However,
if we do want to re-think a democracy concept that will not just address man,
an infinitely free subject, the measure of all things, but also nature and ‘the
needful’ - then we will need to address the conceptual part and the
frame conditions set by nature, economy and technology. Such a broad scope will
require attention to specific and qualitative aspects, and to differences: We
cannot drive a horse as we do a tractor, we cannot run nature as a man-made
device, and we cannot run a theatre as we run a shipyard. We’ll need
sound judgement - a commodity only available to those who have their feet right
in it.
In this country - where until recently, the expression of “voting
based on heads and not on cattle” used to be common primary school
knowledge. With that in mind, insisting on a different agenda should be possible.
An agenda making democracy equal common rule, and something new: a development
in which things are much more inclined to go the right way on their own, and
where we don’t need to suffer the permanent over-exertion of political
consumers. Where we can allow ourselves to plainly shop, when we do so. Where
the choice between milk and milk is a based on price and taste - and not one
involving groundwater, sperm quality, marine environment, ozone holes and the
climate and sea level of future generations - on the antipodes. Where, occasionally,
you can allow yourself to simply not care, without endangering Planet Earth;
and where, as a minimum, you have to put in a special and deliberate effort,
if you do feel the pesticide level of the groundwater is getting too low. In
that case, you would have to ask for P-milk, pesticide milk. - Actively. And
pay extra for it. Unless we decide to leave out that option entirely. Determined
to rule the ordinary popular way - common rule.
All power to the simpletons
Numskulls are not ascetic in terms of power - they just detest it.
By now, only the truly political politician can re-politicise politics. “Hey-ho”,
cried Numskull Jack - and smack, went the loveliest handful of sludge right
in the mugs of general managers, management folks and consultants - and in the
prime minister’s, too.
-----