Sustainability Now! works to meet Basic Human
Needs by exploring how social equity can be the foundation
for community-wide sustainability. If we all work together
to fully embrace sustainability to the depth that includes
the most basic and elemental aspects of what is needed
to sustain life and communities, then we are clearly
acting on the basic principle of interdependence – that
we are all in this together.
This
is fundamentally a different paradigm from what
prevails in our American society,
that
is, “survival
of the fittest.” Modern, money-maximizing,
humanity-minimizing beliefs have become a malady
that infects every facet of our society from education
and family to medicine and politics. The “survival
of the fittest” view holds that it is OK for
some to benefit from the resources and opportunities
that nature provides, without consideration for how
use of these resources can benefit all of life, human
and other species. It is a paradigm of self interest
dominating over communal concern.
Is
this paradigm also dominating our human communities,
where we disregard those
who are not
succeeding within
the framework of “business as usual?” What
economy, ecology, and social framework allow for
ALL to have what they need? How can we approach the
idea of a sustainable future, until we take into
consideration the needs of all people and all forms
of life, so that we can achieve a balance of interests
and needs that we can all be satisfied with? This
is an economy of sufficiency rather than excess,
and a willingness to care and be in community in
ways that consider the needs of everyone. The absence
of these needs being met equitably in our human communities
underlies all forms of violence, conflict, and destruction
to our communal life.
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