It is necessary to explore underdevelopment in the context of the opposite overdevelopment in ultra-modern so-called developed societies. The common conventional belief is that money buys us happiness. Ronald Engelhard of the University of Michigan says money buys happiness but only to a degree. Once money and consuming things becomes a compulsion in upper income societies, the money and progress associated with economic growth becomes the ends instead of the means. Instead of making money to live better, we live to make money. We have been compelled to fall into line and conform to this model of thinking even those most of us do not believe that life is all about making money. Malnourishment inadequate infrastructure, unsanitary living and health systems and social degradation in the developing world need to seen in parallel with the rampant consumerism, illicit drug addiction, the obesity and health care crisis and the social degradation in .developed world.. All this centers on the core of the problem matrix, which is sustained by a complex confluence ofvested interests promoting unhealthy levels of consumption to sustain antiquated economic systems more concerned with sustaining the system than the people the system is supposed to serve.
A coherent and authentic social system is important says Francis Fukayama because humans build healthy relationships based on trust. When societies have problems in relation to rising cynicism in relation to the intentions of those in power and the resulting momentum of society we see a fear based economy emerge leading to an increasing accumulation of mental and emotional baggage. It is these emotional accumulations in life, which keep us from working productively with others.
Affluent societies consume so much more than is sustainable and necessary for a prosperous existence because our social architecture affirms the problem matrix instead of helping us to realize our full potential as humans. We feel alienated from each other and an authentic sense of community so we overeat, smoke, shop till we drop, drive big, fast cars and live in large overstuffed houses, doing all the things the commercial culture tells us to do in order to find success. Our life cycles begin to revolve not around people but around consumption. We start to realize that every aspect of our lives bases itself on these superficial assumptions: that money, possessions and social status define the most important attributes of what it means to be a successful human being, including architecture and the design of our built environments.
The Tipping Point
The time for action is now not tomorrow but now. All the things that keep us stable, secure and complacent in our modern affluent lives are at risk. There is a definite need for events and movements that shake people out of their complacency, but not to a degree, that totally destabilizes our economy and society. We need to overcome our fears, our self-loathing, our sense of being burned-out and exhausted by the insane modern world we live in and find the inner strength to respond to the challenges we face. We only have the power to overcome and overpower the snowballing effect of negative trends on the state of the world, if we believe we have the power. Yet it is not enough though to believe in humanity or ourselves we have to develop a way of cultivating and channeling that power into a wisdom-based process of confronting these trends and the people and organizations behind them. The resulting mental and emotional uplift can literally move mountains, and this is exactly the kind of human momentum needed to get us out of the current conundrum.
Realizing and then Harnessing our Potential
By using the material affluence of the west to help those in developing regions in desperate need to develop modern economic and social institutions we begin to overcome that sense of emotional poverty that so many of us feel. An important aspect of service to humanity is that it can help people to develop a sense of well being. As we look at environmental and social problems that we face as a species, we begin to see that the challenges humanity faces are pretty much the same in all parts of the world. There are great advantages to living in affluent nations. People in affluent societies on a physical level are doing well, however many are experiencing a sense of great loss in relation to the lack of authentic community structures. This leads us to lifestyles choices and habits feeding the problem matrix. While the economic food chain that lives off the problem matrix grows profitably from the sickness of others, the social and natural commons looks increasingly degraded leaving us on an emotional level with an empty stomach in a land of physical plentitude a results of a neglect of our obligations and responsibilities to the larger global sphere.
A Social Architecture Based on Human Empowerment
This solutions orientated approach is based on a holistic understanding of the problem matrix and an expanded notion of poverty emotional poverty. What emerges from this critical discussion is a radical reconstruction of the positive and life affirming social matrix the social architecture. The process of rebuilding our civilization therefore must start with the most basic building blocks the neighborhood, redefining success, and what it means to live in community in the modern world. Instead of patching and stitching together, a broken system based on faulty assumptions of how the world works those who espouse an integrated and holistic approach sustainable development aims to totally rebuild modern human civilization, one neighborhood at a time. Embedded within sustainability is the importance of a human scale, built environment.
The solutions to the current situation are known and available but not widely known and widely available. When we add the components of elegant frugality and voluntary simplicity to the equation, sustainable development may actually be less challenging in many developing societies than it is in developed world. This is because the key to sustainable development is not technology but cultural cohesion. People who cannot think collectively can have all the sustainable technologies in the world but if they cannot create a social architecture from which to integrate it into a cohesive whole they are doomed to failure.
Those involved in the ecovillage movement have stressed cultural and social development on a community level over more physical and tangible concerns.
Ecovillages are a key strategy in the process to help make ecologically and socially appropriate technologies and approaches more accessible to the world on a decentralized and human scale level. The solutions we collectively represent have the potential to catalyze maximum global and regional movement toward the larger and long terms goals of sustainability but only if we focus our energies on our immediate realities, transforming ourselves first. We must become and embrace the change that we want to see in the larger world it must course through our veins and beat in our heart.