Introduction
Two prominent words in the title need explanation:
- Ground refers both to the terra firma, a.k.a. Nature,
within and upon which we (the human species) live, the Earth's biosphere,
and to the need to find a solid philosophical
ground upon which to base the contemplation of World Sustainability ---
the goal of my project. Humans inhabit the Biosphere and must learn
to re-inhabit the Biosphere. Prevailing ideologies and paradigms
that got us into this predicament will need to undergo profound transformation
to define a path to World Sustainability.
- Soul refers to what Hegel called Second Nature,
the specific potentiality of human nature, the soul. I contend that
World Sustainability is achieved not only by living within the carrying
capacity of the biosphere, but to live in such a way as to realize
the authentic potentially of being distinctively human.
This construction shifts the emphasis away from sacrifice or doing without,
which will inevitably occur as we exhaust natural resource endowments,
but puts the stress on living well within the dizzying variety of cultures
that humans have developed all over the Earth. Attributes of living well
include inclusivity and fairness, a far cry from the prevailing regime
of economic globalization.
Two goals focus our exploration:
- Restoration and conservation of Nature, now overwhelmed in its carrying
capacity by the stress placed on it by our species.
- Universal hospitality that promotes development,
not merely growth in physical dimensions.
A Three Act Play
Imagine this project as an allegorical three act play with only several characters.
The
three acts are these:
- The action begins within the Anthropocene, the nascent period in Earth
history within which we now live.
- The current malaise defined as what ever you like: post-industrial, post-modern,
globalization, whatever you please. I prefer the term Technosphere,
as formulated by a rather gloomy and inscrutable philosopher, Martin
Heidegger, who defined the Earth as diminished within a totalizing technical
grasp that rendered all of Nature to a resource to be manipulated and
managed by humanity. The Technosphere thus eviscerated both Nature and
Second Nature, the human soul. The second act explains this crisis through
the tragic flaw, as however you wish to interpret this flaw.
- The final act, up to the audience really, I will call the Noosphere,
a nearly
forgotten term invented a long time ago by the Russian geophysicist Vernadsky
and later introduced by Teilhard de Chardin, to put the Biosphere, which
Vernadsky introduced
into our
parlance, with its evolutionary inheritance, the Noosphere. This plays
on the Greek term
Nous, meaning, broadly, mind or spirituality.
Noosphere merges the Biosphere with the potential of human evolution,
so at least hints at a happy resolution of the crisis.
So, this projects humanity's ascent into the dominant force within the Biosphere,
the Anthropocene, but with a fundamental and potentially tragic flaw, the
Technosphere. The resolution, which lies before us, is the discovery of the
Noosphere. (Since you are accessing this document on the Internet, you get
the
idea.)
And who are the actors on this stage? Let me introduce all eight of them to
you:
- Earth, or Nature, if you will. But nature has two children:
- The Biosphere, the thin but miraculous mantel of life, dimly
understood but in critical shape.
- Ecosystems, or, if you will, bioregions. These are diverse segments
of the Biosphere, each with its own attributes and dynamism.
- Human Culture, in the aggregate but with a wide mosaic
of manifestations. I will refer to these individual modes of Being as
Worlds that are inhabited by humans within the Biosphere and its specific
ecosystems. But culture, too, has offspring that involve the culture's
inhabitation of the Biosphere and its ecosystems:
- The Economy provides the material means for
production, consumption, and inhabitation. The Economy, however,
has exceeded its inherent limits of physical drawdowns and, due
to its character, ignores much of the so-called side effects
it produces. Underneath the formal economy is a substantive economy
that is embedded within both Nature and Culture. Frequently,
the Economy regards itself as the end, not the means, which has
no place in this presentation.
- The other means is Technology, with science,
also part of culture. Science and Technology provide tools by
which Culture inhabits the Biosphere and its constituent Ecosystems.
Technology, like Economy, often intrudes into the territory of
ends, overstepping its bounds. Science, often for hire, invents
Technology and is considered as a component of Technosphere.
- Another means that often encroaches into self-serving ends is
the State, or government, that formulates public Policy that
interacts with the Economy, and with Culture, but in often hidden
ways.
- Another player has recently entered upon the stage, Civil
Society,
the realm of democracy and citizenship. Civil Society has been
around for a long while (read Toqueville) but has been largely
ignored,
until lately. But Civil Society, an unruly player now feeling
its way, will not go away and will interact with all of the above.
Civil Society
has emerged as a player on the world stage.