Sufficiency Step No. 2

The title of this and subsequent posts about Sufficiency are presented as a series of numbered steps in order to create the impression of a walk forward in time as I wish to impress upon the reader the transitional nature of this dialog.

Sufficiency is great news to a species like ours that doesn't know how to measure its social and environmental needs. Yet, still, it can be as foreign to us as shoes are to a fish, as some of you may have found out in the last post.

That particular difficulty is one that has bedeviled our species throughout history when it comes to the way we respond to new ideas, especially when they're introduced at about the time when the old ideas have settled into the cultural norm. Consider the idea that the Earth turns on its axis as proposed by Herakleides in 350 B.C. This fact was missed by Aristotle and Pythagoras. Or, better yet, consider the case of Aristarchus of Samos who in 340 B.C. proposed the idea that the Earth goes around the Sun.

Of course, my point is that it was not until the Renaissance nearly 1,800 years later that we decided to catch up with their vision and make a go of astronomy. That pattern of missed opportunities literally paves human history all the way up to now as I write these words.

At first glance there was nothing wrong with that since humanity had 1,800 years to spare. But today this point becomes frightfully relevant. Based upon the state of our world and even the most optimistic of forecasts the reality is that there is almost no time left to waste for us to come around to finally see the light of reason anymore.

It is at this point that Sufficiency becomes paramount to the survival of humanity and to the resolution of the crisis regarding life on Earth. Consider Sufficiency as a survival companion to natural processes as they unfold through time. As an idea, Sufficiency allows us to sift data for its "net survival advantage" (meaning the remaining best operative objective) so that survival coefficients of Sufficiency can be established. What I mean is that unless we utilize an organizing principle like Sufficiency we are doomed to buy more of the same old wisdom that got us here and to be obliged to pay for it with our lives.

Sufficiency is not an easy concept to grasp. In fact, it is a complex idea whose depths we are just beginning to discover. But, it is here now. As I mentioned in the last post, its presence now is probably very much like it was when the discovery and use of controlled fire was first encountered in prehistoric times.

Therefore Sufficiency requires use and the passage of time before the content of its many layers begins to reveal itself. I'm saying here that, because it is a root precursor of a new culture, Sufficiency will naturally develop alongside this new culture where its consequences and peculiarities are at home with its practitioners.

This is where the difficulty we've had with new ideas in the past comes into play. And, that is the wisdom behind my insistence in treating our current culture as the culture of Planet Earth 1.0 and our emergent culture as the culture of Planet Earth 2.0. In this scenario we can see that Sufficiency is the upgrade to the former and that we (those of us who choose to embrace Sufficiency) will be part of the transition to the latter.

That is why I suggest that, if we choose this survival strategy, we will have entered and age of transition. Some of the qualities inherent in Sufficiency will provide the transitional rhythm or procedure whereby the character of one culture is transposed to the next, retaining its origin but manifesting its upgrade in actual practice.

We have a lot to learn and relatively little time to do so. Fortunately, we are not alone in this quest. Great strides have been made that have placed the idea of Sufficiency well within the academic community where the hard numbers needed for its eventual success will be crunched by able minds.

There is a book written by Thomas Princen titled "The Logic of Sufficiency" (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2005). Professor Princen is an Associate Professor of Natural Resource and Environmental Policy with tenure, 1991-present, at the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan.

I became aware of his book on March 16, 2009 during a Google search. I rushed to my local library for a copy. Mind you, I had hung much of my life's work on the word Sufficiency and was oblivious to the notion that anyone else might be working on the idea too. I was not only astonished by the remarkable coincidence of Professor Princen's choice of the word for his title but, upon reading his book, completely gratified that I finally met a fellow traveler on what had been for me a long, lonely trail.

Professor Princen presents Sufficiency as an idea that, in his words, is "...straightforward, indeed simple and intuitive, arguably "rational." It is the sense that, as one does more and more of an activity, there can be enough and there can be too much." He takes these considerations deeper until they reach a sense that he articulates as "Sufficiency is a broad social organizing principle in an ecologically constrained world."

Allow me to share with you an excerpt from his book that gave me shivers because in a peculiar way it validates our work in creating a model of world peace. The Worldwide Peace Marker Project is an example of Sufficiency applied at a global scale. In his final chapter "Making Ecological Sense" there is a section that reads as follows:

If it Exists, It's Possible

"If it exists, it's possible, Kenneth Boulding, economist, poet and peace activist once said. The context then was international conflict, which seemed pervasive, and the "it" was peace. In this book, the context is global ecological crisis and the "it" is Sufficiency, acting on a sense of enoughness and "too muchness." Sufficiency is, I have argued, a necessary condition, a set of decision criteria, a set of principles critical for reversing the biophysical trends and re-organizing society for sustainable resource use. The resource status of the past was abundance, an ever present frontier, unending resources and sinks, now it is scarcity. And not just the relative scarcity of economic reasoning where there is always a trade-off, always a transformation function, always a substitute, but an absolute scarcity in the sense that, with biophysical irreversibilities--species loss, climate destabilization, topsoil erosion, aquifer drawdown--humans cannot just move on to level another forest, plow another grassland, drill another well; they cannot run the conveyor belt faster and expect the disease to go away."

My remarks here about Professor Princen are mostly to express my joy to the presence of his work at this critical junction for humanity and selfishly because I had been waiting for a voice like his from academia. I certainly endorse that you read his book and explore first-hand with him the complexity of the sustainability challenge and, well, the logic of Sufficiency.

Professor Princen urges for our reach for a theory, for a defined and organized principle behind Sufficiency. He admits that "unfortunately, with current understanding, we are far from such a theory."

When I read that I was astounded to realize that is no longer the case. Unbeknown to him, I had already ironed out many of the problems that lead to a formal theory of Sufficiency.

I'm confident that my contributions will help to trim some of that distance in a short amount of time. What I mean to say is that my contribution to Sufficiency comes from Nature where it has resided for eons and where Sufficiency can be seen everywhere once you know where to look.

I will continue to share Sufficiency with you as an artist's vision of a gift from Nature or, as it is closer to my heart, as an emissary on behalf of all of the other creatures in the world whose survival depends on how fast humanity can learn to practice Sufficiency so that the human species can rejoin Nature in their new role as co-creators of life on Earth.

There is really no question that we must begin in earnest to react to the survival challenges that lie ahead. Nor is there much doubt about the limited time remaining in which to react. The big question that remains unanswered is, "Will we react in time?" or, what is even scarier, "Will we react at all?"

I'm an optimist. Therefore, I will accept the fact that we, the few, have undeniably embraced the concept of Planet Earth 2.0 as a transitional destination where an idea like Sufficiency can take hold as the organizing principle of the new culture that is to inhabit Planet Earth 2.0. This is the new world that future generations can sustain and the planet that can sustain future generations.

For your own copy of "Sufficiency Step No. 2" click here or on the image above. For a copy of Professor Princen's book click here.

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