The Concept of Sustainable Development:

Aspects and their consequences from a social-philosophical perspective

During our YES course this summer we will, among many other issues, be dealing with social
questions with regard to sustainable development. In preparation for this, I would like to ask
the course participants to read the enclosed article and to write down any questions,
comments, or thoughts that come to mind.

This introductory reading brings in 7 basic statements on sustainable development and their
consequences when looking at them from a social perspective. Contrary to content found in
scientific readings, this text consists of social-philosophical reflections on the potential,
practical implications that can be derived from simple, basic statements. In the author’s
opinion, the concept of sustainable development is a purely anthropogenic, and thus social,
concept which is why social aspects and sciences need to be given a central weight in the
discussion and planning of sustainable development for the future.

The reading imparts the critical view of the author and should inspire much thought and
discussion. As a result, citations and footnotes that would support the formulated statements
have deliberately been left away.

June, 2004
Dr. Roger Baud

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Social Issues – Introduction YES-Course 2004 / R.Baud
ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL DIMENSION OF SUSTAINABILITY

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Out of the many definitions of SD (Ulrich Jüdes counted 77 in a recently published article) a
large number of them include the three pillars ECOLOGY, ECONOMY and SOCIETY, often
adding the fourth one, which is TECHNOLOGY. Based on this model I would like to explore
the position of the SOCIAL pillar relative to the others by stating a few basic and radical
conditions from an ethical, socio-psychological perspective.

1. The 1st of these radical statements puts the ECOLOGICAL dimension prior to all
other dimensions. Without healthy natural systems around us, without the ecological
basis, so to speak, all other dimensions - social, economic or technological - are
meaningless. When the basic conditions for human life on earth no longer exist (and we are
presently truly doing our best to destroy them), we no longer need to consider the other
dimensions. It is one of modern science’s biggest mistakes of the past centuries to have
separated man from nature as an object. This would mean to deny the fact that man is a part
of and dependent on the mechanisms of the natural systems around him. However, we have
to admit that this precisely might be the reason why especially the natural sciences have
been so successful in establishing our present materialistic lifestyle. In return, this has also
created many of the huge problems we are facing now, such as our dependency on an
extremely high material flow and its disastrous effects on all natural systems. It is the aim
of a new upcoming paradigm in science to find back to a holistic view. Social sciences play
a pivotal role in this new approach, based on systems thinking, which could be the driving
force to what we really mean by “sustainable development”. To talk about a balance
between the 3 basic pillars (as it is often done) seems absurd to me. I hope we can discuss
this further during our course when we talk and think about "the role of technology".

2. Human beings heavily influenced the dynamism of all natural systems and their inherent
life cycles. It is fundamental - and this forms the 2nd radical statement, that we do not
further influence the natural lifespan and mechanism of the chemical composition of
the atmosphere and that we stop the destruction of biodiversity. If we continue to
disturb the relative stability and pace of evolutionary development of these 2 systems, we
will revoke the basis of our existence.

As we learn out of systems and chaos theory, any natural system has a certain inherent
flexibility of adaptation without risking the destruction of its drive to further development.
But at a certain stage - and we just don't know when and where this happens - a system can
tip over into a completely new stage of relative balance. This mechanism is true for any
cell in our body, as well as for bigger systems like the water or the atmospheric cycle.
(examples: our body, cancer, forests, etc.) The only difference is that such large systems
have a much longer lifespan. It might not be a problem to further fill our oceans with all
our garbage, but we do not know when too much will be too much. So it is certainly wiser
not to continue with such bad habits. Our problem basically is that we have to deal with
questions that do not really influence our luxurious lives as of yet. Our problem is that we
are called upon in the concept of SD to plan a future reality that can by no means be
anything like our way of functioning today. We have to go through a learning process that
is based on rationality, knowledge and thinking, thus situations we cannot feel nor
physically experience. Learning theories in psychology teach us that it is almost impossible
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for to cause real value and behavior change in this way. Besides rational understanding we
need the practical episode, the feeling component. This presents a huge task for psychology
and psychologists, as learning processes require restructuring. (We will hear more about
this during our course).

That we are fully dependent on the 2 above-mentioned natural systems is just a fact,
and nobody so far can be made responsible, that we have so heavily destroyed them. The
history of humankind has followed its own path and development into the present
dominance of Western Europe and North America. Now we recognize that this outstanding
culture has created hurdles which today seem to be impossible to overcome. We are
somehow captured in a self-created relatively closed system and cycle where any output
reinforces the input in the wrong direction. We should not make the same mistakes
again, but - as explained above - it is so difficult to learn, before we really feel any
harm ("you only live twice"). Humankind is very robust in adapting to new living realities,
if really forced to change and if actual situations do not leave any choice.

Earlier reigning cultures destroyed nature as well, although on a much smaller scale.
(Think of the Romans, the age of the conquerors, etc.). The harm these interventions did to
the earth systems were digested by their own capacity of absorption. People did not know
what they did to nature. We did not know until recently. Today we know very well that we
destroy the basis of our life in a magnitude and at a speed that have never been seen before.
Moreover, we know now, that if we continue on this track of wasteful, materialistic
lifestyles, we might disappear as species or in the best-case scenario find our population
heavily decimated. To know but not to act makes us guilty with regard to future
generations. This is an absolutely new problem that has never existed before in human
history and is a huge challenge for our and all forthcoming generations. What makes this
situation more problematic is the condition that we to a large extent have given up our
spiritual beliefs which formed the unquestioned framework of human activities and cultural
developments in earlier societies. The wish to free ourselves from any boundaries, the
philosophy of self-ruling and self-determination, has left us in an enormous vacuum of
disorientation.
In this observation lies one of the fundamental questions of ethics and religion
which are confronted with a completely new situation. For the first time in the world, the
dominating civilization should think, feel, and plan for someone who is not even born yet.
An invisible YOU. Someone who does not belong to our reality, with whom we have no
means of communication. In addition, we do not know, how that YOU once will be, think,
and act. Who shall take responsibility for this future planning for future generations?
Nations, Politicians, Corporations, Science? What are the driving forces behind these
mega-organizations, and who guides them responsibly? Groups, stakeholders,
shareholders, individuals? And finally: What is the responsibility for individuals, for each
one of us? Basic ethics is directed to the individual: " YOU SHOULD NOT...... (Kill,
etc.). But what ethic shall we apply for these impersonal, self-driven monsters that are
corporations and organizations? This is another big challenge for the social sciences, that
certainly we will further discuss during our course.

There is also another important social issue which derives from this 2nd radical
requirement. It is absolutely impossible that all nations and areas on earth adapt to
today’s western lifestyle. This is a tough but rational fact we have to face. Either we accept
that half of the world’s population will go on living in relative misery, or we fundamentally
change our economic system. This issue will be further explored in a session on economics
and political institutions. The keyword here lies on the question of setting priorities in
development strategies.
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3. For nature as a whole it doesn't matter if we as mankind exist on earth or not. Nature
doesn't care about our influence on her – does not care if we kill our own basis of life
which we are in the progress of doing – or if we follow ways along natural laws that allow
us to survive. Our destiny lies in our own hands. Like any living creature on earth, man has
a certain flexibility range. But this range is quiet narrow, compared with some other
species. Small deviations are enough to bring us out of balance, to pull us off from our
basis of existence. As the future lies in our hands, and we only are interested in our own
future, the 3rd radical condition when talking about SD is, that the concept of SD is a
purely anthropogenic concept. This is the ecological side.
The social dimension in our complex world today is our materialistic lifestyle based on
technological advancement. The more we have the more we depend on. We are
extremely vulnerable with growing acceleration, and this vulnerability is purely our own
making. (Just think of health, mobility, communication, heating systems, hot water, etc.,
etc. ).
For all these reasons, and we could elaborate on this for another couple of hours, talking
about SD doesn't mean talking primarily about nature but about the survival of humankind
and our lifestyle in the future. Any solution lies within us. We are the cause of our current
problems. We are concerned about our own survival in the future - as for the future of
nature we hope someone else will take on this task.

4. The conclusion out of this forms the 4th radical requirement for SD (a plan for future
living of human beings): SD is a social question and concept. Technology and economy
have to be reintegrated into and subordinated to the real social dimension. Our top priority
when accepting the radical theses 2 + 3 is our existence now and in the future, not if we
invent a faster car or airplane, work on a faster computer system, transport more goods to a
far corner of the world, eat exotic fruits in wintertime in Central Europe, or increase the
profitability of multinational companies. Neither materialism nor quantitative growth will
save our future. We need new forms of self-fulfillment, new ways of living, working,
spending leisure time, etc. We have to rearrange the social organization as such and aim for
a new meaning of life.

5. This leads us to the next basic statement. If we want to find a way to adjust our lives to that
of the earth’s - and I believe we should - the change has to start within ourselves, in our
behavior, our lifestyles, value systems and our ethical basis. Humankind itself has to
change before we can even think of further technological developments which are aimed at
correcting previously caused damage. We as a species have great potential within ourselves
which we have not yet touched and which does not cost additional energy and material
flux. Our only alterations of behavior, lifestyle, etc. so far occurred through external forces
in situations of stress - war, natural catastrophes, etc. But what about change based on
insight? It would be the cheapest way - so to speak – to change ourselves instead of what is
around us. Let’s reduce our impact on nature. The 5th radical demand therefore reads:
Predominant to anything else is for humankind to change its habits and behavior, its
consumer patterns, its social and political organization, and its attitudes towards
democratic decision-making processes - even if this reduces overall materialistic
welfare. In other words: Human lifestyles shall be adapted in such a way that further
technological impact is not necessary. We have to work on the cause not on the
symptoms which means we have to change our way of life.
(Synonym Health care: We struggle against symptoms instead of dealing with the cause).

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 "Sufficiency" does not mean going back to so-called simple lifestyles or losing any of our
quality of life. On the contrary, it means getting more quality with less quantity. Let's use
our imagination and work more on the quality of life than on further dependencies on
materialistic goods and commodities. I can think of hundreds of ways to influence
attitudes and behavior change in this direction. We should rearrange the social structures in
a way that allows people to experience new lifestyles without losing their economic
ground. We can use our well-established propaganda machinery for new lifestyle trends.
We should on the political level think over how nations spend their fortunes (.... examples)
by introducing taxes and adapt prices that reflect the real cost of products, etc. It is just a
pure question of will and serious acceptance of the danger we are living in. We have
to change, individually, socially, politically and through a new future-oriented set of
wise ethical rules. We have to believe, although it is difficult and unpleasant, that we need
lifestyle revolutions. And at the same time we should conserve the cultural and social
diversity since it is the social equivalent to the ecological prerequisite of biodiversity.

6. This last remark brings us directly to another basic impact, which seems obvious like the
other basic statements I have already made. But what sounds so simple seems to be quite
difficult, as I cannot see consequent actions for change today. I am talking about our ways
of production and consumption. The 6th radical requirement for SD states that only
closed loops of our way of life, way of economy and material flow (technology) are
sustainable. You will hear much more on this during this course which is why I do not
want to talk about this subject in depth. But I will say this: A change from our current
habits which make us - so to say - captives in our own prison of course cannot be realized
in a short period of time. We need long-term strategies, and there is no doubt that
technology will play an important role in these strategies. We need goals in the distance
that direct our further actions. There is no way back. What we live on today is humankind’s
creation over the last centuries of technological development. Our lifestyle became part of
and depends on this development. The real problem is that we are no longer in control of it.
Technology and its connected economy are de-coupled from basic social needs. Production
has long ago developed its own self-drive; it somehow creates its own children again and
again, in always increasing numbers and with greater speed. Before a new product is on the
market, the next one is already in planning or in the production pipeline. We find before us
a foolishly constructed piece of machinery that we do not know how to stop, although we
understand that it no longer makes sense. The basic reason is our fear of losing, as we don't
believe strongly enough in unfamiliar alternatives. And with all this accelerated activity we
actually do the opposite of what is stated in the 6th radical thesis. Rising material flow,
rising energy use, rising dependency. On the scientific side we have passed the stage of
curiosity which has driven scientists over centuries. Today’s research is directly aimed at
practical realization, very often with no connection to real human life and needs.
Furthermore, the public has become the laboratory rat, as new inventions are tested in real
life before any ethical, moral, and questions about needs are asked, before any possible
rebound effects are known. Again one must ask the question of who takes on this
responsibility? Where are the framing norms?

Of course the more trying question is what can we do to change this crazy trend that
produces results at a speed that we have more and more problems digesting and
controlling. I don’t think that we have an easy readymade answer. But we should seriously
work on new ways and solutions. From a social science perspective, I would say that first
of all, scientific research and further technological production should again be directed to
real needs - needs and human lifestyles that aim in the direction of SD. And this demands a
much more substantial financial and thought input on psychological and social research.
Researchers should not be allowed to realize a certain technology, as long as possible long-
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 term and so-called rebound effects are basically unknown. Developers of new products,
and that includes the scientists behind these developments, have to share responsibility on
what they produce, as they are the most knowledgeable parties to estimate possible dangers
and risks. We should accept limitations. Not everything that we are able to create has to be
realized. It is by no means mandatory that we get faster planes and cars, only because we
know how to make them faster. In addition, it is not really necessary to have an even more
elaborative information system that allows us to send more e-mails around the world at a
greater speed, etc. The constant small improvements on all these products that don’t reduce
the material flux but stimulate markets are disastrous with their current frequency. Once a
new product is out, of course everybody and the whole world wants it. New is better. For
the environment, material flow, and energy flow in this respect that means: new is bad.
What we don't possess as materialistic goods or commodities at a certain time, we just
don't need. Further technological developments that we cannot do without in a short-term
perspective are mandatory. However, researchers should concentrate on copying natural
mechanisms on these needed developments. We must find a way to go back to using solar
energy for all our activities.
Finally this brings me to another question that I can only touch on here. How do we
deal with knowledge flow and knowledge management in the future? Who is responsible
for the kind of knowledge that is produced and spread out through our communication
channels? Should we have rules on what is allowed and what not? What is important for
whom, what not? What does freedom mean in this respect and how do we learn to deal
with this freedom without getting lost in this ever-rising ocean of information? Again here,
we touch basic social, ethical and religious questions. Humans are not able to survive
without boundaries, guidelines, and beliefs. Rationality and cognitive processes are one
side of us, feeling and spirituality the other side. Both sides have to be in relative balance
and harmony for our destiny to be realizable. This is why any further step in human
development should incorporate both of these aspects, and we should not allow future
leading trends to happen, if we do not feel comfortable with them and if we haven’t
reached full social common sense (example: Indian rules).

7. The 7th and last of the few basic conditions I would like to reflect on in this
introduction relates to the phenomenon of time: Nature and humankind as part of it,
are denominated by time. Human life in the long run can only be successful if we give
back the individual time span to any object.
I will explore this subject in more depth when talking about the questions of growth during
the course. Let me at this point just give you a short comment on what is meant here. Time
is not only a very important element when talking about SD. Maybe it is the most
important factor we should consider when thinking about and planning our future. It also
gives a perfect example on how the ecological and social dimensions - including
technological aspects - are interlinked.
Ecology: Any natural system has its own inner watch which means its own lifespan and
lifecycle. Think of the water cycle, the atmospheric cycle, the cycle of a plant, the duration
of life of any creature on earth. If such a system is disturbed in its own time frame, it tips
over (as explained above). You can accelerate natural processes in time only by doing harm
to their own metabolism. It is a fact that humans have strongly intervened in all these
natural lifecycles and therefore destroyed the natural development of these subsystems.
Technology: For the well-meant reason of bringing more comfort to our lives, we have put
barrages into rivers, exploited the stock of fishes in our oceans, turned cultural land into
landscapes of concrete, left megatons of all kinds of gases into the atmosphere, and
destroyed a large part of the planet’s biodiversity. We have ruined the lifecycles of these
natural systems and forced nature to follow our own timing. I don't know any technology
which would not have left destroying footprints. That's a fact. We cannot go back in time
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and take another road. We also have to recognize our own human and cultural history. We
can only analyze this history and try to understand what went wrong and what mistakes we
made. And this understanding could give us a new direction, if only we would be really
consequent on what these analyses teach us. We of course recognize the harm we do to a
specific system which very often is harm to ourselves in another sector. As a result, we
correct that detected mistake by adding another technology that again creates a problem in
another field, etc. Such new problems are then often only recognized in a later stage.
Instead of fighting the cause we regulate symptoms by creating new problems. As a matter
of fact we remove more and more from the basic cause and finally don’t even know
anymore what the basic problem is or was. To consider the time factor in our future
technological development means that we have to go about these development processes
slowly, while observing natural lifecycles and adapting our input to these ways.
Social: As if it were a basic law of behavior, we act in the same manner as explained for
technological development when dealing with problems in our individual and social lives.
We solve recognized problems within the social frame by just reacting on the existing
situation. The only important question seems to be to find a quick answer and a quick
solution. If we discover a problem today, improvement has to be visible by the next day.
We do not give ourselves the time to find longer lasting solutions. The opposite is the case.
Because we do not take the necessary time to reflect, we run into more problems and speed
up adaptation processes to an extent that we lose orientation. Our brain is no longer capable
of following this acceleration and in the end we lack the solutions to basic social questions.
Why don't we have the courage, just to say: STOP. Let's really reconsider what the basic
problems are and maybe find new solutions, although they might look less attractive at the
present. The social sciences work on such new plans and paradigms and show alternatives.
Unfortunately, they are rarely heard, as their lobby in an economy-driven world is too
weak.