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| Image courtesy of Foto76/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
Before I continue my rant on
society's paranoia and the excesses that are leading us towards collapse...I have
the need to write something that feels more substantial and more
personal. It is a matter that regularly resurfaces for me and that
indirectly is espoused in many arguments for slowing down and refusing to chase
the holy grail of economics: growth.
Firstly
let me point something out about the society we live in. Growth is all to often
cut down to only one possible meaning...That of growth in numbers/figures. GDP
or Revenue or Profit or any other kind of value that really just means a number
in a certain currency. But like any model, this one dimensional model of our
world can only offer a weak understanding of the complexities of real life and
the world. It can help us understand parts of society, the economy and the
functioning of companies and organisations for instance, but as a model it can
only ever be a weak simplification of a very complex universe.
Unfortunately
this model and simplified view of things seems to dominate everything. In order
to make sense of things in society today, they must be valued and then grown.
If there is no growth in financial value there seems to be little point. This
worldview has been so effective and successful that we try to convert natural
goods like water and the air (CO2) into financial value and thereby understand
it and manage it better. The only problem is that financial value can never
encompass the real world value of any good and financial growth can only ever
reflect a fraction of the mutliple meanings of possible growth. So let us
disregard the financial aspect of life for a while.
Growth can
come in many forms, personal growth for example, learning to interact with
other people in a more effective and supportive manner that will help others to
grow in turn. Growth in ability in various activities. Growth in understanding
of humans, emotional states or even the interplay in complex systems. Sure, all
of these can probably be turned into a financial value and then commoditised,
as our economy today always aims to do, but the financial value, a one
dimensional value, can never encompass all the complex effects that happiness
of a single person would have on its surroundings.
The effect
that happiness would have on the behaviour of that person alone could never be
measured absolutely. The person would have more enthusiasm in what they do,
their creativity would be enhanced, their efficiency probably and therefore the
end result. The skill of the person would improve faster and all of this would
have an immeasurable amount of knock-on effects. Just as you would imagine it
to be in a system with almost endless variables. No model could ever encompass
all of this.
So in the
following post and many others more most likely, I would like to ignore the
concept of financial value and growth and concentrate more on personal growth,
and of improvement in intangible values of happiness and wellbeing and the
experience of being alive in general. After all, we don't live in a simplified
model in a computer (at least I hope not) so let's stop acting as if we do.
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