A Little Manifesto On Better
For a while I have wondered about better. About making it better, getting better, being better. When I wonder aloud about better, I seem to draw light mockery. I’m politely dismissed as an idealist, naïve and unrealistic. I’m told I don’t get it.
But I do.
We seem to have fallen out of favour with better, which is a little strange since things seem a little bleak at the moment. You know the chorus by now: debt mountains, uneven wealth distribution, pollution, over-population and an ecologically bullied planet. So, wouldn’t a little better be welcome right now?
Apparently not. Vast swathes of people seem to have wedded themselves to a cynically bleak mindset. With fanatical gusto they promote the argument that progress carries a cost, and we need to be adult in recognising it. We’ve never had it so good, at an aggregate level anyway, they shout and that makes the odd kink, the ugly wrinkle or unpleasant stain an acceptable cost of prosperity. We live in a complicated world so don’t be so simplistic in your view of it they conclude.
However, I like simple, and my simple view is this: We managed to confuse progress with gluttony, and in the process we lost our good judgment. Our continued inability to recognise this means we are now racing ever faster towards a sixth or Holocene extinction, with only ourselves to blame. The course we have set ourselves is perilous, and it is not seeking alternatives that is naïve and unrealistic.
We’ve already wiped out half of the planet’s wild animals (1), allowed the eighty-five richest people in the world to have accumulated as much wealth between them as half of the world’s population (2), accepted four and half billion people accessing impaired water sources (one that is running dry or polluted) (3), and send eight hundred and seventy million people to bed hungry every night (4). And that obviously didn’t keep us busy enough because we also managed to increase the earth’s temperature by a couple of degrees and pollute land, sea and even space with our discarded possessions. Never has one species done quite so much damage in the name of progress. Or was it actually in the name of the richest eighty-five?
Its time to choose: continue with the current model or create something better?
Moving to better means re-drawing our mental maps of how the world works, and how we want humanity to live, co-operate and function. In doing so we need to recognise that resources are finite, indefinite economic growth is fiction, communities are at the heart of wellbeing and ecological damage is real and hasn’t been properly priced into our economic model.
I won’t remain silent in the quest for better and I want to share my simple, work-in-progress Better Manifesto. I offer it up in the spirit of creative commons: it’s a starting point and I invite you to share, add, adapt, evolve and leave your mark on it.
My Simple Manifesto for Better:
Thinking is good, free-range thinking is better; liberate your mind and your genius will follow
Self-belief is good, belief in all is better
Seeking change in others is good, being the change is better
Starting is good, pioneering is better
Subject knowledge is good, subject interest is better
Teams are good, self-forming communities are better
Openness is good, militant transparency is better; Ditch Power Point protocol. Tell your stories using your voice not Microsoft clipart and indents
Smart is good, empathy is better
My home is good, my planet is better
Moderation is good, enough is better
Profit is good, impact is better
Control is old fashioned, participation is better
20% of the impossible is better than 100% of the possible
Adapt is better than plan
Stakeholder is better than shareholder
We and us is better than I and me
Better is a more humane, equitable and sustainable system
Notes:
(1) http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/29/earth-lost-50-wildlife-in-40-years-wwf
(3) http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/may/24/global-majority-water-shortages-two-generations
(4) https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-global-poverty
