Let Diversity Save the Planet!
Our industries and transportation puffing away, burning up fuel and resources, polluting all over the place and young people getting into fast fashion.
And so Greta Thunberg called us all out:
"This is all wrong, I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean, yet you come to us young people for hope. How dare you. People are suffering, People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are at the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you."
She announced it: It's "Game Over". Finally. We have reached the peak of economic growth and we are now cannibalising ourselves and the planet. And every living being on it. It's all wrong. She is right. So where have we gone astray? Neil Young sang about it in the hugely popular song "After the Gold Rush" 50 years ago:
"Look at Mother Nature on the run. In the nineteen seventies."
So where and when did we go wrong, when we knew about it for so long?
We have build a world dominating, standards and goals setting system that has developed over thousands of years and functions perfectly for building up military power, create empires and monetary wealth. And it worked for the 'little people' too, life expectancy has expanded, birth deaths are down and the population is growing. But the planet is dying and people are depressed.
Photo by Sandro Cenni on Unsplash
We should remember, that this now world dominating culture never was our only option. There have been countless cultures and philosophies on life amongst the people of the planet. Lets compare some:
European, Descartes "I think, therefore i am!"
African, Ubuntu: "I am, because we are!"
Native American: "We are the land!"
Japanese, Ikigai: ”The reason for being is to unite your values, passion, mission in life and profession.”
Tamil: “Virtue will confer heaven and wealth.”
Native American culture, African Ubuntu culture and countless other cultures offer radically different views on how we should relate to our egos, treat the planet, human beings and all life around us. Eating meat, burning down woods, oppressing people and conquering land is not a symbol of success in different cultures. The world dominating culture has oppressed them and almost driven them to extinction with its huge military and monetary powers. Lucky for all of us, some of those other voices are still around and it is time to humbly listen to them and make change. Let a new philosophy take the lead. Let diverse ideas about life come forth.
“At times, and in fear, I have wondered whether I should concede equal citizenship of our country to the leopard and the lion, the elephant and the springbok, the hyena, the black mamba and the pestilential mosquito” Thabo Mbeki 2015
Our materialistic way of thinking has manipulated and occupied our minds for so long, it's ways of thinking and acting are ingrained in our genes, even in those of us who have been oppressed by it and who are opposing it. It will take us great effort to free ourselves from thousands of years of developing and following a damaging philosophy. But we don't have time. Let's be brave and do it now.
If business wants to thrive, it should do so by offering what people and the planet truly need!
For our business and our economies, this means that we have to stop seeking growth in increasing wants for materialistic ideals and status symbols. If business wants to thrive, it should do so by offering what people and the planet truly need:
Peace of mind
Health
Culture
Future
If your business model does not provide any of that, you are not sustainable, but rather a bait for pirating shareholders.