Barry Graham: Illusory Flowers in an Empty Sky
Novelist, journalist, poet and Zen teacher from Glasgow, Scotland, now based in Portland, OR, USA
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Posts tagged "sustainability"
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| Image: dustinphillips via flickr CC license |
Here in Phoenix, the predicted high temperature today is 115 degrees. On Sunday morning at The Sitting Frog Zen Center, we discovered that all the candles had melted in the heat.
The light rail (We built it, you bastards, as Jon Talton is fond of saying) which opened at the end of 2008, has been a success, and has proved the potential of an efficient public transport system - something that, however addicted you are to your car, is becoming increasingly necessary. But weather like this means that only the youngest and hardiest can get by without a car, unless their home and their destination are adjacent to a light rail stop. For public transport to be viable year-round, we need to spend as much on creating shade as on buying trains and buses.
In order for any community, anywhere, truly to thrive it must possess five different kinds of capital: 1. Human; 2. Social; 3. Political; 4. Intellectual, and, 5. Financial.
No single form of capital can be dominant; unrestrained by the others, each can create its own types of imbalance, and concomitant problems. Conversely, none can be absent either. The five capitals are to a healthy human community what vital organs are to a healthy human body – both completely necessary and necessarily in balance. Without the five capitals in balance, we will continue to have the static poor – neither upwardly mobile, nor downwardly mobile, just constantly and generationally poor. In that circumstance, we all suffer – though we may not all realize it.
An examination of each capital separately and then collectively follows.
- The development of Human Capital is an investment in the capacity and talents of individuals. It entails systematic education and skill development (in adults, for purposes of this discussion). It would include adult literacy, teaching English as a Second Language (ESL), and job training, among other programs.
- Social Capital, a term popularized by Harvard professor Robert Putnam, means simply our social “glue,” the ties of neighborhood and community. In poor neighborhoods, there has often been a decline in the prevalence and power of mediating institutions – voluntary associations where people gather. Poor people often struggle alone with their problems, now more than ever as government institutions face increasingly severe budget constraints. The need for new institutions to rise to fill the gap is great.
- The British political philosopher Bernard Crick writes that “the absence of politics begets violence.” This is as true on the streets of South or East Los Angeles as it is in Afghanistan or in the Sudanese desert. Members of a community must have “public lives” (as well as private lives), and must participate in “politics” – not only at the ballot box, but – even more importantly – in their own neighborhoods, from the living room to the school auditorium to the office of the local City Council member. Political Capital is the ability to act in concert for the good of the whole. It is often in short supply in distressed areas, but that must change.
- Intellectual Capital is harnessed brainpower. Many people in the United States and abroad are paid to think. Very few, however, are paid to think about, with and for the poor. Poor people do not have lobbyists, spin doctors, or endowed University chairs. Yet many poor people are smart. What is needed is a concerted effort to link up the resources of schools, universities, and think thanks, to develop pragmatic ideas not ivory tower theories, and to marry such intellectual resources to the creative spirit and entrepreneurial energies of low income neighborhoods, creating an environment of experimentation, well-founded optimism and mutual respect across diverse communities.
- Financial Capital is not hand-outs or government programs, though both may be necessary in the short-run. In a given community, money takes on two primary forms for social purposes – investments made and credits extended. The status of these two sides of the coin is woeful in most low income neighborhoods. Banks are scarce; high cost check cashing outlets abound. Business and jobs have fled. In order to strengthen families, we must explore opportunities for job creation and wealth creation. Poor neighborhoods need strategic investment that focuses on a community’s assets – chiefly its residents.
Only an organized five capital strategy can restore equal opportunity and social justice to America’s forgotten neighborhoods. As government and industry alike abandon the poor, tear down the already-flimsy safety net, and continuously turn a blind eye, it will be the people themselves who will pick up the fight and organize for power and change. Fortunately, History tells us it is only a matter of time.
Larry Fondation is an internationally-published fiction writer, journalist and community organizer based in Los Angeles. He is the author of Angry Nights, Common Criminals, Fish, Soap and Bonds and Unintended Consequences.
Although I no longer eat meat, I have argued that it is better for the environment if we eat locally-raised, grass-fed beef rather than organic vegetables trucked hundreds or even thousands of miles. It turns out I was wrong. This article in The Guardian explains:
Organics are… not even necessarily good for the environment, either. Increasing demand has led to organic meat being raised on vast industrial feed lots, and the scarcity of organic ingredients means they are flown around the world. Research sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs showed that the production of a litre of organic milk requires 80% more land than conventional milk. And that organically reared cows burp and fart twice as much methane as conventionally reared cattle, which would be amusing if it weren’t for the fact that methane is 20 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2.
I already knew that cows caused more damage than cars, but I had assumed that factory-farmed cows were more damaging than organically-farmed ones. It looks as though there is no way around the reality that, for our own sake, the sake of other species, and the sake of the world itself, humans must stop eating animals, however they are raised.
I came to the same decision recently, though I still follow the Buddhist practice of eating whatever people are cooking when I’m their guest.
The reasons for my decision were similar to Hentoff’s. While I don’t have a problem with the taking of life in order to eat, I deplore torture - of any species - and the commodification of sentient beings.
Hentoff writes:
I am puzzled by my disinclination to become involved in animal rights issues on a larger scale. Frankly, I am overwhelmed with the task of trying to grasp the complexities of how governments should protect human rights without sticking my toe in the philosophical waters of the animal rights movement.
I think it is morally and pragmatically dangerous to separate human rights from animal rights, which is why I am not a humanist. Humans are the most destructive invasive species, and our only hope of survival is to stop arrogantly privileging the “rights” of our own species over those of others.
One of those who didn’t leave was social activist and Zen priest Hozan Alan Senauke, who at the time was executive director of The Buddhist Peace Fellowship. I remember Senauke because of his response to another workshop participant who gushingly praised Hillary Clinton, and quoted the title of her book It Takes a Village. Senauke laughed and said, “I think Hillary’s being disingenuous.” He then explained why.
I was impressed by his warmth and by what seemed like a sort of compassionate pugnacity. In laughing at naive praise of Clinton, he didn’t seem to be mocking or putting the other person down. He wasn’t going to let ignorant statements go unchallenged, but he spoke as an opponent, not an enemy, and so what followed was a discussion rather than an argument.
That is the tone of The Bodhisattva’s Embrace, a loosely-structured collection of personal essays, complemented by Senauke’s haunting photography, covering his experiences in Burma, in prison ministry in the U.S., commentaries on the death penalty, global warming, consumerism and social injustice in general. You don’t have to be interested in Zen or Buddhism or meditation to be inspired and informed by this book - you just have to be interested in caring, and in taking responsibility for this interdependent universe, and in healing instead of harming.
Even when Senauke’s writing is personal to the point of nakedness, it is never self-involved. Even when angry, he seems, in Orwell’s words when describing Dickens, “generously angry.”
This is not a book you’ll find in many bookstores, since Senauke published it himself through his Clear View Project. I hope many people will order it, because, along with David R. Loy’s Money, Sex, War, Karma, it is is one of the most vital books on politics, and Zen, and both.
One of the most putrid songs I have ever heard is Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” a song so beloved by Americans. Guthrie sings, “This Land is your land, this land is my land… This land was made for you and me.” This was the justification used for the genocide of the people the land belonged to. It was called “manifest destiny.”
My friend Roger Clyne understands the history of the country he was born into. When this century began, he performed at a New Year’s party organized by the City of Phoenix. As he was about to finish his performance, he said, “I’d like to wish us all a less arrogant next hundred years.”
Today, those of us fortunate enough to have food and shelter should consider how we came to have what we have. We should understand that much of it is going to have to be given up if we are to survive, because our system, never sustainable, is in the process of collapse. And, while enjoying sustenance, rest and companionship if we can, we should remember something written by another friend of mine a few years ago: “Today is the day the unenlightened heathens call Thanksgiving. The rest of us know that every day is Thanksgiving.”
I was fascinated, though, by the film’s premise, that rich people have to fight back against the marauding peasants, who are depicted as wild animals. The film certainly spoke to the paranoia of New York City’s privileged in the 1970s, which is why it depicts a city that existed only in the frightened minds of those who could pay to have their groceries delivered (which is how the young thugs in the film find out where the protagonist’s family lives so they can pay a rape-and-murder visit).
The film holds Arizona up as an ideal - a place where the wealthy can have all the space they want, so they don’t have to deal with pesky poor people, and that allows them guns to use on any proles who do accost them. It is after a business trip to Tucson that Bronson’s character goes on a vigilante rampage in the streets, parks and subway of N.Y.C.
In actuality, N.Y.C. is a sustainable city, and the cities of central and southern Arizona are social and environmental disasters. But, for all its silliness, Death Wish gets something right - the so-called American Dream is based entirely on self-centeredness and irresponsibility. It is a film that disproves its own stupid message, and, for obvious reasons, has relevance today beyond being an amusing cultural time capsule. I would like to watch it in the company of a group of Tea Party members.
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| Phil Gordon |
While rightly crediting him for standing up to Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and for the opening of A.S.U.’s downtown campus, the reporter, Monica Alonzo, overlooks his most significant achievement - the implementation of the light rail.
Journalists at Phoenix New Times opposed the light rail before and after it opened, but it has worked well, and the actuality is that it is the city’s only chance of survival. It needs to be expanded much farther, no matter the cost, because as this car-culture collapses, the various parts of this vast city - and its outposts like Tempe and Scottsdale - will have to become self-contained, compact communities. To think otherwise is the logic of the ostrich. History may remember Phil Gordon as Phoenix’s savior.
In his latest column, Jon Talton writes:
Friends keep telling me of the coming working-class revolt (Mark Thoma writes about such here). I’ll believe it when I see it. Civil insurrection is certainly likely as America continues its downward course, but it will play out with minorities burning their own neighborhoods and the whites and other better-offs retreating even deeper into suburban apartheid. The Revolution in a nation of dolts could only be caused by taking away television, video games, smart phones and cheap gasoline. Then, to the barricades!
I agree with Talton, but things are worse, or better, than he seems to realize. Cheap gasoline is over. What are our rulers going to do when the peasants they enslave have no way of getting to work? Gary Snyder once wrote that real revolution would only come through people refusing to buy things they don’t need. That, as Talton, Aldous Huxley and Neil Postman all point out, is not going to happen - but it doesn’t have to. When the resources are not there to produce the toys, and the consumers don’t have the means to buy them, then producers and consumers have to give up these roles and return to being people.
The Phoenix New Times website just published this picture of the Hotel San Carlos at Monroe and Central, taken around 1940.
Like most pictures I’ve seen of Downtown Phoenix back then, it shows sidewalks dense with people. Nowadays, people justify car-addiction by claiming that Phoenix was never designed to be a pedestrian city.
The heat-island effect makes it difficult to walk farther than the mailbox during the summer. But, as Jon Talton has written, Phoenix was once lush and green, a place of shade.
In spite of what the self-centered and the defeatist say, the problem with Phoenix is not in what it is. The problem is in what is being done to it.
