Ecology, Demography & “Rationality”: Tech-Human vs. Value-Human

Ecology, Demography & “Rationality”: Tech-Human vs. Value-Human

Ylli Permeti


Abstract

If nature has a practical wisdom it would have started...either to kill human being by using epidemic extermination or it would have started to sow the seeds on its surface to re-create a human-sapiens-sapiens. Until then we are determined to “wake up” our politics and to claim a “universal revolution”.


We live in a world of dramatic changes; however, yet we do not have learn how to rationalise our births in relation to our environment. Wars and fears have their portion in this story: Powers, may it be ecclesiastic or popular governments have reshaped their societies in all its history of human being ― by wars. Thus, this mystery of regimes (that could be called without any reserve ― totalitarian), lies in heart of each society, which deal with monotheistic abstractions ― converted nowadays into a global government, (see today the President of America that is represented in the rest of the world by the Congress of America like a Gospel, or the New World Order, for which we discuss in the course of this book); have their roots in our historical mis-interpretation of human being; misleading thus our human nature, which have been interpreted by past philosophy as a “segregation” or “isolation” of our societies; and “that” mystery is explained plainly in Hegel’s words: ‘[I]n order not to let them get rooted and settled in this isolation and thus break up the whole into fragments and let the common spirit evaporate, government has from time to time to shake them to the very centre by War’. (Emphasis added)


Yet, there are politicians in our world’s government today that “believe” in using war in order to keep their population in “cohesion” and consequently to be dependent on government’s power. In addi-tion, there are modern states, such as the U.S.A ― that in order to loot the wealth of the world ― its politics carries on continuous tensions between different countries in a global scale. However, I don’t know how Hegel convinced himself to believe that a society needs “war”, so that, to not get “settled in isolation” by the time to time governments; and therefore his observation is totally wrong, arbitrary and anti-human. But since then, when Hegel drew his conclusions on human behaviour, things have changed and our societies now are governed by virtue of multi-national corporations. As a result, we are today under the threat of huge-co-operations that treat the growth of the population as a benefit rather than as a problem, by stimulating large families, so that, to have more children, in order to fight the ageing of our population and keeping in this way the balance with the labour force.

Further, these “mind’s traps” might be explained under the following muse: According to different analysts of our world politics, if there is an out-number of the ageing population, then, this will cost to our politics economically because of the two “heaps”, that is, the working age vs. elderly ― which have been seen as the “tug of war” by our economics ― could overlap and the collapse of our monetary policy will come sooner than expected. These are the two major reasons that our western politics today induce new families by assisting them economically so that to have children as many as they can. But what kind of children they want to their society? How could a human being grow up and expand its consciousness when in a society has been established a universal system, that is, “conscience-restricted”? Could a child grow up as a human being when in our cities ― previous generations ― have established the isolation of our consciousness into only technical sciences ― excluding thus our values sciences? How could we pretend as societies that we are building “progress” and “human development” when we as humans exclude our natural environment as being part of our life? Do our global universities teach human values in comparison with technical values? We have already outlined our human values in the previous sections of this chapter, which could be more than I emphasised, on which our universities do not deliberate. This is because, deliberating about such values is not “profitable” for our universities and we witness today a human that is being seen as a “tech-human” rather than as a “value-human”. For tech-humans have been perceived by our politicians and global politics as the right tool that can offer to our cities the right technicians in order to build up progress based on plastic food, cyclical consumption and consequently human being has been disintegrated from our nature and natural environment. In this way, the “well-fare” states have established the tech-humans without its counterpart, that is, value-humans. This can be seen even when we read analysis, studies and didactics from our ‘present press’ compara-bly with the past didactics, that is, the ancient fathers of knowledge, starting from Aristotle to Fotopoulos and Flyvbjerg, in our present days. However, economists that sees such a phenomenon as a benefit rather than as a problem are nothing else than a sort of “anthropoc-tonous” that want to benefit from the established economics. But why we constitute a “threat” to the environment? Is it the “out-number” of the population that create all the trouble in our cities or environment?

Since the fall of former communist bloc in countries such as Russia and its allies ― our demography has changed dramatically: The population, as stated in previous sections, has moved from one direction to the other, that is, from small cities to, in the words of Nietzsche ― “cyclopean” cities. And this is because, of the established trade, which enforce the population to be concentrated to huge cities, so that, to ensure the demand for sufficient “customers”. Such customers when concentrate themselves into these cities tend to be “pure consumers” and as long as there are consumers our cities grow up in population . In addition, this population grows up because of the following reasons: First, as said above, when encouraging new births by politicians who are forced up by our co-operations, banks and organisations that treat the growing of the population as a profit; and second, because there is a continuous dislocation by new waves of people from around the world towards cities, so that, to ensure “consumption”. Thus, because of this irrational dislocation the demand for energy and for food becomes complex. In this way, emerges the need for other sciences, that is, ecology, as in the case of western civilizations. The term ecology was coined in 1869 by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel from the Greek roots oikos (“house” or “dwelling”) and logos (“word” or “study of”). Ecology is the study of how organisms interact with one another and their surroundings. It flourished at the beginning of the 20th century. (Emphasis in original) Such sciences come into the surface of our civilizations just because of our problems that we cause continuously to our environment. By the same corollary, if there are more sciences to come out they will come for one simple reason: Because we created the conditions for such needs. Ecology thus, precisely for these reasons, came into existence, just because of the problems we have created to our environment.

However, as regards the concentration or the threat of our population, a resent publication of the world population shows an “Ageing World”: Within 10 years older people will outnumber children for the first time. It forecasts that over the next 30 years the number of over-65s is expected to almost double, from 506 million in 2008 to 1.3 billion – a leap from 7% of the world's population to 14%. Already, the number of people in the world 65 and over is increasing at an average of 870,000 each month. And a separate UN forecasts predict that the global population will top 9 billion by 2050. In addition of what has been previously said: In Britain, “Baby Boomers” of the 1960s, are a real threat for the British politics. According to studies they have been transformed by the politics of Britain, “selfish” and “powerful” at the expense of younger generations . Indeed, is gets even worst, when the following illustration shows our “mountain which laboured and brought forth a mouse”: There are in a worldwide scale 267 people being born every minute and 108 dying, and the world's population will top 7 billion next year. Lower birthrates and longer life spans will also lead to a precipitous decline in the ratio of working age adults to the elderly in developed countries .

So according to this publication there is another reason that the system that our societies created “consciously” or “unconsciously” or “selfishly” will collapse without any doubt. The question is then — when? Going back in our history of the world expansion as regard the population and demography, it reveals us that past civilizations have disappeared from the surface of the mother earth just because of a continually demand for food and energy. Thus, from the ancient years, human needs have adopted five strategies for capturing increasing amount of energy in order to accomplish the need for commodities:
Takeover;
Tool use;
Specialization;
Scope enlargement, and
Drawdown,...[which] have permitted societies to grow in size, scope and complexity. In fact, in days like ours, “takeover” has been par-tially excluded as a natural phenomenon; because our planet has been inhabited already from one corner to the other. When we say “par-tially” ― we say it because U.S.A has not stopped its demarche through taking-over the world. What have been left to our dispositions are our tools, specialization and scope enlargement which when reach to a sufficient degree of development they will fail or will drawdown for further analysis. Such phenomenon happens precisely because we take first decisions and afterwards, we look for technical rationalizations. All these “uniform” accelerations and decision-taking are part of our social politics expressed with pure irrationality. As will be shown in the second chapter, in the heart of this kind of “irrationality” lies our monetarism. Many civilizations have expanded their scope and complexity dramatically, only to dissolve back into simpler forms of social organization. Everyone today, can judge and perhaps can conclude that our civilizations have collapsed for the “sake of appearances”.

From the Egyptian’s pyramids, to Babylonian temples, Greek and Rome Empire, Illyrian civilization, and other civilizations have all of them collapsed. If one goes to explore them in order to give answers to why these civilizations have collapsed, I would say, without any doubt, that human being, despite the fact that some people have outshined with their wisdom, they have been under the pressure of a power that excluded our practical wisdom. For even Aristotle did not excel in maximum with his wisdom as regards the complexity of Athens or Acropolis. The old men of the Greek Empire known as the seven, three hundred or three thousands wise men did not “scent” that a society when becomes complex as regards its population, monetary organization, buildings, roads, temples and so on, becomes more fragile to collapse. Archaeologist’s pickaxes tell us that everything is covered under our feet. Erosion of our mountains has its part in our nature’s game. The melted ices in the arctic contribute to a continually changing environment. Recently we understood that our earth is a “Vivian” organism and its crust is like our own skin. But despite this fact, no politics, university or society today, asks: If we cover or uncover earth’s crust, what would happen to our earth? And this muse could be answered straightforward: If our skin does not accept covering then earth’s crust is the same. This is because it is a living creature. We cannot cover or uncover it in order to satisfy our own desire, by building new houses, surfacing new roads with asphalts, buildings, bridges, wind mills, mines and so on, and considering them as an “economic growth”. As said above, the welfare states have established to our global politics “specializations” but not continuous learning. As Flyvbjerg pointed out:

[W]e live in time when the ability for constant learning is considered crucial to the welfare of individuals, organisations and nations. This is the age of the ‘learning society’. However, in environmental impact assessment (EIA), which is the main methodology used by decision makers to predict environmental effects of megaprojects, surprisingly little learning is taking place. Or, to put the manner more positively, learning is only now beginning. This is true for megaprojects as well as for other types of project. The reason for the lack of learning is that projects and their environment impacts are rarely audited ex post, and without post-auditing learning is impossible . (Emphasis in original) I would like to add another component and probably the most important element to our social knowledge, that is, our irrational economics, that in order to rationalise itself it becomes problematic and unreflective for other sciences. Moreover, it cannot be constant when the whole politics or social actions are concentrated around one subject, that is, Money! Social humans’ today work for money not for proper work. For money is the basic conception in our societies, not the work. Through money we search for further knowledge and for happiness. But money does not bring happiness because money is not a virtue. Virtue has to do with human values and actions not with money.

However, on the other hand, we cannot uncover it by deforesta-tion. In the year 400 AD central and Western Europe was covered from horizon to horizon by dense forest, with only occasional clearings; the population of Europe probably ― exact figures are not known ― did not exceed 25 million (compared to 600 million today, if European Russia is included) . The massive demand for food which is result of the energy used has become the main cause that causes instability and the fall of the time to time “powers”. For social powers today ― following Montesquieu’s contemplation ― have established the “exclusion” of human natural power, that is, a practical contemplation on social development, so that, to assuage as much as we can any error when taking any decision. Unfortunately, instead of it, our social powers have been transformed a quasi-instrumentalist power-rationality when this power covers or uncovers the “skin” of our earth whenever and with whatever means ― in order to fulfil the desire of human beings.

Thus, without any doubt, covering and uncovering must be under the measurement of a full power and “value-rationality”. But as said in our previous sections the value-rationality of human beings is not part of our politics, social structures or organizations. The problems therefore that we will confront in the future ― if we do not change global politics ― are too many and unfortunately we cannot realise them, because of the established power, which is concentrated around our monetary policy. The established power is not simply detrimental to our consciousness, but to our environment, too. And this is, because, power occupy itself with more power. When our world has only one party-government in its eastern part and the established power wanted to keep its population in control we were on the one hand, under a tyrannical power, and on the other, under competitiveness and accuracy of our social actions. Now, we live in world that this power has changed; there are many powers: Visible and invisible. When these powers change, our behaviour changes as well. But if change is for the better of our world then we have to prove it. How could someone then prove that our world is changing for the better, since our world today has established a global power? Or how could a simple consciousness today expand itself when it is under huge global powers? How many myths would be infused to such consciousness? How, how, could we manage these powers when value-rationality and human consciousness have become inexistent?

Lastly, as noted above, from a society that needs from time to time war by its government, so that, to not let them to be “isolated”, we are today in front of a new phenomenon: The rapidly ever, ever growth of the population. This phenomenon in the social life or international affairs ― on which play a crucial role our big co-operations ― will be accompanied by more wars, more lust for power, and more curtailment of the commodities of our world; creating monsters cities in which, definitely we will see a “global clash” of human interests. This will be not clash of civilizations, as other scholars put it, but the clash of interests. Further, this linkage goes like this: As long as our global politics use the maxim “grow or die” it would be applied in the further course of its development, that is, in the internationalised domain, dealing with defaulters states and cities, as nowadays with Greece et.al. In practise, it means that sovereign cities or countries will be more fragile and will oftener lose their sustainability, if not, disappear from the surface of our globe. This happens precisely because, when a country lose its autonomy, then its counterpart, that is, its citizens, have lost it prior to their city. It is sure then, that we will march on these domains without any doubt. For this is because of the power given without its counter-power ― to the present politicians who cannot realise the massive destruction that they are causing in our nature; and because, they consider themselves as a source of news, competence or conventional wisdom rather than reading studies or contemplating about social phenomena. Unfortunately, the “burden of proof” for such development lies on and will lie ahead to our “history” which has created a “hierarchical society”. But could we realise a society to be not hierarchical, that is, horizontal? How were ancient societies ar-ranged as regards its population? How they used their wisdom as re-gards the commodities of their environment? Were they, a hierarchy? Certainly, not! Hierarchy tends to accumulate power on one point, that is, on one or few people. For practical purposes they were cer-tainly not a hierarchical. On the other side, for theoretical purposes they started to be transformed a hierarchy. But since theory is not possible or have not reached a sufficient degree in the social domain, then, how could we justify a hierarchical society? ― On which basis? How could we link value-rationality as regards its counter-part, that is, instrumental-rationality, to a hierarchical society?

Then, comparatively with the ancient humans, whom we use to call them as less rational, we are certainly irrational. This is because we use less our own wisdom, reflective or pure conciseness. For in-stance, according to Heinberg ‘...[i]n ancient Australia, over a period of tens of thousands of years, human beings and their adopted envi-ronment achieved a relative balance. The Aboriginals developed myths, rites, and taboos: overhunting was forbidden, and burning was permitted only in certain seasons of the year. Meanwhile, na-tive species adjusted themselves to the presence of humans. All of the surviving species — humans, animals, and plants — co-evolved. By the time European colonizers arrived, once again upsetting the bal-ance, Australia — people and all — had the characteristics of a climax ecosystem. Many native Australian trees and shrubs had so adjusted themselves to the Aboriginals’ “fire-farming” practices that they could no longer reproduce property in the absence of deliberate burning. Moreover, the Aboriginals had learned the necessity of limiting their own population levels through extended lactation, the use of contraceptive herbs, or, if necessary, infanticide. (Emphasis added).

In practise, no one can afford today having more children than they can and if there is a “rational social policy” then individuals will keep the population in low or a constant level. But because there is the incentive of the governments ― who according to their “belief” and persuasion tend to practise theories or ideologies, such as capital-ism, in the way it is realised, so that, to have more children than one can afford; and because no one can deliberate when at a given con-text, we, sub-consciously tend to rely on “supra-power’s” decisions, then we have the today’s results. For, without extending our analysis in the problems caused by our global politics and by the time to time governments we will turn back to our subject, that is, our city. Then our lessons according to our analysis are as follows:

Our city to be rational as regards its population must learn to keep its population in balance towards itself and other beings ― otherwise a city will collapse in time. This can be done by posing and answering the following question: How many people can sustain a society according to its environmental resources? If this question is answered meticulously then a society has to develop a “horizontal democracy”. Thus, in order to happen such a development we have to develop a “horizontal democracy”, if we justify it on the grounds of a natural social development. For our ecosystem need rational mind and therefore it has to be measured ― as Protagoras observed long time ago, by the axiom: ‘Of all things the measure is man, of the things that are, that [or "how"] they are, and of things that are not, that [or "how"] they are not’. As it is clear, Protagoras here is talking about value-humans not tech-humans. But what is a tech-human? Tech-human is by nature hierarchical, because it has to do with techne, whereas, value-human is by nature horizontal, because it has to do with values; and values defer from one another depending on consciousness’s expansion. If we tend to exclude one “value” from our decisions in our city, we will find ourselves in big troubles, because human values tend to be part of our value-rationality, and if there is to be taken a decision it is useful to use full-value-rationality. How could we therefore justify our global politics today when politics tend to rely on “belief” rather than on reason? What do our politics destroy when instead of “reason” it uses the politics of “belief”? For in the next section we will challenge the kind of politics which rely on “beliefs” rather than on pure consciousness, by addressing the following question: What destroys “mind’s belief” and what builds up our “historical mind”, in a psychological approach.