About 100%

100% of what? 100% for what?

To explain it would fill this Blog, so patience it will gradually become clear.

Let’s say for now that this bog is about getting to nothing less than 100% sustainable living. And thus it is about saying 100% no, emphatically, to all contemporary trends and processes that are not viable, and 100% yes, also emphatically, to what is possible and can lead us out of trouble and towards sustainable ways of living.

To say that no

As part of this year’s Day of Remembrance of genocides and of prevention of crimes against humanity (2014), Bernard Girard questioned “the obedience of entire societies... and the inability of individuals to say no when they should have said so.” So, with a wink towards psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, let's start by saying that the matter here is “to say that no”, categorically, 100%, to what is presently in the process of happening globally and catastrophically for the whole of humankind and potentially for more than 90% of all life on Earth.

From time immemorial there have always been human beings who felt compelled to stand up and “say that no” such and such reprehensible matters were not OK. We may remember, for example, this person standing helpless before a line of tanks in the middle of a large square. He and his fellow demonstrators were crushed. His non-violent act was honourable and courageous. It did leave some traces but apparently did not change significantly the course of things. Others tried to say that no by taking up arms; they killed and eventually most ended up under a hail of bullets, like the one nicknamed “the Che”. Their actions too were often honourable and courageous. They may have left some traces but apparently did not substantially change the subsequent course of events.

Some others have emerged at critical times to also say that no who managed to catalyse major changes, people like Charles de Gaulle in the face of the Nazi invasion of France, Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in India, or Nelson Mandela in South Africa, for example, people who became world famous in recognition of their initiatives. Their actions generally left notable traces in their own countries but did not alter significantly the global course towards the present ecological catastrophe.

Occasionally there have been others whose sayings and doings catalysed much deeper and longer lasting changes, at least concerning a substantial part of what we call “humankind” – let’s recall for example, Siddhartha Gautama Sakyamuni (c.563 -c.483 BC), the one apparently originally called Yehoshua (c.7BC -. c 33 AD), or Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad (570-632 CE). However, despite the considerable changes that they initiated, the course of things as a whole has continued largely unabated.

Although over time there have been substantial cultural achievements and, especially since the Renaissance, a remarkable explosion of knowledge, those changes have never benefited more than a tiny minority of humans. Over the centuries most humans have continued to kill, rape, torture, exploit, pillage and plunder each other and everything in their path while proliferating more and more, especially since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, up to now number over 7 billion and endangering not only their own species, but most life on Earth.

A science that says no

It is precisely at this very juncture that everything changes. It is at this point in time, that we can and must say “NO”, 100%, categorically NO.

In the present instance there is no single “leader”. Instead, there are hundreds of us, thousands, no doubt many more, some millions may be, nobody knows exactly taking part in saying that no in so many different and complementary ways. We are scientists, engineers and/or entrepreneurs, active in many areas, but particularly concerning the thermodynamics of complex systems operating far from equilibrium, ecology, the dynamics of the Earth-Life system, climatology, the human and social sciences, and at the interface between the neurosciences and psychoanalysis – to clarify, the kind of psychoanalysis that in recent decades has been systematically corroborated by neuroscience advances, often against many neurologists’ own beliefs. Most of us have never met but we follow diligently each other’s activities and publications, critiquing our respective works relentlessly. This is precisely what makes us into a people, a “demos” (as in democracy).

We sometimes err. This happens to all of us but the ceaseless mutual critique always ends up filtering errors out. It is thanks to this constant critiquing that from our demos emerges what one calls science.

Contrary to what many seem to believe, science does not say “what is.” Saying “what is” is something that science leaves to religions, beliefs and multifarious superstitions. Over time, often after much meanderings, in each of its domains of enquiry, science always ends up deploying itself outside from, and independently of, any belief, any “revelation”, any ideology, any “value” be it mercantile or “humanistic.”

Thanks to critical thinking, science progresses strictly by saying “no”, showing what is false, incorrect, erroneous, or absurd. However, science never does so in any absolute fashion. It is fairly obvious that researchers never stand outside the universe we inhabit. Scientists are never in the position of an eagle flying high over its territory in search for its next lunch. Their vision is always limited and partial. It follows that in each instance, science says no from a particular stand-point, concerning a specific course of action or a specific approach (praxis), and within a limited domain or field of action.

Over time, the multitude of “noes” accumulates to a point when science sometimes can venture beyond saying “maybe” and ends up being brutally categorical. This is presently the case concerning the global development course followed by humankind since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and nowadays often labelled “Business-As-Usual” (BAU). In doing so, however, science simultaneously delineates one or more fields of possibles, widely open, where it is possible to innovate, experiment, and evolve, to build viable and sustainable worlds.

No to the present death race

Until recently, humans could relentless rip into each other and create chaos around them without apparently ever causing any major detrimental consequence for the whole of life on Earth. This is no longer the case. It is precisely at this point in time, within this terrible human swarming, that our demos has arrived at a position where it can say that no, humankind, in its present state, on its present BAU trajectory, is no longer viable. This is what emerges from a huge mass of accumulating data and their critical analyses. Towards the late 1960s and early 1970s some of us had begun to suspect that much and warned about the potential danger. Now, what we are saying is no longer a “maybe”. It has become a categorical NO, a no that also traces very precisely a wide-open field of new possibilities.

Some have already pointed this out in many diverse ways, for example by speaking of “transformations” or “transitions,” or, as anthropologist Edgar Morin did repeatedly in recent years, by stressing the urgent need for thorough “metamorphoses.” However, it is better to see things in a straight fashion, bluntly, without detours. What emerges from the whole of natural and social sciences, listened to and analysed critically, is that, in fact, humankind is already moribund, with some 7 billion and more humans swarming over it like so many maggots. In other words, there cannot be a future for humankind but for a humankind that is 100% other than the present one. There is no longer time or room for some limited approximations or marginal arrangements, for any “transition” that would only be “the more things change the more they remain the same” of BAU. The destiny of humanity, of being human, is that of a humanity other than its present dominant manifestations.

Yes, to the possibility of 100% sustainable living

As also stressed emphatically earlier on, saying that no is also marking out and opening up a wide field of what is thermodynamically, ecologically, technically, socially, culturally, politically, and above all humanely possible. It is saying Yes to a resolute drive towards sustainable living.

The aim of this blog is thus to witness and analyse the present paroxysmal BAU process in all its variant, including the so-called “greenish” and even “green” ones, and to explore from an entrepreneurial perspective the wide field of viable possibilities that ensues once one has said that no.

#change