Policy is people, People is policy

I've been going over one of the standard ecological economics texts throughout the past week and have been contemplating a concept that helps to explain 'why' politics are the way they currently are.

For summary purposes, here in Alberta, the political landscape, much like the current condition blanketing the Capital region, seems saturated with a rotten, blinding smog. With internal re-shufflings and entropic disintegrations plaguing the incumbent Progressive Conservatives, the rise in popularity of an ill-defined band of not-progressive conservatives, and the capitulation to corporatism by the provincial Liberals – the public sphere is none too enlightened with a genuine critical conversation and it shows in the policies that appear to be securing a future of not-so-soft collapse.

In the chapter on Ends, Means, and Policy in Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications (Island Press, 2004), the authors suggest this most poignant of observations:

The level of policy in a democracy cannot rise above the average level of understanding of the population. In a democracy, the distribution of knowledge is as important as the distribution of wealth.

Immediately in reading these words, I am reminded how what we see as corruption, pettiness, and self-serving manipulation within the world of politics are merely tangential reflections of the immaturity and attachments of the average citizen. The social impropriety surrounding deep critiques of public figures, institutions, and trends reflects the average citizen's unwillingness to confront static patterns. This in turn prevents policy from being designed as an orderly adaptation to the multi-dimensional crisis we are faced with. Bluntly: the distribution of knowledge is restricted and power-dominated because the humans who are the carriers of knowledge behave in close-minded and ego-oriented ways. What we think about in our day-to-day consciousness, how we carry ourselves in relation to the community of Life, and our attempts (or lack thereof) to optimize and deepen our lens of realty – all determine the level of policy which directs our common trajectory.

In my experience, it is difficult for the domesticated primate's identity construct to consider notions and paradigms which delineate fundamental flaws within its exhibited beliefs and behaviours. Who we think we are and what we think we are here to do is the result of a complex web of notions and proclivities with strands in our deep past. To trace the impulses and properties of our consciousness throughout its evolution to that of our current level of understanding is a daunting task. To go further than we are today is to further question, integrate, and transcend that which has come before. When taken in this context, it is no wonder that to those whom vie for public office or hold positions of important decision-making do not recognize many material, immediate benefits in confronting the root causes of ecological, economic, and cultural crisis.

It seems that there are two identifiable blockages that must be overcome. First, to question the validity of the consensual reality tunnel is to throw the doors of one's mindscape open to large, complex forces that seem foreign and threatening to the preservation of the 'known' and 'desired'. Secondly, when a certain individual voices their concern at the need for a systemic purging and reboot of the operating system of our civilization, they are promptly attacked by the immune cells of business as usual. What then, does it take to remove such blockages? How do we cease adhering to the expected myopia and instead, increase, the 'average level of understanding of the population'?

Well, there are, at least, as many ways out of ignorance as there ways into it. Primarily though, if we as individuals and social groups but choose to turn the lens of observation in the direction of that which we find most disconcerting, we will gradually come to hypothesize and experiment with appropriate responses to our individual and collective problems (intractable though some may be). It is this theme that I hope to explore in my next post while using the concepts of peak oil and ecological debt to reflect on the proper place of humanity in this evolving worldspace.