One positive thing about keeping a blog is that it forces me to evaluate what I write and to make sure that my reasoning is sound and well-intentioned. Thus having written a short note on Hans Rosling I was forced to admit to myself that I have not looked at all closely at his book Factfulness, and that I should therefore be careful with making statements about him or even his audience. I have now read through it a bit more earnestly and I can hardly underline enough what a positive influence his thinking can have on me. As may already be obvious I tend towards pessimism, whereas Rosling calls himself a "possibilist"; he does not like the word optimism, which can lead to the complacency I mentioned before, but he simply asks: if we have achieved this much by today, why could we not achieve even more in the future? Why should we not, for instance, be able to exterminate extreme poverty within 20 years? I am still cautious about such prospects, but at the same time, why should we not want to eliminate poverty or at least sharply reduce it? Only the cynicism and the bitterness in me would be skeptical of such a goal. And these are two really great flaws of character that I do not wish to have.
On the other side of this debate, we find lone voices such as the human ecologist Alf Hornborg, who I have been paying attention to more in the past, because his rather more pessimistic outlook on the workings of the world align more closely with my natural inclinations. Essentially, Hornborg argues that machine technology is the embodiment of zero-sum game of unequal exchange, where time and space is saved in the capitalist core at the expense of the exploited periphery. For instance, a cotton factory can only work because enough people can be found who will grow raw cotton and sell it rather than refine it themselves. Most of the land and labor (and water) required in this process is concentrated in the first part of the production chain, producing the raw material, while the profits tend to accrue in the refinement of cotton into desirable textiles. Thus the industrialist wins and the cotton farmers lose out, relatively speaking. Supposedly then, the reason why much of the world has still seen an enormous growth in wealth lately is because of the free energy deriving from fossil fuels.
Rosling believes that new technology will help us combat environmental problems and still keep lifiting people out of poverty; Hornborg generally does not. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in-between, as it often does. As for Hornborg, he has clearly made his calculations, and I believe his perspective his very valuable, but I am also wary - now more than previously - of what I see as a kind of "eco-Marxism" in his thinking. His analysis tends towards materialistic reductionism - I am not sure he would agree about that, but at least it is the impression and the spirit that I got out of his writings. Such a reductionism can be truly bad for your character, if nothing else, and can easily lead to a denial of spiritual realities altogether.
Thus have we come full circle from questions about the environment to the more essential question of self-cultivation. :)
On the other side of this debate, we find lone voices such as the human ecologist Alf Hornborg, who I have been paying attention to more in the past, because his rather more pessimistic outlook on the workings of the world align more closely with my natural inclinations. Essentially, Hornborg argues that machine technology is the embodiment of zero-sum game of unequal exchange, where time and space is saved in the capitalist core at the expense of the exploited periphery. For instance, a cotton factory can only work because enough people can be found who will grow raw cotton and sell it rather than refine it themselves. Most of the land and labor (and water) required in this process is concentrated in the first part of the production chain, producing the raw material, while the profits tend to accrue in the refinement of cotton into desirable textiles. Thus the industrialist wins and the cotton farmers lose out, relatively speaking. Supposedly then, the reason why much of the world has still seen an enormous growth in wealth lately is because of the free energy deriving from fossil fuels.
Rosling believes that new technology will help us combat environmental problems and still keep lifiting people out of poverty; Hornborg generally does not. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in-between, as it often does. As for Hornborg, he has clearly made his calculations, and I believe his perspective his very valuable, but I am also wary - now more than previously - of what I see as a kind of "eco-Marxism" in his thinking. His analysis tends towards materialistic reductionism - I am not sure he would agree about that, but at least it is the impression and the spirit that I got out of his writings. Such a reductionism can be truly bad for your character, if nothing else, and can easily lead to a denial of spiritual realities altogether.
Thus have we come full circle from questions about the environment to the more essential question of self-cultivation. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment