Our world view is characterized by paradoxes. They make the urgently needed cultural revolution towards a sustainable way of life more difficult. We live in a world of unprecedented global and regional interdependencies.
However, social theories, especially those of economics with their roots in the 18th century, are based on the singular individual, who is also thought of as a sublime egoist.
The tension between this reality of global interconnectedness of now 7.5 billion people and this individualistic self-image could not be greater.
The fact that we live in incredibly dense social and natural relationships also means that we are dependent on others to an unprecedented extent. In a kind of timelessness, we also ignore the fact that our social life owes itself not only to the present, but to many generations before us. At the same time, the obligation to maintain and pass on the culture we have inherited and the nature we have received - to future generations - is based on this obliviousness to time.
This brings with it the social obligation of solidarity and justice, both of which are at best a kind of by-product, if not a nonsense, of current economic theories. Environmental damage, especially climate change, affects the poorest 20% of the world's population the most. The sustainability debate is therefore no longer just about future generations , but also about the current generation in other parts of the world. It is the socially disadvantaged people living in the South who consume so miserably little and who are hit hardest by the ecological damage caused by the consumption of others. This is a blatant injustice that is also a threat to peace.
The third, probably most peculiar paradox.
Conventional theories, and therefore increasingly our world view, ignore the finite nature of both nature and our own lives.
Nature comes from nasci, which means to be born. Birth involves passing away. Nature is always subject to finiteness. It is probably the modern priority of the mechanical, the technically induced dream of the perpetual motion machine that turns endlessly, that leads to this loss of the presence of essential realities. However, it seems that the illusion of infinity devalues what is there. The throwaway culture becomes the expression of an abundance that is no longer experienced as liberating. Therein lies the tragedy, as what is lacking elsewhere and destroying nature is no longer experienced as a good.
A reconciliation with finiteness, be it from philosophical or spiritual sources, the will to understand the goods of the earth as food for all and the recognition of our interdependencies are the basis for the reconstruction of a world machine that today only brings a little happiness to a few and at the same time leaves a trail of destruction in its wake.
A culture of sustainability means recognizing and nurturing the preciousness of what is.
We live in a highly interdependent world. We have never been as globally networked in all areas of life as we are today. The media networks, submarine cables and satellite connections spanning the entire globe are the technical expression of this. What has remained provincial is our way of thinking and acting. Even more, it is governed by the postulate of individual progressive maximization of benefit.
The paradox that arises from this is that global interdependencies require us to recognize planet Earth as the one home of mankind as homo sapiens. An individualistic approach only works here insofar as it is determined by responsibility for the whole.
About the author
Ingeborg Gabriel, born in 1952, is a Roman Catholic theologian and economist. Since 1997, Gabriel has been a university professor for Christian social teaching and social ethics at the Catholic Theological Faculty of the University of Vienna. She is also Director of the Austrian Commission Iustitia et Pax. In 2015, Gabriel spoke out in favor of a fundamental reform of the economic system.
