Author: Marilyn Mehlmann

Food is culture. What we eat is deeply ingrained in us, is part of our culture. Yes?

Yes and no. Surely when travelling we’ve all sometimes longed for the taste of home. Yet the ‘taste of home’ has changed more rapidly in the past 50 years than in the whole history of humans on this planet.

How wonderful it would be to think we had kept the best of our traditions, and introduced new benefits; but instead it seems to be the opposite. Increasingly, new eating habits are leading to epidemics of ill-health; not only among humans but also among ecosystems, animals, and – not least – the soil.

There is good news. For instance, there is no lack of food: the challenges of feeding the world’s still-growing population are political and technical, not agricultural. There is no lack of knowledge: if best farming and fishing practices were to be globalized, there would be enough nutritious food for everyone. And if food-processing industries were to adopt common-sense rules about nutrition, even processed food can be healthy.

The problems may be global but, as usual, the solutions are necessarily local. We can use the best participatory methods to engage citizens, local authorities and business. Together we can support local farmers to restore soil and ecosystems, reduce our own food waste and turn the residue into an asset, learn and teach how to enjoy healthy food.

In other words by working together, locally, we can aim to keep and restore the best of the traditional cultures while making the most of new opportunities.

Perhaps, indeed, this is the best route to cultivating a planet that is a healthy habitat for humans – and many other species.

If I allow myself to feel the pain of everyone on earth… or everyone I meet… or even everyone I live or work with… how will I survive?

It’s a good question. Compassion comes from empathy, the ability to ‘feel with’ the experience of others. However, it does not mean taking over their feelings – that’s just another kind of violence. How tempting is it to think, or even say: “I know exactly how you feel, it happened to me too”? It may possibly be empathy, but not compassion.

How about sympathy? It’s another case of empathy gone wrong: an outlet for my wish to feel superior to you. “Oh you poor thing, I feel so sorry for you.”

‘Taking over” and sympathizing are both ways of keeping distance. Compassion keeps no distance, while still marking the boundary between you and me. It allows me to ‘feel with’ you, as an equal, without taking on your suffering (and thus doubling it). Walking this tightrope is the way to true compassion. This is what I have come to believe.

Why should we bother, if it’s so difficult?

Perhaps compassion is a prerequisite for our survival as a civilization? Imagine a world where a teacher can feel compassion for every pupil, without burning out. Where a business leader can feel compassion for all beings, and reflect that in his/her decisions. Where every politician can ‘afford’ to feel and express compassion not only for constituents but also for fellow politicians – rivals as well as comrades. Where every doctor can meet each patient with compassion.

Scary or not: would it not be a better world?

 

We suffer, says Mathis Wackernagel, from a conversation deficit. The challenge is not that we don’t talk enough; rather in the quality of the questions we ask each other, the thought we give to responding, and the quality of our listening.

In fact, it comes down to intention.
• When I ask you a question, I can be ‘making conversation’, or I can be truly interested in what you have to say. “How are you?”
• When you respond, you can be on autopilot. “Fine, thanks.” Or …
• When I listen to your response, I can be on autopilot – “Good, good.” Or I can be truly listening not only to your words but for your meaning. “You seem extremely busy.”

There is of course a role for ‘making conversation’. I remember my mother once remarking, about an inordinately intensive and charismatic person who looks deeply into your eyes on every single exchange: “He has no small talk.” Tiring!

However I agree with Wackernagel that the balance needs to be righted. Less small talk, more real conversation. Real conversation can be sparked by good questions – liberating questions. And truly liberating questions are neutral: the wording gives no hint of what you might like the answer to be, and contains no implied criticism. Examples:
How do you feel?
What would you most like to change or improve, if you could?
How can I help?
What is the best thing that could happen?
What is the worst thing that could happen?

There are more examples here, including questions we might fruitfully ask ourselves. Don’t forget to listen attentively to the answers!

Not so long ago, a passport was a traveller’s option. You applied for a passport if you wanted to be able to claim the protection of your country’s embassies. Visas were unheard of – though for some particular places you might need special permission. Like the Forbidden City in Peking? Musing on this while waiting for a visa at the Chinese consulate (one of the more helpful I’ve encountered, by the way), I reflected on how short our collective memories are. Who, now, does NOT take for granted the necessity of a passport for international travel?

In the same way, we tend to take for granted the desirability of employment. In fact, it’s written into the declaration of human rights (article 23). But only the day before yesterday – well, less than 200 years ago – Antoine de St Exupéry could refer to ‘paid employment’ as being the second-worse fate that could befall a free man. The worst fate was of course slavery.

In a way, I find this reassuring. If we can make such rapid changes in our values and perspectives, what can we not achieve in the future? Here are some things we might imagine taking for granted in the near future:
• The role of a parliament is to support, protect and empower its people, and to help bring about their dreams of a good society
• Every person is equally important, every life is equally valuable
• The role of money is to connect actual needs with available resources
• The role of industry is to make the best possible use of available resources, without depletion, degradation, or pollution
• The role of education is to empower students and prepare them for active citizenship

Well, that’s just for starters: my preliminary passport to the future. What’s yours?

Sustainable development is too urgent for us to keep re-inventing the wheel. We need to become much, much better at learning from experience: our own, and other people’s.

That was how we reasoned when, around 2005, we started an R&D program that has so far resulted in a methodology and toolbox called Learning for Change (L4C). It’s been so inspiring; now it feels like time to share with others (and maybe boast a bit).

The methodology is being used in several ways:

1. For collaborative learning, by people from different projects and backgrounds
2. For project appraisal, by a stakeholder group
3. As a pedagogical strategy for a whole school
4. As a tool for on-going, online learning in an international multi-year project

The first two are outlined in the little book Learning for Change, published as an iBook and as a pdf.

1. Collaborative learning workshops…
…have already been held in Sweden, Vietnam (3), South Africa (2) and India, with participants from more than 40 countries. More are planned, including facilitator training. On this development trail, our partnership with SWEDESD has been invaluable.

2. Project appraisal workshops
Several ‘collaborative learning’ participants have begun using L4C for project appraisal, with highly satisfactory results. Mostly NGOs, and their funders are expressing appreciation for the workshop reports. A Ministry of Education uses it to bring together large numbers of school supervisors. We’d like to see it used by, for instance, sustainability and CSR teams in the workplace.

3. Learning strategy for school
Gayaza High School for Girls in Uganda is pioneering the use of L4C as a pedagogical strategy for the whole school. Interim reports are encouraging (and the photos are amazing), but they’ve been so busy ‘doing it’ that they haven’t yet found time to write it up.

4. On-going, online learning
This is our next growing edge, and a challenging one. As part of CELLS, an EU-funded international program to improve sustainable lifestyle programs, we are inviting regular feedback and learning, following the L4C process, over a period of three years. Watch this space!

Development continues, both on uses for the existing materials and on further elaboration. All contributions welcome. The informal R&D group is not limited to members of Global Action Plan International – and neither are the results. We love to share.

Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration: “Most Americans are indifferent to liberty and are content with tyranny. This means that truth does not have a healthy future in America.”

In their different ways, the ‘affairs’ of Assange, Manning and Snowden would seem to support his point – and not only in regard to Americans. So what happened to “The truth will set you free?”

It’s easy to say: ‘The truth won’t set you free, because it’s relative: my understanding and yours may be different, but they’re equally valid.’ Too easy: because of course it’s ‘true’; but still only a partial truth. There are incontrovertible facts, which may be inconvenient truths, and thus conveniently ignored.

I do think there’s a difference between ignoring inconvenient facts, and being fed deliberate, manipulative lies. And I do think that any real democracy – when we finally get around to inventing one – will offer access to facts: not just one facet of ‘the truth’, but several. This was the promise of the information revolution: encyclopaedic information at the fingertips of everyone. Wasn’t it? And will we find ways to maintain and enhance that access?

Our new democracies will educate in the tools needed to handle facts constructively: mental tools like critical thinking, and emotional tools to handle our own reactions. In fact: can that be where real democracy starts, rather than with structures and laws?