This is the simple logic of the seven values: Conscientiously using these values and the proactive morality and ethic in the decision-making processes by the individual/families and organizations will result in material and social sustainability of families, organizations, communities, societies, and democratic nations.
If we decide as individual/families and organizations to embrace both material and social sustainability, we need to know for how long, and what “sustaining” really means. The table below provides clear definitions of the two branches of sustainability that are necessary for a society to “become sustainable.”
Two Types of Sustainability
Sustainability |
|
| Material Sustainability | Social Sustainability |
| < Quantity - Object Based > | < Quality - Value Based > |
| Resources: |
Resources: |
| Material Environment — Natural Resources are valued as material assets. |
Social Environment — Individuals are valued as social assets. |
| Sustained by: | Sustained by:. |
| Increasing Quantity Available, Decreasing Usage, Reusing, Recycling and Re-purposing. |
* A symbiotic relationship between individuals and society. Society improves the quality of the individual’s capability … … to participate effectively in society, which increases their social value to society. * Individuals then become “social assets” whose innate capabilities can be nurtured and developed. |
The Durations Of Existence
Survival presents us with the immediate appreciation of life now and the threat of death within this day or the next.
Existence presents us with the necessity of assuring our survival over a period of time with death still being a constant reminder in our daily activities.
Maintenance presents us with the necessity of assuring our existence is maintained into an indefinite future. And this is the place where most people and their communities and societies exist — in an indefinite future.
Stability. As a society moves toward social sustainability it has begun the process of making decisions that assure it has a definite, peaceful, and stable future.
The Durations Of Sustaining
Sustain: To lengthen or extend in duration. This also implies a continuation of what exists already, which may not be sustainable.
Sustainable: Capable of being sustained in the long term.
Sustainability: The ability to sustain.
Social Sustainability: The ability of a society to be self-sustaining indefinitely…, for 5 years, 50 years, 250 years, 500 years and more because of the intention for its existence and the design of its functions.
Consciously choosing UNsustainability is to choose the death of societies and the quality of life of all future generations. It is an immoral decision whether made consciously or by the omission to decide. It is an immoral decision because it primarily violates the values of growth and equality of the generations that have not been born.
Trying to achieve sustainable growth is an oxymoron — it is contradictory and impossible. Many people in business strive to sustain growth of their corporation’s profits. Eventually, that becomes an impossibility, which at the present time has not yet shown its ugly face. Then an existential moral problem will exist. Do we exploit the material environment to maintain profits and our high standard of living compared to the rest of the world, or do we begin to practice conservation (decreasing usage, reusing, recycling, and re-purposing) to support the children of our future generations?
One of the intentions of this book is to make people aware of our moral responsibilities to the billions of people of future generations, and that includes our children’s children and great -great grand children. When we discuss the primary value “equality” what we are talking about is designing our material resources and social institutions so that social and material resources are available to nurture and support the development of the innate potential of those future generations.
Equality in this multi-generational context is equality between us now and “us” as our future generations. Without us now, future generations would not exist and because of that those generations are equal to us and deserving of our considerations to provide for their equality as we would our own today. Just because they are not physically present with us today is no reason to ignore primary value of equality. When we FAIL to extend our empathy and sympathy for those generations, then we are again acting selfishly, again putting our self-interest before the moral interests of our children and their children. Doing so jeopardizes their quality of life, and that is immoral.
Brief Summary
Now the question. “Do we want our societies and our way of life to become sustainable or UNsustainable?” We can make that decision once we appreciate how intimately our decisions today will affect the survival, existence, stability, and sustainability, in their broadest definitions, of those who have yet to be born.
As you can see from the last three paragraphs, the “rules of engagement” for resolving these difficult situations must come from the Seven Values, their Moral Definitions, Ethics Statements, and Expressed Ethics. Relying upon man made interpreted value systems will only lead to more and more difficult situations, (read, Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous, “VUCA”), with no final authority to rely upon. If our societies are to be sustained, then we must rely upon the authority of the seven values and apply them to the decision-making processes of all organizations to give families, communities, and societies the same longevity as our species.
Educating the Younger Generation
Insects are born fully educated and equipped for life—indeed, a very narrow and purely instinctive existence. The human baby is born without an education; therefore man possesses the power, by controlling the educational training of the younger generation, greatly to modify the evolutionary course of civilization.
The security of civilization itself
still rests on the growing willingness
of one generation
to invest in the welfare
of the next and future generations.