Possible streams of effort to carry Common Cause forward within the education sector

Please feedback by commenting below or by emailing

Morgan Phillips: mail@becominggreen.co.uk

It is my strong personal belief that the sustainability sector¹ is too small and too powerless to create a mainstream shift towards sustainable lifestyles on its own. Such a shift would require a dramatic modification of the values of the entire population and the sustainability movement is only a very tiny shaper of those values. The forces that drive and embed self-interest and therefore consumerism in our society are numerous, complexly interrelated and self reinforcing. This is not to say they can't be challenged, they are and can be; I'll discuss how a little later.

Following on from discussions on March 11^th, 19^th, 20^th and 21^st that I’ve been having in various ‘Common Cause’ meetings I want to suggest two streams of effort that those interested might want to join together to pursue. They are related and mutually reinforcing but need not be pursued in any particular order, I am therefore naming them the RED and BLUE streams.

RED stream - Getting our own house in order

As a sector¹, and as Common Cause points out, what we absolutely must not do is be complicit in reinforcing damaging self-enhancing values. Heaven knows they are reinforced enough elsewhere! So, no longer, for example, should we encourage environmental behaviours by preying on cost and time saving motivators, however tempting such short-cuts can be. There is a very real need for us to get our own houses in order. No matter how difficult and challenging it might be, this must be the path we set out on. We must do this for several reasons, one not least of which being that if we are playing on self-interest to further our agendas, we are in effect - as respected ‘universalists’ - further legitimizing hyper-individualism².

The first task in getting our houses in order is to communicate to the sector as a whole the necessity of actually doing this. Waste Watch’s collaborative Sustainable Lifestyles framework and its initial discussion paper 'Working from values'³ provides a very useful starting point for us. The 'next steps' of that project will explore the issues in more depth and contribute further advice, through research and best practice case studies, to help the sector as a whole to modify its approach. Tim has called for others to come forward to help him develop these next steps; it is up to us to respond to that call.

However, dissemination, I feel, must not be restricted to PDF files and online forums. Face-to-face contact in the form of one-to-one conversations, workshops, action research and ‘work experience’⁴ need to happen as budgets allow. Several networks⁵ exist to make dissemination possible, we should use as many as possible to ensure we reach all corners of the sector.

The shift in practice called for will not happen overnight, there are many obstacles⁶ to overcome. As advocates and consultants⁷ we can catalyse a change in practice - the shift is already in motion, we need to help it gather speed until it snowballs.

Getting our own house in order is crucial not only to improving the efficacy and long term impacts of our own work, but will also allow us to carry out the BLUE stream more effectively.

BLUE stream – Engaging the wider education sector

Formal education in the UK is beset with many difficulties⁸; many argue that it is not fit for purpose. Schools are filled with disengaged students, frustrated teachers and worried parents. The formal education system is ripe for transformation and we need to get along side those calling for change, find common ground and combine with them to become a powerful and irresistible voice.

I may be a bit naive here, but I believe that if you ask teachers and parents what they want their children to grow up to be, they don’t say: image and celebrity obsessed, infantalised, hyper-hedonistic, dependent, conformist, selfish capitalist consumers. They are probably more likely to want them to be: creative, kind, independent, community spirited, mature, intelligent, caring and selfless young citizens. If they do want them to be the latter they have an enormous role to play in nurturing them and making it possible⁹.

As we know children and adults are surrounded by self-enhancing values. Adam Curtis called the 20^th Century the Century of the Self ¹⁰; the 21^st Century shows no sign of being any different. We are taught to look out for number one, to buy large houses and fast cars, expensive holidays and designer clothes. We have status anxiety, debt and boring jobs. Consumerism, for many, is an escape, a temporary relief and a way of life. Self-enhancing values are reinforced constantly, by celebrities, public figures, script writers, musicians, academics, teachers, parents, brothers, sisters and friends. Often it is done inadvertently, it is so embedded in our culture that our ‘natural’ behaviour unwittingly reinforces self-enhancing values.

But, every time we hold a door open for someone, lend an ear to a friend in need, give our family members a lift to the shops or organise a birthday party for someone close to us we reinforce self-transcendent values, all is not lost! Our learning institutions have a very important role to play in helping children and young people to decipher the world around them. Teachers can help children to celebrate the joy of giving and caring for others. Teachers can help children to understand their emotions and basic material and non-material needs. They can help them to think critically about the things that influence their values. They can marvel at the wonders of nature, science and art with them. They can nurture their creativity and bring stories of self-transcendence, rather than self-enhancement to life. They can do all this through books, films, poetry, photography, field trips, music, art, sport and history. The point is they can do it within their chosen subject, it really is not that hard and it is probably what the majority of them would actually like to do¹¹.

The conversations I have been having with those with several years more experience of working in and around the formal education sector have led me to the following premise: Lasting change in education is more likely to happen from the bottom up. Education ministers come and go; schools and teachers stick around a lot longer (and believe or not do have some autonomy, creativity and pride in their work). Although the thinning out of the curriculum will present challenges¹², it also presents opportunities. Teachers beyond the core subjects of English, Maths and Science will be freed up to express their self-direction and their creativity. They will have more freedom to decide what they teach and the resources they use. We need help them curate these and encourage them to facilitate and celebrate creativity in children. In doing so, we can hope they produce young people who are creative and caring, rather than creative and selfish! ¹³

If change does happen from the bottom up, we need to work out ways to engage teachers, parents and children (and perhaps civil servants). Can we go into schools and ask some fundamental questions? Why are you a teacher? Is the current education system fit for purpose? How can you change it? Are children leaving school with the skills, aptitudes and values that will help them flourish as adults in the 21^st Century? What do we want our children to grow up to be?

The BLUE stream will require us to get alongside other groups who are also interested in asking these sorts of questions. Those in the arts and creative sector, those interested in children’s wellbeing, those interested in bringing New Economics into schools, those interested in introducing philosophy to children, those interested in reclaiming Sport as an environmentally benign and community building pastime. We need to identify these groups and link with them. There are workshops, weekend retreats for teachers and parents, discussion papers, books, documentaries and so on to be made. What will these look like? How can we modify existing approaches and create new ones?

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I hope this is useful and helps focus efforts. I am keen to hear your feedback, tell me if I am being unrealistic or idealistic! The RED stream may well be the easiest one to navigate, but the BLUE stream is where the real opportunity for change seems to lie, I recommend doing both.

If you can think of a GREEN or indeed YELLOW stream to add to this, please offer it up! I look forward to hearing from you.

Notes

1. The sector I’m referring to here includes all those working in education for sustainable development, development education and environmental education. Most specifically those who engage with schools in the UK.

2. ‘Hyper-Individualism’ is a phrase I am borrowing here from Bill McKibben’s (2007) book ‘Deep Economy’.

3. ‘Working from values’ available from: http://wastewatch.ning.com/group/workingfromvalues I’m sure you can also contact Tim Burns directly tim.burns@wastewatch.org.uk to request a copy.

4. There is no better way to learn about a new approach than to witness it firsthand. I hope organisations pioneering this approach will open their doors to fellow practioners.

5. Networks: Sustainable Schools Alliance, SHED, PRISM, Compass Network, Common Cause, LEEF, HEEN, Project Dirt, Sustainable Lifestyles, IES, The Green Party, NEF etc, etc. [Please add to this list].

6. Obstacles to change within sector: Funding hoops to jump through, Culturally embedded practice, Audience expectations, Time, Resources, Ignorance of funders/educators(!), Heavy emphasis on actions, desperation and impatience.... (I researched this during my PhD studies)

7. As momentum for a shift begins to occur, there is likely to be a role for advocates and consultants who can help organisations and individuals to modify their work. Advocates and consultants will need to be trained and resourced to do this.

8. Problems with formal education sector. For a brief summary just watch Sir Ken Robinson’s RSA Animate: http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/10/14/rsa-animate-changing-education-paradigms/ Please feedback to me with other good critiques.

9. I argue this more fully, but from a Higher Education perspective here: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/6065/Emotional-Wellbeing.pdf

10. Adam Curtis’ BBC Century of the Self documentary series details the rise of Public Relations and is well worth watching, you should be able to find it here and you can often get DVDs of it on EBay.

11. My personal website: www.becominggreen.co.uk is a collection of resources and ideas to be used by teachers of all subjects who wish to explore values, wellbeing and sustainability; it hopefully demonstrates how wide education for sustainability actually is / could be.

12. The core concern I heard raised at the recent launch of the Sustainable Schools Alliance is that schools will become preoccupied in achieving success in the small range of core subjects, therefore lessening the emphasis they put on more peripheral subjects, especially sustainability.

13. I have just written a piece titled: Creative and Caring, or Creative and Selfish: http://becominggreenblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/creative-and-caring-or-creative-and.html

Creative and Caring, or Creative and Selfish? A challenge for Sir Ken

I'm going to do something that is perhaps slighty unwise, I'm going to offer up a criticism of Sir Ken Robinson. 'Really?' I hear him chuckle. 'Well, frankly, Sir Ken, yes I am'. Its not just a criticism though, it is a challenge.

But, I'm starting with a disclaimer. A problem in any criticism we might offer up against academic superstars is that it can be misinterpreted as a dismissal of everything that they say and believe. So I'm starting by saying that I agree with Sir Ken Robinson in very many ways. Most especially, his critique of current formal education and how it homogenizes young people on factory like production lines, is spot on and vital to arguments for educational transformation. Like millions/billions of others I had my creativity passively contained during my years of formal academia, I know what he means. I wonder what I would have become if I hadn't been so consumed with the fear of failing the next test, essay or exam.

So, I agree with Sir Ken, it is of course very important for one to be allowed to flourish, to find one's passion and lead a fulfilling life. To state that this is good for people's wellbeing, is to state the bleeding obvious! But I'm glad Sir Ken is out there doing it because a lot of powerful people in education seem to disagree. Like Sir Ken I would argue for an agricultural model of education that nurtures individual students helping them to flourish and grow. And against industrial models that breeds conformity, standardization and control.

However, individual (individualist?) pursuit of a passion - the finding of our element - is not always necessarily going to be a good thing for wider society and the environment. In the same way that a 'cradle to cradle' designed oil pipe is not necessarily a good thing for the environment. In encouraging people to find their element, do we not need to ensure we are aligning this 'self direction' with a healthy wedge of 'self transcendence'? Tim Kasser posited this at a recent WWF Common Cause weekend I attended and it has hugely significant implications for education. Especially if you believe, as I do, that all education should ultimately be education for sustainability.



Now I don't believe that Sir Ken is indifferent to sustainability, he quipped in the second of his very famous TED talks: 'there is a major climate crisis, obviously, and if people don't believe it they should get out more!' But, in the many examples of people finding their 'element' he uses on stage and in his book, very few (eg. the firefighter he cites at 9m30 here) are working on what Tom Crompton, in Common Cause, calls 'Bigger than Self' issues. He does not choose examples of people who are great humanitarians, environmentalists or simple loyal companions. People who forgo personal gain, and sometimes even safety and comfort, to help others and address issues that transcend them. Where are the generous, kind, selfless, mature people with strong universalist and benevolence values? People like Greg Mortenson and Mohammed Yunus. There are many examples of people out there who are self-directed but also deeply care about bigger than self issues, they need to be championed!

Instead, the majority of examples Sir Ken presents (and the ones that stick in the mind) are fantastically successful and financially wealthy individuals. People like Paul McCartney, Bill Gates, Matt Groening etc etc; the Business and Cultural Elite. These people have risen above the shackles of industrialist education systems to fully exploit their talent and creativity in the field they love, I don't have any major problems with these people they make me laugh, sing and write lengthy blog posts. But, I do have problems with other historical and fantastically successful people, who, in their element, have achieved huge prominence, like military dictators, CEOs of arms manufacturing business, heads of petrochemical firms, bosses of pharmaceutical companies and George Bush junior. Indeed, I'm sure Dr Robert Oppenheimer was in his element when he was developing the atomic bomb. It is not always necessarily a good thing to encourage self-direction in people, you don't know what they might end up creating! However, this is not the main point I want to make and fear of what we might be unleashing should definitely not inhibit us from developing and celebrating creativity, critical thinking and self-direction.

My major concern is this: Sir Ken cites role models who are fantastically wealthy and/or successful. I understand why he does it, it is because audiences can relate to them, look up to them, respect them and even daydream of being like them. Not all of them are hugely famous and therefore instantly recognizable outside of their specific field though. For example, he talks about a female world champion pool player, it does not matter whether we know her name or not, we understand what a 'world champion' is and can appreciate the financial success, power, status and glory that comes with being one. In the same way we can imagine what a Nobel prize winner is and what the lives of FTSE 100 CEO's look like. What his examples do is play with our perceptions of what a fulfilling and meaningful life looks like. This is my criticism, by citing these examples he is reinforcing our self enhancing values. These people have found their element, but they are also often fantastically wealthy, popular, hugely respected, attractive and quite possibly world famous. They have designer clothes, big houses, fast cars, expensive holidays, thousands of air-miles and their own private swimming pools (probably). Sir Ken holds them up as exemplars of a creative life well lived and something to aspire to. In doing this he also, inadvertently, holds up all the luxurious trappings that surround such luminaries as something unquestionably OK. He doesn't question whether material wealth brings happiness or whether the selfish pursuit of one's goals is necessarily good for one's personal relationships and ecological footprint. The emphasis is on the 'self'; find 'your' element and 'you' will be happy.

The high value individuals have come to place on power, status, achievement, hedonism and financial success in modern western culture promotes hyper-individualism and selfish consumer capitalism. But, people who place a high priority on the self are far less likely to care about bigger than self issues like climate change, biodiversity loss and global inequality. That's not just a theory, the evidence can be found in the Common Cause report if you want to look it up. When self-enhancing values are strong, so too is materialism. So not only do people care less about bigger than self issues when they are overly concerned with enhancing the self, they are also the people who are most likely to over consume the world's resources as they buy status symbol after status symbol in their attempts to assert their identity.

The consequences of reinforcing self-enhancing values are not just global and environmental, they are very personal too. Tim Kasser discusses the High Price of Materialism for our emotional wellbeing as do Hamilton and Dennis, De Graff et al., and Oliver James who have all released books under the heading 'Affluenza'. The imperative for individuals and society is clear, lessen the emphasis placed on self-enhancing values, don't expect them to disappear completely, just lower their influence a little in favour of self-transcendence.

Common Cause argues strongly that when Civil Society Organisations inadvertently reinforce self-enhancing values they have a counter-productive impact on the bigger than self issues they are trying to solve. So here is the challenge for Sir Ken and for a transformed education system:

Please do promote self-direction, creativity and critical thinking in education but frame it within the values of self-transcendence and a critique of the cultural reinforcement of self- enhancing values. If we want children to grow up to be creative, kind, generous, community spirited, mature young adults; rather than creative, infantalised, image and celebrity obsessed, selfish consumer capitalists we need to be very careful about how we transform education and which values we promote in doing it.

Follow Sir Ken Robinson on Twitter

Check out his website: http://sirkenrobinson.com/skr/

And his latest book: Out of Our Minds

Re-thinking our approach to Climate Change

I've just responded to a blog post titled: 'Is it time for the Climate Change movement to completely re-think our approach?' on Be That Change.com. In short, yes it is and it has been for a long time. In the blog Kieren Battles laments the lack of media coverage given to events on 10:10:10 and rightly suggests that: 'Surely we cannot continue to do the same thing and expect different outcomes. As we all know, that’s the definition of madness.' So here is the comment I posted, hopefully it is constructive:

It is nice to read someone honestly admitting that 'events' like 10:10:10 essentially fail to capture public and media attention, you are right they do. On top of this only 74,000 people out of a 60,000,000 population have signed up (and how many of them fulfill their pledge I wonder?) .. You are also right to say that a mass frisbee event (if, and probably only if, heavily sponsored and promoted by a multinational corporation) would have got more attention, it undoubtedly would have. The mainstream media sadly has a habit of ignoring anything that in any way suggests we consume less (of anything) for any reason. The mainstream media is, in the main, run/funded by people stuck in the neo-liberal consumer capitalist paradigm and they are hell-bent on prolonging it as long as they can. I'm not a huge fan of the 10:10 approach and although I think Bill McKibben's 'Deep Economy' is an excellent book, 350.org, is also not the best approach to take... they both use the wrong language, ask for a pathetic amount of change, are reductionist and strengthen the trend toward green consumerism, which in the end creates 'less bad' not 'better' behaviour. What always seems to be missing in the design of such initiatives is a realisation that people don't damage the environment because the HATE the environment, or HATE polar bears. They damage it because they care about other things as well, lots of other things - TV, films, music, clothes, playstations, holidays, toys, phones etc etc etc. It is hardly surprising given all the influences that surrounds them. Environmental concern, however strong, is only one of those influences and often it is a minor and easily forgotten one.

Taking the single issue, reductionist approach of only campaigning on Climate Change, is disingenuous when we need systemic change. Campaigns like 10:10 seem to ask only 'how can we go on living like this, but in a low-carbon way?' We need to inspire people, especially young people, to create new ways of doing just about everything: grow food, make clothes, entertain themselves and each other, build houses, travel, socialise, holiday, work, care, etc, etc. We need an education system that teaches science, maths, english, history, geography, languages, sport, economics, politics and philosophy through the language of sustainability... this way we create sustainably literate young adults, who can envisage different (and more commonsensical) ways of doing things and the skills, knowledge and creativity to do them. Sure you can educate about environmental problems, the end of oil, biodiversity loss and so on, the reality check is essential. But also educate in science about biomimicry and permaculture, in PE and drama about the joy of doing it, rather than watching it; in English about The Great Gatsby's painful experience of the material wealth = happiness myth; in philosophy about Aristotle's pursuit of wellbeing through welldoing and Plato's understandings of simplicity; in economics about the truth behind Milton Friedmann's Fundamental free market, The Spirit Level and the Green New Deal; in Art about the romantic's love of nature and fear for it, etc, etc.. The young people of today need to question everything, they need inspirational teachers who can guide them through this and point them towards ideas like Cradle to Cradle and The School of Life.

A lot of money was thrown behind 10:10, has it done anything more than create a load of convenient 'greenwash' for institutions, individuals, organisations and governments? Could the money have been spent better by campaigning for systemic change in formal education, which is clearly, at the moment, completely unfit for the 21st Century? The inconvenient question then of course is whether they would have got so much support? I'd argue they would have; there are a lot of teachers and parents and pupils out there who are deeply dissatisfied with our current education system. Let's stop pissing about at the margins of a broken system, pretending that it can work and, to paraphrase Buckminster Fuller, 'create a new system that makes the old one obsolete'. The Human Race has not evolved to anywhere near its potential yet, this is obvious by looking at the way we measure our wealth as individuals and countries. There are exciting times ahead, we need to create them, Ellen MacArthur recognises this, please check out her foundation.

@MorganHPhillips

www.becominggreen.co.uk

Open Minds and Dropping Conventional Environmentalism

Here is my response to Christine Ottery's excellent recent article 'How to be Less Maladaptive' over on 'Open Minds and Parachutes'

Hi Christine,

If we do as you suggest and keep all bases covered in our 'green' communications, are we not just perpetuating the status quo? It took me a while to find it, but I am now fixed on the 'Don't mention the Environment' approach.

We, as environmentalists, are locked in a battle (that we are losing horrendously) with consumer psychologists employed to keep people believing that material wealth = well-being. Belief in this myth is caused by what John K Galbraith in 'The Affluent Society' called 'The Paramount Position of Production' in the pursuit of economic growth and security. This creates 'The imperative of [maintaining] consumer demand' and, ultimately, our social and environmental problems.

Environmentalists are locked in a paradigm that has been proven over decades to be a fruitless and we need to wake up to it. The influence of long term, short term, immediate and distant environmental problems on people's behaviour are very small. We live in a world in which the majority are unable to properly identify and pursue the things that do and do not bring them well-being. We live in a world of 'pseudo-satisfiers', if we didn't the economy would collapse.

Making people aware of environmental problems is pointless unless it is mixed in with a much heavier dose of deeper soul searching. Rather than point people toward The Ecologist, Guardian Environment, 10:10 and The Age of Stupid; point them toward Alain De Botton, Vance Packard, Neil Boorman, Mihaly Csikzentmihayli, Mohammed Yunus, Tobias Jones, Peter Senge, Peter Singer and Oliver James. Or the albums: '12 Crass Songs' by Jeff Lewis and 'Cold Fact' by Rodriguez. Or films like Garbage Warrior, Into the Wild and Shooting Dogs.

These are the sources that have changed my way of thinking about the world and what the hell I should be doing within it. Stories of environmental despair add to my general despair about the human condition in modern Western life. But it is my concerns about my well-being and the well-being of my friends and family from the developed and developing world that drive me. It is the embedded 'Conventional Wisdom' (Galbraith, 1969, Chapter 2) of our current material consumption driven economic system that needs to change. If we want continued economic growth we have to de-materialise it, to do this we as environmentalists need to help people let go of what Tim Kasser calls our High Materialistic Value Orientations.

Key Reference:

Galbraith, J,K. (1969) The Affluent Society, Pelican, UK

Affluenza Exhibition

On the 19th of March the Affluenza Exhibition opens in Clerkenwell London. It should be worth visiting there are a few talks including Oliver James and Neil Boorman. Visit the website here: www.theaffluenzaexhibition.org

Here are my top ten books and things to watch regarding Affluenza:

1. 'The Century of the Self' (documentary) by Adam Curtis)

2. 'The Hidden Persuaders' by Vance Packard

3. 'Status Anxiety' (docu and book) by Alain de Botton

4. 'Affluenza' by Hamilton and Denniss

5. 'Selfish Capitalist' by Oliver James

6. 'Flow' by Mihayli Csikzentmihalyi

7. 'Affluenza' by John De Graff et al

8. 'Slow' by Carl Honore

9. 'Bonfire of the Brands' by Neil Boorman

10. 'How to be Free' by Tom Hodgkinson


This is in no particular order and there are at least 10 more I can think of especially novels by people like George Orwell, Jack Kerouac and F.Scott Fitzgerald!

Is the party over? Sustainable hopes

Last night a friend and I went to a FREE lecture at Gresham College in Holborn Circus, London. If you’ve not been to Gresham, you should, it is wonderful. They give free at least 3 lectures on all sorts of different subjects every week all year round! The college has existed for 400 years and judging by the bursting beyond capacity turn out last night is very popular!

The lecture we were attending was delivered by a Gresham regular, Michael Mainelli and served as a useful exploration of what the sustainability dream means for economists and those interested in commerce. For a hardened environmental student like me, the lecture was pretty basic, but from an environmental education perspective it was interesting to see how the issues were being presented to an intelligent lay audience. The lecture focused on Ehrlich and Commoner’s I-PAT equation. The terms of the I-PAT are: I (environmental impact), P (Population), A (affluence) and T (technology). It looks like this: I = P x A x T and is wonderfully simple. It asserts that as population and affluence grow the environment will degrade.
Mainelli argued that many environmentalists do not give adequate consideration to the first factor, population. Population growth is a big white elephant that we can not afford to ignore. The UN currently estimate that the world population will be 9.2 billion by 2075. Population growth, however, is dependent on fertility rates. At present the average number of children a woman gives birth to is 2.3. Fertility rates are gradually falling in affluent countries, if they were to fall to around 1.8, the global population would fall to around 2.3 billion by the far off year of 2300. However, if the rate rose slightly to 2.4, we would be looking at population in 2300 of 36.4 billion!

As environmentalists, we can’t ignore population growth, but I would argue given the consumerist, materialist, waste producing example being set by affluent countries, it is far more important to consider how the population behaves. If the growing population, or even a stable population, all aim to behave like us Brits or our trans-Atlantic cousins we will be environmentally doomed. Anyone who has compared the ecological footprint of an affluent nation like ours with a developing nation can understand why this is! If the affluent countries gradually ceased to export materialist values, the environmental damage resulting from excessive conspicuous consumption would lessen in those countries and the example set to developing countries would lessen their materialist desires and therefore environmental impact. Well possibly! This of course is a dramatically difficult thing to do and depends hugely on the answering of the question that John Naish, in his book ‘Enough’ describes as the other white elephant in the eco living room:

If not a consumer economy then what?!

The amount of people asking this question within the environmental world, let alone the business and political world is staggeringly low, it is however the only question that is really worth asking! We can’t rely on technology to save us, because under a consumer capitalist framework technology as Mainelli pointed out is good and bad. Strides are being made with carbon capture and strorage, whether these strides are fast enough to prevent a climate catastrophe is very questionable. They won’t stop business people designing, marketing and manufacturing all the trappings of consumer society, in fact CCS may give them an excuse to carry on as normal. But where are all the raw materials going to come from, we can’t recycle forever, we need to deal with the waste problem by producing less waste!

I’m glad so many people turned up at Gresham college last night (my friend and I were in the overflow basement room watching on the big screen, by the start of the lecture had standing room only). The room was buzzing with intelligent folk on their way home from a busy day in the City. Mainelli didn’t overtly ask the big question of what lies beyond a consumer economy, but this is the question I hope a few of them went away musing over. The more people who ask this question, the more likely we are to find a solution to it, it is the question that lies at the heart of sustainability. As for the other white elephant, the planning of a new economic system would certainly be made easier if we had a stable or decreasing global population. Use a condom!

Email me for references!

The School of Life

I popped into The School of Life on Marchmont Street in London on Saturday morning. It is such a good idea, I really hope they have some success. I was lucky enough to meet Alain De Botton while I was there, he told me he is currently working on a book about work. He and a photographer are following six people through their working life. He didn't indicate when it would be out, but I expect it will be next year.

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I really enjoyed De Botton's book on what it means to travel 'The Art of Travel', in it he explores the reasons why people travel, how travel is marketed and ties in how art has impacted on our travel experiences. Given the need for us to lessen the environmental impacts of our travel and holidays (two often very different things) we all need to understand why we travel and so on. However it is the book and the documentary in which he looked at Status Anxiety that I want to discuss here, both were highly influential in the early stages of my PhD.

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Status anxiety is greater in some than others. I would propose that in the modern consumer culture it can be relieved in two ways. Firstly it can be relieved within an individual’s own cultural domain (their workplace/social circle etc) by building our identities and respect from others through what we do. Marmot, in his book 'Status Syndrome' (2005) analyses himself as an academic and observes how his happiness is affected by how one of his academic papers is received, whether or not he gets a research grant, whether he is invited to a meeting, elected to a professional body or simply whether his ideas are taken seriously. This is just one example; it is possible to think of many other cultural domains and how identity and respect is built within them. Outside of an individual’s chosen cultural domain it may be harder to construct identity and gain the respect of others. Marmot (2005) for example also observes how his salary acts as an opinion former amongst others. One would suspect that Marmot would be more interested in the respect and identity he receives as a result of his academic work, rather than his salary.

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In a consumer culture, characterised as being a hugely diverse collection of dynamic cultural domains, respect is sought, and social status fought for, among a hugely diverse range of individuals with their own identities within their own cultural spheres. It would be almost impossible to understand the intricate details of all of these different cultural spheres. Because of this, it is hard for an individual to translate their identity within their chosen cultural sphere into an identity in a wider cultural setting. The result of this is that commodities are used as signs to communicate identity (a prime example being status symbols such as cars, clothes and organic food?!). Financial position and material wealth have become the ways in which individuals create their identities within a wider culture and put themselves up for social comparison. Marmot, perhaps, is fortunate to have the intellect and opportunity to form his identity and gain respect through his academic work. Others are not so lucky. Marmot (2005) points out, referring to Thomas Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Classes (1899, that it is our concern with our relative position in society (our social status), which leads to conspicuous consumption driven by the sign-commodity relationship. As the power of commodities as communicators has increased, so too has conspicuous consumption and a desire for material growth. Although it may not be true for all, in a consumer culture, individuals create their identity through their consumption.