公益项目

Simon Goess：我们生活在危险的时代里｜《独立之道》前言

发布日期：2017-02-28

我们生活在危险的时代里：政治、生态、经济和精神意义上的，危险的时代。

西方几十年来的经济增长早就使得地球的生态平衡颇为紧张。而且越来越多的人受到个人主义思潮的影响，社会的个人主义倾向愈加明显。然而，确切说来，只有少数的，大约百分之十到十五的人，能直接从这样的发展中获利。而剩下的生活在所谓发展中国家——这无疑是一个充满着愚昧、傲慢与短浅目光意味的现代思维的词语——的人，即百分之八十以上的人口被迫放弃了他们原本自有的历史与传统，而去被动适应一个极其短视且狭隘的经济发展模式——这显然不可以也不能够积极有效地提高他们的生存质量。即使这些发展中国家采取了一些措施，比如通过跨国公司和当地政府联合开发和利用当地的资源条件。

自二十世纪八十年代以来，一些较为贫穷的国家也实现了一定的经济增长和人民生活水平的提高。中国、印度和巴西，他们代表了全球百分之四十的人口，都是依靠人口红利而实现经济发展的。在某种程度上，西方树立了越来越多的范例，在一些新兴的经济体内可以看到，追求单一物质幸福的观念已经压倒了传统的价值观。这种价值观的转变引发而且不断引发对原社群人们的思想的破坏，他们的传统理念被连根拔起，继而被赤裸地扔进现代全球化的资本主义经济世界里。他们那些传统的构成社群基础的东西——比如彼此间共同的信任和对生活的基本共识——被无情地撕成了碎片。

为了有一个更加公平的经济环境，人们的识字率和健康状况在过去的三十年里都实现了全球范围内的增长和提高。现在许多国家的人们都能负担得起交通、通讯和生活日用品的费用，而这可能是他们父辈的毕生所愿或毕生所求。以上及所有相关的发展与进步都在持续发生，这主要是因为人们在更加高效地利用自然资源。

非常明显的是，自然资源的再生是有一定速率与周期的，而石化资源——占当今世界能量来源的百分之八十份额——对于人类来讲属于完全不可再生的资源。任何一个有理智的人都明白，很显然，自然界不可能在中期或长期的时间里实现持续的资源增长和持续为人类进行物质输出，尤其是对于地球这样一个资源有限的星球来说。持续增长的人口（现今世界总人口数为七十五亿，预计2100年可达一百亿到两百亿，而将这使得人类需要创造更多物质财富，也就是说需要更多自然资源）与自然界（由于人类大规模的经济活动已经在走下坡路了）之间必然不能调和，从而将导致失衡。

在我看来，我无比坚定且毫不怀疑地认为，我们现在已经看到的一些事情，比如中东，尤其是叙利亚的政治和经济动荡；比如美国，一位当权的民粹主义且荒谬不堪的总统；比如欧洲的右翼政党和全世界范围内的经济增速的降低，都预示着那同一个问题。人类的人口数量和与之而来的需求都对自然界及其资源产生了巨大的压力：大气（全球气候变化）、水（水资源短缺与污染）、土地（耕地侵蚀与盐碱化）和矿石（石油与矿产资源枯竭）。

过量需求使得人们每年都会提前用光自然界所提供的资源限度。比如说2016年，人类在2016年8月8日这天就用光了一整年的份额。因此，也就是说，在这一年还有七个月才结束的时候，人们就耗尽了一整年的资源总量，人类对于资源的消耗需求已经远远超过地球所能生产资源的速度了。况且，这样的透支行为只能在短时期内行得通。如果长期这样下去，当人类的消耗最终大于地球的产出，那么一些东西——比如我们的工业化、全球化和资本主义经济体系是根本不可能得以维持的。

那么我们的前进方向是什么呢？我们应该如何处理人类如此消耗地球资源的生活方式所带来的后果呢？生态环境和人类自身的出路又在哪里？

我们应该以怎样的方式来重新审视与协调人类与地球、经济需求与自然供给之间的关系呢？

为了平衡人类的现时需求与自然供给能力，生产与消费（这不是说不需要贸易了）的再区域化是至关重要的。我们通过人与人之间的合作和有意聚合相似想法的个人，建立具有共识的社区，从而达到与土地的协调一致。这不仅可以为如今遵循个人主义的人们提供一个公共生活结构，而且可以使人们从寻求更多物质福利与不必要行为的泥沼中解放出来，从而可以探寻生活中真正应该在乎的东西。人类毕竟不是“经济人”——一个事事从理性角度出发、一心寻求经济利益最大化的市场参与者，而是渴望归属感、价值感、尊严与感情的结合体。

A life grounded again in the bedrock of its physical surroundings, and appreciative of the ingenuity of the human spirit for the good.

共识社区、生态村或者农村合作社，不管用什么名字来命名，它都是一个指向标和信号塔的存在，为那些想用另一种方式生活，但是却被现代经济生活的镣铐所困住而踟躇的人们指导一个可到达的明确的方向。要建立一个这样的社区绝不容易与简单，并且需要长久的努力和坚定的决心。它需要人们重新建立和学习某些特定的交流方式，也需要提供实现某一确定目标的共识基础。在已经过去的一百五十年里，人类从工业化时代走向了全球化经济的时代，并创造了许多理论知识与实践工具，比如人类创造了互联网，时人们可以穿过地域的界限与打破语言的壁垒来共享信息与知识，为人类带来更好的生活。这样的生活方式已经在物质条件上着地了，人们需要继续前行，对于人类精神的探索不应止步。

野生动物的安宁（温德尔·贝里）

当绝望在我的身体生长，

我在最宁静的夜里醒来

惶恐着我与孩子的生活

我走入林中，安躺于

雄鸭优雅地栖息的水边

那白鹭的觅食之地

我走进野生动物的安宁

它们不预料悲伤、不负重生命

我独享静水的波光

我感到那高悬天空、隐匿于白日的星辰

逐渐闪烁。在那一瞬间

我休憩于世界的至美之中，身心自由

致冠华，和所有致力于改变的人。

作者：西蒙（德国）

译者：张书瑜

原文：

We live in perilous times: Politically, ecologically, economically and spiritually.

Decades of economic growth in the West already strained the ecological balance of the earth. And almost everyone followed the growth paradigm: More and more has been promoted as the salvation in increasingly individualistic societies. However only, a minority, to be precise, 10-15 percent of all people on the planet directly benefited from this development. The rest, people in the so-called developing countries – the term just shows the ignorance, arrogance and short-sightedness of modern thought, as it reduces more than 80 percent of the peoples’ histories and traditions to a mere narrow-minded economic framework – did not and could not actively participate in this improvement of living conditions. If those peoples and their countries participated than in many cases by having their natural resources being exploited by multinational companies together with the local political elites.

Since the 1980s economic development and the betterment of living conditions also for the poorer nations started to take off as well. China, India and Brazil together representing about 40 percent of global population were some of the countries where economic conditions improved for the larger part of their population. To some extent the Western “more and more” paradigm, so the strive for mere material well-being overtook traditional values in those emerging economies. This value shift caused and continues to cause havoc to peoples’ state of mind in those communities which are being uprooted and thrown into the modern capitalistic globalized economic world. Traditional community-based structures of living together based on trust and a common understanding of life is effectively being fragmentized.

To be fair economic conditions, literacy rates and health conditions improved greatly across the globe during the last 30 years. People in many countries are now able to afford means of transport, communication, and day-to-day convenience goods, which their parents would either have never dreamt of being in existence or could never have afforded. All of this development went on, primarily because human beings were able to exploit natural resources in an ever more efficient processes of production.

It is however clear that natural resources only replenish at a certain speed and that fossil energy resources – which 80 percent of global energy consumption relies on – are non-renewable over human timescales. For any sane person, it should thus be obvious that continuous growth and material output will not be possible in the mid- and long-term, especially on a finite planet, such as ours. The combination of a growing population, currently standing at 7.5 billion and expected to grow to 10-11 billion by 2100, aspiring ever more material wealth, and a natural world, that is already on the retreat due to human economic activity, can only lead to destabilization.

And I strongly believe that the (political and economic) turmoil we can currently observe in the Middle East (Syria), the US (a nationalistic and irrational president), stronger right-wing political parties in Europe, along with decreasing rates of economic growth across the world are all symptoms of the same problem. Human population and its needs causes pressure on natural resources of all kind, be it the atmosphere (global climate change), water (drinking water shortage and pollution), arable land (erosion and salinization), mineral and fossil resources (oil and minerals).

Every year global human population uses the resources of our planet earlier. In 2016, we used all the resources the planet can regenerate in one year’s time on the 8th of August 2016. Thus our consumption overshoots the production generating capacity of the earth 7 months before the year is actually finished. Again, such a behaviour will only viable in the short-term. Never in the long-run can something – here our industrialized, globalized, capitalistic economy – be sustained when it consumes more than is available.

What is the way forward then? What are ecological and human ways of coping with the reality of our over-consumptive lifestyles?

How can we realign our needs and reinvent our relationship with those of our planet, of the natural environment and of those of our fellow human beings?

Re-localization of production and consumption (this does not imply that there is no trade) is an important factor in order to balance the immediate need of people and the ability of nature to provide for those. Cooperative behaviour and the intentional gathering of likeminded individuals to form communities living in accordance with the land will not only provide a communal structure to the individualistic human being of nowadays, but it will also free them from the strive towards more material welfare, gadgets and unnecessary distractions from what life really is about. Human beings are after all – contrary to 100 years of economic discourse – no homo economicus, a rational market participant going for is benefit only, but a communal being that strives for a sense of belonging, appreciation, respect and sense.

Intentional communities, eco-villages, rural cooperative, whatever the name, might also serve as beacons for other people, for those how aim to live in a different way, but are held back in the economic treadmill of modern life by perceived barriers and shackles. Building up a community is by no means easy and requires prolonged efforts and determination. Certain ways of communicating have to be re-established and re-learned. And common ground for achieving certain goals has to be provided for.

During the last 150 years, starting with the industrialization and now having arrived at our globalized economy, human kind created a wide arrange of methods and tools, for example be it the internet for sharing information and knowledge across borders and language barriers, which can allow for a more decent and humble life. A life grounded again in the bedrock of its physical surroundings, and appreciative of the ingenuity of the human spirit for the good.

The peace of wild things (Wendell Berry)

When despair grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting for their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.