26 October 2020

DEVOTED TO THE EARTH

When Cristiana Scavolin told me about her “Appraisal. At present.” project, I was onboard without a second thought. It was mind blowing to be able to share my ideas about the future of the world in this setting of international research and debate.

This pilot edition addressed change and how to adapt to it.

Take a minute to read and see if our perspective gives you food for thought.

Link https://appraisalatpresent.com/

Covid lockdown: a time suspended that forced us into physical isolation to ensure the survival of humankind while gifting us with time to reflect. A precious element, allowing people to consider what they really wanted for themselves and for the places where they settle. To be able to explore the relationship between humanity and nature is an essential need. What do we mean today when we use the words “nature” and “natural”? Are they now empty, fossilized notions or do they still convey quite the reverse: a meaning to work towards? To what extent can humans understand and experience nature as the underlying condition for their existence?

When people apply a planned and technical approach, they may fail to recall that their roots are in the earth. Technology is used to interact with the natural order and this is the foundation for building the human order. In this perspective, technique – namely technology – becomes a drawback if it dominates nature or even starts to replace it.

How can we stop a dehumanizing drift, one that may not even make us happy?

Individuals and communities must commit to rethinking and redefining society and professions intensely. This will be an increasingly impelling necessity.

The future will embark on a microeconomic model or economy of proximity, where individual skills are channelled.

It will be increasingly important to know who physically produced a raw material, in which district, how respectful that production was, and to what extent it safeguarded the environment, and if its processing aimed for zero waste.

Certainly the most immediate evolutions will be seen within large-scale distribution, which could even become a place of research in the not-too-near future.

Large-scale distribution should be rethought as a container of aesthetic development of manual and artisanal skills that identify a specific district, to the point of becoming circular micro-economies.

I hope that it will extend an invitation to reflect on a new humankind. As Nietzsche wrote in Thus Spake Zarathustra: “I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth and do not believe those who speak to you of extraterrestrial hopes!”