after-postmodern social bindings

The economic crisis is the same since 2008.

It is not only "economic" or even political, but it has other "transversalities".

Under a complex approaching we can see that history is in a bigger change that we could first suppose.

Each human community is looking and discovering its own roots at the same time that communication and deal among human beings is easier than ever.

People are looking for their own identity. This identity has universal bindings but it has also local, ancient and sometimes almost lost bindings.

After the end of the Cold War, step by step human communities are discovering aspects of their identities that was repressed under political power and other factors.

This segmental process is a movement in the pendulum of history.

In the end of the Roman Empire the occidental nations were divided in smaller groups linked more by cultural   aspects than the former political and economic binding with the empire.

We cannot say that we are going to a "new feudal era", but the pendulum of history shows that there is a moment for humankind to look back to inner collective values and not just to external economic bindings.

Maybe this is a side of the crisis that could be better understood under the after-postmodern complexity. 

unsustainable sustainability - part 3

How to work for sustainability with insatiable human beings...

If sustainability implies some limit, what are the limits of insatiability...

... or satiability...

Maybe Complexity is the field where those limits could work, or could be worked...

Even with a insatiable human being, there is not possible to build sustainability without the human being.

There is not environment without human being.

So, the balance must be found inside complexity, among all actors of worlds scenario. 

unsustainable sustainability - part 2

Does sustainability need money?
Maybe it is more a matter of action and direction... or a matter of changes...
Many times changes are not comfortable "movements".
But each one must find its own change.
In the deep this is not "my change", or "our change" but "your change".
Arne Naess thought about superficial ecology and deep ecology.
Sustainable sustainability implies deep ecology.
Many steps of superficial ecology are perhaps necessary, but they are not sufficient.
Between 1992 and 2012 the world was, in the first half of this period, in the Postmodern climax; and in the second half it was in the descensus of the Postmodern, in the waning of the efficiency.
In after-postmodern we must find other ways to find the change inside complexity.

unsustainable sustainability

Susteinability is the word of the moment...

Nonetheless we do hear so much but we do not see how to sustein...

As we said before, in after-postmodernity we see the end of the efficiencies, those efficiencies of post-modernity: strong as a truck but not too much "human"...

Everything that is done for environment is necessary but it is not sufficient for achieve a new level of sustainability.

Human beings need to talk and deal all the time to achieve a balance between "modern life" and "after-postmodern conditions" that include a stronger respect for nature and life on earth more than ever were before.

For while we see more "vicious circles" than "virtuous circles" in therms of sustainability. 

In other words, what seems to bee sustainable, in the end of the day brings unsustainable collateral effects.

A sustainable virtuous circle could mean a chain of sustainable causes and effects.

Maybe History itself will, step by step, push humankind to inevitable sustainable paradigms...

But it could be less expensive if human beings try to start practical measures to stimulate small communities to find their own ways to development respecting environment, at the same time the greater measures are applied among countries. 

after-postmodern problems, after-postmodern solutions

Henri Bergson wrote that we will be free when we formulate a problem instead of simply receive it already formulated. 

Thomas Kuhn wrote that a paradigm conditionate the formulation of the problem and the formulation of the solution. Most times that we read this we do not pay attention to the word "problem", we only pay attention to the word "solution". We can also replace the word "problem" with the word "question" and we can replace the word "solution" with the word "answer". It is a similar thinking.

So, we are conditioned to see a problem or a question only under the current paradigms.

But we are in times of changes...

Kuhn also wrote that when a paradigm cannot have anymore answers or solutions it is time to rise a new paradigm.

In after-postmodern era it is more and more difficult to use the postmodern paradigms to solve the problems.

We must read or write questions and problems with new formulations.

Maybe there are not only "global" problems. When we think only in global problems we do not see the "local" problems. 

So, transdisciplinary, we can see at same time global and local problems. But, in after-postmodern, maybe it is a liitle more important to look to the "local" problems, because we have the bias to forget a apparently "small" problem when we have a bigger...

Maybe we should ask to each community: "how the current crisis affect you ?" "What do you think that could be the solution for your local problem?"

  

Crisis and transdisciplinarity

The international economic crisis is bigger than just “economic”. It is also a crisis of the way to see life and to see the world.

Under Thomas Kuhn we could say that it is a crisis of paradigms; not only economic paradigms, but also an indication of changes in paradigms of science, knowledge, living and all aspects of human life and as we see life in general on earth.

The postmodern formula to solve all questions and problems doesn’t work anymore as it worked before...

So, economy, knowledge, science, living, arts, sports, etc., must open itselves to each other, and this time maybe Arts could show the way...

It is necessary “creativity” to solve the problems. Creativity is between austerity and liberality. To improve creativity in all professions it is possible to use Arts.

The experts could stop for a moment and hear a symphony, read classics, admire paintings, or even listen the opinion of the artists. They have a special feeling of what is going on in the world.

Arts can be also a calling for Ethics.

When we are immersed in our own speciality, sometimes we are blind for all the variables in each situation.

In Postmodern period, to be a workaholic could be something desireble, commendable, a way to success.

Now, in after-Postmodern it is not enough, it is not efficient, it is not necessary.

Maybe it is better for all not work too much and let some room for unemployed people to divide time and space with us.

Maybe if the profits become a little less, more people can start to have some profit too...

We could take a look to the writings of  some wise man like Arne Naess and his recomendations for better life and living, suggesting to cultivate peace, to have time not only for work, but also for enjoy the nature, the Arts, and sports.

What Arne Naess named for himself Ecosophy T, he says that each one could find his or her own Ecosophy A, or B, or C, etc., respecting nature and culture of each human community.

In Postmodern, everything had to be in a hurry. In after-Postmodern, this way doesn’t work. We must take time and recover some capabilities that our ancestors had.

We lost some kind of wisdom of the Gothic Cultur in Middle Ages. We can see in their sculptures that they are smiling, we can see in that huge buildings some kind of strengh... At same time we know that they had several feast days...

We must recover the value of pause...

Crisis: still the same... Let's open the door to afterpostmodern

Some people say that there is a new crisis in 2012... Well, that crisis actually started in 2008. 

Since then it is the same crisis with variations through the years.

There is a discussion around "austerity".

Maybe no one could say that would start from now a life without any austerity envolving struggle for existence...

But in another hand, as it's used to say in a methaphoric way, the medication cannot be too strong because it can kill the patient together with the germs.

The solution can be between strong austerity and its opposite.

The key to the the solution can be in a variety of mesures and not in just one mesure.

Those mesures can come from a transdisciplinary vision of the crisis, and not just from the discipline of Economy or even from just one line of economic thinking.

Maybe the opposite sides, or the different sides, need to talk much much more...