A Speck of Dust - The relationships

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the relationships of things in our culture and society. How does governance fit in and how did it evolve? How will it evolve in the future? What relationships do we have as a culture and country to others in the world? What are their interior relationships?

Watching the film Life or Debt, which talked about the economic shifts in Jamaica, particularly as an example of the impact of IMF and WB policies and influence. Later, as my wife was watching Jane Austen's Emma, I realized that individuals born where we are at are the global aristocracy - the nobles, lords, princes, and princesses of the world. Meanwhile we subjugate other nations like Jamaica through instruments of coercion. In so many ways our government and corporations have conspired to twist the arm of other groups around the world to make their lives easier. It's easier to take than to create, and that's what much of our cultural tools have evolved into. I asked myself what it would be like to walk through downtown Bellingham with burning vehicles in the street and military personnel out walking around with automatic weapons. Absolutely surreal and I could not possibly imagine it. Part of me believes this is truly a good thing. The bad part is still that it's NOT a surreal experience to some individuals - it's a part of their daily lives.

Part of the conversation on the channel this week has gone to discussing what a social enterprise is - are people like Dave and his bread business social entrepreneurs? Or are they merely moral capitalists? Does a social entrepreneur need to focus their business around social justice, or can it arise as a side benefit of their primary operations? My thoughts coming to BGI were that I wanted to run a business that treated it's employees and community with respect. To pay them well - everyone. Ensure they are protected in times of hardship. Make a community rather than a workforce. To me, that was social justice - because, if everyone simply did that, I don't believe we'd have the issues that we do.

But maybe that is naive. Maybe we do need businesses and organizations that have a primary focus on the community. Certainly, I would find it hard to argue against the need for such entities at the present - maybe my idea of social justice would work in an already egalitarian world, but not it our present one of disparity and injustice.

Earlier today I was reading the Dr Seuss book, Horton Hears a Who, and I began thinking about our local community, which is looking to start a community garden. I was then showing Jesse where we lived on a globe, and I was trying to describe to him the scale of the earth. Having walked from Canada to Mexico along the PCT, I feel like I have a pretty good sense of scale - yet I still struggled to find the words to describe even the scale of our state - our county. Still, the immensity of our planet is small in the scale of the universe. We find ourselves feeling so self important on this planet, yet we're just a pale blue dot in space. We're the speck. And what's beyond the world of the speck? Finding a sense of scale geographically is important for an environmental consciousness. Finding a sense of scale humanistically is important for a social consciousness. What's the range of human experience? How bad can it be? How bad is it? How GOOD can it get? I've seen the poor in America, but my world travels haven't exposed me to those scales enough. Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, England, Canada (hah) - all wealthy countries. The minority population, certainly in terms of numbers. And the global aristocracy. Even the poor in America are rich on a global scale.

Trying to bring this around back to earth, what does this all mean for me? It's well and good to talk on a grand scale but what are the practical takeaways of social entrepreneurship? Sometimes I want to move away to another country where the politics and culture are already more in line with my personal beliefs. But sometimes I feel like that place doesn't truly exist - sure I can make some small gains for my spirit, but my overall position and impact would remain the same. So how do we enact change from within?

Bringing this down to the local community, I only get my trash pickup once a month. This fact sometimes arises in conversations with my neighbors, and gives me the opportunity to tell them how we've done it, just by watching what we buy and thinking ahead. This has had an impact in their behaviour and at the very least their knowledge and perspective to the realm of what's possible. Change does not come easily and it grinds slowly. We must start with our own consciousness first, and our own community, if we are to bring lasting change. The attitudes must change, and it starts with each of us. Don't find a new country, and new school, a new friend - make what you have into what you want it to be, which certainly starts with modeling that ourselves.