A Utopia? No, thanks!

Review:

Overwhelmed by reading the Guardian's The End of Capitalism Has Begun" (17/07/2015).

I couldn't but to compare it to my Education and Sustainable Development Goals - Notes on the HLPF published a week earlier. (10/07/2015).

Between my Note and the Guardian's article there are some common keywords such as;

• Utopia/Utopic (goals)
• Neoliberalism
• Evolutionary

and key ideas such as;

• The power shift from politicians to entrepreneurs through neoliberalism and;
• the beginning of a new global era of sharing, solidarity, ..etc.

However, I see that declaring the "end of capitalism" and the arrival of a "Utopia" as pretty much naive and erratic. My idea - in spite of the apparent similarity, is that we are not there yet, and might never be there - in spite of the hard work and the good intentions, til we've managed to "align objectives" among stakeholders.

It is true that the sharing economy is on the rise, however, if this is necessarily an introduction to a Utopia, is dubious. Here is the paradox of a Utopia: You cannot expect to respect all people, all freedoms, all rights, all wishes, all cultures, and all needs of all people yet avoid conflict. Freedoms and rights MUST conflict at certain points and this is where priorities must be set.

So how can you have a Utopia without ultimate peace? Fear is that justice may be compromised - assuming that such ultimate peace is attainable.

The other paradox is that development is part of the sustainable development package. Development requires mobilization of resources. Mobilizing resources involves innovation. Innovation requires capital management. Capital management adheres to the dynamics of the free-market (neoliberalism)*. Unless capital management has been actually - and realistically, re-arranged to work for equality; that the poor and vulnerable don't get crushed by the powerful and the ultra-rich, declaring an "end of Capitalism" would only be a joke!

The Guardian's author states the Capitalism "will be abolished by creating something more dynamic that exists, at first, almost unseen within the old system, but which will break through, reshaping the economy around new values and behaviors. I call this postcapitalism".

So what exactly is this 'postcapitalism' which has already begun but will actually begin in the future and isn't anything that we really know or can define?!! It will come to "reshape and create" but it does not even exist?This is one of the most self-contradictory proposals I've ever encountered.

Anyway, he calls this transformation "post-capitalism" while I - based on the recent UN global convention in New York (The High Level Political Forum for Sustainable Development 2015 - HLPF), proposed the declaration of an era of global solidarity for conservation of life and survival of our human kind. The transformation in the horizon (global solidarity as described hereinabove), does not have to conflict with neoliberalism - in principle (even if it currently does). Neo-liberalism involves value exchange. When values change the game dynamics change subsequently. The breakthrough, then, begins by the successful philanthropic pressures of the masses, enlightened consumerism, social entrepreneurship and political will, in a fierce battle against hatred, discrimination and greed.

This proposal carries in it the justification, value and mechanism of transformation, but " The end of capitalism has begun" one, unjustifiably, celebrates what has not been yet attained - if ever.

Also, there is a difference between Utopic goals (i.e. as set of ambitious goals to reach equality, good health, freedom, peace for all), and the actual achievement of such goals. While goals must be ambitious, the designated means of implementation must be practical, rational and realistic, which why I proposed the Sustainable Development Goals, needed to have been interlinked more coherently. The more we explore such interlinks, the more we hit areas of conflict and the easier it is to set priorities for implementation - based on mutual benefits (if possible) and the values we cherish the most.

There is still much work to do, and much hope in humanity, but it'll be all up to the people to get together and work for a better future.

*Please read the original notes for further explanation.

RELATED:

Education and Sustainable Development Goals - Notes on the HLPF

Justice between humans and animals - study

How far can our kind be trusted on geoengineering?

Open Innovation in Life Science - Closing the Loop

We are not Another Species - An open letter tho the IUCN World Parks Congress.

FGM & Circumcision: Two Different Battles

Cybernetics and Ecological Ethics

Cybernetics and Fungal Conservation
Conservation of the Homo sapiens: The survival of the Wise; on the Cybernetics of education (book).
Science and Theology: Cognition and the Real-living-systems (book).

التعليم والتنمية المستدامة - ملاحظات عن المنتدي السياسي رفيع المستوى للتنمية المستدامة

Read this in English

كانت تجربة المشاركة بجلسات المنتدى السياسي الرفيع المستوى للتنمية المستدامة [1]، حيث العالم على وشك الدخول في إلتزام طوعي من أجل الحفاظ على الحياة والمساواة للجميع والتنمية المستدامة بنهاية عام ٢٠١٥، تجربة فريدة أظن أن أثرها سيبقى طول العمر.

و لكن على الرغم من مجد اللحظات التاريخية ومثالية الأهداف االسبعة العشر المقترحة والتي إن تحققت لخلقت "مدينة فاضلة" تسع جميع البشر ، يجب أن أقول أنني لدي إنطباعا بأن أهداف االتنمية المستدامة المقترحة ، كانت تحتاج إلى أن تكون أكثر ترابطاً وإرتباطاً. وبأنها لا تصل تلقائياً إلى أصحاب المصلحة المشتركة / أصحاب الحقوق. ربما يرجع ذلك - من ناحية ، للطبيعة واللغة الخاصة بوثائق الأمم المتحدة (وكذا العمليات). ولذلك فمن أذكى المداخلات على الإطلاق (والذي قدمته المجموعة الرئيسية للمرأة) أن حقوق المرأة من أجل المساواة يجب أن تتغلغل جميع الأهداف، بالإضافة إلى التأكيد عليها بصفة مستقلة في الهدف 5. في الواقع - و بنظرة أشمل - هكذا كانت تحتاج جميع الأهداف أيضاً ، أن تتغلغل وترتبط بوضوح بجميع الأهداف الأخرى وتتصل بشكل جوهري بالهياكل االمجتمعية (والمفاهيم) القائمة . فالحياة ظاهرة معقدة و عديدة الأبعاد ، وهكذا يجب أن تكون الحلول التي نقدمها للحفاظ على تلك الحياة.

 فيما يتعلق بالتعليم والإتصالات

فيما يتعلق بالهدف 4 - وهذا هو "ضمان شامل وعادل لتعليم ذي جودة " - حيث لا يمكن فصله عن أي من باقي الأهداف الستة عشر.


لابد مع التأكيد على أهمية ضمان "تقدير التنوع الثقافي" (4.7) ، أن تعطى الأولوية لضمان و تعزيز حقوق الإنسان الخاصة بالفتيات والنساء، في حال وجود تضارب بين هذا وذاك. فكم من من العنف ضد المرأة - بما في ذلك ختان الإناث المروع ، ينشاء ويتوطد من خلال التمسك بموروثات ثقافية مريضة ربما كانت تناسب عصوراً فائتة قد عفا عليها الزمن. هالة التقديس التي نضعها حول الموروثات الثقافية بمختلف أشكالها وأنواعها ، متى تسقط إن لم يكن الآن؟ متى نتخطى تعدد الثقافات إلى وحدانية الايمان العميق بحق جميع البشر - بغض النظر عن اللون والجنس والمعتقد - في الحياة الكريمة والنجاح والأمن والسعادة. إن الموروثات الثقافية إن لم تتطور لتتماشى مع ظروف العصر أصابت المجتمعات بقصور النمو والشلل الحضاري. فلنأخذ إذاً بأسباب التقدم والنمو والتحضر فنتمسك بالجوانب االإيجابية ونترك الجوانب السلبية التي لم يعد لها مكان أو مبرر منطقي مع إتساع الآفاق الإنسانية والحضارية. التعليم ذو الجودة يجب أن يعزز، قبل كل شيء، قيم العدالة ويؤكد على منهجية الحفاظ على الحقوق الإنسانية حتى فوق تعدد وإختلاف الثقافات


أخشى ما أخشاه هنا هو أن العلوم الإجتماعية كانت شبه غائبة في تقرير التنمية المستدامة العالمية لعام 2015 وأنه قد تم تجاهل ضرورة مواءمة الأهداف بين الجهات المعنية ، بالتبعية. فأهداف التنمية المستدامة بشكلها الحالي لابد وأن تتضارب ليس فقط مع الهياكل الإقتصادية الحالية، ولكن أيضا العديد من المفاهيم التي توجه منظومات حياتنا. كيف سيتم معالجة ذلك فيما يتعلق بنطاق التواصل والتعليم ؟ إن الخضوع لديناميات السوق الحرة، ومنهج النيوليبرالية (الذي يسود العالم حالياً)، قد ينقل السلطة الفعلية (السطوة) من يد الساسة لرجال الأعمال، وهؤلاء يعملون غالباً تبعاً لمفهوم مشوه عن نظرية البقاء للأصلح. ليس للكونهم أشراراً، بل لأن هذا هو ما بدا الأفضل والأصح على مدى عقود. هل سبق لك أن سمعت ليبرالياً يجادل بأن العمل على تحقيق المساواة بين البشر هو سعي"غير أخلاقي"؟ وسواء صحت وجهة النظر تلك أو لم تصح ، كيف خلا تقرير التنمية المستدامة العالمية لعام 2015 من أي جدل في هذا الشأن أو حتى مجرد ذكر؟ هل لأن العلوم الاجتماعية ليست علماً بما فيه الكفاية؟

 يبدو التعليم في تقرير التنمية المستدامة العالمية ٢٠١٥ وكأنه مازال يدور حول التنمية فقط وليس التنمية المستدامة. إذ يتطرق للمهارات فقط دون الأخلاقيات. ترى ما هي المهارات التي يحتاج أطفالنا تعلمها لوقف العنف ضد المرأة أو لتبني قيم المساواة والتسامح أو تقدير الإختلاف و التنوع الحضاري؟ لفظة "أخلاقيات" ذاتها لم لم ترد بشكل ذو معزى في أي من أجزاء التقرير.

دون توصيل الأخلاقيات الناشئة وراء أهداف التنمية المستدامة (إذ هي التي تربط - في الوقع - الأهداف بعضها ببعض) لجميع أصحاب المصلحة، قد يبقى تحقيق أهداف التنمية المستدامة بعيد المنال

 وينطبق ذات االوضع عند التعامل مع الهدف العاشر

أثناء العمل على "الحد من عدم المساواة داخل البلدان وفيما بينها" سيكون من المفيد أن نعترف بحقيقة أن كثيرا من الفقر اليوم ليس نتيجة لنقص حقيقي في الموارد ، وإنما يرتبط ببنيات ثقافية وإقتصادية وسياسية (راسخة) تسيطر على منظوماتنا الحياتية. من المهم لأغراض التعليم والإتصالات أن يعطى تعريفا قاطعاً وواضحاً لحقبة جديدة من التضامن والتكافل الدولي من أجل الحفاظ على الحياة وبقاء جنسنا البشري، وذلك لتقديم المشورة جميع أصحاب المصلحة لنوعية التحول الحادث ،  للتأكيد على الأولويات في حال تعارضه مع أي من النظم القائمة أو المفاهيم،

ويجدر التوضيح ، بأن معالجة هذه الثغرات المعرفية، ليس كله بالضرورة هو دور المنتدي السياسي الرفيع للتنمية المستدامة ، ولكنه يتطلب -على الأقل، اعترافاً بالمعضلة ودعماً إضافياً للمنظمات التعليمية التي تعمل على تعزيز وتوصيل أهداف التنمية المستدامة ، مع التركيز على تعزيز البحث العلمي الشمولي متعدد التخصصات ، وكذلك النشر في ذلك النطاق.

موضوعات ذات صلة: 

نساء العالم وقضايا التنمية المستدامة

تحديث ١٤ -٠٧-٢٠١٥

خبراء الأمم المتحدة: على المؤسسات التجارية المساهمة في تحقيق التنمية المستدامة بمراعاة حقوق الإنسان

Read it in English

Education and Sustainable Development Goals - Notes on the HLPF

Notes on the HLPF *

Gihan Sami Soliman 

Having been there; participating in the High Level Political Forum (HLPG) [1], while the world is about to enter a voluntary commitment towards the conservation of life, equality for all and sustainable development is a breath-taking life experience.

In spite of the glory of the historic moments, and the utopic 17 proposed goals, I must say that I had the impression that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) needed to have been more interrelated, and that they do not automatically link to the common stakeholders/right holders; perhaps due - on one dimension, to the sophisticated nature and language of the UN documents (as well as processes). It was the smartest intervention of all (proposed by the Women's Major Group) that women’s rights for equality must cut across all goals, in addition to standing alone in Goal 5. Actually with a broader vision, all goals need to cut across all other goals and relate meaningfully to the current social structures (and concepts). Life is a complex multidimensional phenomenon and so must be our solutions to conserve it.

On Education and Communication 

In relation to Goal 4 – that is “ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education”, as it related to all the rest of the seventeen goals.” 

• While ensuring the “appreciation of cultural diversity” (4.7), priority must be given to promoting the human rights of girls and women, in case values conflict. So much of the violence against women - including the horrific FGM, is culturally sanctioned and reinforced. This corona of sacredness we set around cultures must fall off. We surely need to keep respecting all people (i.e. each other) in their diverse beliefs, but not  necessarily sanctify all cultures or beliefs as a result. Cultures need to evolve; take the good sides and leave the maladaptive ones as we grow and advance in civilization. Quality education must promote, above all, values of justice and stresses a sort of beyond-cultural-diversity approach to human rights. 

• My major concern is that social sciences have been (almost totally) disregarded in the GSDR 2015 (Global Sustainable Development Report 2015). The need for aligning objectives among stakeholders has been overlooked as a result. The SDGs, as they are, will conflict not only with the current economic structures, but also many of the concepts steering our life organisation. How is this going to be addressed in terms of education and communication? Giving in to the dynamics of free market, and neo-liberalism, shifts the power from politicians to businessmen, and the later would continue to act based on a distorted interpretation of the "survival of the fittest" paradigm.* That's not because they are evil, but because this is how things seem to have been working well for decades. Have you ever heard a liberalist calling equality among people “immoral”? I have. Whether such a view is valid or invalid, how come that it has never been tackled in the GSDR 2015? Because social sciences are not science enough?                                                                                                                                                

• Education in the GSDR 2015 seems to be only about development rather than sustainable development; tackling skills rather than ethics. What skills do we need to teach our children to stop violence against women or embrace the values of equality, tolerance  or diversity? The term ethics does not even occur (significantly) throughout the report. Without communicating the evolutionary ethics behind the SDGs (which actually link them together) to all stakeholders, the SDGs might remain unattainable. 

-       This is also significant while addressing Goal 10: 

While working to reduce inequality within and among countries (G10), It would be useful to acknowledge the fact that much of today’s poverty is not a result of lacking resources, but rather links to existing (well-established) cultural, economic and political structures dominating our life organisation(s). It is important for the purposes of education and communication to clearly identify a new era of a global solidarity for conservation of life and survival of our human kind, so as to advise all stakeholders of the significant transformation in case it conflicts with any existing systems or concepts.

Addressing such cognitive gaps, does not have to be all the role of the HLPF, but it requires –at least, acknowledgement and extra support to educational organisations working to promote the SDGs, and a focus on interdisciplinary holistic scientific research and publication.

                                                                   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
       
* Although Neo-libralism has not been frankly associated with the so called Social Darwinism – and most of social Darwinists have not frankly called themselves as such. But it was Herbert Spencer, a liberal utilitarian, who established the “survival of the fittest” natural fallacy by trading heavily in the evolution paradigm so as to explain how the liberal utilitarian logic of justice emerges (Stanford Encyclopedia). 

للقراءة باللغة العربية

* Draft shared with several civil society world organisations earlier.

Justice between humans and animals

Nature [1] has been said to work for the best of each "creature" (using Darwin's words). “She” (naturally) destroys the maladaptive traits and preserves the adaptive ones, leading to the continuation and amazing complexification of life. Individual organisms (including micro-organisms) often produce costly common goods and are preferential on whom would benefit from such common goods. Most organisms would help relatives because that is likely to perpetuate the kindness traits, otherwise, the common good would get plundered by “cheats” and “free-riders” who would not (by definition) contribute to the perpetuation of the genome/kind/species of the donor. This discrimination in itself ensures a sort of "justice" which often benefit the whole community/species/kind*.

The success of any species is tied up, surprisingly, to such discriminatory kindness. West et al (2006), explains an interesting experiment conducted on microorganisms communicating for the purpose of cooperation - necessary to perform several essential multicellular processes such as nutrient acquisition and dispersal. Some individuals in this bacteria groups namely Pseudomonas aeruginoshe produce a common good for the benefit of the group (sidrophores scavenging iron in this example), however, such production might be open to plunder by cheats within the same group, who do not produce such organic product and who would use the plundered sidrophores to out-number the altruistic productive individuals. When selfish individuals (cheats/mutants) out-number the altruistic one beyond the capacity of the patch/colony to provide nutrition and other essential organic products, the group inevitably perishes. West et al (2006), then explain how the altruistic bacteria uses two mechanisms to insure the sidrophores will be utilised exclusively by relatives (who according to the Kin selection theory, must be carrying the same altruistic traits and are thus likely to keep producing beneficial products for the survival of the colony), which may in turn, result in a potential inclusive fitness for the whole group. Those two mechanisms are the limited dispersal", and kin discrimination (the repression of competition). Kin recognition and kin discrimination in this example occur beyond the perception of the individuals while in higher organisms occur consciously, through the sensory system (based on physical characteristics such as the smell, features or location, as relatives tend to live in the same vicinity) (West et al, 2006).

The success of kin discrimination would naturally lead to the growth in number of the connected group and a gradual advancement of the organisation (Darwin, 1854; 1999), leading in turn to more growth in population (inclusive fitness). Now! In case of humans, this happen the other way round. Humans tend to think of the purpose of their actions and are capable of weighing possibilities against contextual and situational factors, relating this to past experience. This is called the faculty of "steermanship" (Weiner, 1948) or Cybernetics.



So while we are doing the same thing - in principle, the results are pretty much different. Humans' contribution to the welfare of their community do not always take the form of economic activities or biological production. How often we exchange materialistic/economic possession (represented in money) for recreational, spiritual, humanistic or artistic values. How often we feel estranged to some family members and close to strangers. Due to the faculty of observation, education and the use of cognitive artifacts, the human behaviour - as Darwin affirmed, is no longer governed by instincts but is rather a blend of natural dispositions ("social instincts"), social learning ("imitation and reinforcement") and values (morals), resulting in the evolution of morals, religions, education, cultures, social contracts, game theories, etc.

Great lawgivers, the founders of beneficent religions **, great philosophers and discoverers in science, aid the progress of mankind in a far higher degree by their works than by leaving a numerous progeny
                                                                                                                              (Darwin, 1854-99)From this argument we can see that species tend to work, consciously or unconsciously for the benefit of their kind, as part of their struggle to survive. In this context, justice (defined in light of collective-survival values) can replace kin discrimination, and as man advance in civilisation….

 

As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races.

                                                                                                                            (Darwin, 1854-99)

---

[1]

Nature in a Darwinian sense is the aggregate of natural laws and process
addressed as a singularity (Darwin, 1849-1871;1999)
*
This does not imply pre determinism ( see Park, 2007)
Park, J.H.(2007) Persistent Misunderstandings of Inclusive Fitness and Kin Selection: Their Ubiquitous Appearance in Social Psychology textbooks. Evolutionary Psychology – ISSN 1474-7049 – Volume 5(4). 2007-861
**
Caution must be practiced as we address the meaning of "beneficial religion". Evolutionary-wise, any moral system (or religion) that imposes a fixed code of conduct rather than a set of values, is maladaptive and pathogenic on the long run. 


West et al (2006) Altruism, Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences,
University of Edinburgh Current Biology, Vol 16 No 13 R482


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