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On Growth (1974)

On Growth

(1974)–Willem Oltmans–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

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58. Edgar Morin

French sociologist Edgar Morin was born in Paris in 1921. He studied geography, law, economics and sociology. From 1950 to 1962 he was director of research at the CNRS. He is also director of programs at the Centre Royaumont pour une Science de l'Homme. While at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies at San Diego, California, he examined the possible relationship between
biological and sociological theory. From 1957 to 1963 he was editor of the magazine Arguments.
Among his best-known books are L'homme et la mort (1951), Commune en France (1967), and La brèche (1968), and Rumeur d'Orleans, (1969). A new work, Le paradyme perdu: la nature humaine, is scheduled to appear in 1973.

You seem to feel that man is already on his way to a final collapse - don't you feel the rising awareness of the present dangers begun after Stockholm and the recent publication of Limits to Growth might reverse the tide?

 

Yes, I think the breakthrough in our ecological consciousness dates back to the years 1968 to 1970. It grew from an encounter of a spontaneous, romantic back-to-nature movement and a serious attempt to create a science that regards the environment not strictly in mechanical terms but in terms of ecosystem and organization. This breakthrough is an event of fundamental importance, and this is the reason why I used the expression ‘the year one of the ecological era.’

This ecological consciousness is closely related to the fact that pollution is not the heart of the matter. Pollution is a local manifestation of certain disturbances which are so clearly perceptible to man that they inevitably lead to a local awakening of consciousness and a number of more or less delayed responses. In short, I think many pollution problems are in themselves to be solved by purely technological means. For instance, the problem of the exhaust fumes could be solved within a few years by the construction of a ‘clean’ engine or a set of traffic regulations. This also goes for many problems concerning the so-called urban pollution. I think it is indeed a real consciousness, because people are aware that the actual problem is not pollution - pollution is only a translation of a much more fundamental problem: the fact that our economic development is absolutely uncontrolled and unregulated; and what's more, the exponential growth rate has even been taken as a regulating standard. In other words, nature has been assumed to take care of all our financial, budgetary, economic, and moral problems.

This is an extremely paradoxical situation - we have tried to regulate our problems by a device that eventually ended in an absolute disregulation. This is very important, and I think this uncontrolled growth is the

real problem. It's not so much a matter of exhaustion of raw materials and energy sources - we have still plenty of energy sources, like solar energy and the energy sources of the oceans. The biosphere is an extremely complex planetary ecosystem in which a fundamental cycle is taking place, from the plankton in the seas to the primates, from the photosynthesis of the plants to ourselves. And it is very important to know whether we have not poisoned the very essence of this system and, by doing so, brought about a general deterioration of life, that is, our life.

In fact, the real problem covers a field that always has been regarded as the exclusive property of war industry. It is clear that war industry leads to death. It is clear that production of guns and tanks endanger human life. But we never suspected that peace industry, life industry, could have the same effect. But it has, in two different ways: First, through the absence of any civilization; and besides, through the absence of any control of the natural ecosystem.

It is impossible to establish the exact moment on which the deterioration of mankind will take place, it may arrive suddenly, it may even take years. But nevertheless, the problems are of fundamental importance, not only for the essence of human civilization, but also for the essence of man himself. Because from Descartes1 onwards the notion of men has always been separated from the notion of nature, as if they were two absolute different entities. Besides the fact that we are unable to predict when the general deterioration of human life will take place, the most dramatic element is perhaps that the problems may simply prove too big for us.

I think we have to distinguish two different kinds of ecological consciousness, concerning respectively what I call the ‘big’ and the ‘little’ ecology. The little ecology occupies itself primarily with the problem of pollution. It shows us a concrete example of pollution on a local scale, and indicates at the same time by which technological means the problem can be solved. The big ecology is concerned with a much more fundamental problem, which is only to be grasped if we manage to think theoretically -

 

From a global point of view -

 

Exactly. We need a global point of view. We have to oppose the technocratic way of thinking that divides all problems. This permits a high degree of exactitude, but at the same time it omits a very essential

element, the link between the different constituents that make up the whole. We need a global point of view. We need a theoretical frame. We need a base for our reflections. And as soon as we find this, we become aware of the real nature of the problem. This could be the starting point of a new course of development, which is indispensable. To quote a very beautiful phrase of Michel Serres, ‘the problem is no longer how to control nature, but how to control the control.’ This is a fundamental problem of a political nature. Today the whole human race is entangled in an imbroglio, and the outcome of this is of decisive importance.

 

Do you think Limits to Growth, the attempt of the MIT team to catalogue the planet, is a step toward a control of this imbroglio?

 

The study of MIT has two sides, and it all depends which side you look at. The first side, that attracted me very much, is that for the first time in the history of mankind an attempt has been made to feed a computer with data concerning humanity as a whole. No doubt the study of the MIT team was in itself clearly insufficient, but it was a first step that could bring about a new way of thought - the global point of view - and this is absolutely essential. The second positive point is the fact that we are so thoroughly technocraticized that it is very important that this concern about the ecology was instigated in one of the sanctuaries of modern science, MIT. It is a very positive development that the prestige of modern scientists is serving a cause which is fundamentally correct, even if all the empirical data in the study are not.

But there are also negative points. The first negative point is directly related to the positive point I mentioned earlier. It is the fact that the study in itself is clearly insufficient and absolutely worthless except as an alarm signal and a contribution to the awakening of the ecological consciousness. In addition to this, there is the notion of ‘Limits to Growth,’ and as a direct consequence of this, the notion of ‘nongrowth.’ This is a very bad myth. The people of MIT tried to combat the myth of growth, but in doing so, they created an antimyth, which is as irrational as the original one. My objections to this are twofold. In the first place a matter of principle: There is a growing awareness today that we identified the notion of economic development with a notion of a purely quantitative growth. In other words, we flatten a multidimensional, qualitative notion to a strictly quantitative notion. In addition to this, we identified the notion of the social, human development with the notion of economic development. This means we carried through

a double reduction. First, we reduced a very rich and very mysterious term - because, what's ‘human development’? That's what we want to know - to an economic criterion. And besides, we reduced economic development to growth statistics in terms of income and production. Actually the real problem of today is that we must try to leave the one-dimensional universe of the word ‘growth’ and reformulate the problem of economic development in its own terms and submit it to the problem of the human development in its totality. By formulating the problem in this way, we may reach a solution; whereas, phrases like ‘nongrowth’ keep us entangled in quantitative and economistic ways of thought.

The second error is that the expression ‘nongrowth’ suggests a stationary situation, which is in fact out of the question. The very problem is that we must try and keep things moving. We live in an age of perpetual change, and we must control and direct change. In fact, a state of equilibrium is a mere illusion. These are the two fundamental errors in the report, of an ecological consciousness to attack the ideas of the MIT team, as well as those of Mansholt,2 with great violence and a reasonable degree of success. And what's more, the matter of nongrowth was brought forward rather lightly and in a purely Western perspective. It created the impression that in the advanced industrial societies an idea had arisen to slow things down a little. And although this did not have to suggest a direct expression of Western neocolonialism to the developing countries, it must have seemed at least an unconscious manifestation of the secret desire to maintain the present hierarchical structure of power and privilege. In fact, these views are absolutely unacceptable to the Third World.

But there is another aspect of the ecological awakening that involves very serious problems. Until recently economists always held a ‘closed’ view of the profit and loss account of industrial development. During the hypertrophied expansion of transport, communication and certain kinds of industry, they never took into account the whole set of neurasthenic and psychosomatic disturbances which affected the factory workers and the populations of the cities. They made idyllic calculations in which the effects of the industrial production were only beneficial, whereas public health, hygiene, etc., used to be considered on a totally different level. The budget was gradually burdened by an accumulation of new diseases, but its relation to the industrial development was usually ignored.

Today a new consciousness breaks through, and especially in the field

of pollution - legal dispositions are being prepared to force industries to counteract the effects of their own pollution. This is a difficult but by no means impossible matter in the industrial societies, where powerful concerns may contemplate recycling processes. It is of utmost importance to the developing countries as well; but again, it won't be easy to convince them to go and deal with this matter.

These problems must be tackled on an international and global level. But unfortunately this is quite impossible today, because we are still entangled in the Realpolitik of the superpowers, as we could observe in Stockholm. We are passing through a very serious crisis, because we are involved in a system - in a system of thought, in a social system, and in a system of international relations - in which the contradictions and paradoxes are such that one involuntarily starts to think of a metasystem, which is to solve and integrate the most fundamental contradictions and paradoxes. In short, we need a radically new international and global society -

 

How are we to achieve this?

 

- But once this understanding has been gained, we become immediately aware that this solution, the only realistic and concrete one, is at the same time, the least realistic and concrete one, because it is impossible to realize. We cannot confide in our political leaders, nor in our political parties; and nothing would be left to us but despair, were it not that there are certain examples in the past, which are, to say the least, encouraging. We can ask ourselves how man managed to invent language. It is beyond our understanding that man could create such a complex system as the double phonetic articulation. How could life invent the genetic code? How came the first nation into being? It is almost impossible to find adequate answers to such questions. How are we to construct a new society? That's also a very difficult question.

 

You think of Skinner?3

 

No, no, absolutely not. I think such a transformation is to be organized by the exact opposite of the stimulus-response theory. Usually it is generated by an unconscious and very profound maturing process, by an encounter of unconscious and conscious creative powers. Thus comes into being what we call a movement. I think we need such a movement right now, a movement of a radically new nature, not moulded on the

classical political party. We need an international movement, which can take concrete form and initiate a process -

 

A psychological movement?

 

Psychological and sociological and, I would say, praxistic as well. But this is by no means a simple enterprise -

 

The different cultures, the Japanese, the Americans, the Africans -

 

Yes, but it is very striking that the new consciousness takes the same shape almost everywhere. In a way the ecological question is a unifying problem. We can find examples of international movements in history. There have been four Internationals. All of these were subjected to rather depressing vicissitudes, but nevertheless they existed; and this proves it is not impossible to create an international movement. But we must not model it on the existing political parties; and at the same time this movement should be prevented from becoming a mere gathering of academics and intellectuals.

 

In that case the masses would be excluded.

 

In generating an awakening of consciousness a deep-felt conviction can be as effective as an intellectual judgment. Actually, the masses are already ecologized. What other reason could there be for the overall impulse in our societies to flee the cities? Why the general dream of owning a house in the country? Why do we behave like would-be farmers as soon as we have left town? Why do we change during the weekend? Why do we fish? Why do we hunt? There is a very urgent need of physical activities.

 

It's only a mania, buying a second home in the country, but how are we to change the desires?

 

It's not a matter of having a second home or not, it's not a matter of owning something or not, it's a matter of returning to a pure environment. There is a growing demand for this, now that our civilization is becoming more and more urbane and abstract; and we are getting more and more dominated by an artificial rhythm with traumatic effects to our personality.

I think anyone living in a city possesses a certain degree of ecological consciousness, even if this is sometimes unconscious. There is a need to ignore this consciousness. This kind of unconscious consciousness - if I may put it this way - has in a sense contemplated the enormous problems posed to humanity. That is to say, this ecological consciousness that incites people to flee the cities, gradually assumes the character of an escape. This escape has to be transformed into its counterpart, a recovery of one's self. There are germs of something new in our society, and these must be transformed so they can pave the way for a new movement. This means that new ideas must crystallize, they must be carried by tens, hundreds, thousands, millions of people, and they must be put in practice. This is our problem.

 

But do you think the scientists, the sociologists, the psychologists can lead the way? For we cannot expect anything from politicians. Nixon does not read Skinner; neither does Pompidou.4 Who must launch this new movement? The young?

 

Yes, the young in the first place. But in the earliest stages it's always the people living on the fringes of society, the people trying to break away from something, from their class, from their caste - and this could be the scientific caste as well. Contemporary science is extremely bureaucratic.

Unfortunately we can't expect anything of today's scientists. Science owes its practical successes to the fact that it dissociated itself completely from goals and values. The results of this process have been very remarkable, but an unexpected side-effect has been that science and scientists tend to ignore any problem concerning goals and values. In this process science itself has become object of goals and values outside its own particular field. In other words, science has become part of the social dialectic.

Once it was generally believed that science could solve anything. This was at the end of the nineteenth century, when Renan5 wrote about the future of science. This naive belief in the omnipotence of science has maintained itself quite a long time, especially in the United States. Even Einstein6 still lived up to the image of the sage prophet addressing warnings to mankind. But actually Einstein was the only scientist of his generation who could play this role. In fact, it took only a few years for Moses-Einstein to change himself into Jeremiah-Oppenheimer. For Oppenheimer - Einstein's successor in a way - was not anymore a

Moses, he was a Jeremiah, who lamented that the men in power had produced an atomic bomb which threatened to wipe out humanity. And I think we have already passed the era of Jeremiah, the era of Oppenheimer. We have reached the era of Job.

The scientists are sitting on the dunghill, because all the marvelous inventions they produced turned out to be shit for the human race. And they are beginning to realize this. Nobody is more vulnerable, more helpless, facing scientific inventions than the very scientists who created them. And this is the reason why they entrench themselves in their small bureaucratic world of standing, status, and prestige. But it is a traditional mistake to think that scientists can enlighten the human race - what's more, it's sheer madness.

If you look about you in this world, you realize that we lack the support that used to be found in a privileged class. In the eighteenth century the intellectuals were considered a privileged class; but today we know that the intellectual world is on the other hand completely neurasthenic. It is madness to think it can provide the answers. In fact, we don't believe anymore that the intellectuals carry the light. The working class has also been considered a privileged class, the guardian of truth. But although the working class plays a very important part in the dialectics of progress, they do not carry the light either. And what's more, the champions of the myth of the proletariat attach so little value to their own theories that they leave no stone unturned to force their own ideas upon the workers. There simply is no privileged class, nor a privileged race, nor a privileged people, and that's the reason why I feel we must start from the point from which humanity always has started, that is the prophets, Buddha, Mohammed -

 

A new Marx?

 

Or Marx. Prophets always just started to think, then they propagated and defended their ideas, and found people who were prepared to share their insights. Nietzsche has said: ‘I write for nobody and I write for everybody.’ Right now, we must appeal to everybody.


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