Local Culture: A Key to the Attainment of Sustainable Development

Abstract

En esta investigacion se discute el rol de la cultura local participativa como un grupo de interes necesario para alcanzar un desarrollo sustentable a largo plazo. Muchos modelos que han sido discutidos muestran que los sistemas economicos lineales dde hoy en dfa son antropocentricos, desorganizados y monolfticos en su vision sobre el desarrollo sustentable. Se propone el desarrollo de una ideologia inmersa a la cultura local social de los interesados, respetando su diveridad y creatividad, como aspectos constitutivos virtuales del desarrollo sustentable. Introduction Modern day neo-economists and non-steady state scientists, building on their intellectual heritage, employ linear/reductionist models that distance humankind from the impact of scientific and economic behavior on the biosphere. These CartesianNewtonian models have their philosophical roots in the civilizations that developed around the Mediterranean Sea-Hellenism, Judaism and Christianity. After centuries of evolution and the evergrowing dominance of science over philosophy and religion, a disfunction has developed between the objective physical universe and subjective human awareness (Tamas 1991). Today the linear economic reductionist modus operandi is one that extracts resources from Earth, converts them into products and services, and when man has finished with them, returns the residue (wastes) back to the biosphere (Figure 1). Until recently, little thought was given to the impact of the linear-reductionist processes on the larger organism-Planet Earth. There is now substantial evidence to suggest that Planet Earth is not capable of sustaining the continued pace of the technological-economic activity it has experienced over the past five decades. This paper critiques the linear reductionist model, its disconnectedness, its monomorphic bureaucracy, its intellectual compartmentalization, that dominates much of modern science and policy and discusses a series of models, with emphasis on the holistic character of the biosphere (including Planet Earth and the cosmos), and the inclusion of local soci-cultural stakeholders, capitalizing upon their diversity and creativity, to attain sustainable development. Western Man's View of the World The linear-reductionist model employed by much of the scientific-economic Western world can trace its origins to the civilizations that flourished around the Mediterranean basin from 500 B.C. up to the fall of the Roman Empire-Hellenism, Judaism and Christianity. Hellenism-the life and culture of classical Greece-was the spawning ground of Western philosophy as it is known today. Hellenism (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid and Epicurus) evolved a system of values that emphasized man's intellectual capacities, not his whole being. Drawing heavily from Grecian thought, Judaism and later Christianity, espoused a hierarchic view of the world with God at the top and man in a superior position to Planet Earth. They also adopted an analytical perspective to examine the world and life (Richards 1986; Royston 1979). Support and development of this linear-reductionist model and its application to science and commerce continued anew after Europe emerged from the Middle Ages. The Renaissance (14th through 17th centuries) followed by the Enlightenment (18th century) were periods of rich human development. The writings of scientists and philosophers (e.g., Bacon, Locke, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, Smith and others) flowered during this period and provided the underpinning for the scientific revolution which led directly to the industrialization of Europe (Rothschild 1990). Descartes' system of logic concentrated on linear mechanistic relationships between parts largely ignoring affective and holistic dimensions. Adam Smith showed clearly, in the use of Cartesian logic, that production could be increased through specialization-a reductionist approach to manual labor. This was the golden age of science which led to remarkable developments across the several branches of science and the presumed surety that it could improve human well-being. …