Many of people who mention the phrase "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" come from very different perspectives than I have and I think that is important for this post. I almost named this entry "Paradigm Shifting".
So, the topics at hand are my answers to the three opening questions we of this blog; What is development? Why should I be involved in development? What is our hope for development – what to we think can be accomplished, what is our ideal outcome of development?
Before I get into things, I am a zero-sum type person, I have a strong conviction that in almost everything in life there are no gains without losses. As it applies to development, I feel that it is unreasonable to frame development in terms of bringing everyone up to a Western style of living, that is certainly unsustainable - see global footprint. And just to throw in one more wiki-link, in a very similar vein, I am often reminded of the tragedy of the commons. To me, these ideas are different perspectives of the same thread and I see them pop up often in life, not just with respect to ecology but, also economics, personal life and even my faith.
(The global footprint link obviously addresses sustainability but I was surprised how quickly the TotC link gets into ecology - I thought it was a broader theory than that. And VERY interestingly that the zero sum article was categorised under the international relations theory which really ties in well.)
So, what is development? Last night Carla and I watched a special by David Suzuki about Europe's attempts at sustainability and they mentioned quality of life. In my opinion, development is helping all people achieve a good quality of life. Yes, I just shifted the question to, "What is a good quality of life?" but I think it does help to re-frame the question like that. For example, 30 min commute times is not a decent quality of life for many reasons and therefore it is not development. Getting people involved in the rat-race (ie the global economy) does not ensure a decent quality of life. For the record I do not have any rose-coloured glasses on the traditional ways of life in Africa or South America, I am aware (or at least I KNOW that I am NOT aware) of the poor quality of life that those lifestyles offer.
I am fairly certain that there is a quality of life standard by which most people can look to their own life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Many people in Africa do not have that and, unfortunately, many people in North America do not have a good quality of life either. So I'll stop there - development is achieving a better quality of life for all people.
Number two, why should I want to be involved in development? I think this segues rather nicely. I am interested in development not only because I want to help people achieve a better quality of life but I want that for myself and my family. In general, I am interested in defining what is a sustainable, good quality of life. Not only from the technical perspective (ie a house built this way and this much travel by this means per year) but also from the paradigm perspective. For myself I want to promote the mindset where people are OK with biking 20 minutes to get to work or understand that some food may not be readily available because seasonality or their geography.
As you can see, I am trying to promote the idea that there is just as much development work needed in North America or Europe as in the third world. So as for why I am interested in doing development work overseas, I think it again gets back to quality of life. Both Carla and I feel that the quality of life for us and our kids is better in many ways than here in North America. Don't get me wrong, we are very happy to be "home" now but often talk about the broader implications.
Finally, what is my hope for development – what do I think can be accomplished, what is my ideal outcome of development? To reiterate the above, my hope for development is to help people find a decent quality of life that they can share with their neighbours. And this as much about mindset as anything else.
I am reminded of one of my favourite Dilbert strips which I know most people won't find too funny but I laugh out loud every time I read it, even now - check out paradigm shift.
Personally, I found this entry flowed rather well but I am all to aware of how my ideas look when others reflect them back to me so let the criticisms fly. As well I know these thoughts are hardly novel, so please share any links for recommended reading (blogs, books, etc) of people who have expressed these thoughts better and more completely than I just did.
Kurtis (in Waterloo)
Great thoughts, Kurtis. The idea of a paradigm shift is one that is not as prevalent in Development thinking as we might expect. In many cases Development practice (like what the World Bank and the UN are trying to do worldwide to help the poor) is expected to achieve results without needing a significant paradigm shift. There are still lots of poor people - everyone knows that. The main prescription to help them seems to be to do more of the same (ie., get more economic growth to happen).
ReplyDeleteLess mainstream thinkers like Manchester's David Hume see the desperate need for a shift in social norms in rich countries, like those that have taken place with regard to CFC emissions or littering. It needs to become morally unacceptable for there to be poor people in a highly affluent world. And in a zero sum world, that means a paradigm shift for us rich people, using less, making a smaller impact globally, etc. E.F. Schumacher sees a spiritual element to this as well in "Small is Beautiful", but more on that next week.
I'm wondering how much of a factor contentment is in one's quality of life. It may be more significant than most of us would realize. Maybe we should pursue contentment, instead of quality of life? Once we find contentment, our lack of further needs might make this world a much safer place. Or, restated, if we finally discovered contentment, would we have reached the final frontier in 'quality of life'?
ReplyDelete