The following is an excerpt from a 3 8page monograph produced by Tom Bender and Lane Demoll, who until recently were energy conservation consultants for the Oregon State Office of Energy Research and Planning. Werecommend the entirety of Smaller Pies as one of the most succinct statements on the evident choices before us, containing as well as Tom Bender's usual startlingly clear sentences, a section of reasonable and sound actions for us all, assimilated by Lane. Copies are available for $1 from: Tom Bender 760 Vista Ave., S.E. Salem, Or. 97302 · Our ability to develop a culture that can endure beyond our own lifetimes depends upon our coming to a new understanding of what is desirable for a harmonious and sustainable relationship with the systems that support our lives. STEWARDSHIP, not progress: We have valu_ed progress highly during our period of growth, as we have known that changes were unavoidable, and have needed an orientation that could help us adjust to and assist those changes. Progress assumes that the future will be better-which at the same time creates dissatisfaction with the present and tells us that NOW isn't as good. As a result, we are prompted to work harder to get what the future can offer, but lose our ability to enjoy what we now have. We also lose a sense that we ourselves, and what we have and do, are really good. We expect the rewards from what we do to come in the future rather than from the doing of it, and then become frustrated when most of those dreams cannot be attained. The "future" always continues to lie in the future. Progress is really a euphemism for always believing that what we value and seek today is better than what we valued before or what anyone else has ever sought or valued. Stewardship, in contrast to progress, elicits attentive care and concern for the present- for understanding its nature and for best developing, nurturing, and protect: ing its possibilities. Such actions unavoidably insure the best possible future as a byproduct Page 3 SHARING SMALLER PIES of enjoyment and satisfaction from the pre- · sent. The government of a society has a fundamental responsibility, which we have neglected, for stewardship-particularly for the biophysical systems that support our society. It is the only organ of society which can protect those systems and protect future citizens of the society from loss of their needed resources through the profiteering of present citizens. The government's fundamental obligation in this area is to prevent deterioration in the support capacities of the biophysical systems, maintain in stable and sound fashion their ongoing capabilities, and whenever possible extend those capabilities in terms of quality as well as quantity. Present and past governments, and those who have profited from their actions, must be accountable for loss to present and future citizens and to the biophysical systems themselves from their actions. PEOPLE, not professions. Our wealth has made it possible for us to institutionalize and professionalize many of our individual responsibilities-a process which is inherently ineffective and more costly, which has proven destructive of individual competence and confidence, and which is affordable only when significant surplus of wealth is available. We have been able to afford going to expensively trained doctors for every small health problem, rather than learning rudiments of medical skills or taking care to prevent health problems. We have been able to afford expensive police protection rather than handling our problems by ourselves or with our neighbors. We have established professional social workers, lawyers, and educators- and required that everyone use their services even for things we could do our- · selves and that are wastes of the time and expertise of the professionals. As the wealth that has permitted this becomes less available to us, it will become necessary to deprofessionalize and deinstitutionalize many of these services and again take primary responsibility for them ourselves. Our institutions have contributed to isolating, buffering, and protecting us from the events of our world. This has on one hand made our lives easier and more secure, and freed us from the continual testing that is part of the dynamic interaction in any natural system. It has also, by these very actions, made us feel isolated, alienated, and rightfully fearful of not being able to meet those continued tests without the aid of our cultural and technical implements. Our lack of familiarity with all the natural processes of our world and uncertainty of our ability to successfully interact with them aided only by our own intuitive wisdom and skills has enslaved us to those implements and degraded us. We can act confidently and with intuitive rightness only when we aren't afraid. We can open ourselves to the living interaction that makes our lives rewarding only when we cease to fear what we can't affect. Fear is only unsureness of our own abilities. We have to take responsibility OURSELVES for our own lives, actions, health, and learning. We must also take responsibility ourselves for our community and society. There is no other way to operate any aspect of our lives and society without creating dictatorial power that destroys and prevents the unfolding of human nature and that concentrates the ability to make errors without corrective input. No one else shares our perceptions and perspective on what is occurring and its rightness, wrongness, or alternatives. We arc the only ones who can give that perspective to the process of determining and directing the pattern of events. Our institutions can be tools that serve us only when they arise from and sustain the abilities of individuals and remain controlled by them. AUSTERITY, not affluence. Austerity is a principle which does not exclude all enjoyments, only those which are distracting from or destructive of personal relatedness. It is part of a more embracing virtue-friendships Continued on page 4
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