Page 28 RAIN Oct./Nov. 1983 SHARING SMALLER PIES by Tom Bender Tom Bender, a RAIN editorfrom 1975 to 1979, has provided some of our most memorable articles over the years. This excerptfrom his 1975 book. Sharing Smaller Pies, marked his first appearance in RAIN's pages. Originally self-published and intended for distribution to a small circle offriends. Sharing Smaller Pies received unexpected attention and was cited, reviewed, or quoted in a number ofpublications. Today, RAIN's 1975 description of it still stands up well: “Smaller Pies is one of the most succinct statements on the evident choices before us ... containing Tom Bender's usual startlingly clear sentences. ..."—]F ( (First appeared in RAIN, April 1975) 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 valued 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 protecting its possibilities. Such actions unavoidably insure the best possible future as a by-product of enjoyment and satisfaction from the present. 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. J
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz