Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life.
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Reading Group Discussion Guide for Most Good, Least Harm.
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“With an amazingly useful way of thinking and acting, Most Good, Least Harm is multi-faceted in its utility….The innovation in this book is…spreading a message of being socially, politically, and environmentally conscious when making decisions.”
~ Jordan Dacayanan, Sacramento Book Review
Thanks for visiting! I would love you to share your comments. Get free updates to my blog by subscribing to my RSS feed, and please enjoy my TEDx talks. Below are “The World Becomes What You Teach” and “How to Be a Solutionary.” You can also watch “Solutionaries” and “Educating for Freedom.”
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In E Magazine’s “The Greenie Wars: When Green Groups Clash, It Leaves an Environmental Impact” author Joanne Isaac discusses the conflicts that arise between animal protection advocates and conservation advocates. According to the article animal advocates strive to protect individual animals from harm, exploitation, and unnecessary death, whereas conservationists strive to protect species and habitats, even if this means killing individual animals. Thus, for example, an introduced species that is negatively impacting another species or the environment is subject to lethal eradication from a conservationist perspective, whereas an animal protection advocate would support live trapping and removal.
Isaac writes, “In a letter to the journal Conservation Biology this year, Dr. Michael Hutchins, Executive Director of The Wildlife Society, said that ‘animal rights and conservation are incompatible at the most fundamental level.’”
How strange.
As a conservationist and animal protectionist, I always look for solutions that protect the environment, habitat, and species, along with protecting individual sentient animals from harm.
I’m also a human rights advocate. In relation to habitat destruction and loss of biodiversity, no species is as destructive as humans, but I don’t advocate killing people to solve our biodiversity crisis. Rather, I advocate the reduction in human population through family planning and education, the greening of our economy, and practical solutions to eliminate poverty and hunger without further deforestation and habitat destruction, such as sustainable, plant-based agriculture.
It’s much more difficult to find solutions that work for everyone rather than a specific interest, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible, or that we should abandon complex, nuanced, and holistic thinking in favor of either/or answers.
Animal protection is no more incompatible with conservation than social justice is. We just need to be more creative, compassionate, and innovative.
~ Zoe
Filed under: animal protection, Environmental Preservation | Tagged: animal protection, conservation, either/or, Environmental Preservation, third side thinking | Comments Off
At Bioneers I attended a talk by Annie Leonard (creator of The Story of Stuff) and Andy Revkin (New York Times reporter and author of the blog Dot Earth). Annie and Andy offered a presentation titled, “How Many? How Much?” about consumerism and population, and after their (excellent) talks, they opened for questions. There were many questioners who asked about the paradoxes we face in addressing consumerism and population. For example, with economies built around consumption, how can we sustain economic development and eliminate poverty if we diminish consumption? This is a real conundrum. If we all begin to live more simply, locally, and sustainably (either because we realize this is MOGO or because our economic crises demand this), we will buy much less and this will cause many to suffer tremendous economic hardships as their livelihoods disappear. With 6.7 billion people to feed, house and clothe, this is a paradox.
The U.S. government (along with others) has recently pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into our economy to prevent a depression. Some would argue that this fueling of our economy to keep production up and purchasing possible, is counter to our planetary need to reduce our consumption, our resource depletion, and our pollution. Paradoxes.
Annie and Andy didn’t have satisfying answers for these paradoxes because they are complex, and there aren’t simple solutions to them.
But there is an overarching solution, and that is humane education. I know, I know, I sound like a combination of a broken record and an unabashed idealist. But hear me out (again). While we must address critical issues such as global warming with immediate action, we cannot ignore the underlying problem: we do not yet teach for peace and sustainability, let alone for restoration, and if we neglect this root problem, we will forever be struggling to put out raging forest fires instead of preventing them from igniting.
I have no better answers for the paradoxes we face than Annie and Andy had, but I know that if we raise a generation with knowledge about the challenges we face and with tools and motivation to be creative problem-solvers, we will have answers, more and more of them at an ever quickening pace.
Capitalism 3.0 is a book that offers answers to restructuring our political/economic system. Cradle to Cradle is a book that offers answers to our architectural and chemical challenges. These are fantastic contributions that can (and will) create some of the changes we need, but just imagine how many answers will arise when a generation is offered real humane education. That’s the root solution to the paradoxes.
(For more information on how you can become a humane educator, visit www.HumaneEducation.org).
~ Zoe
Filed under: humane education | Tagged: Bioneers, consumerism, humane education, overpopulation, paradox | 1 Comment »
T.S. Eliot once wrote, “Humankind cannot bear much reality.” In today’s world, threatened as it is by global climate change, human overpopulation, massive extinctions, fresh water depletion, toxic waste, and replete with escalating worldwide slavery, brutal institutionalized animal cruelty, human starvation and many more problems, it’s no wonder we can’t bear much reality.
In our Master of Education and Humane Education Certificate Programs at the Institute for Humane Education, we know students struggle with the content of their courses (on education, human rights, environmental preservation, animal protection, and cultural issues such as consumerism, social psychology, media and globalization). Although every course has books and articles with practical and wise solutions to our problems, each also exposes our students to the challenging realities of our time. After all, we cannot solve our entrenched problems and transform unhealthy systems if we don’t know about and understand them.
Many of our students struggle with the dark content of some of the books and films in the program because, indeed, it is hard to bear that much reality. But there is another reality that our program explores: that of our human capacity to experience wonder, joy, connection, compassion, and understanding. Our students are required to spend time in a natural setting, participate in activities that reawaken their reverence, meet and connect with people from other cultures, listening to their stories and building relationships. Each student also does a practicum, not only to put their knowledge and training into practice, but also to experience the joy that comes in doing the work of humane education.
Yes, we cannot bear much painful reality, and so we must cultivate the joyful reality that is our inheritance so that we can hold the joy and pain together and rely upon our experience of profound connection and empathy to face and transform those systems which harm. If we expect to change the world through doomsday stories, we will find that many turn away, unable to bear that much reality. But if we inspire people to fall in love with this gorgeous planet, revel in their senses and ability to feel awe, turn their apathy into compassion, and hear the stories of the heroes among us, then we will discover that our reality is huge: full of light, dark, and everything in between, and we can bear it all in our hearts and minds in order to create a better world.
~ Zoe
Filed under: humane education, MOGO (Most Good), positive choices | Tagged: change the world, humane education, perceptions, positive choices, reality, systemic change | Comments Off
In a few months, a new president will take office and face challenges we haven’t seen since Franklin Roosevelt became president. In particular, this president will be faced with a financial crisis, an environmental crisis, an energy crisis, a fresh water crisis, an educational crisis, and a national security crisis, not to mention a host of other problems. Fortunately, the University of Colorado and several partner organizations are engaging the nation’s science, policy, business and civic leaders to produce a Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP) to offer the new president practical plans and ideas for addressing global warming, arguably the most pressing of these crises, in ways that will also address these interconnected challenges.
The advisors to PCAP represent the best and brightest of thought leaders, green business proponents, scientists, policy-makers, educators, and changemakers.
This is an example of the kind of project and partnership that can create the system changes we need.
Visit the Presidential Climate Action Project.
~ Zoe
Image courtesy of PCAP.
Filed under: changemakers, global warming, systemic change | Tagged: changemakers, global warming, national policy, partnerships, presidential climate action plan, systemic change, websites | Comments Off
Fritjof Capra, physicist, systems thinker, innovative writer, professor, and environmental educator, said this at Bioneers: “Solutions require a radical shift in our perceptions, thinking, and values.”
I agree. So how do we create this shift? Embedded as we are in dysfunctional and outdated systems that have influenced our perceptions, thinking, and, to an astonishing degree, our values, how do we step outside these systems far enough to assess them clearly and transform them wisely? Some thoughts:
1) Our perceptions, thinking, and values are malleable.
If, for example, people immigrate from one culture to another, they begin to live on a hyphen, carrying their perceptions, thinking and values from their original culture, while slowly absorbing and accepting new perceptions, thinking, and values from their new culture. Their children continue this hyphenated existence, generally moving further toward the new culture. Their children’s children are likely to be fully enculturated in the new society. What does this mean? It means that we are capable of holding disparate views and perceptions simultaneously, and that our thinking and values can shift, with new information and new experiences. This bodes well for the radical shifts we must make in our perceptions, thinking, and values.
2) Most of us share core values.
Many, if not most, of us subscribe to the Golden Rule to do unto others as we would have done unto us (or the reverse, to not do to others what would be anathema to us). Many, if not most, of us know that the accumulation of things (beyond what is necessary and a bit more for enjoyment) does not bring us happiness, whereas joyful and helpful relationships with family, friends, and neighbors do. And, many of us know that a restored environment secures our health and the health of generations to come. In other words, we value kindness and peaceful, sustainable human and ecological communities.
Yet we have created and perpetuated systems that defy these values in favor of other values and interests, pursuing profits at the expense of the biosphere and creating and using products and systems that cause terrible harm to other people, other species, and the environment. We fail at living according to our deepest values, not because we don’t value kindness and peaceful, healthy communities, but because our perceptions and thinking are molded by faulty systems and because other competing interests take root. Instead of recognizing this conflict and trying to resolve it practically and wisely, we fail to acknowledge it, choosing sides and clinging to false options. We create either/or choices (Republican v. Democrat, Socialist v. Capitalist, Christian v. Muslim, Urban v. Small Town, Elitist v. Joe Sixpack), as if these options are at all viable for the radical shift required. They are not. We need to find systems that support our shared core values of creating a peaceful, healthy, sustainable world for all, and shift our perceptions and thinking toward the attainment of this goal. This may not be easy, but it is absolutely possible.
3) We need humane education at all levels of society.
I have said for years that if we can raise a generation with the information, tools, and motivation to solve our greatest challenges, infusing all curricula with humane education, we will transform our world. But, we do not have the luxury of waiting a generation to reverse the trajectory of global warming or to slow population growth, two of the most frightening challenges we face. This is why humane education must be offered everywhere – in schools, of course, but also for and through the media, health care providers, architects and engineers, entrepreneurs, executives, legislators, farmers and more. Humane education – that is, education about the interconnected issues of our time that promotes inquiry, introspection and integrity, as well as far-reaching systems transformation – allows us to step outside our current perceptions and thinking in order to deeply examine our values and make long-term, wise decisions representing the radical shift we need.
~ Zoe
Filed under: humane education | Tagged: critical thinking, humane education, perceptions, problem solving, radical shift, systems, values | Comments Off
Voltaire once wrote “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.” The most common translation is “Perfect is the enemy of good.” For many months I struggled with the title of my upcoming book, Most Good, Least Harm. After reading the fantastic books Cradle to Cradle and Break Through, I found myself wanting to avoid environmentalism’s (often deserved) negative stereotypes of painting doom and gloom scenarios and demanding endless sacrifices to save the world. For many people, such approaches simply don’t work to inspire change. My title, while stressing “good” also acknowledges “harm.” In Cradle to Cradle and Break Through the authors take a different approach, suggesting that we really can create just good.
But I kept the title Most Good, Least Harm, and I did so, not because I reject the idea that we can one day create a truly good world with systems that are beneficial to all, but because I don’t want the pursuit of perfection – an impossibility until we actually do create the necessary systems – to become the enemy of good. For many, the fact that current systems prevent us from doing all good and no harm can become an impediment to incremental, individual changes because they see their imperfect choices as either equivalent or insignificant. (For example, I’m typing this blog entry on my computer, which is filled with toxic metals, mined in an unsustainable manner, and put together and eventually disassembled by people who are often treated miserably and exposed to these dangerous toxins.)
But just because the choices that we currently have are imperfect does not mean that those choices are equal. A Prius is not equal to a Suburban, even though neither is perfect and both depend on an unsustainable system of fossil fuels. As we work to make MOGO choices (and note that the term I use to shorten the concept “most good, least harm” is actually short for “most good”), we mustn’t let a commitment to finding what is ultimately perfect stand in the way of doing good.
~ Zoe
Filed under: Least Harm, MOGO (Most Good), Most Good | Tagged: Break Through, Cradle to Cradle, MOGO choices, Most Good Least Harm, perfection, systemic change | Comments Off
In an interesting series of online articles in Edutopia, the case is made for education that results in financial literacy. I fully agree. I believe that one of the contributing factors to our current economic collapse is a failure to educate for financial literacy. While we’ve all been schooled in math, science, literature, and social studies, few of us ever received education about financial security and responsibility. Unfortunately, we don’t generally educate our students in basic life skills for a changed and changing world. This is an enormous failure and needs to be remedied.
But it’s important not to stop at financial literacy. In addition to understanding why they shouldn’t buy an SUV on credit if they won’t be able to make their monthly payments for years to come, students also ought to receive education about the consequences of an SUV on people, animals and the planet. Along with learning about the economic consequences of spending lots of money in the cafeteria on sodas, burgers, and candy (rather than saving their money and eating fewer calories brought from home), we need to teach our students about the effects of such food choices on their health, animals, and the environment. In addition to helping students realize the financial impact of buying expensive brand name clothes and shoes instead of saving for more important future goals, we must help them become skilled at analyzing the advertisements that insidiously influence their purchasing choices and become aware of the effects on other people and the environment from outsourced, sweatshop-produced products.
Certainly, let’s start educating for financial literacy, but let’s not stop there.
~ Zoe
Filed under: humane education | Tagged: critical thinking, education, financial literacy, humane education, interconnectedness, MOGO choices | 1 Comment »
On election day, there were two propositions on the California ballot that would grant or remove rights to historically oppressed groups. Prop 2, if passed, called for more space for chickens, pigs, and calves in California agricultural facilities. Prop 8, if rejected, would uphold the recent California law granting gay and lesbian couples the right to marry.
Prop 2 passed, granting farmed animals a bit more comfort and space. Prop 8 also passed, taking away the rights of gay and lesbian couples to marry.
In the aftermath, I have read and heard too many people implying that Californians like animals more than people; that it’s “ironic” that animals received rights while humans lost them.
For the record, I supported Prop 2 and opposed Prop 8. I believe that animals should not be, in essence, tortured in factory farms, and I believe that people should be able to marry, whether they are gay or straight. I was extremely disappointed that Californians amended their constitution to ban gay marriage.
But it is wrong and disingenuous to compare these two propositions. If homosexuals were forced into cages for the duration of their lives, mutilated and abused under horrendous conditions, all to please the tastebuds of consumers and line the pockets of agribusinesses, and then a proposition to give them a bit more space before they were slaughtered failed to pass, well then we could rightly say that Californians care more about chickens than gay humans. But comparing Prop 2 and Prop 8 is like comparing proverbial apples and oranges.
In our society, we abuse farmed animals mercilessly. Hens are crammed into cages so tightly that they are barely able to move and unable to stretch a single wing. Their beaks are severed (without pain relief) as chicks to keep them from killing each other under these conditions. They stand on sloping wire that cuts into their feet…for a year or more. I’ve visited such facilities, and they are far worse than I’ve described here. If you were to put your pet parakeet into conditions like these, you’d be in violation of virtually all state anti-cruelty laws.
Pregnant and nursing sows are currently confined in “iron maidens,” cages that prevent them from moving at all beyond standing and lying down. Veal calves are chained at the neck in stalls so that they can’t even turn around. These are “normal” agricultural practices, even though they would be illegal if perpetrated on dogs and cats, and Californians, rightly in my opinion, passed a proposition that will simply grant these abused animals a bit more space. These animals will still be exploited for human palates, but the degree of cruelty will slightly diminish.
I believe that gays and lesbians should have the same right to marry as heterosexuals, but we should not compare the torture of other sentient beings to a rejection of gay marriage. Such a comparison fuels either/or thinking, lack of compassion for other sentient species, and narrow thinking. We need just the opposite to create a more thoughtful, just world.
~ Zoe
Image courtesy of bobster1985.
Filed under: animal protection, citizen activism, human rights, politics | Tagged: animal protection, animal rights, ballot measures, California, citizen initiatives, either/or, human rights, oppression, Proposition 2, Proposition 8 | Comments Off
Want to do something MOGO (Most Good)? Want to help create a MOGO world? The Obama administration has launched www.change.gov, inviting your ideas. Please share your knowledge, vision, and practical suggestions for how to solve the challenges we face. We’ve never had quite this opportunity before. Now’s the time to use your voice.
~ Zoe
Image courtesy of VinceHuang.
Filed under: changemakers, citizen activism, MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: Barack Obama, change the world, changemakers, citizen activism, MOGO, websites | Comments Off
IHE offers online courses for educators, activists, parents & concerned citizens seeking the tools, knowledge & motivation to align their actions with their deepest values & to become more effective leaders and changemakers. Sign up now for an upcoming session. Find out more.
“...a life-changing experience!" ~ Suzy Schweig, elementary school teacher, Minnesota
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I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to contact me at Zoe@HumaneEducation.org.
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