Don’t Believe Things Are Getting Better? Watch This Video

Posted on April 29, 2013 by zoeweil

In my TEDx talk Solutionaries, I make the claim that we are living in less violent, less discriminatory, and less cruel times than ever before in recorded human history. I point this out regularly when I give talks, and often people find the statement surprising. Periodically they simply don’t believe it. So I refer these people to Steven Pinker’s painstakingly researched book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, that provides ample evidence to support this assertion.

Now there’s another take on it. Watch the 5-minute video above, The Joy of Stats, and marvel at the possibilities for creating positive change.

We don’t have to feel mired in the many horrors of the world. We can remind ourselves that positive change has happened and continues to happen, and our role is to be part of it, using our best skills and talents in the process .

With this in mind, go do your life’s great work and help others find their solutionary path as well.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm; Above All, Be Kind; and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxYouth@CEHS “How to Be a Solutionary”

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It’s Not About You: Tips on Widening Your Perspective for a Better Life and World

Posted on April 11, 2013 by zoeweil

woman looking through binocularsFor my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent essay I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “It’s Not About You: Tips on Widening Your Perspective for a Better Life and World”:

It’s a given that we live in a globalized world.

We eat foods produced across the globe; we use electronics whose components come from dozens of places around the world; we can communicate instantaneously with anyone anywhere who has a computer with wifi or a cell phone.

With globalization has come awareness. We can quickly know about the conditions under which people live and work in other countries. We can find out about the plight of other species, or about pollution or deforestation. If the nightly news doesn’t report on these issues, we can discover them through our computers in minutes.

Knowing so much changes us. Or at least has the potential to change us. It enables us to be less tribal, provincial, and self-centered; to think of others outside our family, neighborhood, and even nation; to dwell as often on those we affect as on what affects us.

Read the complete essay.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm; Above All, Be Kind; and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxYouth@CEHS “How to Be a Solutionary”

Continue the conversation! Leave your comment below, and “like” and share this post via your social media sites.

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Localization v. Globalization: A False Dichotomy

Posted on December 9, 2011 by zoeweil
For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Common Dreams, a progressive news site. Here’s an excerpt from “Localization v. Globalization: A False Dichotomy”:

“The economic localization movement is growing. Locavores have become widespread, with the “100 mile diet” representing the new eco-conscious food trend. Author Helena Norberg-Hodge begins her TEDx talk, The Economics of Happiness, with this impassioned plea: ‘For all of us around the world the highest priority, the most urgent issue, is fundamental change to the economy,’ and goes on to say, ‘The change that we need to make is shifting away from globalizing to localizing economic activity.’ This, she suggests, is the economics of happiness. Even in my own town, a yoga studio has a sign on the wall urging yoga practitioners to shop locally.

As a humane educator who teaches about the interconnected issues of human rights, environmental preservation and animal protection, I am uncomfortable with the fervor surrounding localization. While the farmer’s market and local food movements have certainly been beneficial – helping farmers, communities, and individuals alike – it’s not realistic, desirable, or responsible to reject global trade out of hand or to advocate localization as the urgent answer for our times.”

Read the complete essay.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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The False Dichotomy of Localization vs. Globalization

Posted on November 23, 2011 by zoeweil
I recently watched Helena Norberg-Hodge’s TEDx talk, The Economics of Happiness. I’ve appreciated Helena Norberg-Hodge’s work for some time, but I was disappointed in her TEDx talk. Helena is an impassioned speaker, with much global experience underlying her perspectives, but I wanted more than what I perceived to be a simplistic, either/or solution to our problems. She begins her talk by saying, “For all of us around the world the highest priority, the most urgent issue, is fundamental change to the economy.” She goes on to say, “The change that we need to make is shifting away from globalizing to localizing economic activity.” Essentially, she believes that a return to localization will bring about happiness. I found myself thinking that this solution lacked nuance and complexity, and I doubted very much whether it was truly the urgent answer for our time.

As she went on to argue that 99% of us don’t benefit from globalization, I found myself thinking of the vast majority of us who have certainly benefited from many aspects of globalization. While the farmers’ market and local food movements have surely done good, helping farmers, communities, and individuals alike, I could only imagine the 99% of coffee drinkers I know here in New England, and all those who eat bananas, drink orange juice, enjoy black and green teas, consume avocados, lemons and wine, eat rice, and wear cotton foregoing it all for apples, potatoes, wheat, blueberries, mint and chamomile tea, mussels and clams, and linen clothing and deer hides. Further, I thought of the people in temperate climates who’ve been saved by medicines derived from tropical plants, and the people in the tropics saved by the medicines discovered by scientists working in New England laboratories.

Imagine what would happen to the Ethiopian coffee farmers depicted in the film Black Gold whose organic, fair trade coffee would no longer have a market outside their communities, or to the sustainable and fair trade collectives producing goods and clothes for a living wage that are lifting individuals out of poverty as these products are sold beyond their borders. I wondered what would happen to all these people were we to all choose to buy locally.

The choice between localization and globalization is a false one. There are more nuanced choices we can and should make. If the primary problems lie in monoculture farms, poisonous chemicals, fuel-guzzling animal agriculture, exploitation of farm workers, cruelty to animals, and reduction in biological diversity of crops, we can address these problems directly. Fair trade, organic, sustainable, diverse, plant-based farming will help solve these challenges without closing markets between north and south, east and west, or in the U.S. between the fertile heartland, citrus-bearing Florida, and California (where just about everything grows). I’m happy that my state of Maine provides blueberries and lumber to people across the country (although I would like it to do so without toxic pesticides and clear-cutting), and I’m also happy that I can live in Maine and still occasionally eat dates and drink red wine.

What I see as the bigger challenge with globalization is the fuel necessary to transport crops and products across the globe, but as Michael Berners-Lee reveals in his carbon footprinting assessment of hundreds of products and foods in his book, How Bad Are Bananas?, local doesn’t necessarily mean less carbon intensive. Bananas from equatorial regions, he points out, use a fraction of the fuel of hothouse tomatoes grown next door to him in England. These are complex problems that are going to require innovative solutions, and we’re going to have to find clean energy sources no matter what we do, whether we buy locally or globally, assuming we want to live without returning to a fuel-less life.

I don’t know many people – even local food advocates – who really want to give up everything produced outside of 100 miles or whatever constitutes “local.” It’s great that we’re witnessing a revival of local, sustainably-produced food, and I for one enjoy producing much of my family’s food in our 900 square food organic garden, but localization is not a panacea. My hope is that in the process of coming up with solutions to our very complex global challenges, we will not resort to simple answers that may fail to harness the creativity and brilliance we really need to build a just, healthy, and happy world for all.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Filed under: creativity, economy, globalization, MOGO (Most Good), systemic change | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

First World Problems

Posted on August 19, 2011 by zoeweil

Sometimes it takes a brilliant teenager to provide a little perspective. Watch this short YouTube rap:

and then consider how much further such a viral video could go toward diminishing kids’ sense of entitlement, rather than adults reminding them how lucky they are.

For that matter, I’m going to watch this video periodically to remind myself when I begin complaining about petty, unimportant things.

Pass it on.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Are We Moving Toward an Empathic Civilization?

Posted on December 24, 2010 by zoeweil

Take a look at this (10 minute) YouTube video, narrated by Jeremy Rifkin, author of The Empathic Civilization:

Is such an expansion of our empathy a likely evolutionary outcome? It would be easy to point to examples of entrenchment and tribal-like attachment to our self-identified group. Genocide still persists across the globe; jingoism is commonplace; and to this day U.S. news reports consistently tell us how many Americans were killed in natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and plane crashes when they happen outside of our borders, as if American lives are more important than other lives; as if we Americans all care more about American lives.

As someone who has always found this news reporting bizarre, even as a child; who was just as dismayed by people starving in Ethiopia as by homeless people on the streets of New York where I grew up; and who could not understand why so many people thought it was fine to abuse (and then eat) pigs but not dogs and cows but not cats, Rifkin’s Empathic Civilization made perfect sense to me. I watched with that proverbial “aha” when someone articulates what has felt like an unspoken truth one has held for decades.

But I’m well aware that not everyone feels as I do. Will the empathic civilization be the direction we head, or will such potentially looming dangers as growing human population and limited food, water, and other necessary resources; peak oil; climate change refugees, and so on, cause us to become more identified with the “in group,” more tribal, more hostile to the perceived “other”?

At the same time as so many people in so many nations are expanding their empathy in an interconnected world; as racism, jingoism, sexism, classism, and homophobia diminish in pockets across the globe, we still talk about competing with other nations for power and still watch as age-old hatreds seem never to be resolved.

But I believe that we are indeed moving toward the empathic civilization Rifkin describes, and that one day we might actually create the Star Trek world I’ve yearned for every since I watched my first Star Trek episode at age 13 — a world in which our nations are at peace, prejudices have vanished, and we are explorers rather than conquerors.

Zoe Weil, author of Most Good, Least Harm

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Local Versus Global, Consumerism vs. Simplicity

Posted on September 6, 2010 by zoeweil

I was reading an article in the July/August issue of Ode Magazine titled, “If you’ve got it, spend it: How consumer spending can help create a fairer, richer, greener and more stable global economy.” The article is an edited excerpt from Philippe Legrain’s book Aftershock: Reshaping the World Economy After the Crisis. Unfortunately, it’s edited in such a way that it’s hard to fully grasp Legrain’s perspective because the sections don’t always follow logically, and there are inconsistencies in the article that I suspect might not be true of the book. I plan to read the book to understand Legrain’s points better.

Essentially, though, Legrain argues that consumerism – albeit a healthier version than most of us think of when we hear the word – is a primary key to a happier and more just and peaceful world. One of the pull out quotes in the article reads: “Localism, not globalization, is the true enemy of the planet.”

Legrain’s is a fairly unpopular view among progressives of various sorts who are promoting local economies, food independence, and voluntary simplicity as keys to a sustainable, just, and healthy world. And it is one I appreciate. I have found myself grappling with the complexities and sometimes the contradictions of local vs. global, and of consumerism vs. simplicity, for many years. I’ve written about this in my book, Most Good, Least Harm, because it is not always clear what and to whom actually does the most good and the least harm from our choices, especially if we are trying to do the most good and the least harm to ourselves, other people, animals, and the environmental all at the same time.

If I were to choose to eat only foods that are grown locally, as opposed to the criteria that I have chosen (vegan, organic, fair trade), then those organic and fair trade banana growers in Central and South America, from whom I purchase bananas at our local food co-op, would lose a loyal customer. I care about those growers as much as I care about the organic wheat growers in Northern Maine, whose crop I buy whenever I purchase bread or flour. True, the ecological footprint of the bananas is significant, shipped as they are using fossil fuels, but when I imagine a post-fossil fuel world that relies upon sustainable, non-polluting energy, that world has an abundance of global trade. My only reason now for limiting my purchases of distantly-produced products is environmental. I have never been swayed by “localism” for localism’s sake, that is, to “support my local economy.” It feels insular to me. In the same way, I have never understood when the news reports the number of Americans killed in a battle or natural disaster and fails to report the number of non-Americans killed. Personally, I don’t care about Americans more that I care about Iraqis. I care about people.

And so I was glad to read Legrain’s ideas and grateful to Ode Magazine for publishing an unpopular view. Yet, I hope that when I read his actual book (instead of excerpts) it will be more nuanced, and there won’t be either/or scenarios as presented in the quote “Localism, not globalization, is the true enemy of the planet.”

In a complex world, with challenging conundrums and solutions still eluding us, we must think beyond either/ors and attempt to continually ask and seek to answer what does the most good and the least harm in the countless choices that make up our lives. In this way, we can hone our critical thinking skills and harness our creativity to find new ideas that don’t simply refute other positions but which bring us further toward a peaceful, sustainable, and humane world for all people, animals, and the environment.

Zoe Weil

Image courtesy of Sheila’s via Creative Commons.

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The White Tiger: Systemic Truths Revealed

Posted on February 19, 2010 by zoeweil

I recently finished the award-winning novel, The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga. The book is comprised of a series of letters written by an Indian entrepreneur, Balram Halwai (aka the white tiger), to the prime minister of China, about his rise from poverty to riches. Balram, a chauffeur to Ashok, confesses to murdering his employer, stealing his money, evading capture, and launching a successful taxi service. The book is clever, engaging, and although replete with stereotypes, quite thought-provoking.

I also found it deeply disturbing. There’s a way in which Ashok’s murder, ghastly and evil though it is, is understandable in the context of the story. Although Ashok treats Balram comparatively well, the master-servant relationship, played out over generations within their families, can be understood to inevitably lead to evil, as its oppressive and exploitative nature unwinds over time and through circumstances. Balram sees an opportunity to escape servitude and the bonds that have tied his poor family to Ashok ’s rich family for generations in an often cruel and persistently miserable and seemingly inescapable culture, and he seizes it, even though it means murdering his relatively humane employer.

This I could somehow “handle” in the context of the story, but Balram’s future entrepreneurial success is predicated not only on this one instant of revenge and evil, but also on persistent corruption. There is no possibility of redemptive good. Balram is only able to build his successful taxi business by perpetually bribing the police and ruining others’ businesses and opportunities.

And this is what was so distressing to me. Even if the protagonist were to have become financially solvent initially by way of education, or luck, or wits, or “Slumdog Millionaire” genius rather than murder, he would have ultimately failed without becoming fully corrupt. The system that Adiga revealed in his novel necessitated corruption.

This is a dystopian novel masked in apparent reality. Unlike some famous dystopian novels (e.g., Brave New World, 1984, We), Adiga had no need to fabricate a future world unlike our own. Rather, he uncovered all-too-real systemic truths that pervade economic globalization and many societies.

My hope is that this novel engages systems-changers rather than simply entertaining its fiction-reading audience.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm

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