Discussing self-transformations with my fellow humans
Today, our university's (Roskilde uni's) Department of Social Sciences and Business organised a space for my co-author and I to talk about self-transformations towards a degrowth society. I'm feeling grateful for it. My co-author is also my partner. Together, we think about degrowth transformations, theorise them, and we also practise sustainable living. Self-transformations is one of our favourite themes to write about, discuss in our home and with our fellow humans. My partner is more interested in the spaces where self-transformations unfold, i.e., eco-social policies, structures that empower and constrain, and in culture. I am more interested in the everyday and how we relate with the world (the self, human and non-human others, and nature). I'm interested in practices and reasons for them, feelings, stories of fellow humans, values. We based much of our talk on our common works, including our book called "Deep transformations: a theory of degrowth" and our article called "Less and more: conceptualising degrowth transformations".
We started our talk by saying that degrowth calls for downscaling of our economic activities and looking for alternatives. Alternative ways of doing things, producing things, being in the world. There is no single, agreed-upon definition of degrowth. In fact, there are so many definitions of degrowth these days! And we have our own. We theorise degrowth as deep transformations unfolding on the four planes of social being (material transactions with nature, social relations, social structures, inner being). This four planes framework comes from the critical realist philosophy of science. We use the four planes framework because it allows us to avoid reducing transformations to some single thing, such as a policy, or spirituality. Transformations need to unfold in all sites of society (civil society, state, business), on all scales (from the psyche to the transnational scale). Transformations, in our view, are possible because humans are inherently good, capable of empathy, love, solidarity, gentleness, care, concern. This is not to say that humans are perfect and not capable of evil as well. But to assume that transformations are possible necessitates a positive view of human nature. Otherwise, why would anything change? As for the direction and the aim of transformations, we imagine it to be a harmonious society, co-existing harmoniously within itself and with nature. It's hard to tell what this society will look like. Personally I see this theorising as dreaming and a somewhat artistic pursuit. In our theorising of degrowth, we emphasise more. Growth within degrowth. By that, we do not mean material growth or economic growth. We mean growth in the non-material. In empathy, love, care, creativity. We also mean growth of alternatives. More alternative organisations, more opportunities for alternative lifestyles. More access to land. And so on.
Preparing for this talk made me reflect about self-transformations. Within degrowth, self-transformations are often overlooked. It could be because degrowth scholarship wants to avoid pushing responsibility onto consumers, onto individuals. Degrowth scholars advocate change in systems. In this, I fully support degrowth advocates. At the same time, I do not think that there must be an either/or situation. We do not have to choose between change in systems and change in our selves. Self-transformations can unfold at the same time as we think about change in systems and work to bring it about. Also, human beings are everywhere. For example, I research businesses. I see businesses as communities of humans. Change in business at least partly depends on those humans. This is not to say that systemic constraints don't matter. They surely do.
As a practitioner, I experience self-transformation as a dialectic of less and more, of shedding some things and nurturing other things. Because it is a process, I see it as a journey rather than something than some final destination. I do not believe that there is some final, self-transformed state. In my practice, I always learn something new, something always comes to my attention. Conversations with fellow humans can be humbling. One of the fellow humans who attended our talk is our colleague who lives in an eco-community. Reflecting on his experiences made me realise that there is so much that I am not doing. For example, I do not grow my own food. I do not interact with the soil and non-human beings as much as I would have liked.
I finished our talk by saying that self-transformations need to manifest in practice and that there is no single, perfect path of self-transformation. There is a great diversity of circumstances and lifestyles. Every human being's practices constellate in their own, unique way.
The questions and comments we received in the end were humbling and thought-provoking. My partner and I do have our own theoretical differences, so I will sketch my own thoughts. One fellow human asked us about psychoanalysis. In our theorising of human nature, we mainly use humanism and humanistic psychology, Bhaskar's philosophy of metareality, and critical realism's conception of the self. In my own work, I use existentialism too, because I am interested in our being in the world, as selves, with others, and with Nature. I am curious about the everyday, our experiences. I am also curious about how we feel (eco-anxiety, hopelessness, angst) and about authenticity. I believe that capitalist systems erase our authenticity and it takes much time and energy to be on paths of authenticity. Perhaps unlike some existentialist thinkers, I do believe in human goodness and essential characteristics of humans. In this, my thinking about humans is close to Bhaskar's metareality.
Another fellow human mentioned the need for political perspectives for social movements. I do not see degrowth as a political project. Perhaps anti-capitalism unites degrowth scholars into an academic movement, but I see so much diversity, even plurality, within degrowth, that I am not sure if it can be called one political project, let alone that it is possible to produce a political programme that every degrowth advocate would agree with.
Another fellow human mentioned that spaces such as eco-communities can be seen as microcosms of transformations in practice. I love this perspective. I think there are many such spaces. I experience several alternative spaces as this, even my home with my partner where we practise minimalism. Some collaborations feel this way, when co-authors want to transform academic spaces and treat each other in a gentle, kind, empathetic way. Yet, I believe that fellow humans need more free time to be able to engage with alternatives such as eco-communities, community gardens, tool libraries, repair cafes. Perhaps a shorter work week could help.
Another fellow human was curious about the lifecycle of alternative lifestyles. He was curious about trends, whether movements such as minimalism are growing. I don't do quantitative analyses, so I don't know much about it. And my perception is influenced by my own participation in movements such as voluntary simplicity, zero-waste, (extreme) minimalism. Many persons in my social and professional circles are, in different ways, practitioners of sustainability. I think our analysis of social movements is complicated by the language. For example, there are so many overlaps between voluntary simplicity, deep ecology lifestyle, minimalism, zero-waste, sufficiency and other movements. If I ask my grandmother if she practices zero-waste, she probably would say no. She doesn't know what it is. Yet, she implements many zero-waste practices. She did this before zero-waste became a popular concept.
Yet another fellow human reflected on flat hierarchies and human-nature relationship. In relation to this, I'm thinking about deep ecology, extending a fellow-feeling towards non-humans.
Another fellow human asked about boundaries of plurality. It's such an interesting question. I suppose that degrowth is still at the stage where it is looking for ideas and ideals. Perhaps there are even schools of thought within degrowth. Not long ago, I found myself in an unusual situation. An independent journal was planning to do a special issue about my area of expertise. Their editorial team approached me and asked me to contribute an article. I decided to put together all my learnings from the past 8 or so years of researching degrowth and business and sent the article to them. After a while, the editorial team wrote to me saying that they would not publish my article because my definition of degrowth was not the one they used. It made me think about different schools of thought that arise in the field of degrowth. At times, my partner and I jokingly refer to ourselves as the Nordic school of degrowth. We base our exploration in critical realist analyses. We are inspired by humanism, unity between theory and practice, non-violent communication.
We also had an exchange with a fellow human about "less and more" vs "less is more". In my view, in some aspects of being, less is indeed more. As a practitioner of extreme minimalism, every day I feel the benefits of living with a lot less than what is the norm in our society. I feel liberated. I live only with the objects that I need, that I use every day, that I enjoy wearing. Yet, growth is incredibly important to me. Naturally, I do not mean more stuff, a bigger house, more citations. What I mean is experiencing self-transcendence often, feeling oneness with nature deeply, spending more time with nature, doing the things I love more often.