Philosophize a little about Ecology

This was my first text on Philosophy of Administration.

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Ecological Attitudes in 99

There are in our mass culture a desire to persuade, manipulate.

An event can be analyzed under any dozens of approaches, and I could focus on a simple act, like buying a calendar, as a mere act of consumption without further implications, but I can not help analyzing this act under a point peculiar sight: the Philosophy of Administration.

Why do I focus specifically on the act of buying a calendar, and not in another, like smoking a cigarette or take a bus, or take out the trash? If we think we can take anything and analyze it from any angle, then why buy a calendar? And why an administrative and philosophical approach? Well, it is necessary to make a choice.

Let's see.

The acts and things are infinite in number, and points of view, too. As a simple mathematical exercise, the combinations "things x points of view" also acquire infinite proportions. What makes an arrangement "thing x point of view" especially among an infinity of them, is that I made that choice. The act of buying a agenda is special interest to me in particular because of the implications that this agenda has caused. And the administrative and philosophical approach is chosen only because I am an administrator, and think from this point of view to me is a pleasurable act and more exciting than just an professional act.

Aside from I being an administrator, I am, or better, I perform, several other roles in society, and can adopt a different approach and one other act or thing to consider, but do not feel so motivated. So it would be a waste of time trying to adopt another point of view and another one theme. Sure, I could not tell in advance whether this view is the most useful, or if there is another more productive. The question of the utility does not matter much here, since without motivation, it would not be right or guaranteed that I would be able to provide something useful from another point of view. The only guarantee I have is that, motivated, have a greater chance of producing something than being unmotivated. If I were to produce something, it is to check the post, if not useful, at least enjoyable to read. If it is pleasant, or useful, or both, my time writing was not a wasted effort. I'd rather do something nice, but not necessarily useful, than something useful and unpleasant at the time of writing. Moreover, try to be useful to the world another way, if I can not be writing. Writing is, then, for me, more pleasant than a leisurely useful work. But if it can be useful, great, although it is a collateral gain.

When I say that I analyze things from the viewpoint of the Philosophy of the Administration, I do it because it is a point of view that gives me pleasure, and under which it can be more lucid, creative, inspired, so to speak. I would not have so much to say or think from another point of view. But that view is this? What is the Philosophy of  the Administration?

Of course, as an administrator, I am a professional who attended college and completed the ritual required to perform officially a profession. But there is no profession of philosopher of Administration. Officially, I can manage, but philosophy is a very different thing.

Is there some problem in an administrator to philosophize on your work area? Maybe, if he does not master the art or technique of philosophizing. Then, a professional philosopher would be more suitable to philosophize on the Administration, but then a problem arises: Administration is a technical matter that requires years of study. Can a philosopher who does not know Administration philosophizing about what he do not know?

On the one hand, lack to administrator the technical of philosophizing. On the other, lack to philosopher a body of knowledge on which to philosophize. Someone with training both in administration and in philosophy would be the ideal person, meet the qualifications required to call himself a philosopher of Administration. In theory.

In practice, we need not go that far. Owning a Business Administration course is a formality that does not give the guarantee to run well at all, nor is it an obstacle to the act of administering whatever. Administrators fail day and night, unceasingly, although administrators, and Bill Gates did not need a Administration course to  get where he is. And the same is true of philosophy. Colleges put out of their classrooms thousands of Philosophy graduates every year, and we not seen armies of Platos or Sartres revolutionizing the world. And not really allowed to think. And the world continues to change with or without the help of philosophers. Ideas come and revolutions occur from as many different minds, most of them belonging to people who have never attended a school of Philosophy.

So what prevents me from philosophizing? Or put it another way, which enables me to philosophize, since I must admit that a minimum of technique is necessary to think correctly?

In fact, there is no impediment to philosophize about whatever it is, and the Internet is filled with millions of websites and forums about Philosophy, Administration, of all, where billions of people think about billions of issues. Aside from the pleasure of thinking, which is a gain to whose think, is there any gain to one who reads? I mean, the fact of thinking much does not mean to obtain as a result something interesting or useful worthy of going public. So what facts lead me to conclude that my ideas, in particular, are better, more interesting or useful than the billions of others scattered across the on-line ocean?

Well, no facts beforehand can ensure the quality, so to speak, of my thoughts, but if there is any quality, it can only be evaluated and recognized if it comes to the world. While thinking, the most original idea, most revolutionary or useful to be what it is: a thought. It is inaccessible, unknown and therefore does not exist to the outside world. We need it, the idea, is verbalized, written, published, to it can be assessed. I can not be judged as a philosopher, without first exposing my ideas.

But why expose them? Why not just think them and save them to myself? Is it necessary to publish them? Well, not all. Not everything that we think is worthy of note. Some thought things should even be banned from the mind that thought. No. In fact, not all is good. So if I public something, is because apparently this is something already passed the scrutiny of some quality filter. This filter, I admit, there is.

The mind is a volatile screen. We think all the time, but not everything is posting in our memory. Imagine that during a dream,  is told the secret of something really rare, like a map of a very valuable treasure, the possession of which depends only to find it. The map we see the dream is real, clear and perfect, but it is complex. Upon waking, I know that the dream is a dream, but why not register the complex map in a real sheet of paper? You never know...

Ideas are, in some respects, such as treasure maps. They, like dreams, exist only in our mind. They, like maps, are complex and need to be passed to the paper, at the risk of losing the details. The ways of thinking are intricate, complicated, forked, faint. While we think, the reasoning is clear, but one minute of distraction and he dissolves like smoke. It is urgent and wise annotate them, reasoning and ideas, to fix it permanently.

But is the conclusion valuable? Or, put another way, does in the x of the map of the dream there is even a buried treasure? There is no way of knowing unless trying our luck and digging.

It is true that we can not always test our ideas, nor we can find for our treasures revealed in our dreams. The real world has real treasures, they know where they are, but we can not reach them, as we have wonderful ideas, however impractical. But we must not lose the map. One day, when technology allows, we comb the bottom of the seas in search of galleons full of gold and silver. One day, when possible, we will have cold fusion, lunar colonies and back in time. Good ideas and good dreams can not be forgotten. They worth themselves as future promises. They challenge us to try. They are in themselves valuable treasures.

Someone, an anonymous professional, decided to include in my 99 Ecoagenda a page titled "Ecological Attitudes in 99." What led him to this?

As I said earlier, there is in our mass culture, a desire to persuade, manipulate. Suppose this anonymous worker, when designing my agenda, was imbued with the most sincere sense of ecological awareness. Imagine that he is aware of the seriousness of the situation on the planet, decided, after much deliberation, it is not enough to do our part and inform the world about the seriousness of the situation. More is needed: we need people to change their habits. We must do something and that we do now. Yes, you know that the world is in danger, but so what? What are you waiting for action? What will you do now to help against disaster? What will you do to stop now, the black way of the situation? So stop whining and act! Make, in its Ecoagenda, a list of environmental attitudes for the year to come. Enjoy  opportunity you are at the beginning of the year, are planning your future, are organizing your time, and prepare your list of good deeds.

So, I suppose, was born the third page of my agenda. Fruit of the good intentions of anonymous professionals from socially responsible companies. This sounds correct and there is not much to discuss, except that, as a philosopher of Administration, I have to think a little further on the subject. As a philosopher of  Administration, I see hidden connections, fallacies, implications, errors and hits in this simple schedule page, and I will dwell in it.

Ecology is a global issue, and if it does not matter, should interest deeply every manager, if not all human beings on the planet. Sounds familiar? Yes, but the reasons which lead me to think this way are not necessarily those that lead the average citizen, or ecologist, to think the same subject. Again, the approach I take to Ecology is the philosophy of  Administration. What is this approach? It's a different approach adopted by the ordinary citizen. But what the focus of the common citizen?

The ordinary citizen, at least in the XXI century, live surrounded by information absolutely massive, incisive and relentless. If we approach any human being, anywhere on the planet, and ask whether he thinks the world is going well, and that the world does not present environmental problems, will be answered with a look of amazement: as the world goes well? How can it go well? As we have no problems? Of course, evident that we have problems. Everyone knows that. Children know, know the elderly, the urban and rural population knows well. As we all know this? As a perception can become so universal and unanimous? Ecological problems seem so certain as the sun shining in the sky: we all see, all feel, all confirm, and crazy is he who denies. I deny them? No, of course not. I see with my own eyes. How to deny them?

Would be the case that, as geocentrism, be an environmental problem an universal error? We all know that the Earth revolves around the Sun and the sunrise and sunset only means that the Earth rotates around its axis every twenty-four hours. But we like to think and say that it is the Sun revolves around the Earth. It is more convenient and intuitive. The reason is A, and we accept A, but we like to feel and think B, we know rationally be just an illusion. Romanticism? Maybe.

The ecological problem is an illusion that we intuit wrong? Would, indeed, the world has never been so safe and harmonious? Will humanity, indeed, the blessing for the planet and, polluting it, balancing an equation that never aligned itself, delivered to a Darwinian past of pure chance? I would not know the answer to that question.

What is certain is that common sense intuit to the contrary, and struggle to rebalance a world being destroyed, whose cause is human, and personalized. Common sense intuit, and information flows is that we are guilty, I, you, personally, to the cosmic drama of the Earth. We are guilty, and we feel this guilt, and make with this guilt a motivator for us to do something for the planet. We have to do something urgently. It would be too selfish to see the world going to sink and stay after watching passively, comfortably wedded to our habits of harmful consumption. We must do something and this something obviously means sacrifices. As in religion, in ecological theology there is no space for salvation without sacrifice. For the sake of greater justice the blame should fall on others, whether these other governments, companies or the devil, but we have to personally do our part. And we accept this guilt as a fait accompli, although not always we do specific acts necessarily according to this guilt, because, sometimes even we don't know how we are contributing to the boat sink. I did not began to sink the boat, but I have to get my bucket and do my part,  otherwise, I sink together. They say the simple fact that I is on the boat makes me guilty for he was going to sink. I wonder how this is possible, and if it would be the case of my own weight to be helping to sink a boat overloaded. This may be the case, but deep down, I can not see the connection between merely existing innocently and be blamed for the end of the world, but yet I willingly accept the blame for exist, my share of guilt, democratically distributed, and try with my small bucket, help save the ship. This is common sense, but why do I accept in silent my democratic share of blame?

In general, because I do not want to be seen as the selfish, the villain. I know that, in the end, if the boat sinks, the guilty will pay the price for failure, and I know everyone will pay, because all are guilty, just that they exist, but I also know that the selfish will take a greater punishment, because the boat could have been saved if these same selfish would have helped. I do not want to be an opportunist. But how can we be opportunistic if, by being selfish and not helping, we will perish together with the others? What is the gain of the selfishness, if the selfish also dies in the end? Dying rested? So may he rest forever.

Is that the disaster is not for today or tomorrow. It's for the day after tomorrow, and hopefully for next week. But next week, I will no longer be on the boat, I hope.

But there is no way out of the boat. The boat is the Earth, the Earth itself, and there is no escape. And even if the disaster is for a hundred years, and we are no longer here, it is wrong to let our children and grandchildren pay the price for our neglect. And even if we have no children and grandchildren, is even more wrong than the  children and grandchildren from others, who fought for the salvation of the world, pay the price for my negligence alone. Anyway, even if I, a villain, ardently wishes to end the chaos, it is not easy to admit my intentions publicly to a future grandmother, admitting to her that I want the chaos to his grandchildren and great grandchildren to come. You can be selfish and even the villain, but not publicly. There are limits to selfishness and  mankind does not admit unpunished selfish when it comes to ecology. The price is too high to admit traitors. Thus we are compelled to do something for the cause, are socially forced to take our bucket and at least pretend to do our part, though deep down, we may be worshiping the arrival of the inevitable chaotic end.

And so, our anonymous  professional, moved by altruism or fear, or even coerced by his boss, created a page urging us to ecological action in 1999.

Many do not read it, many read, but did not make the list of good deeds. Many have made the list, but not followed through. Many followed the list and stop there. And many have been fulfilled the list and went ahead. The anonymous professional was, then relatively successful in its purpose.

But what he did, after all? Why he did not merely do their part? He actually did more.

He does not show us that he is doing his part, because we do not know who he is and if he is responsible, ecologically speaking, in his private day-to-day. What he did, and we know for sure he did was encourage us to act. He told us, tried to motivate us, tried to convince us, or even tried to convert us, evangelize us. If he practices what he preaches is another question. Finally, ecological information does not mean ecological action, as reading a book about a marathon does not make us move a single step.

Motivates us? Maybe. Command? Very likely.

But we obey? Almost always, no.

We act? Rarely.

We feel guilty? Indeed, in 99% of the time. The action in the world of information is rare, but guilt is certain.

Propagation of information is not the same as the propagation of action, I conclude, and in this finding, we're not talking about ecology, but of psychology, sociology and even Administration, Policy and Marketing. We penetrated even in the field of mathematics, if we allow ourselves to go a little deeper into the issue.

Why the anonymous professional, aware of his ecological duty, not merely to do his part, without preaching to other about their duties, intruding thus into other people's lives?

"But", say the anonymous professional in his own defense, "but I'm just doing my part, and it includes informing."

Right. Do your part, but know that your part is subdivided into two other parts: action and inform. Act and report. That was the task of the disciples at the beginning of Christianity: to preach good news. And it worked. The idea is to act, and then propagate the action by using information.

But why not just acting?

Obviously, it seems that the simple act is not enough. What good is our anonymous professional been ecologically correct, he and he alone, in a world full of ignorant of their environmental responsibilities?


There are actually a thousand reasons to inform, to preach and evangelize. Reasons ranging from the most altruistic to the selfishness. And there are a thousand ways to spread some information. Ways that range from the most meticulous, artful, efficient and planned to unintended, unwanted, distorted and disastrous. Information, in a sense, is not under the control of anyone. An act can be interpreted in different ways, and seen the wrong way, even an oil spill, as in the case of the Exon Valdez, can be interpreted as an greener act. The interpretation of information is that gives it meaning. And unless you live in a cave, there is no way not to be seen, and thus have their actions, ecological or not interpreted by others who see it. View is to receive information, and who sees, interprets. Things propagate themselves. The secret lies then in the interpretation.

But our anonymous professional was not simply seen and interpreted. He planned. He purposed to inform and convince us to act. Why?

Because, is common sense, the ecological problem is too big to be solved by just one part of humanity. Not only governments, not only ecologists, not only industries, not just the heroic citizens. All, united, and only all united is the condition, without which you can not save the world. But why the problem requires much effort to be solved?

Because it is immense. He is  immense because a huge amount of people, for a long time, helped to provoke it. There is a clear intuition that a large amount of people doing the wrong thing for a long time in order to cause a big problem, if not corrected, will end up with everyone. Unless corrected, but as it is a big problem, the fix requires a lot of people doing the right thing for a long time. It seems obvious.

Hiroshima in the same category of problems? And Chernobyl? And the Exxon Valdez? Maybe then the Sahara? Or, the Armistice of 1918? Could it be that every problem must follow this same equation?



I'm not suggesting sleight of hand, but almost.

The connection cause-problem-solving is not as obvious as it seems, and when we got in this connection, we're not talking about Ecology, but the Philosophy of Science. For common sense, the ecological problem is obvious. For Philosophy, not so much. For the administrator, well, we still have not addressed the ecological problem from the point of view of the Administration. Even touched on the relationship. Until now, we limit ourselves to an approach from the point of view of common sense. But is the case that we face the ecological problem as a management problem? I think so, but first we need to clarify what I mean by management, and I then justify my belief that the ecological problem can be seen as an administrative problem. Actually, I think that can be seen as more than a single problem. The ecological drama can be sliced ​​in different directions by the administrator, and have those slices analyzed by the philosopher of Administration. Maybe it's time to think better about what we mean by the Administration. Again, there is the Administration from point of view of common sense and the Administration from point of view of the Philosophy of Administration. First things first, from simple to more complex, in content and in time.

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Original date of creation of the document: Thursday, September 7, 2006, 19:00

We'll talk in more detail on almost all issues discussed above, but not now.

Now, let's change the subject.