Social turmoil seems to be on the increase worldwide. This is hardly
surprising as the rich-poor gap becomes wider and wider; and since the
power of nonviolence is still unknown to most people, social turmoil
often leads to bloodshed, especially when those doing the fighting (for
or against the status quo) are inexperienced,
patriarchally-minded, testosterone-driven young men in their twenties.
This should not be surprising either, as it is estimated that the
testosterone level of healthy human males peaks between 20 and 30 years of age. But it is
surprising that patriarchy and testosterone are seldom recognized as
the cultural and biological drivers of violence. As long as this fact
remains hidden, gender apartheid in roles of responsibility and
authority will persist as the greatest obstacle to human development.
It is also becoming increasingly clear that globalized humanity will have to undergo a cultural transition from consumerism to sustainability, including a physical-economic transition
from using non-renewable (and polluting) fossil fuels to using
renewable and clean (or much cleaner) sources of energy. There is no
way in the world to avoid this transition, and delaying it will serve no
purpose except increasing the pain and prolonging the agony. The
question is how to democratically manage the inevitable transition in
order to minimize the pain (human suffering) and maximize the gain
(human development and well-being). The best chance for assuring a
civilized balance of pain and gain is to attain gender balance in all
dimensions of human life. Gender balance makes it possible to balance
aggressive change and social stability, and short-term versus long-term
priorities, for responsibly authoritative governance. If human
civilization is to remain civilized, this is the only way to go.
Global Energy Balance
Global energy balance is indispensable for ecological stability and, in particular, climate stability. Access to energy sources is also indispensable for social and economic stability,
since all human activity requires energy. Conversely, excessive
pollution-inducing human activity leads to energy imbalances and
maldistribution. There can be no doubt that current ecological
dislocations, and already observable climate changes,
are anthropogenic. It is no longer possible to deny that there is a
perverse, mutually reinforcing effect between profit-driven social
injustice and (also profit-driven) environmental deterioration. The
intensity of this mutual reinforcement is further exacerbated by the
burning of fossil fuels, which in turn is driven by (surprise!) the
obsession for short-term profits and material economic growth. Lurking
underneath this specious appearance of economic prosperity is the
insatiable patriarchal obsession for control and domination in every
conceivable dimension of human life. Is it possible to reverse this
violence-prone process of human self-destruction?
There are two broad strategies pursuant to climate change management and the long-term sustainability of the human habitat: mitigation and adaptation.
Mitigation strategies entail reducing the impact of industrial
production and consumption by increasing resource productivity (units
produced per unit of resource used) or reducing the resource intensity
of commodities (units of resource used per unit produced). Similar
definitions apply for all natural resources (including energy) and all
industries (manufacturing or services). Industrial efficiency and
productivity techniques ("industrial engineering"), as well as
optimization techniques, can be adapted to operationalize mitigation
strategies. The term "industrial ecology" is often used when such
techniques are used to reduce carbon intensity or pollution released
during the production and consumption of goods and services.
Adaptation strategies, on the other hand, rely on changes in human
behavior and consumption patterns to achieve energy balance and, more
generally, resource flows consistent with natural recycling capacity.
Mitigation strategies are about doing more with less. Adaptation
strategies are about doing things differently, and providing incentives
(financial or otherwise) for doing so. An example would be the shifting
of tax codes in favor of resource conservation and clean energy rather
than resource extraction and fossil fuels - also known as the "extractor
pays" and "polluter pays" strategies. Both sets of strategies -
mitigation and adaptation - are useful as long as they contribute to
attaining resource flows that are sustainable, i.e., no greater than
recycling rate capacity for materials or solar radiation rate for
energy. Specifically, adaptation includes letting go of fossil fuels,
and sooner rather than later.
It cannot be overemphasized that the goal is not to exceed sustainable
material and energy flows. The effectiveness of mitigation strategies
should be evaluated against this absolute goal. Clearly, if resource
productivities increase (or resource intensities decrease) but total
resource consumption rates increase even more due to population growth,
economic growth, or any other reason, mitigation alone will not do.
Most probably, attaining global energy balance will require significant
adaptation of human behavior in conjunction with radical economic
reforms. Such behavioral adaptation and structural reforms are
contingent on integral human development.
Global Gender Balance
If adaptation as outlined above is politically impossible, and must
become politically inevitable in order to ensure a civilized transition
from consumerism to sustainability - if not the survival of humanity -
then the key question is: why is it that doing what is reasonable and
sensible is "impossible"? The reason is that "patriarchy exercises violence on both women and nature."
It is not a matter of demonizing men. What goes around comes around,
and men are as much victims of patriarchy as women and nature (for an
excellent analysis of this phenomenon see Patrick Curry, Ecological Ethics, 2011, p. 127 ff). It is at this point that the criticality of gender balance becomes self-evident.
In her seminal work on gender balance for peace with justice,
Judith Hand shows that the human inclination to use violence as a way
of settling disputes is significantly higher in men than in women.
Recorded history provides overwhelming evidence that this is the case.
She concludes that, generally speaking, there is "a female priority for
stability and a male priority to invade and conquer." It follows that
gender balance in roles of responsibility and authority is instrumental
to keep the peace, or at least minimize violence, especially at times of
crisis and cultural transition. There is an emerging consensus that gender balance is a prerequisite for human development.
The need for such balance applies to all social institutions, and even
more so to modern religious institutions that continue to portray God
as being exclusively male and continue to exclude women from roles of
religious authority.
When the original unity of man and woman
was broken, thereby breaking the integrity of their biological "unity
in diversity," social entropy (disunity, disorder, violence) ensued in
human affairs (cf. Genesis 3:16, 4:8). Energy is required to contain the entropy of economic activity.
In fact, energy is required to sustain all human activity, and social
entropy requires additional energy to sustain social cohesion and "keep
the peace." In today's world, the use of fossil fuels as a source of
"cheap" energy also exacerbates physical entropy (resource depletion,
GHG emissions, climate change) throughout the human habitat. It is
proposed that cross-gender solidarity and clean energy enable each other
and, combined together, would bring social and physical entropy to a
sustainable level.
The laws of conservation in Physics, and in particular the second law of Thermodynamics,
require balanced resource and energy flows for human activity to be
sustainable. Therefore energy balance is absolutely necessary (albeit
not sufficient) to attain the transition from consumerism to
sustainability. The same applies to other material resources, but
energy balancing is the top priority as all human activities require
energy, and the transition to clean energy is bound to have a multiplier
effect to induce both mitigation and adaptation throughout the entire
economic system. Not based on Physics, but well known and repeatedly
confirmed by
recorded history (both secular and religious),
is the fact that violence is the greatest obstacle to sustainable human
development. Given that most violent acts (and wars) emerge from the
biology of men and the patriarchal mindset of control and domination, it
is reasonable to infer that gender balance in roles of responsibility
and authority is absolutely necessary (and probably sufficient) to
attain a civilized transition from consumerism to sustainability. For
this transition will not be a case of "invade and conquer" in short
order. Rather, it will be one of collaboration and stabilization for
long-term sustainability. Since gender inequality and imbalance is a
global phenomenon, gender balancing also must be global, starting with
the family and including both secular and religious institutions. If
so, then the confluence of energy balance and gender balance offers the
highest probability of success for attaining:
A civilized transition from fossil fuels to clean energy
A civilized transition from consumerism to sustainability
Long-term integral - and sustainable - human development
Joint secular and religious fostering of men and women jointly sharing
roles of responsibility and authority is crucial for the aforementioned
"probable sufficiency" to become highly probable.
Social Confluence of Gender Balance and Energy Balance
In secular society, gender equality has become a "sign of the times." It is now widely recognized that "human development, if not engendered, is endangered."
But "old habits die hard." The patriarchal mindset of male domination
that is conducive to violence still prevails in most cultures and
institutions worldwide and is lamentably reinforced by most religious
traditions. For the reasons outlined above, it is impossible to
decouple human solidarity and environmental sustainability from gender
inequality. It is imperative to remove this obstacle from the path
toward sustainable human development, and procrastination is not an
option. Energy balancing will come to pass because the laws of physics
are not amenable to misinformation and financial manipulation. But at
what price in terms of violence and human suffering? Gender equality is
the only way to make a civilized transition feasible, let alone
probable.
Religious Confluence of Gender Balance and Energy Balance
In religious institutions, gender equality has also become a "sign of
the times," albeit one that - for some mysterious reason - remains
invisible to most male religious authorities. The advent of patriarchy
preceded the advent of most modern religions, and the patriarchal bias
of sacred texts and traditional religious practices is generally
recognized by historians. In the Christian sphere, some Protestant
churches and some provinces of the Anglican Communion have started the
process toward gender equality in roles of religious authority. But
some of the oldest churches, notably the Roman Catholic and Eastern
Orthodox churches, remain locked in taking a literalist interpretation
of the masculinity of Jesus, and the masculinity of the 12 apostles, as
being normative. Given the enormous impact of religion on social
cohesion and human solidarity, this is a significant obstacle to human
development and the transition to sustainability. The utter absurdity
of religious dogmatism pursuant to conflating masculinity and divinity
has been communicated to the pertinent authorities by theologians and
biblical scholars - to no avail. The situation is even worse in the in
the Islamic world, especially in countries with theocratic governments
intent on enforcing sharia laws.
click on the icon
Trinity Icon
Andrei Rublev ca. 1410
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Divinity, Humanity, and the Human Habitat
Andrei Rublev's icon of the Trinity
may well be the most beautiful piece of religious art ever made by
human hands. The three Persons of the Trinity are depicted as angels
evoking the three angels who visited Abraham at the Oak of Mamre
(Genesis 18:1-15). It is not possible here to do justice to the
theological (and anthropological) insights conveyed by this icon, but it
is noted that the angels transcend gender and flesh while appearing to
have all the essential features of human bodies. The icon conveys the
idea of God as a "Communion of Persons" who abide in perfect unity
enriched by diversity and absolute equality undiminished by differences.
The buildings in the background represent deep and timeless
interiority, the tree represents the concrete "here and now" of the
biblical story, and the chalice on the table represents mutual
self-giving as well as divine love bestowed to humanity. The icon
certainly does not exhaust the Trinitarian mystery of the
Judeo-Christian tradition but clearly conveys the message that humanity,
already created in the image of God, becomes fully human if, and only
if, humans strive to behave as a "communion of persons" within the
limits of the human condition and the human habitat.
Down here in the time and space dimensions, the rich-poor gap is
becoming wider and wider and social turmoil seems to be on the increase
worldwide. This is hardly surprising in that the power of nonviolence
is still unknown to most people. Social turmoil often leads to
bloodshed, and most of those doing the fighting (either for the ruling
elites or for ordinary citizens) are inexperienced,
patriarchally-minded, testosterone-driven young men in their twenties.
Since it is estimated that the testosterone level of healthy human males
peaks between 20 and 30 years of age,
isn't this to be expected? Is it really surprising that patriarchal
society and hormonal masculinity are the cultural and biological drivers
of violence? Given what we now know about human biology and
psychology, this should not be surprising anymore. And yet, perhaps due
to deeply ingrained associations imprisoned in the collective
unconscious, what is obvious remains invisible for most. Therefore,
when it comes to matching roles of responsibility and authority (in both
society and religion) with capable people, it is time to expose gender
apartheid as the greatest obstacle to integral (and sustainable) human
development.
There is no way in the world to avoid the transition from fossil fuels
to clean energy and, more generally, the transition from consumerism to
sustainability. Regardless of how politically expedient it might be, scapegoating
is not an intelligent option. Denial and procrastination serve no
purpose except increasing the pain and prolonging the agony. Words are
cheap. Nonviolent action to carry forward the inevitable transition so
as to minimize the pain (human suffering) and maximize the gain (human
development and well-being) is what really matters now. But the high
power of nonviolence cannot be exercised by men alone.
The only way to assure (with high probability) a fair balance of
transition pain and transition gain is to attain gender balance in all
dimensions of human life. Gender balance makes it possible to balance
aggressive change and social stability, and both short-term and
long-term priorities, for responsibly authoritative governance and a not
unreasonable assurance that human civilization will remain civilized.
Then the cultural transition from consumerism to sustainability, and the physical-economic transition from using fossil fuels to clean energy, become opportunities for human progress rather than predicaments to be avoided.
That gender balance is crucial for good governance is not a new idea,
let alone a silly derivative of modern feminism: "Nothing can be more
absurd than the practice which prevails in our own country, of men and
women not following the same pursuits with all their strength and with
one mind, for thus the state, instead of being a whole, is reduced to a
half." Plato, Laws, 360 BCE.
For more on clean energy and gender equality, see the following:
Strategies for the Transition to Clean Energy
Tactics for the Transition to Clean Energy
Status of Gender Equality in Society
Status of Gender Equality in Religion
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