Speech made on April 10 at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines
Mitsuhei MURATA
1. More than half of mankind live in urban areas. More than one billion people live in urban areas where air pollution exceeds safe levels. Cities are becoming a focus of poverty, social dislocation, and crime. Cities are a burden upon natural resources and polluting the air and water. Development destroys the natural environment surrounding cities. If the present civilization goes on as it is, 30% of the world's population, living in a 30-mile coastal strip, would eventually be threatened by the inevitable rising of the sea level. This is the reason why I believe that sustainable and humane cities can exist only in a new civilization and this is the theme I would like to discuss here. I would like to speak with frankness as a representative of future generations and as a member of civil society.
2. As a professor of comparative civilizations, allow me to criticize the contemporary civilization and the present generation. Throughout the world globalization and telecommunications are accelerating the integration and interdependence of economies. At the same time only one standard to determine economic growth is applied, the GDP. The GDP, though, only takes into account monetary transactions and does not distinguish between the costs and the benefits of growth. Crucial values such as morality, cultural tradition, family, household activities, community life, social justice, personal growth, ecology are completely ignored. There exist laudable efforts to remedy the situation, although they are not sufficiently followed up. A San Francisco organization "Redefining Progress" developed the genuine progress indicator (GPI) as a measure of economic well being. According to the indicator, between 1950 to 1992, the GPI of the United States declined by about 25%. The process of globalization is focused upon economic goals and renders the scale of values uniform and subconsciously promotes an unattainable aim; the worldwide equal share of material wealth. What has become of the promise that global growth will extend northern prosperity to "developing " southern countries? It seems to be an illusion.
3. As a consequence, the society that has developed over the years, is a society where individualism has degenerated into egoism and a lack of solidarity, a society of greed, a ferociously competitive society where profit is the top priority. It is a society that has lost the notion of morals and ethics, which ignores the legitimate interests of future generations by abusing natural resources and leaving a heritage in the form of hazardous waste and enormous debts. It is fundamentally unethical to attain prosperity in this way, but it is what the present generation is doing.
4. The relentless pursuit of wealth and profits continues and billions of people are discovering that poverty, collapsing social institutions and environmental degradation are the price of unsustainable development. There is an emergence of a widespread recognition that continuing the pursuit of growth is a mistake. More and more people believe that the contemporary industrial civilization will collapse because its demand for energy, natural resources and ecosystem services are not sustainable. I found the following passage in the book published by Syracuse University Press "The coming age of scarcity" : "The culture of the modern world- its individualism, materialism, scientism, and faith in progress and the global expansion of that culture is the central cause of the collapse of modern industrial civilization".
5. Industrial countries encourage others to pursue conventional industrialization to the detriment of the environment and future generations. Democracy in promoting individualism and the political role of the people, weakened the family, negatively affected education and threaten social stability. It has created an irresponsibility of the ruling class and has reduced the role of the true elites.
It could be said that the abandonment of responsibilities by the true elites is reflected in the total rejection of protectionism.
Governments are not interested in the quality of life of their citizens and have abandoned regulations that once protected people, regions, industries and nations from the ravages of market forces. Globalization, in the name of the freedom of trade. prevent governments from taking action against environmentally destructive and socially damaging practices.
As advocated by the French historian, Emmanuel Todd, an "intelligent and cooperative protectionism" is indispensable for the protection of cultures. The world needs leadership that truly assumes the responsibility of securing the future of humanity.
6. Faced with globalization and its essentially economic motivations, cultures and cultural exchanges should offer a counter-weight. Regional cultures are indeed menaced by today's trends of homogenization. The world is apparently becoming aware of this issue and the Assembly of European Cultures established in 1997 by the late Lord Menuhin is an eloquent proof. Cultures consist of lifestyle, families and social customs, languages, religions and values. People identify themselves by means of their culture. Thus culture represents a crucial part of daily life. A threat to culture is perceived as a threat to oneself and to one's society. Fear, insecurity and aggression may result in threatening social order.
7. The degradation of our environment is closely related to energy consumption. If we do not wish to leave our descendants an inhospitable, ravaged earth behind, we must reduce energy consumption and increase our use of renewable energies. Only solar energy and other renewable energies will be able to ensure mankind's survival in the long term and in an ethically justifiable way. Energy consumption depends upon lifestyle, which in turn is determined by the form of civilization. The reduction of energy consumption therefore, depends upon no less than a necessary change in our civilization. We must re-think, detach ourselves from the consumer society and find our way back to a lifestyle, which is in harmony with the environment. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Heinrich Postalozzi's ideals must once again be honoured: "return to nature" and "back to a more modest way of life" according to their mottos. Japan, during the Edo period from the 17th to the 19th century, offered a good example for such a lifestyle. During this time, Japan closed its borders for 250 years, living within a renewable and modest system, respecting the country's limited resources.
8. The most important factor responsible for the deterioration of our environment is the lack of ethics that can be universally observed. Given that it is human nature to be arrogant and egoistic, it is necessary to establish a well-defined framework conforming with fundamental ethics. In my view, the common ethical codes of major religions and the conscience of civil society emanating from belief in a supreme order could be integrated into global ethics, and this will help to create harmony between the religious and the non-religious. The lofty efforts in this direction are keenly needed to avoid the clash of cultures or the clash of civilizations.
9. In view of the above-mentioned, I present my plea for a new civilization, based upon ethical principles, giving priority to the spiritual values above material values and respecting the environment as much as the interests of future generations. This spiritual civilization will allow each individual, if supported by the philosophy of being content with what little one has, to attain happiness. A new civilization necessitates a new economics that replaces what we may call GDP economics and that goes beyond economy, covering ecology, cultures, civilizations and other unquantifiable human values. The pursuit of efficiency in such a civilization should distinguish between good and bad efficiency. Good efficiency would reduce the consumption of natural resources and energy and would optimally use human resources. Bad efficiency does the opposite and renders human resources superfluous to a large extent. In this spirit, science and technology should be guided by a moral direction. We should know that it is sensibility and compassion and not reason and intelligence that can provide us with such a vision.
10.The 20th century was the century of human rights and freedom. The 21st century should be a century of human responsibility and duties. With this in mind, civil society should play a greater role. Every citizen belongs to civil society. Civil society encompasses, among others, persons engaged in politics or administration. Closer communication and cooperation between civil society and government are needed to safeguard the future of the world.
11.Based upon the foregoing, I would like to present some thoughts on sustainable and humane cities.
(1)As the solution to globalization might be found in the efforts to get out of it, the solutions to the problems of urbanization could be found in getting out of cities. A friend of mine sold his house after the Hanshin Earthquake in 1995 when he became aware of the dangers of concentrated urbanization. He retired to the countryside and is now happily living in an individual house with it's own garden away from the asphyxiating metropolitan areas.
(2) Cities around the world face common environmental challenges. Production and consumption that take place in cities have the largest impact on the global environment.
In Tokyo, new attention is paid to local environmental problems of garbage, air pollution and water quality in recent years. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has set itself a basic policy goal of creating an Eco-society that restrains the mass consumption of resources and energy and the generation of wastes, promoting the reuse and recycling resources.
(3) Change toward an Eco-society is driven by the increasingly obvious consequences of ecological degradation, and civil society including civic groups and other NGOs is playing a vital role. "Social codes of conduct" which embrace individuals and corporate actors are fundamental to the creation of an eco-society. The passage from ego-citizens to eco-citizens require a lot of mobilization. There is a need for an ABC coalition - administration, business and citizens.
(4) Concrete images of cities in a new civilization come to mind as remote but unavoidable targets.
(a) There will be greater support for large-scale public transport and "Car Free" zones.
(b) Priority will be given to the pedestrians and the bicycles.
(c) Clean, silent and fast tramways will gain greater acceptance.
(d) More and more automobiles will be electrified and made much smaller
(e) City buses and trolley systems based on electric propulsion will be further developed.
(f) The application of chemicals will be minimized.
(g) Tobacco publicity will be prohibited and there will be less smokers.
(h) Small-scale local economies will be promoted and there will be less transport and travel.
(i) Households will be encouraged to produce much more.
(5) According to Levi Straus, cities are "objects of nature and subjects of culture". Sustainable and humane cities must become places of culture and citizenship. Promoting culture in cities is a joyful means of participation and cooperation. We would live in leisure-rich environment. There would be far more community and far less social problems. Cities will become much healthier place to live in, especially for older people.
(6)It is my hope that, in time, the truly ecological attitude - that we must live within the limits of the renewable bounty provided by solar input - will come to prevail among citizens.
