IUMH Reflection at the service on April 14th, 2024, on the presentation by the GA Keynote Speaker, Roman Krznaric
‘What does it mean to be good ancestor?’ This is the question posed by the keynote speaker, Roman Krznaric, at the GA Conference last week. A question he adopts and adapts from the medical researcher who developed the first effective and safe polio vaccine in 1955, Jonas Salk. When Salk thought about the global threats of the 1950s (nuclear war, or destruction of natural environments), he argued that we would successfully confront and overcome these threats only by engaging in long-term thinking: that is, by looking at the potential consequences of our actions not just on the immediate future, but on future centuries. Salk framed it as the question: ‘Are We Being Good Ancestors?’ whereas Krznaric adapts the question to ask ‘How Can We Be Good Ancestors?,’ or, how can we combat what he calls ‘the tyranny of the now’ perpetuated by pervasive short-term thinking. And Krznaric underscores that being a good ancestor has to entail a focus on ‘we,’ on a collective pronoun. To translate long-term thinking into meaningful practice, the priority must be on what we can do together, on how our individual practices contribute to a collective goal, and on identifying long-term goals that transcend the self.
As Krznaric shows, it’s not difficult to see the harmful consequences of short-term thinking at a societal level. Think about the impact of politicians’ myopic focus on policies designed for electoral gains. Such political presentism, or short-term thinking, is at work when governments opt for the quick fix of locking up lawbreakers rather than dedicating time and resources to address deeper social and economic causes of crime.
Krznaric uses powerful metaphors and analogies that underscore the irresponsibility and selfishness of short-term thinking. He states that we’re effectively ‘colonizing the future’ if we continue to live without adequate attention to the centuries ahead. A colonialist pillaging of the future by future-dumping the fallout from our policies and practices (be it higher rates of incarceration, ecosystem collapse, technological risk and nuclear waste). And we’re doing this AS IF nobody will be living in these future centuries. Here, his analogy of ‘colonizing time’ draws on the legal doctrine of terra nullius (nobody’s land), the doctrine that British colonizers of Australia invoked, ignoring the indigenous populations living there. Now, K. argues, too often societies function as if the future is tempus nullius (nobody’s time).
However, Krznaric’s talk was not one of doom and gloom. Rather, as implied by his question ‘How can we be good ancestors?,’ he is full of hope, fired by a deep and active commitment to finding outcomes we value, identifying strategies that work. He proposes 6 ways of exercising our ‘acorn brains’ to engage in long-term thinking that will enable us to be ‘good ancestors’ and provides examples from both the past and the present. I’m not going to look at all six, but instead, introduce ways that his strategies may be relevant to our collective life together, locally, nationally and globally, as Unitarians:
1. Cathedral Thinking:
Krznaric uses the shorthand of ‘cathedral thinking’ to evoke the long-term vision present in sacred architecture in the Middle Ages. He uses it as a metaphor, or analogy, for the type of long-term planning extending beyond our lifetimes, but certainly not limited to construction: cathedral thinking can undergird public policy, science and culture, and can guide grassroots social movements just as much as it generates the blueprints for top-down planning. Kzrnaric sees striking examples of ‘cathedral thinking’ at work in many enduring and transformative projects undertaken in the past and present: be it social movements, urban design, or scientific endeavors. In science, he points to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, opened in 2008, with over 1 million seeds representing 6,000 species housed in an indestructible rock bunker designed to survive at least 1000 years. Moving back in history, K. cites the building of the 82 miles of modern sewer system in London in the 1850s, still in use today, and that put an end to what was popularly known as ‘The Great Stink’ of 1858. In the early 19th century, decades of depositing of sewage into the Thames reached a crisis after multiple cholera outbreaks. A subsequent absence of rain led to sewage deposits six feet deep on the slopes of the Thames. This, in turn, precipitated a massive public health emergency. Thanks to the long-term thinking on the part of the engineer, Joseph Bazalgette, who predicted population growth, the system was built twice as large as needed at the time to handle this, and used the newly invented Portland cement that was 50% more expensive, yet much more durable since it strengthens on contact with water.
While we may not be directly engaging in ‘cathedral thinking’ at such scale, K’s writings do prompt some questions for us.
What are the types of ‘cathedral thinking’ that we, as Unitarians, want to participate in locally, nationally or globally? When we think that in 19th century London, it took an acute and catastrophic public health crisis to activate ‘cathedral thinking,’ we need to ask what most effectively catalyzes such long-term planning? Is the generating of a sense of impending crisis the most effective way to argue for long-term system change? Or, does positive and optimistic messaging about a better future more effectively rouse people to action? How do these questions relate to Unitarianism in the UK today?
2. Development of a ‘Legacy Mindset’:
On your Order of Service, we’ve put the Maori proverb, ‘I walk backwards into the future with my eyes firmly fixed on the past.’ These words express the Maori sense of a powerful living chain of intergenerational linkage that travels forwards as well as backwards. The Maori world view, together with many indigenous worldviews, requires respect for the traditions and beliefs of previous generations while also being mindful of those who are yet to come. Being mindful entails asking how our everyday practices today can benefit, or harm, future generations. Through such mindfulness in the ‘now,’ Krznaric argues, we cultivate a legacy mindset central to being a ‘good ancestor.’ And K. emphasizes that by a ‘legacy mindset,’ he’s referring not to something we leave (as in a will), and not a family affair, but to something we grow through a daily practice in our lives and a legacy that benefits those outside our kin.
And here, he gives the example of The Green Belt Movement in Kenya launched by Nobel Laureate, Wangari Maathai in 1977 for women’s empowerment and conservation. To date, over 51 million trees have been planted. At her death in 2011, 25, 000 women had been trained in forestry skills, and today 4, 000 community groups work to promote sustainable living. In our own lives, many of us already engage in mindful practices that grow our own legacy mindset, be it in the way we shop, the way we vote, in rewilding projects, in the charities we choose to donate to: all of these mindful actions and practices, Krznaric argues, can help us become good ancestors and to ask ourselves about the legacies we want to grow for future generations.
3. Intergenerational Justice:
Here, Krznaric draws on the Native American concept of ‘seventh-generation thinking.’ According to Oren Lyons, chief of the Onondaga Nation, all decisions in their council ask, ‘Will this be to the benefit of the seventh generation?’ This practice focuses primarily on ensuring a healthy environment for their descendants and the limiting of exploitation of natural resources. And this practice of ‘seventh-generation thinking’ and deep stewardship is one that Krznaric contrasts with the economic and policy-making principle known as ‘discounting’ where future benefits are given less value compared to current benefits. Yet is it realistic to take an indigenous concept like ‘seventh generation thinking’ and give it meaning and traction in our high-velocity consumer-driven societies today?
K. argues ‘Yes, absolutely!’ He gives the persuasive Japanese example of Future Design, a political movement that is directly inspired by ‘seventh generation thinking.’ Future Design has been pioneering citizen assemblies in municipalities across Japan. It functions through asking one group of each assembly to imagine they are residents in 2060, and to discuss the implications of a potential policy from that perspective. Results of this experiment show that those thinking as imagined ‘future residents’ develop far more progressive and radical policy plans for their cities than those thinking from the present. And particularly in the areas of environmental and health care policy. Future Design aims to establish Departments of the Future in all local governments, and the central government.
Another example is the Future Generations Commissioner in Wales, a role established in 2015 under the Well-Being for Future Generations Act. Sophie Rowe, the current holder, reviews policy in areas ranging from housing and education to transport and health, to ensure that policies meet the needs of the present without compromising the abilities of future generations to meet their needs. She opposed the £1.6 billion extension of the M4, arguing that it was a ‘twentieth-century solution’ failing to promote a low carbon solution. And her opposition was instrumental in scrapping the project. She has been a vocal proponent of preventative care, arguing that without this, the NHS is really a ‘national illness service.’ And she has inspired others to follow her lead, most notably the British anti-poverty activist and founder of the Big Issue, John Bird. Driven by a conviction that climate change is hitting the poor the hardest, he has made a case for establishing a Future Generations Commissioner for the UK.
Both Bird and Krznaric emphasize that ‘seventh generation thinking’ would ensure that younger people have a greater say themselves in changing the future: K. would like to see citizens aged 12 and older randomly selected to participate in ‘good ancestor’ assemblies, or inter-generational juries, modelled on the Japanese Future Design Project. Such ‘good ancestor’ assemblies would have the authority to delay or veto policies that impacted negatively on the basic rights of future people. And he has also proposed replacing our Upper House of Lords with, instead, a Good Ancestor Assembly. And finally, the ‘seventh generation thinking’ is active in the giving of rights to nature, as in the case of New Zealand where the Whanganui River has been given the same legal status as a person to protect it from future ecological violation.
In this rapid overview of some of the ways Krznaric proposes that we commit to being ‘good ancestors,’ they may seem utopian or unrealizable. And yet perhaps in concluding, we might think about the words of Uruguayan writer, Eduardo Galeano on utopian thinking: ‘Utopia lies at the horizon. When I draw nearer by two steps, it retreats two steps. If I proceed ten steps forward, it swiftly slips ten steps ahead. No matter how far I go, I can never reach it. What, then, is the purpose of utopia. It is to cause us to advance.’
Written and delivered at the Ipswich Unitarian Annual Meeting, 4 – 6 April, 2024 by Liz Constable