We have the technology Ñthe gadgetsÑthat we need to reconfigure our communities as sustainable living arrangements, not for just the length of a given crisis, be it Y2K or the inevitable collapse of our economic system, but as our normal way of life. We need to pull the technology together and arrange it properly, but we need to do more than that. In speaking with Steve Heckeroth about the material in his article, we determined that the hardest part might be building the consciousness required for such living arrangements.
Though there are many communalistic strands in the cloth of our American society, our primary cultural ethos has involved glorification of the individual. But when disaster strikes, most of us take a somewhat wider view and chip in to help. We need to raise that "chipping in" to the level of a new mode of living in our communities, even to a new cultural ethos.
Toward that end, our readers will be finding articles in the coming issues of the Newsletter that deal with community sustainability. The object is to build that consciousness mentioned above. We can't do that by ourselves in this Newsletter; it requires a lot of people picking up the ball and carrying it to all the circles in which they move.
We don't feel that what we have to say alone will get us to a new mode of living. In fact, we may find ourselves putting forth an occasional screwball notion. But that's what we have readers for. We sincerely hope that a dialogue on these issues will lead to movement in a sustainable direction and a community direction as well. So let us know what you, the readers, think.
And if you want to do more than dialogue, let's all get together and make the sustainable community a reality right here in Mendocino County.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1999
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited