Ruling out the Heart and the Mind

We're building a heartless, mindless society, and the impacts are becoming increasingly obvious, absurd, and horrifying.

If I were to write a story about a person being fired for helping a child rescue an abandoned animal, critics would likely pan it as unrealistically sentimental and melodramatic. They'd probably argue that the story's premise is so absurd that it could never reveal any truth about people or society. It would barely pass as a children's story, much less something of value to the adult mind. Until recently, I would have agreed with such literary analysis.

A few weeks ago, Cynthia Morgan, a bus driver in Maryland was fired because she stopped a bus and let the one child on board out to rescue a kitten that had been left on the side of the road. I'm not sure what rule the bus driver broke, but rule-based logic can only go so far without reaching absurd conclusions. The people of the school district recognized the absurdity of this ruling, launching an effort to reinstate the bus driver. The child's mother supports the reinstatement.

It's pretty hard to have a society without rules, but blind adherence to rules in any and all cases overrides the heart as well as the mind. People cease to feel or think, and as a result, rulings become ridiculous and then illegitimate. In applying the rules, people lose track of what they are supposed to be doing, and compassion and thought are stifled, shackling the society and depriving it of the humanity that provides the lifeblood of social systems. At that point, it's pretty hard to have a society with the rules.

If all a society has left are illegitimate rules with no heart or mind to guide their application, things can get ugly pretty quickly. Suddenly, the most preposterous stories can take on profound meaning, revealing that instead of rules serving people, people are serving the rules. Given that the mother of the child who rescued the kitten opposes the firing of the bus driver, who is served by this ruling? No one was hurt, and a child rescued a kitten, but what should have a been a positive story turned dark and frustrating.

Rules, rules, rules: It's time to stop, think, and listen to our hearts.

Connections and Relationships

Building connections and relationships has always been crucial to social causes. Its importance continues to grow as the bonds linking society fray and rupture.

In its efforts to undertake conservation projects in southwest Washington, which I previously blogged about here, Conservation Northwest is taking steps to ensure such connections and relationships have strong roots.

On July 20-22, the nonprofit organization will co-host the Southwest and Coastal Washington Connectivity Summit. The summit will bring together nonprofits, tribes, government agencies, land owners, and businesses to lay the groundwork for future efforts to ensure habitat connectivity and address ecological issues like global warming. This will be the first summit on these issues in southwest Washington, but the plan is to continue holding them every two years.

This year's event is in Ridgefield, Washington. However, it can also be attended virtually.

I'm very excited to see the potential of the relationships that come out of these summits.

The Non-Human and an Expanded Notion of Social Change

Perhaps social change in this era needs a change in what we think about as social. Two recent examples of individuals connecting with the non-human world provide clues for how that might happen.

Without question, we face some massive and serious social and environmental issues. These include our ability to address global warming, mass extinctions, increasing poverty, and a deterioration of the social bonds and institutions that bring people together and build communities.

At the same time, we struggle to generate the kind of momentum that produces the changes required to address these issues. In fact, the breakdown of social bonds and institutions likely feeds into that struggle, creating a vicious circle of unsolved problems and declining abilities to solve them.

After reading about two individuals who discovered strong connections with the non-human world and went on to become important forces for change on both social and environmental issues, the thought occurred to me that one of the obstacles impeding change might be that our definition of what is social should be expanded to include the non-human world. In other words, issues like global warming are so far-reaching that to address them adequately, we must bring all hands, paws, wings, roots, and whatever else on deck.

Connections with the non-human world can provide the kind of spark necessary for successful social change. The stories of Rodney Stotts, a falconer from Virginia, and Bob Russell, a landowner in rural Washington state demonstrate the power these connections have. In the case of Stotts, an early experience with conservation and a subsequent connection with birds of prey inspired him to centralize conservation in his life and help others enjoy and benefit from the same kinds of connections. His work has allowed people to rethink their place in the world and find second chances and catharsis. For the 63-year-old Russell, a chance encounter with a determined salmon on his property in November 2014 launched his commitment to conservation and prompted him to become an advocate in his community.

Importantly, the efforts of Stotts and Russell indicate how inspiration from and connection with the non-human world can serve as catalysts for actions that help rebuild the social bonds so crucial to the process of social change. Many factors currently limit our ability to produce social change, but one that isn't often talked about is that we might not be considering how vital non-human entities are to the effort. Possibly, these non-human entities can become partners in the process, helping us begin, facilitate, and optimize the activities that generate social bonds, form communities, and yield the changes we need.

From now on, when we think about what is social, we would do well to think about more than just humans.