| Des Lee Scholar Advocates New Mindset for Sustainability ‘It’s not about eating lentils or changing light bulbs’
Not so for Satish Kumar, Webster University’s 2007-08 Des Lee Visiting Lecturer in Global Awareness. He’s been advising against our growth-at-all-costs paradigm for 50 years. Kumar walked the Earth – literally – as a young man to protest nuclear proliferation. At an early age he adopted a worldview in which life, economy, ecology, and human happiness are inextricably intertwined. For the last 35 years, he has edited Resurgence, a unique London-based magazine that tackles food, economics, ecology, education, spirituality, and the arts as a cohesive whole. A Jain monk and native of India, Kumar left the monastery to work with the Gandhian movement during some personally formative years in the 1950s. He learned to expand the Jain premise of non-violence beyond the personal, adopting the Gandhian idea of making non-violence an outwardly social, political action. “Restraint is a source of delight, a source of elegance. You learn to live a more authentic life. A more genuinely beautiful, satisfactory life.”
A Walk around the World “One day I read that Bertrand Russell, the great English philosopher, was arrested and put in jail for protesting against nuclear weapons,” Kumar says. “I was so inspired that here was a man of 90 going to jail for peace in the world. I thought, ‘What am I doing here as a young man, sitting drinking coffee?’ So a friend and I decided to go around the world to promote and spread the word of non-violence and peace. From the grave of Mahatma Gandhi, we started our Peace Walk around the world – to Moscow, Paris, London, and Washington, D.C. – the four nuclear capitals at that time in 1962. We went to Hiroshima, too, because they had suffered nuclear attack.” Though Kumar planned to return to the Gandhian movement in India, E.F. Schumacher – the founder of Resurgence and developer of “Buddhist economics” – convinced him to take on the magazine. Kumar recalls Schumacher’s plea: “He said, ‘Satish, there are many Ganhdians in India. We need one in England. So please stay and edit the magazine and bring the message of non-violence and holistic thinking to England.’” The Beauty of Restraint: When one planet is enough “It is popular now for businesses to talk about sustainability,” he says. “But this is not just an economic need. And it is not about eating lentils. It is not about figuring how to sustain a Western way of life. If the entire world lived the American way, with its fossil-fuel dependence and focus on growth above all else, we would need six planets. But we only have one. “Changing light bulbs, avoiding plastic bags – that is not enough,” Kumar says. “You cannot simply change behavior; you must change the paradigm. So we need to change our mindset and redesign our system with a ‘big idea,’ a fundamental change. A system where economic growth is merely a means to our well-being and the well-being of the planet. We must move from claiming rights to the Earth’s resources to a perspective of gratitude for its gifts.” A key to this movement is understanding restraint. “At the moment, because we don’t know our limit, our society is becoming drunk on economic growth. But this is not sustainable. So if you understand this, your behavior will change and you will learn the beauty and importance of restraint. Restraint gives you freedom. If you have a restrained dinner, you stop there. You feel good. Your health is good. You enjoyed it. It’s a pleasure to have a little drink, a little dessert, but no more. Same with personal possessions – just enough. Restraint is a source of delight, a source of elegance. You learn to live a more authentic life – a more genuinely beautiful, satisfactory life.” Also central to Kumar’s perspective is a recognition of humans’ interdependence with one another and with the rest of the natural world. “We exist only in a web of relationships,” he explains. “Relationships with each other, with other species, and with the planet. This must be based on love, and only when we love the Earth will we not destroy it.” Universities Should Lead the Way “They are still stuck in a Cartesian dualist worldview, and they are producing leaders of the same,” he says. “This is why I wanted to come to Webster, because Webster University does not think this way. But the Harvards and Oxfords of the world are not doing their part.” Still, Kumar has hope for the future and today’s youth. “If students, today’s young people – who are tomorrow’s leaders – adopt this new mindset, then we can have a revolution,” he says. Among his activities as Webster’s Des Lee scholar, in Spring 2008 Kumar organized a landmark Global Ecology conference on Webster’s campus and taught an undergraduate class, “Soil, Soul, and Society.” The May 3 conference brought world-renowned authors and academics to Webster to discuss a world in crisis and offer solutions for overwhelming global problems in the areas of ecology and economics. While the conference demonstrated the kind of excitement Des Lee scholars ignite on Webster’s campus, Kumar’s class typified how Des Lee scholars bring invaluable perspectives to Webster students – right in the classroom. Studying Soil, Soul, and Society “She described the class as an environmental studies class taught by a former Jain monk who had walked across the world to deliver a message of peace to the world’s nuclear superpowers,” Mizes says. “I figured anyone with the will to walk across the world as a plea for nuclear disarmament deserves my full attention.” Mizes was also excited to learn that longtime Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich had read Kumar into the congressional record in recognition of his accomplishments. “The class couldn't have ended better, considering I actually got to meet Mr. Kucinich at the ecology conference,” Mizes says. The class balanced Kumar’s lectures with lively discussion among students – who could often be found seated with Kumar in a circle under the Webster trees on a spring day. “Listening to a professor speak is important,” Mizes says. “But discussion and argument are the best way to develop your own ideas, and Satish understands this.” Mizes enjoyed how Kumar focused on the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi as a “third way” of thinking about politics, economics, and culture, enhancing the traditional discourse of Karl Marx and Adam Smith. “A third view on any subject can help us separate ourselves from a binary way of thinking,” Mizes says. “Environmentalism is paramount to our continued development as a society,” Mizes says, “and this class only reinforced my dedication to sustainable living.” Despite Kumar’s efforts, for much of his 71 years the world’s leading states have charged on as if economics and environment are not linked. But Webster students like Mizes are an indication that a change is afoot: By choice or by necessity, today’s young adults are ready to act. |
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