whyroots

The coming economic and ecological down cycle is going to be a wild ride for our generation -- hopefully one that forces us to re-examine our ideas of wealth. In this context our generation's test is to prevent the collapse of these systems and doing so requires a significant sacrifice or a change in our lifestyles in terms of our consumption and production.

From my perspective, as an architect, the dual problem of the free-falling bourgeoisie's for architecture as a luxury service coupled with the foreseeable depletion or exhaustion of material resources on the planet sounds apocalyptic for my chosen profession. In developed nations, the built environment accounts for 70% of resource consumption (by weight), 60% of non industrial waste, and 40% of total energy consumption. I have to hope that the serious constraints that architecture will see in the near future regarding economies of material, energy and demand will be understood as an opportunity for us to do better.

In Natural Capitalism, Paul Hawken plainly states that capitalism is lazy, and that the success of a product economically rarely corresponds to to its quality or integrity. It's no surprise to him that the U.S. auto industry is seeking a $34 billion bailout when the most innovative development in automobile technology in the past 10 years has been to add more cup holders.

The success of our generation will be defined by our ability to innovate and perceive economic pressures as a catalyst for doing so. In addition, what will make us great is our ability to redefine wealth as something other than monetary accumulation.

-- Robin Willis

Evangelicals have expressed a strong political agenda in recent history with involvement in Roe v. Wade, AIDS funding, and the culture wars of the 1990's. While they do hold influence in the political system and I can understand the strategy in catering to those demographics, let's be clear that culture and religion are two different things and the common attitude of cultural correctness expressed by Evangelicals and the Christian right is harmful to a healthy and diverse culture of contestation and growth. In no way should the progressives and/or the Democratic Party compromise its agendas to accommodate an organization that has made itself an enemy of culture.

"Piss Christ" is a color photograph by Andres Serrano depicting a crucifix submerged in a container of urine. After winning an award of $15,000 from the National Endowment of The Arts, it became the subject of a large controversy and served as a catalyst for the culture wars and a NEA budget cut from $180 million to $99.5 million in the early nineties. While the photograph's message is ambiguous and open to much interpretation, I personally believe there is no anti-Jesus or anti-Christian message embedded in the piece whatsoever. I will spare you an essay regarding these convictions and just say that it is quite labor intensive to get a hold of so much pristine urine in one container and that  this artistsjust simply isn't that dumb to go through all of that careful work unless there was more at stake, conceptually, than creating a sacrilegious one-liner.

Evangelicals and most of the Christian right who are so dogmatic that it makes it impossible for them to comprehend anything outside of their aesthetic and intellectual norms condemned the piece as blasphemy -- end of conversation. Really? Is it because Jesus is in urine? We all release urine from our bodies everyday -- are we all sinners for doing so? Is urine unholy and unclean? (Fun fact: Urine is sterile.)

I use this hyperbole with a full understanding of American notions regarding urine as gross à la R. Kelly sex scandal. I only want to make clear how the Christian right is unable to participate in any critique, challenge or reexamination of cultural values in America. This often leads to their misunderstanding of cultural artifacts and poses a threat to the qualities that foster the development of any kind of culture and avant-garde.

-- Robin Willis

"We must patiently explain why taxing or regulating noble things (like work, saving, and entrepreneurial risk-taking) means you’ll get less of what makes America great and why subsidizing other things (like idleness and single parenthood) means you’ll get more of the destructive behaviors that ultimately will drag us down."

— An excerpt from a piece in the National Review by the vice president of government relations for the Heritage Foundation.

The idea of taxing and subsidizing activity seems like a simple and effective tactic to create incentives for people to engage in what is agreed upon as positive, and, as result, discourage what is negative. But is this one-to-one relationship really true? Does subsidizing mean supporting something and taxing means discouraging it?

Sometimes the issue can be more complicated. For example, the Zurich Canton of Switzerland implemented a radical strategy of intuitively supporting heroin addictions in order to hinder larger negative side effects such as drug-related crimes and overdoses on society. Its substitution of heroin with methadone has been a wild success story leading to the decline heroin users by 4% and the decline in new users by 8%. Paradoxically, by subsidizing addiction, Zurich has effectively fought against it.

More importantly, the story of Zurich and this quote both suggest that by setting aside a moral agenda about drug addiction or welfare or single parenthood, one can find a rational solution to those problems based on their overall negative effects on a society. Arguments that surround issues such as abortion or assisted suicide for example are clouded by moral implications when, in reality, the issues should be discussed in a much more pragmatic sense, taking into consideration the implications of these acts on society as a whole.
 
-- Robin Willis

While the idea of a large sum of money to throw at some problem or cause of ones choosing is seductive I think that developing strategies to solve problems that deal with the constraint of not having 5 billion dollars at your disposal is more interesting. Off the top of my head I can’t conceive what kind of problems 5 billion dollars can solve or tactics for budgeting it. Nor do I know very much about investing but rather then spending the money I wonder how it can be invested or deposited in a bank, and how that capital can generate a steady return from its interest that could sustain a smaller enterprise.  I would dedicate that income to an institution of free higher education. Perhaps its enough money to establish a small alternative institution along the lines of Deep Springs or Black Mountain College. Or maybe provide housing for students that cannot afford it, or maybe its only enough to provide scholarships for a handful of students and colleges of their choosing. Most students in this country cannot attend a college without being forced into taking a ridiculous amount of student loans that will haunt them years after their graduation, or do not have the economic freedom whatsoever to attend higher education. Balancing the iniquity of education derived from economic status is a step towards a reality of equal opportunity in this country. And while it seems like a very small scale intervention from such a large amount of money, its ensured survival overtime is more valuable than a lone grand gesture.