Events

Though the world is now in a dreadful state and popes and scientists warn of impending collapse, humanity and our fellow creatures could still be looking forward to a long and glorious future: at least a million years of peace and personal fulfilment with abundant and diverse wildlife. But to achieve this we need to re-think everything we do and take for granted from first principles—those of morality and ecology, both rooted in the all-but forgotten discipline of metaphysics which embraces both science and religion. The re-think and re-structuring amount to nothing less than a Renaissance—more far-reaching than the Renaissance that ended the European Middle Ages.

Governments rarely spell out properly what they are actually trying to achieve. They rely on slogans—as in ‘Make America Great Again’ or ‘Take Back Control.’

We need to achieve the necessary turn-around not merely by Reform, or by out-and-out Revolution—but by Renaissance—re-birth: creating the world we want to see in situ, and leaving what we don’t need to wither on the vine.

All technologies are pertinent: both ‘high’—emerging from science; and ‘low,’ aka artisanal or traditional—based on craft. Above all, as E.F. Schumacher said, all technologies must be appropriate—one reason why we need to spell out what we are really trying to achieve!

Beyond doubt, though—if we truly aim to crate convivial societies while respecting our fellow creatures—the most important technologies and crafts are those of food: agriculture and cooking.