After my lecture in Beijing on Collective Orchestration, a new evolutionary paradigm a student asked me how Collective Orchestration applies to the Integration of rural and urban populations. Here is my answer:
This is an extremely important question. It involves values and value preservation. In a society that moves rapidly toward consumerism it is the country folk who loose, but that is only the surface. In the end we all loose if city culture swallows country life. Consumerism lures peasants and the rural poor into the cities with the promise of jobs, higher wages and an increased consumption of goods. The reality of this rural flight to the cities in search of a better life is often discouraging. It can be observed in many mega-cities all over this world, from Buenos Aires, to Casablanca and Calcutta. The rural migrants often live in primitive Shanty towns under miserable conditions. Work is scarce, especially for those who have nothing left to sell except their bodies and their labor. They have lost the little piece of land that “back home” they were able to work, grow vegetables and perhaps keep a goat or some chickens. Lost is their supportive community and often lost is their happiness.
Collective Orchestration, as I have described it, is not in itself necessarily positive. It is a technology nature uses that sometimes can turn against itself and become destructive. A good example is perhaps the growth of cancer cells in a body. Cancer cells follow the same principle a healthy cell tissue follows. They cooperate with the goal to grow bigger. But cancer cells do not live within a larger system of cells and cooperate with it. They are out to destroy it. The previously healthy human body, incapable of fighting back, becomes ill. The human immune system resists the invader, but all to often the invader wins and the larger system is destroyed. This is an example for the process of Collective Orchestration to turn against its own hosting system. Consumerism is like a cancer within the system of society, and our world community. If people, infected and obsessed with mindless consumption, win the upper hand it will destroy our human community and eco system.
I am not saying we should not consume at all. But we must consume wisely and with moderation. These are values that can easily be found among peasants and country folk. A farmer cannot and will not over-plant and over-use the land, but will handle his resources wisely in order for the land to continue giving. Consumerism purposefully creates false hopes and paints a utopian mirage consisting of shiny automobiles that are built in a way that they fall apart fast, so the consumer has to go and spend his hard earned money on another throw- away item. From my own experience I have learned the values of caring for the land. I was an organic farmer for 13 years. From Native Americans I have learn that in our decision-making process we must keep an eye on the effect we will have on the next seven generation, not just on the immediate gratification and the pocket book.
Consumption and city life in itself is not absolutely bad. It’s just that in the integration process the country to city relationship is lopsided. The country folk are often silent partners and voiceless witnesses of their own destruction. We, who live in the city must take great care not to wipe out completely the values and achievements of our country culture, which at one time all our ancestors shared.
