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An objection I often hear when I speak about the culture of degrowth is that cultural change takes time, and we are out of time when it comes to climate change. Yet, history teaches us that rapid cultural and political change is possible. Just take the impacts of social movements like #MeToo or Black Lives Matter that manifested within months, if not weeks. Skeptics may be right that imposing degrowth policies from above is unlikely to work, but that doesn’t mean degrowth is impossible — it just means that the demand needs to come from below.
But is it realistic to expect that a critical mass of people might come to support degrowth? After all, our mainstream economic theory claims that people act rationally when they act in their self-interest. And acting in our self-interest often means accumulating wealth, which fuels infinite growth.
But it is no coincidence that our hearts break when we see environmental devastation first hand or that we are more likely to give up meat if we witness the conditions in which livestock are kept. Appreciation for natural beauty, compassion for other living beings, and a concern for the fate of humanity’s future generations are as much ingrained in us as self-interest, even if our culture of infinite growth has blinded us somewhat to these traits.
Ultimately, degrowth is inevitable. We will either choose this path voluntarily, or we will be forced into it violently and uncontrollably as a result of environmental disasters. If we want to prevent the suffering and tragedies that accompany such drastic shifts, we must bring about a culture of degrowth. And where the cultural winds blow, the political winds will follow.
Peter Sutoris, Ph.D., is an environmental anthropologist based at University College London, and the author of “Visions of Development” (Oxford University Press) and the forthcoming “Educating for the Anthropocene” (The MIT Press). More about his research can be found at www.petersutoris.com and he tweets @PSutoris.
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原文来源：https://undark.org/2021/12/30/degrowth-isnt-just-about-the-economy-its-about-culture/
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