Scott Snibbe

My work explores how seemingly independent phenomena are, upon analysis, actually interdependent with their environments. Such interdependence may be understood in terms of the Buddhist notion of emptiness, which holds that no object, physical or mental, exists in isolation from the rest of reality. For example, humans often think of themselves as embodied individuals that act separately from their surroundings and other people. However, when people examine even the most basic unit of the individual self—the human body—they find it composed entirely of “non-self” physical elements such as their parents’ genetic material, food and water that all, ultimately, originate from ancient stellar explosions. These elements are in continual exchange with the environment and with others through eating, respiration, immunological and genetic processes. Similarly, human mental structures and processes, including languages, ideas, memories and preferences, all emerge from our interactions with other individuals and society. Even when alone, the imprints of these previous interactions drive our mental processes. Such a view of interdependence and emergence has gained widespread contemporary support in the fields of complexity theory, social psychology and network theory.
@ NY Arts

Jesuits release document advancing ‘ecological justice’

11/16/2006 Ed Langlois Catholic Sentinel
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Jesuits of the Northwest are adding the environment as a criterion for selecting ministries.

The largest Catholic men’s religious community in the region this month released a 17-page plan that defines sustainable development. The document is meant to guide Jesuits as they advance what many church leaders are calling “ecological justice.”

The move “simply widens our vision by bringing the critical problems of the environment into focus,” says Father Bill Watson, an official in the Portland-based Oregon Province of Jesuits. “Serious environmental degradation on land and sea threatens all life systems. The current challenges are so significant that our province apostolic efforts must be re-envisioned.”

The plan calls for the use of renewable resources, re-use, recycling and restoration of nature. Buildings at Jesuit institutions ought to meet high standards of sustainability, it says.

The plan also urges economics that take into account human and environmental costs of production. That means, for example, that the price of treating sickness caused by pesticides and fertilizers will be figured into the price of a crop.

“We believe the mandate for Catholics is clear: to become fully informed of the magnitude and seriousness of the problem, to acknowledge our interdependence and our responsibility for the well-being of others, and to work for lasting change that will benefit all within the community of life.”

Humanity's Interdependence

In today’s highly interdependent world, individuals and nations can no longer resolve many of their problems by themselves. We need one another. We must therefore develop a sense of universal responsibility... It is our collective and individual responsibility to protect and nurture the global family, to support its weaker members, and to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live.
- His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
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Orlando, Nov. 9, 2006--The General Assembly of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) and Church World Service took on the issues of the world in the name of the gospel of Jesus Christ at its annual meeting that concluded today in Florida.
"As men and women of faith, we believe that freedom, along with genuine security, is based in God, and is served by the recognition of humanity's interdependence," said the message, "and by working with partners to bring about community, development, and reconciliation for all, and that such freedom and security is not served by this war in Iraq."

The new globalisation

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Anthony Giddens November 7, 2006.

Professor Gene Grossman, Alan Blinder and their colleagues, together with a British author working in Geneva, Richard Baldwin, who has commented usefully on their work.
They have produced what they call a "new paradigm" of globalisation, marking a distinct and challenging phase in the evolution of world economic interdependence. One can see globalisation as involving several distinct phases of the disentangling of previous integrated economic activities....But now a further phase of is occurring...Any service job can be outsourced that displays four characteristics - if it involves the heavy use of IT; its output is IT transmittable; it comprises tasks that can be codified; and if it needs little or no face-to-face interaction. Blinder believes that somewhere between 30 and 40 million service jobs in the US will be open to offshoring in the future.

Mandala's message: Nothing is permanent

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By Jennifer Reeger TRIBUNE-REVIEW Tuesday, November 7, 2006

...One of the monks, Thupten Chosan, said each mandala is built to a different Buddha. The one at IUP was built for the Buddha of Compassion. The use of sand signifies interdependence.

"Each one of these grains of sand in itself is pretty meaningless, but together they create something," he said. Each color, each design symbolizes something different. At the center of the IUP mandala was a lotus flower "which symbolizes the purity and clarity of basic human nature," Chosan said. "At birth, our nature of mind is not sullied by emotions."
"Mandala is one of the highest forms of meditation -- one of the most profound forms of meditation," Chosan said.

No more excuses on climate change - Philip Stephens writing in the Financial Express -
Some in the industrialised world will be tempted to inaction by the fact that the effects of climate change will fall sooner and hardest on the poorer countries of the south. Yet if we have learnt anything about global security during the past few years, it should have been that rich nations cannot avoid the consequences of chaos and poverty elsewhere. Britain's Tony Blair put it well when he said that climate change has become the definition of global interdependence. Sadly, that has yet to make it easier to reach equitable bargains between rich and poor.

Tell The Stories: Free to Hate

Tell The Stories: Free to Hate: "sustainable freedom recognizes our interdependence"

This is great! The hallmark of western values of freedom has been individualism but individualism seems to be less and less workable these days. Somehow we need to find ways to "sustain" our commitment to freedom, but do so in a way that acknowledges the multitude of consequences - some positive, some negative - that accompany that freedom.

Tell the Stories next writes, "It obligates us to build community, not sever connections." This is also quite on target, but then Tell the Stories writes, "Such freedom urges us to offer welcome to the stranger and sojourner in our midst." This seems more problematic - but does point to some really complicated matters. What are our obligations to others - those that live half a world away and local sojourners? The sustainable development literature has been quite divided about such matters...