A reader wrote to me the other day and said that they would like a more developed explanation of what was said in the first paragraph of Post #118. Briefly, what I described there was this: The three core values of social sustainability (quality of life, growth and equality) are sufficient to sustain a person, family, community and society; and, provide a rational morality for making decisions at those levels that support social sustainability. I then stated that three core emotions (compassion, empathy and “love”) validate our humanity as we strive to proactively aid others as we would our self to achieve an improving quality of life and to grow equally as we would for ourselves.
In another post I mentioned that a family, community or society will become “just” in its moral decision-making for individuals and others simply by invoking the values of social sustainability. A “just” society is one that uses a code of morality and a code of laws to pronounce “just” and equitable consideration for individuals and organizations. Such a just and lawful society may operate quite well, yet it would not be complete in its efforts to reflect the best of us individually and collectively.
While the core values of social sustainability are more than sufficient to reflect the best efforts of our species to live with each other in organized societies, they are insufficient to reflect the best efforts of our species individually to extend our self as an act of empathy to re-evaluate how we would act in the place of another. This requires the germination of feelings of empathy, compassion and love or esteemed regard for another. While the core values of social sustainability reflect the best values to sustain a just society with others, the three core emotions reflect our best value-emotions to sustain our relationships with others individually. Do you see? The core values of social sustainability are social, and the value-emotions are individual.
To express our compassion for another, we must first feel an empathic connection and ready comprehension for another’s state. Expressing compassion with that concern, we become humane in our actions to and with others. As you may have noted in the Post relating to the Morality of Social Sustainability, it is a rather linear, logical and cold approach to sustain a society for many hundreds of years. More is needed to make such a society humane. To make a socially sustainable society humane and compassionate, it must have processes in place that proactively seek to develop the innate potential of its citizens. And this completes the circle of individual and collective human motivation.
In another post I mentioned that a family, community or society will become “just” in its moral decision-making for individuals and others simply by invoking the values of social sustainability. A “just” society is one that uses a code of morality and a code of laws to pronounce “just” and equitable consideration for individuals and organizations. Such a just and lawful society may operate quite well, yet it would not be complete in its efforts to reflect the best of us individually and collectively.
While the core values of social sustainability are more than sufficient to reflect the best efforts of our species to live with each other in organized societies, they are insufficient to reflect the best efforts of our species individually to extend our self as an act of empathy to re-evaluate how we would act in the place of another. This requires the germination of feelings of empathy, compassion and love or esteemed regard for another. While the core values of social sustainability reflect the best values to sustain a just society with others, the three core emotions reflect our best value-emotions to sustain our relationships with others individually. Do you see? The core values of social sustainability are social, and the value-emotions are individual.
To express our compassion for another, we must first feel an empathic connection and ready comprehension for another’s state. Expressing compassion with that concern, we become humane in our actions to and with others. As you may have noted in the Post relating to the Morality of Social Sustainability, it is a rather linear, logical and cold approach to sustain a society for many hundreds of years. More is needed to make such a society humane. To make a socially sustainable society humane and compassionate, it must have processes in place that proactively seek to develop the innate potential of its citizens. And this completes the circle of individual and collective human motivation.