From this point forward we will discuss how to use the previous portion of the book to design a socially sustainable democratic society, sustainable democratic political environment, and a socially sustainable democratic economy. First caution: Social sustainability presents a cognitive problem for the reader because it “requires changing your brain, thinking in new ways you have never thought before, understanding what you have not previously understood, and talking and listening in new ways. … What makes the cognitive work so hard is that it requires a new, higher rationality.” 9
We begin with the awareness that although the values that have sustained our species are fundamental to the development of socially sustainable organizations and societies, it is the consciousness of that necessity that must precede all of our thought beginning now, in this moment, wherever we live.
Our societies are not sustainable because we have not been conscious of the need of democratic societies to initiate the means to become sustainable. Our societies will not become sustainable materially or socially until a significant percentage of our populations come to recognize that, in order for all future generations to have a safe, peaceful, and stable life for themselves and for their families, we today are the only ones who can bring the possibility into existence.
9 Lakoff, George 2006. Whose Freedom? : The Battle Over America’s Most Important Idea. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p 257.