Dear Don, Clide and colleagues
I personally believe it is a matter neither of "humility", "arrogance", nor
of designation of our profession. Designers of whatever creed would
definitely have avoided the crisis if they had operated within a worldview
different of the one initiated six centuries ago in Western Europe, and now
worldwide spread.
Rather, both as individuals and as a profession, we ought to start now
realizing that, and acting as, money and monetary profit maximizing
activities aren't the only pledge to happiness...! (See this February 2011
Newsletter issued by Japan for Sustainability, launching the "Institute for
the Study of Happiness, Economy, and Society (ISHES)" :
http://www.japanfs.org/en/mailmagazine/newsletter/pages/030685.html )
No doubt crises like this one afflicting Japanese people, together with so
many other calamities humanity is suffering daily ( "Blood in the Mobile" -
http://bloodinthemobile.org/ - was aired on CBC TV last evening) are all
alarm bells to start devising a replacement worldview. And in this each of
us, in whichever area of respective involvement and in whatever capacity,
has an indispensable role to play.
Francois
Montreal
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