III: Sense making
Trying to work out an appropriate response to the situation I find myself in reminds me of E M Forster’s essay, written in the shadow of war in 1938, called What I Believe. In it, Forster advocates for ‘the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky’, and ‘creative actions and decent human relations’ which ‘occur during the intervals when force has not managed to come to the front’. In other words, he places value and trust in the human instincts towards kindness, generosity and empathy as the qualities which, while they will not overcome hatred and violence in a direct confrontation, will outlast them and return to ascendancy over the long term.
Asking myself what I believe, my starting point is that the meaning of life is Life. This sounds glib, but I do not mean living, in the sense of existing, such that the purpose of life may be to protract it for as long as possible. I mean being a conscious and contributing part of the ecosystem that is our planet; interacting with the other elements of that ecosystem; and being part of the continuum of life. I am comprised of atoms and molecules that have been parts of many other living things and will be so again. I am a product of the history of various individuals and those that influenced them and of the environment and experiences I am and have been exposed to. I exist fleetingly, but whilst I do I want both to exalt in the vitality of existence and also to feel like, whilst alive, I have given and not merely taken.
The added frisson for me is knowing that our collective failure to act during the rest of my lifetime, and the next seven years in particular, may have devastating consequences for Life on this planet for centuries to come.
Climate heating is our canary. It is what tells us unequivocally our relationship with the natural world is out of balance. It should, knowing what we know about its impacts, be all the motivation we need to change our ways. It is that imbalance which will destroy the propitious and remarkable combination of factors which create the conditions for life on the planet at the moment. This destruction is a direct product of the story humanity has told itself over the last half a millennia that we are apart from, and entitled to exercise dominion over, the rest of the living world of which we are part. It is the narrative which lies behind our plundering of other elements of nature far beyond what we need for our own subsistence and what can be accommodated within the planet’s regenerative capacity.
We have been taking all we can because we can. Even now we continue to do so, despite knowing what the consequences will be – in terms of melting ice caps, desertification, ocean acidification, mass extinction and the impacts these will have both on our fellow humans and the rest of our remarkable planet.
I so much do not want to be a part of this.
I want to use the skills and networks and influence I have as a solicitor to try to help clients and colleagues in the first instance, then perhaps those from the wider profession and other professions who feel the same way, to find a way for us collectively to make a positive difference.
Yet I know that most times a client contacts my firm, or lawyers generally, they will not be doing so primarily because they are concerned with the imbalance of the planet’s ecosystems and may be concerned if they think the legal advisor they are paying for is acting out of wider motives. If each lawyer has at any one time a dozen clients, each intent on their advisor doing their best for them, how can the advisor focus on the optimal outcome for the ecosystem as a whole, which might ultimately be in the best interests of all their clients, but is not those clients’ immediate concern? Will this mean continuing to operate within the system will merely perpetuate the system?
This takes us back, of course, into both the need to support genuine transition (and to challenge work that is transition in name only) and also the three horizons and the need to identify and embrace the viable future that will emerge as Horizon 3: one which redresses the imbalance by global economies being redesigned to function, in line with Doughnut Economics, within planetary boundaries and above a social foundation, with the concomitant redistribution of resources.
Engaging in all this will be messy – and probably at best will only be partially successful. It should hopefully though mean spending time with ‘the considerate and the plucky’ rather than those who (consciously or subliminally) are more comfortable with force coming to the front. It must also be more likely to create the conditions for the sort of systemic change required than continuing down the path that has led us here (even if that path is given new signage to make us feel better).
If this all comes across as nothing more than the flailing of some solicitor trying to justify their work, my apologies for the five minutes reading this has cost you. If it does resonate though, I hope you are able to find a constructive way to use your work to make a positive difference and that, in whatever way, the benefit of it may be evident in 2024 or beyond.