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of a single and unifying concept – that
of sustainability.
AVERTING THE DISASTER
There are many things to be done to avert
the impending disaster and many of these
must necessarily be done by those in
government and industry. However, there
are things we can do to change awareness
and consciousness, bearing in mind that
our context of engagement brings its own
specific challenges.
First, we must visualise change, and for
this we must recognise that a change of
values and behaviour must evolve. Even
where values are held to be ‘unchangeable’
and universal they must be challenged.
Equity, autonomy and self-determination
as well as the distinctly Aussie values of
‘have a go’ and a ‘fair go’ would serve us
well as the keynote for a sustainable world –
a world which is now globalised and
interdependent economically.
Second, we must acknowledge the
sustainable goals for the ‘wicked issues’.
Poverty reduction, hunger amelioration,
equal health chances, decent work,
responsible consumption, climate change
action, sustainable cities and social justice
are all listed as part of the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) by the
United Nations.
This is a world issue of which we are a
part, right here and now, and right here
in your home town. This is a heimat issue
for each community and neighbourhood
across the globe. No-one can afford to
ignore the challenge because it is quite
simply coming your way.
Third, we need a new social contract
which is not rooted in the fundamental idea
of a self-regulating market that may only
have needed trade deals between the great
global economies to be effective.
The old idea that somehow markets
could be dis-embedded from the old
institutions of a society and operate
independently must be challenged. That
the growth of the world economy has
left behind vast areas and many, many
millions of people is the great challenge of
economic sustainability. Education is the
third largest generator of GDP in Australia
and has a vital economic role to play, and
we do well to ask of it: “How will you help
the new social contract to succeed?”
Fourth, the new social contract requires a
social debate in which we can address the
structural issues of economic change and
regeneration, the issues of climate change
and carbon emissions, the impact of global
migrations in response to environmental
degradation, global warming, sea-level
changes and the need to equalise power.
Voluntarism, the role of ‘third sector’
economic actors, collaborative partnership
models and a ‘responsible capitalism’,
accountable for its depredations and
environmental destructions, is envisaged.
The social debate will require new ways of
seeing and new ways of conceptualising
the problems we face. We shall need to
have critical thinking embedded in our
curricula and a new approach to learning
for adaptability and survival in a changing
and threatening world.
Fifth, we need to acknowledge that
place will continue to play a vital role
in our future even though we shall be
interconnected globally.
Care for the land and for our cultural
landscapes should be central to our
concerns and be as much the focus for
investment and social innovation as the
metropolitan centres.
Sixth, the great transformation underway
beneath our feet is also and simultaneously
a technological and digital revolution.
Knowledge has exploded into availability,
and the knowledge industry seems to be
part of everyone’s future.
We have yet to fully understand the
implications and consequences of this,
and the jury is out on whether we are
to be ‘liberated’ or ‘imprisoned’ in our
digitalised futures.
What is clear though is that we are
unlikely to succeed in engagement
without having a new conception of how
knowledge is organised and owned and
controlled.
For this we need new approaches to
the curriculum which are open and critical;
we need to be active subjects in this and
not merely the objectives and consumers
of a technology and content made
somewhere else.
CAN WE SEIZE BACK THE DEBATE?
At this increasingly late stage in the climate
debate and facing a world that burns, there
is undeniably a question of urgency and the
need for reform and change.
If we are, as many believe, entering the
‘Anthropocene age’, highlighted by an
irreversible and destructive degradation
of our planetary resources (including our
human environments), then surely this is
an agenda beyond all others for university
engagement?
Given our universities are the best
repositories of knowledge and critique, it
may be timely to ask the question: “Can
If we continue to lower
our horizon of knowledge and
awareness, we shall reap the
harvest of self-destruction.
we seize back the debate by recovering the
learning spirit and critical thinking many
associate with our universities?”
We all live in a place; we all seek a heimat
where our cultural identity is tied in to our
ecological identity; these things we value
must be fought for and defended if we are
to have a future. Nothing could or should
be more engaging. ■
Professor Jim Nyland is the associate
vice-chancellor (Queensland) at the
Australian Catholic University and chair
of Engagement Australia.
This is an edited version of an article that
will appear in the February 2020 edition of
Engagement Australia’s Transform journal.
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