The five ambitions

First

We do not ask for face-value revolution but for cultural evolution. We need more social and cultural evolution - and less “development”.
A fundamental condition for an evolution is cultural diversity. We don't believe in a “monoculture” of sustainability or in a “sustainable modernisation”. Structures of social inequality combined with technologies (money, mass-media, etc.) as well as ideological processes inhibit the evolutionary dynamic of an open culture. Emotions, creativity, experiential learning, free communication and information-flows, criticism (and especially the criticism of institutionalization processes), reflexivity, inter- and intra-cultural dialogues, promote the open evolution of human culture.

Second

We call for the invention and use of adequate media that can sustain an open, auto-eco-organizing culture.
‘The medium is also the message.' The path itself can be the goal. Also in the process for sustainability we need more dialogue – and less unidirectional monologue from the north to the south, from an elite of experts to the mass or from the television to the viewers. Which media are then able to compete with the dominant mass media in their current form? This question remains to be further discussed.

Third

We call for the rise of a transdisciplinary education, of experiential learning, combining a systemic transformation of rationality with an integration of beyond-rationality human capacities in everyday life.
Social changes are not only rational changes. Humans have also an intense emotional life. We need an understanding of “subtle differences”, because humans are ambivalent and not easily reducible or functionalizable. What is nowadays identified as ‘the arts' can have a decisive potential in the up taking and shared experiencing of emotional processes and “subtle differences”. However, the ‘ghettoization' of beyondrationality human capacities into the realm of art and of pretendedly autonomous zones only offers a respiratory safety valve to the dominant culture. What is the role of the arts and artists in the transformation of society towards cultures of sustainability?

Fourth

We advocate a radical change of paradigms in western culture and western science, towards systems thinking.
Nature is our environment, and in our dialogues with our environment (i.e. ecology), we have learned in the second half of the 20th century, a new way to conceive the human economy. Ecosystems, social networks and even individual brains share similar structures in terms of systems. Different systems, at different levels of reality, interact with each other in dynamic, complex processes of change. We need to rethink reality, in terms of dynamic co-evolutions and interacting leverages. We still have a long way to go in this new understanding of reality and reshaping of western sciences.

Fifth

We invite: Actors of civil society, culture, education, arts, communication, media and human sciences to dialogue with us around this international researching- and exchange platform for a cultural and social process towards sustainability.
We are setting up the website you are visiting as a part of that effort. We expect your feedback and contributions!