The Prince of Wales addresses the world

[spot]

I wonder whether I might quote from Wednesday's Richard Dimbleby Lecture "Facing the Future", given this year by The Prince of Wales, and commend it as worth reading by those with a spare few minutes.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we may well be told that we live in a “post-Modernist” age, but we are still conditioned by Modernism’s central tenets. Our outlook is dominated by mechanistic thinking which has led to our disconnection from the complexity of Nature, which is, or should be, equally reflected in the complexity of human communities. But in many ways we have also succeeded in abstracting our very humanity to the mere expression of individualism and moral relativism, and to the point where so many communities are threatened with extinction.

Facing the future, therefore, requires a shift from a reductive, mechanistic approach to one that is more balanced and integrated with Nature’s complexity – one that recognizes not just the build up of financial capital, but the equal importance of what we already have – environmental capital and, crucially, what I might best call “community capital.” That is, the networks of people and organizations, the post offices and pubs, the churches and village halls, the mosques, temples and bazaars – the wealth that holds our communities together; that enriches people’s lives through mutual support, love, loyalty and identity. Just as we have no way of accounting for the loss of the natural world, contemporary economics has no way of accounting for the loss of this community capital.

And this is why we need to ask ourselves whether the present form of globalization is entirely appropriate, given the circumstances confronting us. I mean there are, clearly, benefits, but we need to ask whether it requires adaptation so that it also enables, as it were, globalization from the bottom up. This, after all, is the way Nature operates! It grows things from the roots up, not from the sky down. At the moment we operate under a form of globalization that tends to render down all the rich diversity of a culture into a uniform, homogenized mono-culture. And this is where the Modernist paradigm needs to be called into question before the damage being done is irretrievable…

It seems to me that one of the problems of a form of globalization that relies entirely upon maximizing the economic rather than the social and environmental values of markets leads us to a frightening state of uniformity, and perhaps “conformity,” to a model that we now know cannot be sustained. However, we each have within ourselves, as do our communities, more than one aspect to our identities – a complexity which is one of the defining characteristics of our common humanity. In fact, I have a hunch that this cultural diversity may provide us with the intellectual and social resilience to the challenges that we face in this moment of transition, just as biodiversity provides resilience to the domination of diseases found in monocultural systems.

The Prince of Wales - The Richard Dimbleby Lecture, titled “Facing the Future” as delivered by HRH The Prince of Wales, St James’s Palace State Apartments, London

[Rapunzel]

What a fantastic speech! Thanks for supplying the links to the total speech too Spotalicious.

I think he could have used to mention the carrying-capacity for the worlds food production, for added clarity and I think he should have ended with an awe-inspiring call to arms to do something about it rather than ending with a rather tepid 'The choice is certainly clear to me.' He needs to tell people which choices should be made and he should make it as clear as the rest of his speech.

Do you think he wrote that himself? Or that a speech-writing spin-doctor did it? Or that he wrote the basics and had the speech polished by the aforementioned speech-writing spin-doctor?

I'm very impressed by the speech.

[spot]

It sounded like him all the way through, I think he had advisors patching and expanding but it's all his own thoughts. There was a lot in there.

[Rapunzel]

Originally Posted by spot

It sounded like him all the way through, I think he had advisors patching and expanding but it's all his own thoughts. There was a lot in there.

It did sound like him although if his words have always been polished then maybe its just the polished 'him' we've come to know. Personally I always thought he was never that bright. He's had a fantastic education and has good ideas but he shies away from expressing himself and never seems to express himself as lucidly as he did here.

I agree, there was a lot of clear, carefully thought out and well-worded information here, but by the end he would have had his listeners in the palm of his hand and should have intimated which direction they should take. He needs to be a lot firmer. Personally I don't think too highly of the man, although this speech has raised him in my estimation.

[oscar]

There must be some very good speech writers around moderately priced.

[Rapunzel]

Originally Posted by oscar

There must be some very good speech writers around moderately priced.

Why 'moderately priced'? Charles has no idea of the value of money. He's never been forced to earn it and probably never had to pay a bill. He charters private jets for world travel whilst foreign royals go on chartered flights to save money. I expect his private secretary pays his bills and he has no idea what his speech writers cost.

[Chookie]

As much as it pains me as a card-carrying, rabid republican, I have to say that he is talking sense (unusual for a Royal). I especially liked his comments about globalisation and the need for diversity. He said:-

It seems to me that one of the problems of a form of globalization that relies entirely upon maximizing the economic rather than the social and environmental values of markets leads us to a frightening state of uniformity, and perhaps “conformity,” to a model that we now know cannot be sustained. However, we each have within ourselves, as do our communities, more than one aspect to our identities – a complexity which is one of the defining characteristics of our common humanity. In fact, I have a hunch that this cultural diversity may provide us with the intellectual and social resilience to the challenges that we face in this moment of transition, just as biodiversity provides resilience to the domination of diseases found in monocultural systems.

This should be imprinted on the conciousness of every politician, economist and political lobbyist in the world.


I'm still a republican though.........