Waterloo Institute for Complexity & Innovation

The End of Economic Growth: Social Regression or New Beginning?

Steve Mock (Balsillie School of International Affairs) will give a lecture entitled “National Identity and the Liberal State in a Post-Growth Economy”

Abstract:

The powering-down of the world economy ultimately mean re-localization to relatively autonomous, self-sufficient communities. Steven Mock will argue, however, that it is a mistake to assume that such re-localized communities will also be politically and socially progressive. Many social goods such as human equality, freedom of conscience, and social mobility are sustained in part by their functionality in the service of growth-oriented economic structures, and in turn those structures are the product of a unique social grouping called the nation.
The removal of growth as the conceptual centre of the socio-economic system will lead to the erosion of our identification with these communities of common culture, and a decline in the need to provide the mass literacy and public education necessary to maintain them. And, without growth, competition between individuals for roles higher up the social ladder will be replaced by ascribed roles and rigid, inherently inequitable social formations. Degrowth could lead to the end of goods such as social mobility, individualism, meritocracy, egalitarian gender relations, democracy, and cosmopolitanism.

Stephen Purdey’s (Affiliate Researcher with WICI) lecture is called “The Way Ahead: Global Governance, Complex Adaptive Systems and Societal Transformation”.

Abstract:

The ever-bigger world economy is now bumping up against, and in some cases breaching constraints imposed by the finitude of the planetary bio-geosphere. Yet, more and faster growth is demanded as a political priority. How can this conundrum be explained?

Complex adaptive systems often display emergent properties, that is, extra, unanticipated properties which emanate from the synergistic interactions of the system’s component parts. The human body is a complex adaptive system which exhibits the emergent property of consciousness. Can a similar property be ascribed to the human population as a whole? Stephen Purdey will present the case that human society on Earth is also a complex adaptive system, suggesting that our population may be endowed with an evolving ‘collective consciousness.’ Still at an early stage of development, this shared consciousness may be vulnerable to momentary impulses, unreflective behaviour, and simplistic ideas. One such idea—that growth is good and more is better—has been institutionalized as a non-negotiable policy priority, forming the core principle of modern global governance. Given that this idea is untenable in the long run, it must be superseded in our emergent ideational domain. A new form of global governance, guided by new ideas and principles, can foster a more mature shared worldview not premised on the lethal illogic of perpetual economic growth.

Please visit http://wici.ca/2012/01/the-end-of-economic-growth-social-regression-or-new-beginning/ to obtain an essay on this exciting topic!

An Encounter with Simone Weil

Screening and Dialogue with Director

How do we pay attention to the pain and suffering of others?

This is the starting point of Julia Haslett’s amazing documentary on Simone Weil, an extraordinary French philosopher, activist, and mystic. Born into an agnostic Jewish family in France, Simone Weil became involved in deeper philosophical and social issues at a young age. She also had three deep spiritual experiences which awakened in her a profound religious imagination.

Although she had found safety in New York in the early years of the war, she returned to England to join the French resistance. She developed a life-threatening illness, but refused appropriate medical attention and adequate food in solidarity with those who suffered under the Nazi regime in France. She died in 1943.  

This award-winning, Canadian documentary by Julia Haslett discusses the life and commitments of Simone Weil. Haslett focuses on Weil’s observation that “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity” and asks how did she pay attention to the suffering all around her. She then explores what Weil has to teach us in light of the suffering of others in the 21^st century.

You may watch the trailer for the film at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOCE_d2R5lw

Sponsored by: University of Waterloo Women’s Studies, History Department, Department of Religious Studies and the Sexuality Marriage and Family Department and Religious Studies Department of St. Jerome’s University

An Encounter with Simone Weil tells the story of French philosopher, activist, and mystic, Simone Weil (1909-1943)––a woman Albert Camus described as “the only great spirit of our time.” Weil spent most of her too-short life advocating for the rights of the socially and politically disadvantaged. Come to a screening of this award-winning documentary followed by a discussion with its director, Julia Haslett.

Thursday, March 1, 2012, 7 p.m. Parking $4 coin entry only.

Siegfried Hall, St. Jerome’s University at the University of Waterloo

This event is free and open to the public.

Scholarship for an Uncertain World – A Series of Public Lectures by Professors in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Waterloo

The Winter 2012 Arts Lecture Series has begun. This year the series is borrowing the theme from the upcoming Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences (www.congress2012.ca): Scholarship for an Uncertain World.  Six Faculty of Arts colleagues will be presenting lectures on how they are exploring uncertainties of the present age.

This lecture series is open to one and all.  Please take some time out of your day to attend and support your colleagues.  And bring friends and students with you!   For a snappy webpage giving information on all of the lectures, go to www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/arts301. 

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Monday 5 MAR CH 2012, 3:30pm, HH 1101

Martin Cooke / Sociology and Legal Studies

Social Policy for 21st-Century Risks

Welfare, employment insurance, health care, pensions, education and other systems of social provision are facing major challenges. High unemployment and an ageing population are increasing demands on state finances while economic pressures are reducing resources. Thinking about social policy from the perspective of the life course may help countries meet the challenges of increasing income inequality, changes to families and caregiving, and other demographic and social changes.

Scenes from an Execution
 

by Howard Barker
Directed by Prof. Andy Houston

March 8-10 and 15-17, 2012 at 8pm
Theatre of the Arts, Modern Languages Building

Tickets: $17 General, $13 Students & Seniors

Box Office: 519.888.4908

EyeGO tickets and group rates available