Home: The Very "Leverage Point": PERSPECTIVE

Home: The Very "Leverage Point" 1

by Mr. Jan Hearthstone

The most obvious place where a meaningful intervention would start a profound change for better in the whole world is the basic unit of any community--a home. It is at home where we grow up and learn the basics of living as humans; it is where we should go to get well, to rest and to recuperate; it is at home where we get ready, time after time, to interact with the world outside our home. However, the "home" of today is very different from what it ideally ought to be.

A "home" today is an indicator of our social system's dysfunctionality 2. Consider this: It is obvious to everyone that humans need to rest, to sleep, to take care of their basic needs to be able to function well within the society. To take care of all these essential needs should, of course, be done at home. Everyone knows that to be homeless is to be avoided at all costs. Yet it is commonly accepted as a good thing when prices of homes go up and thus homes become less available. Logically, rationally this does not make any sense!

As a result of this the society as a whole suffers. A "home", as we know it today, is frequently a source of discomfort, anxieties, a source of existential stress, and this results in a plethora of societal ills that plague the whole society.

People who don't have a proper home are more likely to suffer from lack of rest, sleep, from financial worries (about finding a good home, about having to pay the rent, mortgages, taxes...); They, due to this stress, are more likely to engage in criminal activities, they are more likely to become physically and mentally affected, and generally the unavailability of a good home to most members of the society creates stress that ultimately permeates all parts of the society.

The obvious solution to this conundrum would be to ensure that instead of a home to be an expensive privilege, to have a home, no matter how humble a home, should become a thing necessary for people to have in order to be able to function well in the society. In short--instead of a source of stress, a home should become a source of comfort, a place to where one goes to become well.

The most expedient way to make sure that a home becomes a secure and a sustainable foundation of the society would be to change only one thing: the right to sleep, to rest, and to be able to take a basic care of one's basic necessities should be introduced into the constitution as an inalienable right; No more, and no less.

To constitutionalize all the basic things that are necessary for a satisfactory quality of life as basic rights would alone ensure an organic unfolding of all necessary adjustments in the social fabric. An unfolding into a profound and lasting relief that would be felt all across the globe.

People need land to live on, to have their homes on. The surface of Earth is a valuable and also a limited resource. A resource that is too valuable to let any irrational, fickle commercial interests to be in charge of. Land is precious, it has to be manged intelligently--all kinds of life, not only humans, need it for living; An unnecessary stress, felt by all directly and indirectly, is caused by the gross mismanagement of land that is currently in existence--a stress that we hardly can allow to exist, especially in times of ecological and social crises that we are faced with these days.

A good stress-free home (one's castle indeed!) should be the basis of any truly civilized society, regardless whether the times are good or bad. At home is where culture is being continuously re-created. If there, at home, is any lack what-so-ever, it will adversely affect the whole of the civilization.

FINIS

Notes.

Note 1:
"leverage point"--a term probably most popularized by Donella Meadows - http://www.sustainer.org/pubs/Leverage_Points.pdf - (Accessed 11/17/2009), and others, led by Jay Forrester at MIT, who were involved with "Limits to Growth" initiated by the Club of Rome - http://www.clubofrome.org/docs/confs/meadows_abstract_21_08_04.pdf> - (Accessed 11/24/2009).

Note 2:
Dictionary.com:
dysfunction
–noun
2. any malfunctioning part or element: the dysfunctions of the country's economy.
3. Sociology. a consequence of a social practice or behavior pattern that undermines the stability of a social system.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dysfunction


check online for redactions;
http://www.ModelEarth.Org/leverage.html

by Mr. Jan Hearthstone - ModelEarth.Org
modelearth@gmail.com

Creating Lasting Peace:
http://www.modelearth.org/peace.html

If we, the people, were really sincere about having real Peace in the
world, we would pursue creating Peace by peaceful means more actively
rather than by relying on our military might!