Draft
Draft
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We should imagine ourselves as critically important. While political theorists and
philosophers are not in great demand yet, we will be, and it would be best to have some
material on the shelf for when the calls come. We should be creating actual strategies
and building conceptual systems—appropriate to our various fields and disciplines—that
can operate effectively in the peak oil transition and beyond.
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We should be
provisioning the future with concepts and systems. “Provisioning” conjures up images of
getting the woodpile stacked for next winter, or summer canning of the vegetable garden.
It is about perspiration, preparation, and foresight. It is what Aldo Leopold did with his
family at the Shack on weekends, what Wes Jackson and his staff members are doing at
the Land Institute, what Amory Lovins and his staff members are doing at the Rocky
Mountain Institute, and what the Nature Conservancy is doing in preserving wild places.
And it is what the Founders did in creating a new government. Provisions are artifacts.
They are tangible and real. They do work for us. So must the provisions we produce as
political theorists and philosophers.
Service: Campus and Community
In the year 2000, there were approximately 16 million students enrolled in America’s
colleges and universities (7.9 million were full time students).
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Collectively these
students and their teachers, and all of the materials and energy they consume in pursuit of
an education, represent an “education nation” linked by common curricula, missions, and
challenges. Shifting this nation just a little bit toward energy and material conservation,
between empathy and ethical communication, and between ethical engagement and political engagement.
My hypothesis is that by increasing sensory engagement with natural world, one increases ethical and
political engagement with natural and social world.
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I am thinking here of Adams’ and Jefferson’s “hobby” of writing constitutions in their spare time.
32
http://www.census.gov/Press-
Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/000801.html
Convention