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In his book 'The Way’ Goldsmith describes the characteristics of natural ecosystems, which he says are highly purposive. Healthy natural systems are, he says, homeotelic, a word he created to describe something he could find no word for.
It comes from the Greek – homeo (same) and tellus (goal). In a healthy natural system all parts have the same ultimate purpose, to maintain & enhance the integrity of the whole. The default behaviour of any healthy part serves to maintain and enhance the integrity of the whole.
The default behaviour of a single cell serves to maintain & enhance the integrity of the organ of which it is part. The behaviour of an organ serves to maintain & enhance the integrity of the organism. The organism – say a tiger – acts to maintain the integrity of the bioregion
perhaps a jungle. The behaviour of the jungle maintains the integrity of the region, and so on until we get to the planetary whole. And the same applies in reverse.
Natural human culture, what Goldsmith calls ‘vernacular culture’, is also homeotelic.
Natural human culture, what Goldsmith calls ‘vernacular culture’, is also homeotelic.
Industrial culture (perhaps civilisation itself?) is the opposite. It is heterotelic – that is, the default behaviour of humans in our system serves to undermine & degrade the integrity of the ecological whole. That is why it takes more effort and cost to act in a responsible way
Our mission, then, is to recreate modern society and culture as homeotelic. Indigenous and traditional knowledge bases will be vital to this, as will science – especially the science of ecology and systems thinking, and also the direct observation of nature.
Most importantly we need to recreate our economic system, which is the biggest driver of this heterotelic impulse, as a homeotelic system. Are there any civilisations of the past - by which I mean city-based systems - that can give us clues about how to do that?
