Monday, 6 October 2008

NOTES FROM THE LAST SEMINAR, Poverty and affluence, material and spiritual

Professor Graeme Martin opened the seminar with some remarks about Integrated Human Studies. Graeme is on the Centre’s Policy and Management Committee and has a longstanding enthusiasm for the ideology of integration of disciplines. He said he sees the Centre as a first port of call for people interested in expert opinions on major issues, almost all of which will have a multidisciplinary base. He also believes The University of Western Australia, taking in the brightest young minds in WA, has a responsibility to educate them so they can fulfil their expectation of making a difference to human futures. To do this, UWA needs to deliver a broad interdisciplinary curriculum to first-year undergraduates, rather than simply swamping them with specialist subjects as soon as they walk in the door. "Happily, this is a fundamental recommendation of the recent review of our teaching, so the Centre seems ideally placed to play a major role in developing the next generation of UWA's undergraduate programs," he said.

Dr Steve Schilizzi tackled the question of economic poverty by firstly giving some background information about the nature of poverty and how many people it affects. While it is clear that poverty is about lack of access to the necessities of life, and as such it can be quantified, it is also qualitative in that it affects people’s happiness and dignity. There is no unambiguous measure of poverty because it is a multidimensional ethical notion. It cannot be measured in absolute terms because it is relative to what is valued by individuals. Steve went on to examine the process of poverty – how it appears, endures, and might end. On the macro scale, he believes that poverty is exogenous i.e. determined by outside factors beyond the control of individuals. Health, ecology, economics and politics can all play a role in causing poverty, and this poverty can endure because of family and social processes. Poverty traps can exacerbate these processes and create feedback loops that maintain poverty over generations. Ending poverty necessitated intervention of some kind. Interventions must tackle the processes rather than poverty itself. Finally, poverty is a complex issue that cannot be solved by economists alone – interdisciplinary input is necessary.

Inga Kristoffersen is currently researching the relationship between economic welfare and wellbeing. She explained that the notion that humans have any kind of control over their own happiness is relatively recent. In the distant past, happiness was considered largely a matter of luck and circumstance: a healthy child, a good crop, for example. But now that these basic needs are largely met, people have begun to reflect on the concept of happiness, and it has begun to be seen as a necessity of life itself, and lack of happiness is now considered as evidence of failure.

Happiness and its relation to economics have been studied for decades now and Inga demonstrated how different economic theories approached the issue in different ways. Now there was a huge body of survey data collected in various countries. Such studies typically collect such data by asking people to indicate how happy or satisfied they are with their lives. Data collected in Australia indicate most people are quite happy, which is consistent with other data collected around the world. This data can be used in many different applications, including economic analysis. In particular, economists are interested in the relationship between economic welfare and happiness, or wellbeing. This topic has been explored on the micro and macro level, and across time. In general, the evidence supports a positive relationship between economic welfare and happiness, but this is not always the case and the link is quite complex. The happiest individuals in a society are not necessarily the wealthiest, many poor nations have higher levels of happiness than many rich nations, and increased wealth does not always bring increased happiness – neither at the individual nor at the national level. There is still much to be explored in the area of happiness and economics. For example, it is possible that how we use our wealth matters more than how much wealth we have.

Rev Dr Ian Robinson said he was speaking openly of his spiritual experience as a Christian despite early thoughts about trying to “secularise” his talk. Some quotes about Jesus’ call to poverty set the question about what is spiritual poverty and spiritual ‘treasure'. Opting to avoid narrowly religious categories, he defined the spiritually poor as those without purpose in life,
integrity, connection to the earth and to others, and a sense of God’s presence. In the university's version of secularity, we need to expand the vision of what constitutes evidence. Just as the physical senses of taste, smell, touch, sight, hearing, weight and warmth informed our empirical methods, so the spiritual senses of value, morality, connection, beauty, purpose, wonder, and gift could inform our lives. Symptoms of spiritual poverty manifested in apathy suicide, materialism, tribal blindfolds (not recognising our similarities with others, and not asking why they are as they are), and radical autonomy (not being able to gain wisdom because we
already know it all). Australians had some spiritually destitute habits, among them a materialistic seeking of wealth, social Darwinism, and a lack of connection to the land. There were a number of factors driving these “heart-habits”, one of which, technical modernism, is exemplified by
people listening to iPods and thus shutting themselves off from engagement with their actual environment. People could find their way out of spiritual poverty in many ways. “Submitting” to being formed in a way – embracing a faith, for example – did not mean that one was intolerant of others’ beliefs; on the contrary, Ian believes it can make one more accepting of different
cultures. In our busy society, it was difficult to avoid distractions from meaningful spiritual growth and some apparently helpful actions could have harmful long-term outcomes (Cane Toad solutions).

Questions and comments included:
· (With reference to Affluenza by Clive Hamilton) Does attaining a top level of wealth actually bring misery?
· In many countries there are systematic institutional barriers to social equality. Can trustworthy institutional processes have a positive effect on social justice?
· Levels of trust and perceptions of justice in the system have a big effect on happiness.
· How countries spend money as well as how individuals spend it matters to a society’s spiritual wellbeing. Building social capital is important.
· The physical environment – buildings, roads, parks etc – has an effect on social wellbeing.
· How can we as a society promote the importance of values?
· The competitive, exploitative money system makes billions of people poor.
· If we are happier in cooperative societies, then how did we become competitive capitalists? (Answer: there is something addictive about technology!)
· Are countries with compulsory service happier?

If you would like to discuss or comment on any of these questions, you can join our Integrated Human Studies wiki . Click on Seminars on the
navigation menu, choose the appropriate seminar, and join or start a discussion under the Discussion tab.

NEXT SEMINAR
The last seminar in our second semester “Human wellbeing” series looks at communities. Our speakers will consider the nature of community, how the physical design of communities shapes our lifestyle, and how dislocation from communities affects refugees. It will be held at 5.30 pm in Seminar room 1.81 in the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia (two buildings south of Shenton House on the Matilda Bay side of the campus).

Seminar 6, 15 October 08 : Community wellbeing, local and global

What constitutes a community; how do people identify themselves as belonging to a community? Does belonging to a community contribute to psychological or indeed physiological health? In Western Australia, have we created communities that will sustain us through this century, or do we need to do things differently? What will vulnerability to rising oil prices mean
for communities?

A major issue this century is the potential dislocation of millions upon millions of people as they move in search of food and water to survive. How does this displacement affect them, and the communities into which they move?

Chair: Dr Martin Forsey
Presenters: Dr Debra McDougall; Professor Peter Newman; Rev Eira
Clapton

There’s no charge to attend, and light refreshments are available.

HAVE YOU JUST JOINED OUR MAIL LIST?
If you have missed previous newsletters containing summaries of the seminar presentations, you can see them on our web site on the News and Events page .

ABOUT THE CENTRE FOR INTEGRATED HUMAN STUDIES
You can find out more about the Centre and about IHS at our web site . If
you are interested in enrolling in postgraduate courses in IHS, please contact the Director, A/Prof Neville Bruce on +61 08 6488 3292 or email [email protected] .

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK
Please feel free to give us your comments, thoughts or suggestions for future seminar topics by emailing Karen on [email protected] .

Media references

Karen Connolly
Integrated Human Studies
School of Anatomy and Human Biology
The University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway Crawley WA 6009
+61 08 6488 3647 email: [email protected]
In the office on Mondays and Thursdays - for urgent enquiries please phone Neville Bruce on +61 08 6488 3292

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