Rethinking the way we live in a finite world One of Jay's Murals How ironic that the very virtues which made us wealthy as individuals and societies – hard work, ever expanding productivity and turnover -are the very ones which are likely to bring us undone as a species. I had a lecturer at university who had originally trained as a leisure consultant because in the 80’s it was feared that with increasing automation, untold numbers of people would be left idle with no idea as to what to do with themselves. It could have been the Golden Age. People could have pursued the Arts, new music, new forms of creativity and entertainment, new Knowledge upon which to create new industries and new forms of finding value and satisfaction from doing the work in society which needed doing, especially as the advent of the personal computer could have made all knowledge available to all. Indeed, there was a brief Utopian flowering as people experimented with other ways of living, then ...
Practising Geographer - nature culture places people