What does Development mean?

My lifelong exploration of what it means to be sustainable and why our current way of being, as a civilization, is unsustainable has led me to the question of "What does development mean?".  No matter what sphere of the world you live in or what culture you come from, it seems that the number one priority of all societies is to develop.  Individuals, businesses, and nations all have the goal of developing.  I would posit, then, that it is utterly important for us to question what we mean when we use this word.  What does the word "development" mean?

In the English language, development is most often equated with growth.  Economic development means economic growth.  Business development plans are plans that help a business to grow (if not in a physical capacity, at least in financial terms). As individuals, we even often interchange the terms "personal growth" and "personal development".  But does this mean that a person should physically grow?  Although this seems like a ridiculous idea,  I would argue that the increasing rates of obesity in industrialized countries is one of many indications that we misuse and probably misunderstand the word "development".  After all, if we didn't think that development means having more, would we constantly be eating more?

In the Greek language, it is even more explicit, as the word "anaptiksi" is used for both growth and development, even though it only directly translates to development. 

Do we really believe that growth is the only way to develop?  To our detriment, I think the answer is yes.  In fact, I think it is one of the things that is fundamentally flawed about our civilization and that is, indeed, threatening the sustainability, the very existence, of modern civilization.

This is nothing new.  People like Donna Meadows and Herman Daly have been saying this for decades, but now I believe that the evidence is becoming unavoidably clear.  We have outgrown our ecological limits, and our obsession with growth as a mode of development has created sickening levels of inequality, both globally and locally.  It has fostered a worldwide cultural value of profit-above-all-else, which has in turn encouraged selfishness and greed.  Although we all say that it is good to be generous and giving, we all live with an unspoken understanding that it is better to be greedy and selfish.

I have heard the argument that growth is programmed into us.  That human nature and instinct dictate that we must grow.  We must grow our populations, our wealth accumulation and our consumption.  It's written into our DNA.  We helpless to overcome our inclinations to grow.

If this is true, we are doomed.

Luckily, I don't believe that this is true at all.  I believe that, just as science has found that our cells select which DNA they will express depending upon environmental conditions, we also select which aspects of our human nature we will express depending on the information we gather. That means that we can choose to redefine development.  We can choose to value generosity, altruism and sharing.  We can choose to stop our growth because we have received information that we have reached our limits. 

However, this requires a huge shift in the way we see ourselves in the world.  It requires that we take upon ourselves a level of responsibility that has not been seen in modern society.  It also requires that we arm ourselves with knowledge.  And, maybe most difficult of all, it requires that we believe that we can impact the way the world works.  (For more on this, see my upcoming article on Complex Systems Theory.)

If we internalized responsibility, educated ourselves with accurate information, and believed that we each make a difference; couldn't we re-define the word "development" to mean more than just growth?  Couldn't we model our lifestyles and our societies towards a goal of human well-being rather than just the cancerous mentality of "more, more, more"?  I believe that we can and I believe that this shift is already underway.  So, it's just a matter of reaching the critical number of people who want to live for a deeper sense of purpose rather than defining their idea of development by having more.  This could very well tip us into a new paradigm of true prosperity, of quality over quantity. 

In any case, I follow the philosophy that happiness is a journey, not a destination.  So I am definitely having a wonderful time taking part in a new sort of development, whether we reach the tipping point or not.

Just one last thought... The world is changing every minute. You are already changing the world with everything you do every day.  Are you changing it for the better or for the worse?  How do you define development?