A reply to the last post

I got a reply to the last post in the discussion.com, I post it here (in blue colour) and wrtie a few lines as a reply to it.

Definitely it is too early to expect social learning to occur and make a difference before envir technologies get mature (technology is usually a driver of societal changes in an ecological economy), but I am less pessimistic because I think the trend of urbanization and civil society following better education and income levels will do the job, just like HK. That means, in my opinion, the major barriers lie in the institutional setup (in both regional and national levels) rather than in household level if we move beyond merely environmental protecion and towards sustainable development (obviously they are not identical). 。

Social learning requires both individuals' values changes and provision of an insitutional 'platform'. It is not accurate to describe the problem as a lack of puiblic awareness or willingness, given that people's behaviours are shaped by institutioal setup to a very large extent. Awareness does matter, but as it grows its importance diminises, and it will become nothing hif policy initiatives do not adequately fit in their minds. As in HK, you do not need to worry about awareness issues indeed, it is more likely that the bottleneck appears in what decision makes assume and expect their people want. There will have no future at all if Chinese gov assumes and expect more stringent laws and advanced technologies are the way to the SD, just like what HK decision makers did.Individuals' values or preferences are not necessarily envir-friendly as you pointed out.

But that's the reason we need social learning. It is a way to transform individualistic values to social, collective values that are more consistent to SD. Democratic deliberative forum for environmental purposes, for example, is an emerging approach that may help.

I do believe 'self-interest' is inborn, but human behaviours are socially constructed too.


原帖由 FireStallion 於 2007-8-4 09:18 PM 發表

Well, if we talk about social learning, I am really worry the learning willingness and ability of the people. Behavior change!!!
What makes people change their behavior?
For me, I can tell for myself as I am going to build a new house. The budget is my constraint. I will build my house just to pass the regulation, though I want to get it better than the regulations required.

But for HK ppl, what will make them change?