4
W. van Dieren
to get access to His throne. Also, the Tower is the earlist known metaphor for the impossibility of continued economic growth on a limited planet.
In the vision of Breughel, the Tower is an edifice, erected on a European coast instead of in a Mesopotamian desert. After a hundred years of strenuous construction,
the Babylonians still had not caught a glimpse of the throne of God, so the conclusion
had to be that Heaven was to be found a few miles higher than where the summit of the
Tower was at that time. Whatever they tried, though, they could not add a single foot to
the top, and worse, they witnessed to their surprise a gradual dismantling, such as the
crumbling of arches and maintenance backlashes of the serpentine road around the
structure. Resources had to come from ever larger distances, and they were ever more
needed for the transport itself of these resources and for maintenance purposes
underway. Yet, the technicians did not dare tell the ruler of Babel that he would never
reach his target, and the economists kept telling him that here was still economic growth,
measured by the number of ships arriving in port, and the number of donkey and oxen
carts departing for the long voyage to the top - where they would never arrive. The
ensuing confusion was total, in the Babel legend itself expressed by means of the penalty of the many tongues, so people could no longer understand each other. Thus consequently, Babylonian civilisation came to an end, and the Tower collapsed.
Technology and wealth can provide a good symbiosis, but they can also do the contrary, as this story makes so explicit. Glorious civilisations can flourish with the help of
technology, yet most of them have vanished, after events which throughout history have
resembled the fate of the Babylonian Tower. However, the arrogance of man is beyond
measure, and time and again he restarts his adventurous efforts to change the fate of
the earth without respecting its limits.
There is no doubt in my mind that we are indeed facing a similar course of history
now. In spite of the upsurge of many Cassandras, which warn against evil and danger,
or whose sisters on the eleventh floor of the Tower send messages down below that
growth is over (and in spite of modern confirming statistics), the world is still not
capable of proper governance and common sense, of self-control and resistance to greed.
In the wake of the next millennium, we are now subjected to global competitive economic warfare, to neoliberal vanguardism, to profit for the few and misery for the many.
For coastal development, the story is either grim or transparant. Grim it is if we want
more of the same, if we indeed plan for additional ugliness, for the aggressive structures of the technological past. Any coastline can become a next Rotterdam, or a Belgian casino coast, or a Cote d' Azur (which is in reality an experience of bad taste and
polluted air). It is not difficult to conceive of a harbour line all the way from Rotterdam
to Aarhus, only interrupted by nouveau riche developments as on Sylt, Borkum or in
Zandvoort.
However, the requirements for sustainability are very different from those traditional interceptions. The real innovative powers of the future will have to build on a
wholly different baseline. If the future is to be easy, in that it is to be a replica of the
present, then I would not be standing here. If the future has to be different, for compelling reasons, then we need imagination and the courage to change course.
There is no doubt that the prerequisites of the future are very different from these
conditions which prevail over today's practices. We refer to these differences as
discontinuities. They differ in urgency and nature, but it is their combination which
makes the difference. Below (see Sects. 1.1-1.lO) we discuss a few.
W. van Dieren
to get access to His throne. Also, the Tower is the earlist known metaphor for the impossibility of continued economic growth on a limited planet.
In the vision of Breughel, the Tower is an edifice, erected on a European coast instead of in a Mesopotamian desert. After a hundred years of strenuous construction,
the Babylonians still had not caught a glimpse of the throne of God, so the conclusion
had to be that Heaven was to be found a few miles higher than where the summit of the
Tower was at that time. Whatever they tried, though, they could not add a single foot to
the top, and worse, they witnessed to their surprise a gradual dismantling, such as the
crumbling of arches and maintenance backlashes of the serpentine road around the
structure. Resources had to come from ever larger distances, and they were ever more
needed for the transport itself of these resources and for maintenance purposes
underway. Yet, the technicians did not dare tell the ruler of Babel that he would never
reach his target, and the economists kept telling him that here was still economic growth,
measured by the number of ships arriving in port, and the number of donkey and oxen
carts departing for the long voyage to the top - where they would never arrive. The
ensuing confusion was total, in the Babel legend itself expressed by means of the penalty of the many tongues, so people could no longer understand each other. Thus consequently, Babylonian civilisation came to an end, and the Tower collapsed.
Technology and wealth can provide a good symbiosis, but they can also do the contrary, as this story makes so explicit. Glorious civilisations can flourish with the help of
technology, yet most of them have vanished, after events which throughout history have
resembled the fate of the Babylonian Tower. However, the arrogance of man is beyond
measure, and time and again he restarts his adventurous efforts to change the fate of
the earth without respecting its limits.
There is no doubt in my mind that we are indeed facing a similar course of history
now. In spite of the upsurge of many Cassandras, which warn against evil and danger,
or whose sisters on the eleventh floor of the Tower send messages down below that
growth is over (and in spite of modern confirming statistics), the world is still not
capable of proper governance and common sense, of self-control and resistance to greed.
In the wake of the next millennium, we are now subjected to global competitive economic warfare, to neoliberal vanguardism, to profit for the few and misery for the many.
For coastal development, the story is either grim or transparant. Grim it is if we want
more of the same, if we indeed plan for additional ugliness, for the aggressive structures of the technological past. Any coastline can become a next Rotterdam, or a Belgian casino coast, or a Cote d' Azur (which is in reality an experience of bad taste and
polluted air). It is not difficult to conceive of a harbour line all the way from Rotterdam
to Aarhus, only interrupted by nouveau riche developments as on Sylt, Borkum or in
Zandvoort.
However, the requirements for sustainability are very different from those traditional interceptions. The real innovative powers of the future will have to build on a
wholly different baseline. If the future is to be easy, in that it is to be a replica of the
present, then I would not be standing here. If the future has to be different, for compelling reasons, then we need imagination and the courage to change course.
There is no doubt that the prerequisites of the future are very different from these
conditions which prevail over today's practices. We refer to these differences as
discontinuities. They differ in urgency and nature, but it is their combination which
makes the difference. Below (see Sects. 1.1-1.lO) we discuss a few.