Lessons from Leningrad - the preface

(The beginning of a series on why we should be working fewer hours)

 

The siege of Leningrad, or more particularly at least one aspect of that four-year German assault on the Russian city about 70 years ago, was the genesis of these thoughts.

Oddly, it bears no direct relationship to the subject of what follows except that it is evidence of a passion and intent to achieve an end; passion and intent similar of what will be required if humanity is to emerge from its presently different, but equally dire circumstances.

The passion and intent as
illustrated by those at the
Vavilov Institute is what
is needed today.

The Germans had decided early in the 1940s that the capture of Leningrad was crucial to its plan to control the massive geographical space that is Russia. It laid siege to Leningrad in the summer of 1941 and in assuming its military might would quickly overcome the Russian city, overlooked the resilience and tenacity of the city’s residents, particularly the scientists and others responsible for the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry. The men and women in charge of what was then one of the world’s largest genetic plant resources protected the seed-bank from the vicissitudes and violence of war. So intent on saving the seed-bank from the hungry people of Leningrad, and the broader impact of the war, many from the institute staff died of starvation at their desks, although surrounded by sufficient food to easily keep them alive.

That altruism and the belief in something bigger than themselves, a belief that ultimately cost them their lives, illustrates a behaviour presently largely missing from humanity. We stumble about locked in a deadly embrace with individualism, dancing to a tune played by the orchestra of economics so loud and so obtrusive that the idea of societal health and community wellbeing is not heard, or seen, and so ignored that it is in urgent need of help; help that only you and I can provide.

It is about now we need to consider the values, morals and beliefs of those from the Vavilov Institute and determine how we can apply human instincts to what is emerging as the greatest difficulty to ever confront humanity. Those from the institute had, it seemed, and innate sense that this nucleus of life in their care, a rare at the time and unmatched and irreplaceable store of seeds, was something of value vastly different and yet equally more important than the collapse of good sense and the subsequent violence and destruction in which they had become embroiled. Preservation drove their intent and from that arises a lesson from which we can learn.

Most any achievement in history made by man that was of any lasting and sweeping good arose when an individual, or group of people, who were transfixed by something bigger than themselves, something beyond what and who they were; something that had not emerged from a personal agenda, but something that was about enhancing the condition of mankind - it is not about the individualism that pervaded the 20^th century and has entrenched itself in the opening decades of the 21^st century.

This work found its feet in something that happened in Leningrad more than six decades ago and received impetus from a statement some 20 years ago by the Union of Concerned Scientists entitled “World Scientist’s Warning to Humanity”. That statement from 1,700 senior scientists, including 104 Nobel Prize winners, suggests we are living through something like a slow motion train wreck. The opening words say:

Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about.

This is about those urgently needed fundamental changes that in reality are too late, but it is important we act and act quickly to reimagine the world economy and understand why and how it has become an integral part of humanity  displacing those things that matter, such as collaboration, friendship and the deep and broader understanding that we are making this journey together and that each of us has an ethical and moral responsibility to those who went before and especially to those who follow, particularly those we will never meet.

What follows is not misanthropy (a dislike for humanity) or the mistrust of modernity, rather it is about embracing and celebrating the beauty and wonder of our civilization and at the same time suggests we revel in and exploit, as best we can, the wonders of man’s achievements.