Flourishing

This year, I dedicated the better part of my summer holiday to gardening. The place needed a major overhaul but we are quite happy with the result: beauty, diversity, serenity and even the practical outcome of our own fresh produce (if we are lucky). The positive effects on my own physical health and my tan were a bonus.

The garden also made me ponder the concept of growth, so dominant in economy and the broader field of development and politics. Clearly a biological metaphor and often used with strong positive overtones.

In our garden, however, we were not always happy with growth. The excessive growth of ivy, for example, beautiful as it may be, called for serious pruning and curbing measures. We gruntled regularly at another set of tangled roots from nearby trees or bushes. And the growth of algae on our pond…

Growth is not always positive. It is all about the more qualitative – and normative! – question of what is growing, and where. Not just in our garden, but in our societies as well. The increase of consumption of natural gas in a serious Dutch winter may count officially as economic growth, but it is a parasitic kind of growth, extracting and depleting natural resources and thereby more a liability than an asset. It should be counted as a negative on our balance sheets.

Growth is not always positive, and that has triggered the discussion about the need to respect planetary boundaries. But because economic development is spread so unevenly across the globe, that would imply serious redistribution, and even degrowth in some of the richer parts of the world. The latter is a consequence that is not very welcome in the dominant discourse.

Personally, I am inspired by the notion of flourishing that has been propagated by feminist philosophers, theologians and ethicists. It builds on another biological metaphor, linked perhaps to the idea of growth, but without the intrinsic element of expansion. One can flourish without growing. But eventually, one cannot flourish at the expense of others and therefore it implies a harmonious relationship to one’s environment. We only flourish in mutually beneficial relationships.

Flourishing doesn’t just happen. It requires pruning and curbing invasive species (like profit-driven cultures and industries). It requires nurturing those in less favourable conditions and valuing their resilience. It requires gardening. Laborious, but very rewarding as our own garden is telling me.