the balance of demands and resources has to be integrated (Payutto 1998 : 168–173).
His new term,“evolvability,”means the ability of a human to develop oneself to
live in harmony with nature, not to conquer the nature, nor to destroy it. In his view,
human developmenthas to comefirst. Educated citizens of the world need to have,
first, the right occupation, meaning not to exploit other humans nor to the envi-
ronment; second, a moral conduct to maintain self-contentment; and, third, the right
wisdom to accept differences among mankind and understand that there are dif-
ferent paths to development with the aim to conserve the environment (Payutto
1998 : 183–184). This view of Payutto strongly advocates the cultural perspective of
development, that is, putting people at the center of development should be on the
top of our development agenda. According to Payutto, greed (lobha), hatred (dosa),
and ditthi (a domain comprising the following subsets: worldview, ideology,
beliefs, religious beliefs, and social values) are three root causes of the environ-
mental crisis and shortage of resources. According to him (Payutto 2007 :55–63),
the beliefs or ditthi that hold control of world civilization can be categorized into
three groups, as follows:
(a) The perception that mankind is separable from nature and can control or
manipulate nature. Hence, the construction of dams, encroachment of forests,
leaving carbon footprints, etc. are symbolic representations of this belief.
(b) The perception that fellow human beings are not“fellow human beings.”
Hence, slavery, modern day slavery such as child labor, migrant labor, forced
prostitution, human trafficking, the demolition of the Native Americans or the
Aborigines in Australia in the past, and racial discrimination in many parts of
the world.
(c) The perception that happiness relies on material wealth possessions. This is one
of the dimensions of development as growth already explained. This can create
an issue of the have’s discriminating against the have-nots.
It is not wrong to state that these ditthis that Payutto mentions are the morality
behind the modernization paradigm.
Jan Servaes’( 1999 :27–28) assessment of the modernization paradigm is worth
reading. It can be summarized as mainly crunching the reality into numbers and
drawing a straight line of cause and effect to variables which adopted the scientific
methodology to study social science (also called positivism) hoping that it would
work the same way everywhere. This view assumes that economic growth and
urbanization, as in the Western world, will occur everywhere. It is the consequence
of linear thinking and seeing the world as static. However, there are so many
intertwined factors involved. The application of a laboratory experiment to the
social world has resulted in environmental disasters in many developing countries.
What happened with air and water pollution in China is a case in point. Aiming at
raising per capita income without seeing the impacts, industrialization has brought
to the exploitation of fellow human beings and non-renewable natural resources
have proven to be short-sighted. Dumping industrial waste in water ways and
releasing toxic gas into the atmosphere are what the so-called developed and
92 6 Self-Reliance and Sustainability from a Thai Perspective