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Holism and the Reconstitution of Everyday Life:
A Framework for Transition to a Sustainable Society
“There is always a tight connection between social reality, the theoretical framework we use to
interpret it, and the sense of politics and hope that emerges from such an understanding. This
connection is often overlooked. Our hopes and politics are largely the result of a given framework.
It is particularly important that we reflect on this fact in times of profound transformations, such as
today”
—Arturo Escobar, Other Worlds are Already Possible (2009)
Introduction: the need for a framework for transition
No era in human history has been so beleaguered by such a range of mutually exacerbating
problems: from loss of biodiversity to social injustice; from the proliferation of waste to cultural
homogenization; from rampant urbanization to nuclear proliferation; from the demise of community
to global warming. The list of problems could be extended ad infinitum, no aspect of our lives or
that of other species remains untouched, and any such problem represents a challenge to the
sustainability of human and non-human life support systems. On the other hand, possibilities of a
different kind of society and a different way of life are evident in many initiatives that are taking
place all over the planet, including renewable energy technologies, local currencies, experiments in
participatory democracy, efforts to restore forests and watersheds, new forms of transportation and
new kinds of manufacturing facilities, to name just a few. As the list of ‘problems’ can be extended
ad infinitum, so too can the list of possible ‘solutions’. And whilst we may feel overwhelmed by
what historian Russell Jacoby refers to as a state of “permanent emergencies” (Jacoby 2005, p.ix)
viable (albeit fragile) alternatives to ‘business as usual’ are not difficult to find.
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In this essay I argue that we need a new framework — a conceptual structure which
provides the basis for action in the world — to assist the process of transition to a sustainable
society, that is, the process by which we address the kinds of problems touched on above. I further
argue that the key elements of such a framework can be realized by applying the insights of whole
systems science and philosophical holism to human affairs. Several important ‘green’ frameworks
have already been developed, but these tend to focus on single aspects of the transition process. For
example, the framework of Libertarian Municipalism, principally developed by social ecologist
Murray Bookchin (Biehl and Bookchin 1998), makes the case for direct and participatory
democracy and focuses on the problem of political disenfrachisment and disengagement that is
endemic to representative democracy. The Natural Capitalism framework, developed by physicist
Amory Lovins and colleagues (Hawkens, Lovins et al. 1999), focuses on technological issues and
advocates an expansion of the definition of ‘capital’ to embrace ecosystem services and natural
resources. The objective is the development of new manufacturing processes that will lay the
foundation for the ‘Next Industrial Revolution’.
A notable exception to the limited purview of such frameworks, and one of most important
developments on the sustainability scene in recent years, is the approach that is being developed by
the Transition Town Movement (Hopkins 2008). This is a grassroots effort to enable communities to
recover their ‘resilience’ (Walker and Scott, 2006), their capacity to be self-reliant, materially,
culturally and psychologically, so that they can flourish not only under ordinary circumstances, but
also in the event of external disruptions such as the prospective decline in oil availability. Their
systemic and community based approach has the potential to integrate the many different facets of
transition—political, technological, cultural, social, economic, and ecological. This is an
enormously ambitious project — no less than the transformation of industrial civilization. Given the
enormity of this ambition there are many questions that the Transition Town approach is not
equipped to address, such as how to think about the appropriate levels of scale which correspond to
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the levels of scale for solutions, and the need for a narrative that connects the diverse efforts
currently underway all over the planet, including the ‘undeveloped world’.
Several additional and essential features of a framework for transition are: it needs to
incorporate a vision of a future, a desirable sustainable society by which we can orient ourselves in
the present; it needs to provide a conceptual model for transdisciplinary collaboration (since the
expertise required for transition will come from all fields) within a grassroots context (if the
transition movement is not going to become co-opted by experts); it needs to provide a way for
projects and practices to be connected and integrated, since these will only realize their potential
through such mutually beneficial relationships; and it needs to embody a more qualitative and
humane understanding of sustainability than recent technocratic and economistic appropriations of
this concept have come to do. These seven or eight points lay out an ostensibly overwhelming set of
requirements for a framework for transition. The answer, I believe, is to apply a holistic paradigm to
how we live — to everyday life. In so doing, a framework which meets all these criteria will
emerge. In the following sections of this essay I will discuss the tradition of holism in social theory
and the implications that contemporary whole systems science and philosophic holism have for this
tradition, and use this discussion as a basis for a framework that can be integrated into our everyday
lives.
Social holism and social sciences
Within social theory, holism (or organicism — I use these words interchangeably) has been
one of the most common ways of describing and interpreting human affairs (Scott 1991, Phillips
1976, Stark 1962, Merchant 1983, Hollis 1994, Polkinghorne 1983 pp. 135–167, Harvey Brown pp.
129-139) . Holism’s influence has been immense even when the originating metaphor — of society
as a living and growing organism and therefore an irreducible unity which cannot be understood by
reduction to its ‘parts’ — has long been forgotten. As sociologist Richard Harvey Brown (1940–
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2003) contended, “This biological image of society is so deeply rooted that scholars often fail to
recognize it as the central presupposition of their own social thought. But, recognized or not, the
metaphor can be seen in the substructure of the vast majority of Western theories of social order
and change.” (Brown 1989 p.131). But it has been a problematic metaphor whose influence has
often been reactionary or authoritarian. ‘Functionalism’, for example, a theory originated by
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) in the mid-nineteenth century but carried forward by other
sociologists and anthropologists for at least another century, explores how the interdependent
‘organs’ of society (people and institutions in their various roles and activities) are consciously or
unconsciously involved in serving the needs and maintaining the order of society as a whole. This
approach lends itself to a conservative outlook: functionalism can imply a level of social unity that
does not exist. Moreover, purported holism has on occasion given rise to pernicious ideologies that
have had disastrous consequences. Nazism, for example, strove to justify a rigidly authoritarian and
‘racially pure’ social order by proposing that, like any organism, society has ‘parts’ which exist
solely in order to maintain the health and purity of the whole; the Nazi state and ‘the
volk’ (Harrington 1999).
In contrast to these examples, which can be considered ‘conservative social holism’ is the
tradition that I have identified and dubbed ‘radical social holism’, or, more simply—‘radical
holism’. The radical holists have adopted various holistic approaches (such as organismic biology,
ecology and systems theory and even cybernetics) upon which they based their case for non-
authoritarian, participatory, self-organized, humanly-scaled and decentralized social forms. Radical
holism is a tradition which can arguably be dated from the mid-nineteenth century and that
continued throughout the twentieth century. Its members would have variously described
themselves as anti-authoritarian socialists, anarchists, communalists, social ecologists, or possibly
none of these. More important than their different monikers is the connection they all made between
the emancipatory social forms they advocated and form in the natural world. Preeminent in this
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tradition were the social ecologist Murray Bookchin (1922–2006) and the historian Lewis Mumford
(1895–1990). Bookchin looked to the complementary, non-hierarchical patterns of relatedness
found in ecosystems as the basis for an ethics upon which new kinds of human communities could
be grounded (Bookchin, 1980, 1982, 1986 pp. 77–104). He contended that “Either we will create
an ecotopia based on ecological principles or we will go under as a species” (1980 pp. 70–71)
Similarly, Mumford argued that the “The Organic World Picture” (with its portrayal of nature as
a dynamically creative, yet stable and self-regulating realm )“undermined the conceptual
framework of the dominant power system” (Mumford 1971 p.384 and p.391). The existential
philosopher Martin Buber (1878–1965) summed up the position of many in this tradition in his call
for “a new organic commonwealth...a community of communities” (Buber 1958 p.136) through
which social structure could be renewed.
Whole systems science and philosophic holism
Both conservative and radical holism derive from the objective of social solidarity and yet
the former leads to a defense of hierarchical, top down, social forms whilst the latter challenges
these. It is paradoxical that the organic metaphor can be used in such divergent and contradictory
ways. I propose that the problem lies in social theorists’ incomplete and incoherent understanding of
the nature of ‘wholeness’ and organic dynamics which is a result of mechanistic habits of thought.
In recent years, however, there have been developments in science and philosophy which reinforce
the radical holist case for forging a connection between natural form and liberated social form.
Murray Bookchin’s contention that “Nature is writing its own nature philosophy and
ethics” (Bookchin 2005 p.455) is supported by discoveries in chaos and complexity theory and a
renaissance in the scientific approach to understanding the wholeness of natural organisms
developed by poet-scientist J.W Von Goethe (1749-1842) (Miller 1988). The Goethean approach
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and chaos and complexity theory represent two complementary ways of thinking about nature,
respectively the phenomenological/intuitive and the analytical.
One of the most important contributions to the Goethean renaissance has been made by
philosopher and physicist Henri Bortoft in his book The Wholeness of Nature (Bortoft 1996), in
which he makes an important distinction between ‘authentic’ and ‘counterfeit’ holism. This
distinction, I will argue, is of the utmost importance to the development of a framework for the
transition to a sustainable society.
Bortoft argues that wholeness is ‘authentic’ only when the whole form of a plant, an animal
or even a text, is seen to emerge in and through its parts as they develop, over time. Each leaf of a
plant, each organ of an animal, each word of a text, reveals a different aspect of the whole plant,
animal or text. So, the whole can be said to be present or immanent in its parts; it is not ‘a thing’
that somehow exists separately from them, nor is it a sum of their total. Rather ‘wholeness’ is an
experience, in the mind of the (Goethean) scientist or the text’s reader, of the unity (or meaning) of
the animal, plant or text. This experience is achieved through an encounter with the parts —organs,
leaves or words. These parts become meaningfully/intrinsically related to one another through their
mutual participation in the coming into being, over time, of the whole. Bortoft calls this dynamic
mode of relationship “belonging together” (emphasis on the word ‘belonging’) (Bortoft 1998 pp.
59-60): the parts belong together because they diversely express a single unity. Therefore, diversity
is intrinsic to wholeness; the greater the diversity of meaningfully related parts that arise over time,
the more fully the wholeness of a particular plant, animal or text can be realized.
Yet because of our sequential, linear habits of thinking (we think of whole or part rather
whole and part, one coming before the other rather than each mutually constituting one another) we
do not usually think of wholes and parts as reciprocal. Those who are holistically inclined tend to
give priority to wholes over parts, seeking wholeness, or unity, by taking “a multiplicity of different
things, and [subtracting] from them all the respects in which they are different to leave what they
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have in common” (Bortoft 1999 p.93) . ‘Wholeness’ is supposedly what remains after this stripping
away process has occurred; the parts of such wholes are extrinsically rather than intrinsically related
(they do not mutually participate in bringing forth the whole, they do not belong together) and
therefore the unity of the whole is imposed or artificial. It is a way of understanding wholeness that
Bortoft refers to as ‘counterfeit‘ and it represents a mathematical, abstract, homogenizing and static
style of thinking, in which “the universal is the authority and the particular simply does as it is
told” (Bortoft 1999 p. 93). But, particularly since the Enlightenment, it is a style of thinking that
has been extended into many fields — for example, biological classification, and ethics and
aesthetics— in which ‘universals’ are sought (Bortoft 1999 pp. 93-94). Moreover, as I will argue
below, it is a form of wholeness that has come to be embodied in many of our institutions, with dire
consequences.
Several of the key themes of systems theory (Von Bertalanffy 1968, Laszlo 1996) and its
progeny, chaos and complexity theory (Capra 1996 Briggs and Peat 1989) can be understood in
terms of ‘the whole being present in parts’. For example, in the early to mid-twentieth century,
systems theorists realized that whole systems in nature are always nested structurally— cells within
organs, organs within organisms, organisms within ecosystems, and so on (see Fig. 1, p.8) This
arrangement is often referred to as ‘a hierarchy’ but this is a misnomer since any system at a given
level of scale depends upon systems at lesser levels of scale in order to constitute itself: there is no
forest without the trees and other organisms of which it is comprised, but there are no trees and
other organisms without the organs and cells of which these are comprised. In other words, in
nature’s nested systems there is an interdependence of whole and part at all levels of scale and each
level of scale is at once an whole in its own right, as well as a part that expresses an aspect of a
greater whole. The scientist and novelist Arthur Koestler coined the term ‘holarchy’ to describe this
relational nested structure (Koestler 1975 pp. 45–70 and pp. 314–348). Similarly, the themes of
self-organization and emergence, which are intrinsic to natural systems, describe the coordinated
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activity of the interrelated parts of a system which mutually constitute the whole to which they
belong. Self-organization could be defined as the participation of each of the parts in the emergence
of the whole. The ongoing activities of thousands of different organisms in an ecosystem
collectively and spontaneously give rise to the whole ecosystem.
Figure 1. Holarchy in the Natural World
Natural forms are arranged in nested ‘holarchies’ of whole/parts, or ‘holons’. Each such holon is at
once a whole in its own right, but a part of a greater whole and is therefore semi-autonomous or
interdependent with other holons, as well as self-organizing and emergent. Just as holarchies are
central to the sustenance of natural form, so too holarchies of households, neighbourhoods,
villages, towns, cities and regions are key to establishing sustainable patterns of everyday life.
Diagram by Terry Irwin.
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Holarchy in the natural world
molecules
organisms
communities
planet
cells
ecosystems
Thinking in terms of the whole in the part, therefore, enables us to begin to integrate the
Goethean and the systems/complexity approach to understanding nature, and supplies an expanded
definition of what, as I said above, Bortoft refers to as ‘authentic holism’: to summarize, the
authentic whole is present in and reliant on intrinsically related parts to come into being; it fosters
diversity and participation; it is creative, self-organizing, emergent and nested at different levels of
scale. This contrasts with counterfeit holism in which whole and part are disassociated and in
which, therefore, emergence, self-organization, participation, relatedness, diversity and nestedness
are all negated.
A new and radical social holism
The distinction between counterfeit and authentic holism is fundamental to the development
of a holistic framework for transition to a sustainable society. There is an affinity between
counterfeit holism and top down/authoritarian social forms: when translated into the realm of
human affairs, giving ‘the whole’ priority over the parts serves to legitimate control by supposed (ie
counterfeit) social ‘wholes’ over the individuals (the social ‘parts’) of whom they are comprised.
This is not just a theoretical position: there have been numerous historical occasions, from Plato to
the Nazis (Popper 2002, Harrington 1999, Marshall 1992 p.407-408) when ruling classes have
declared that their populace has an obligation of unquestioning allegiance/obedience to the greater
whole (the city state, the nation state, ‘the volk’, to name but a few examples of supposed social
wholes) and often this greater whole is explicitly compared to an organism. It was for this reason
that many liberal philosophers such as Karl Popper rejected social holism out of hand (Popper
2002).
Similarly, there is a convergence between what I have defined as the radical holist tradition
and authentic holism: the themes of self-organization, participation and mutualistic relatedness are
central to both. However, radical holists did not have the distinction of authentic and counterfeit
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holism, and were therefore unable to adequately refute the charge that holism is inherently
authoritarian, or understand how to more usefully apply the organic metaphor to the social realm.
This accounts for Murray Bookchin’s ambivalence about the concept of ‘social wholeness’:
historically, he contended, it has been sought “through homogenization, standardization and a
repressive coordination of human beings” (Bookchin 2005 p.88). But the distinction between
counterfeit and authentic holism establishes a more robust connection between the concept of
holism and emancipatory social forms than has been hitherto possible. There is also, as I will argue
below, an intimate association between authentic holism and the sustainability of everyday life.
Context: everyday life and needs
I began this essay by referring to a long list of problems that affect every aspect of our lives
and that of other species, and argued that a framework was necessary to assist the process of
problem framing and solving that will move us in the direction of a sustainable society. The context
within which problems arise and solutions are to be developed is everyday life: it is the
foundational level for all human experience, and we are unavoidably immersed in it. A framework
for transition, therefore, needs to be embedded in everyday life.
Several important social critics such as Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991) and Guy Debord
(1931-1934) have powerfully argued that everyday life since the Enlightenment has been
trivialized, denigrated or simply ignored by mainstream Western thought (Gardiner 2000, Highmore
2002, Elden et al 2003 pp.69–106) . As a result, the lowly status of everyday life has legitimized the
dissociation of specialized disciplines from it (economic, political, technological, healthcare, the
arts, design, education, architecture among others), and these are now presided over by
‘experts’ (economists, politicians, educators and so on). These specialisms and the fragmented,
increasingly abstracted knowledge they generate, relate at best to aspects of everyday life, but bear
little correspondence to life as we live it. Sociologist Michael Gardiner sums up this critique in his
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argument that “With the transition to modernity, and the fracturing of the social world into a
multiplicity of specialized practices, everyday life emerges as something that is ‘left over', and
hence of little consequence in relation to such 'superior' pursuits as politics, the arts, or
science” (Gardiner 2000 p.11). Such critiques alert us to the contemporary neglect, fragmentation
and alienation of everyday life, but do not answer the question of how to embed a framework for
transition in everyday life.
To begin, we must start in a realm that is even more fundamental than everyday life—that of
human needs. Everyday life is brought into being as people strive to satisfy their needs.
Development economist Manfred Max-Neef (1932–)and colleagues have developed a theory of
what are claimed to be ten material and non-material needs that are common to all cultures:
subsistence; affection; participation; creation; understanding; identity; freedom; protection;
idleness; transcendence (see Table 1, p.10) (Max-Neef et al. 1991). There is room for debate over
the structure and details of this taxonomy (for example, whether a given need is ‘universal’).
However, the more important point, which differentiates it from all other theories of needs, is the
distinction that is made between needs and the means by which needs are satisfied: whilst needs are
universal, ‘satisfiers’ vary wildly from culture to culture and place to place and from one historical
period to another.
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Needs (universal)
Examples of satisfiers (unique to time/place culture)
Subsistence
Food, shelter, clothing
Participation
Associations, churches, councils
Protection
Healthcare, shelter, social security
Affection
Friendship, family
Creation
Workshops, cultural groups, craft, music
Understanding
Literature, education, meditation
Identity
Customs, tradition
Freedom
Political organizations, councils
Idleness
Games, parties, sun bathing
Transcendence
Meditation, religion, spiritual practices
Table 1: A simplified rendition of Max-Neef et al’s matrix of needs and related satisfiers. (Max- Neef
et al. 1991 pp. 32–36) Everyday life is shaped according to how the needs in the left column are
satisfied by the activities in the right column. Some satisfiers will simultaneously satisfy multiple
needs.
It is the variation in how needs are satisfied that gives rise to the diversity of forms of
everyday life that have arisen all over the planet, and that make everyday life specific to place. To
take a simple example, one community may satisfy its food needs (ie part of its subsistence needs)
by fishing, another by farming, and another by hunting. The respective differences in the means by
which needs are satisfied is one of the reasons that the everyday life in fishing/farming/hunting
communities is so different. Furthermore, depending upon whether control of the satisfaction of
needs is internal (endogenous) or external (exogenous) to a community, two fundamentally different
forms of everyday life arise. In the former case, everyday life comes to embody many of the
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features of ‘authentic wholes’, described above; in the latter case, everyday life comes to embody
many of the features of counterfeit wholes.
Control over the satisfaction of needs from within communities and the concept of authentic
wholeness in everyday life are two sides of the same coin. If a community strives to satisfy its
subsistence needs, members collectively plan, manage, grow/hunt/fish, harvest, preserve, process,
store, and prepare their food. To satisfy their needs (whether material or non-material) individuals
must establish collaborative/mutualistic forms of interrelatedness through which their communities
are self-organized. To the extent that they do this everyday life within communities will be
emergent; it will not be subject to imposed blueprints or top down control. Just as the diverse parts
of a plant mutually participate in bringing forth the whole plant, each expressing a different aspect
of its wholeness (and by virtue of this mutual participation belong together), so when needs are
endogenously satisfied (when the satisfaction of a given need is controlled from within the
community in which it arises) individuals mutually participate in bringing forth everyday life. In
this way, the diverse ‘parts’ of everyday life (not only people, but also the natural world and
artifacts) come to belong together, or form an organic-like unity. In the next section I shall discuss
the exact form that wholeness takes in everyday life, but suffice it to say this kind of wholeness
must lie at the heart of transition.
To the extent that a community voluntarily or involuntarily cedes control of the satisfaction of
its needs to external and centralized institutions, everyday life will lose the aforementioned qualities
of wholeness. For example, if food is grown outside of a community’s boundaries and is distributed
and sold by shareholder owned companies (the agenda of which is very different to the community
in question) then the facet of everyday life that is represented by the satisfaction of the subsistence
need is now externally controlled. In such an example the satisfaction of the need is managed rather
than self-organized and is directed rather than emergent: the decline of self-organization and
emergence represents a decline in the community’s freedom. The mutual participation that
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previously enabled people, artifacts and nature—the parts of everyday life—to belong together is
now diminished. As belonging together diminishes, so too does everyday life’s vitality, reciprocity
and creativity. There is a direct correlation, therefore, between the extent that ‘satisfiers’ are taken
out of a community’s control and development of alienated relationships between people, their
artifacts and nature, the fragmentation of everyday life. All of the problems I begun this essay by
outlining can be described in terms of this three-way alienation process. There is, then, a causal
relationship between the loss of control of the satisfaction of needs and the unsustainability of
everyday life.
Just as authentic wholeness and control of the satisfaction of needs are two sides of the same
coin, so too are loss of control of the satisfaction of needs and counterfeit holism. Just as authentic
wholeness is at the heart of the framework for transition, counterfeit wholeness, with its association
with the loss of social cohesion, cultural diversity, community autonomy and a harmonious
relationship with the natural world, is at the root of many of the problems I outlined at the
beginning of this essay.
The Domains of Everyday Life
I have discussed how everyday life arises out of the satisfaction of needs, and how two
fundamentally different patterns of everyday life are created according to whether communities are
in control of this process: self-organized vs. managed, emergent vs. top down, participatory vs. non-
participatory. But whilst I have spoken in general terms about these contrasting forms of everyday
life I have not been specific about the form that wholeness takes in everyday life. The question
remains: if the parts of everyday life are people, the natural environment and artifacts, what are the
wholes within which self-organized and participatory activities take place?
In my account of wholeness I showed that whole systems in nature are nested, that for
example a cell, organ or organism is at once a whole in its own right and a part of a greater whole.
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Each whole, or holon as Koestler called these whole/parts (Koestler 1975 pp. 45–70 and pp. 314–
348), within this arrangement, is therefore semi-autonomous, and wholes and parts are networked at
different levels of scale, each embodying a different level of complexity, self-organization,
participation, relatedness and emergence (the ecosystem is more complex than the single cell).
Similarly, when communities are in control of the satisfaction of their needs, everyday life
takes on a nested structure: households exist within villages and neighbourhoods, villages and
neighbourhoods within towns or cities, towns or cities within regions. I have coined the term
Domains of Everyday Life to describe these social forms (see Fig. 2, p.16) (Kossoff 2008). When
these are vital, they are the structural wholes of everyday life; nested, bounded and networked
forms, the emergence of which reflects the place-specific ways in which the participatory and self-
organized satisfaction of needs occurs. These Domains are semi-autonomous and mutually
interdependent wholes, since needs can only be partially satisfied in any given Domain. The
inhabitants of a neighbourhood, for example, will still depend upon other neighbourhoods and the
city in which their neighbourhood is ensconced for the satisfaction of many of their needs. The
integrity of the Domains, the vitality of everyday life within them, is related to the degree to which
needs are satisfied through self-organization and participation, which in turn is dependent on the
quality of relatedness within and between the Domains. In short, the Domains provide the context
for everyday life and, when they are vital, their structure resembles an ecosystem or other organic
system.
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Figure 2. The Domains of
Everyday Life
When they are vital, the Domains of
Everyday Life represent different
kinds of community, each with its
own typical characteristics. This is
a reflection of the different patterns
of relationship —between people,
the things they make and nature—
that are necessary to satisfy needs
at different levels of scale. Different
kinds of activities are therefore
appropriate to each Domain.
Diagram by Terry Irwin.
A cursory glance at descriptions of pre-industrial capitalist communities, or communities only
recently affected by this process, demonstrates the range of needs that were once typically satisfied
within the Domains, giving them a great deal of vitality. For example, the historian Kirkpatrick Sale
(1937–) lists fourteen different kinds of artisans (plus shopkeepers, publicans, and local farmers)
that would have served a typical small English town of about 2,000 people even in the late
nineteenth century (Sale 1980 p.400). The chronicler of rural life Norman Wymer lists a similar
number for a much smaller English village (Wymer 1951 p.37). Many anthropological studies of
non-Westernized societies also reveal the vitality of everyday life at each level of scale. For
example, in anthropologist Helena Norberg Hodge’s study of Ladakh, Ancient Futures (Norberg-
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Planet
Household
Village or
Neighborhood
City
Region
Hodge 2000), it is possible to discern how, as recently as the nineteen seventies, everyday life in
household, village, and region are self-organized around extensive collaborative networks. Through
these, not only were needs satisfied in many different ways, but also Ladakhi’s came to belong
together, ie they created unified communities which harmonized with the natural world in which
they were embedded.
The Domains of Everyday Life have repeatedly arisen throughout history and across the
planet, although different cultures have emphasized different Domains. For example a hunter-
gatherer culture would have emphasized the Domain of the region within which they moved and to
which they would be highly attuned; for them the Domain of the city would have been non-existent.
For the Ancient Greeks, the city (‘polis’) was the level of everyday life ascribed the highest status,
and the role of the household was seen as a place for slaves and women. The neighbourhoods of
medieval Europe were so highly developed that Mumford described the medieval cities as
“congeries of little cities, each with a certain degree of autonomy and self-sufficiency, each formed
so naturally out of common needs and purposes that it only enriched and supplemented the
whole.” (Mumford 1961 p.310). It is notable Mumford himself implies a connection between the
control of the satisfaction of needs and the wholeness of communities.
When the satisfaction of needs is controlled by communities in place, each of the Domains of
Everyday Life assumes its own unique role in the life of the community: the same needs may be
satisfied, but in different ways at each level of scale. For example, at the level of the household, the
need for ‘affection’ would be satisfied by long term, often biologically based, multigenerational
relationships, whilst at the level of the neighbourhood, the same need would be satisfied by more
freely chosen friendships. Similarly, the same need is likely to be satisfied in different ways at the
same level of scale in different places. So, although the Domains of Everyday Life could be
described as universal/archetypal forms that have been common worldwide, throughout history,
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these archetypes have been diversely expressed as emergent properties of people satisfying their
needs in ways appropriate to their time, culture and place.
When the Domains are vital each represents a different level and facet of community, and
each has its own qualities and possibilities. Moving from inner Domains to outer Domains, from the
household through to the region, relationships between people, their artifacts and nature become
progressively less intimate and more transient, but more multiple and diverse. When many needs
are satisfied within the household (as was the case in many pre-industrial communities) it could be
seen as a small, tightly bound ‘community’ based on relatively few, long-term relationships; under
similar circumstances the Domain of the Neighbourhood is a larger, less tightly bound community,
but has more variegated relationships, and so on, moving out through the Domains. It is this shift
from ‘thick’ to ‘thin’ and few to many relationships that accounts for the changing character of
everyday life at different levels of scale. For example, in pre-industrial society the Domains of the
Household, Neighbourhood and Village were levels of everyday life better suited to the creation of
livelihoods than the Domain of the City, which provided a market that enabled neighbourhoods,
villages and households to trade. The Domain of the City or Region was more likely to support
universities, hospitals and other cultural institutions than the inner domains.
When self-organization, participation and interrelatedness are highly developed, each of the
‘parts’ of everyday life contributes to the emergence of the wholes of everyday life — the Domains.
Take for example, the activity of making and eating a loaf of bread baked in a household, placed on
a board, and cut with a knife. This represents an interaction of the human, the natural and the
artifactual that together help the household emerge as a self-organized form. When the bread is
made from wheat grown in the local countryside and processed in the city; the board is made from
wood from local forests and crafted in a nearby village; the knife is engineered in a local workshop,
then baking and eating a loaf in the household also helps region, city and neighbourhood emerge as
self-organized forms, and bread, board and knife all express different but related aspects of the
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household, neighbourhood, city and region. In short, bread, knife, board, and the people who are
making and using these, belong together: everyday life has organic unity.
This describes basic form of everyday life in pre-industrial societies of all kinds —hunter-
gatherer, horticulturalist, agrarian and nomadic. The stability and longevity of such societies along
with their ability to flourish often in adverse circumstances with minimal technology and resources
(their sustainability) correlates with this organic form, and emerges as a result of non-alienated
patterns of relatedness between people, artifacts and nature. That is, the parts of everyday life
belong together. The greater the extent to which the parts of everyday life belong together, through
mutualistic relationships, the more authentically whole everyday life is and the more likely it is that
everyday life will be sustainable.
There are very few, if any, preindustrial societies in which everyday life could be described as
purely and unambiguously authentically ‘whole’; elements of control, coercion, stratification and
fragmentation are usually present. Nevertheless, most pre-industrial societies managed to retain
something of this basic organic form and managed to live sustainably ‘in place’ for generations.
Described in these terms, we can begin to see what is meant by the loss of ‘organic’ social form that
has been repeatedly bemoaned by many sociologists, historians, anthropologists and philosophers.
The sociologist Gerard Delanty notes, for example, the “discourse of loss” that is at the heart of
“modern thought from the Enlightenment onwards ... with a sense of the passing of an allegedly
organic world” (Delanty 2003 p.11).
The Decline of the Domains of Everyday Life
As social and economic theorist Mario Kamenetzky notes, control of the satisfaction of
human needs by elites has been one of the hallmarks of civilization (Kamenetzky, 1992 p. 186), and
is a reflection of its hierarchical structure. In our era this phenomenon has penetrated so far into
everyday life that satisfiers are predominantly externally controlled. This has resulted in the demise
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of the Domains of Everyday Life. They are still present — we still have ‘households’, ‘villages,
‘neighbourhoods’, ‘cities’ and ‘regions’— but instead of functioning as semi-autonomous and
robust wholes that integrate the satisfaction of needs in everyday life, today the Domains have
become vestigial; they are fragments of externally controlled, unsustainable globalized systems run
by institutions that are unaccountable to the communities they service. Typical of the radical holists
was Martin Buber’s observation that society has been “hollowed out” by industrial–capitalism
(Buber 1958 p.14). Conceptualizing everyday life in terms of the Domains makes it clearer what it
is that has been hollowed out, and how this has occurred.
The result is that for most people on the planet, subsistence needs can now only be met by
engaging in the globalized market place, which is centrally controlled by a handful of corporations.
The primary objective of these is not to satisfy needs but to make a profit. The non-material needs
identified by Max-Neef, such as ‘understanding’, ‘participation’,‘freedom’ and ‘security’ have
suffered a similar fate, as the political process, education, leisure, healthcare and so on have been
appropriated by both the market and the nation-state.
The decline of the Domains, or what could be considered ecosystems of everyday life,
parallels the destruction of natural ecosystems, and the consequences of their decline are many, and
global in scope. Many of the problems that I began this essay by listing are expressions of the
erosion of the organic structure of everyday life. For example, social alienation, and any number of
related issues, arises out of the decline in community at every level of scale; regional culture
disappears as unique place based satisfiers controlled from within the Domains are abandoned;
endlessly sprawling megalopolises reflect the disappearance of the boundaries within which
communities once constituted themselves. In other words, as the Domains of Everyday Life go into
decline, society becomes ecologically, socially, economically, politically and culturally
unsustainable.
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No institution or social phenomenon is entirely counterfeit or authentically whole, elements of
each are no doubt always present. Therefore it would be an oversimplification to portray everyday
life in pre-industrial communities as an unalloyed expression of authentic wholeness; and it is a
mistake to represent contemporary everyday life as an unalloyed expression counterfeit wholeness;
it is always a matter of degree. Nevertheless, whereas formerly the Domains were the context
within which needs both arose and were satisfied, now this intimate association has been eroded:
everyday life in modern society is presided over by institutions (such as central and local
government, corporations of all kinds, universities and schools, hospitals etc) that are dedicated
both to the production and control of satisfiers. This results in the extreme centralization of
everyday life, and a situation in which many needs are satisfied inadequately and in a piecemeal
fashion.
For example, many historians and anthropologists have shown that in pre-industrial
communities, harvest of food not only met the need for subsistence, but was also a festive occasion
which involved the whole community: several needs identified by Max-Neef—subsistence,
participation, affection, idleness—were all satisfied simultaneously in an integrated way. The
harvesting of food by a large corporation, on the other hand, is aimed at satisfying a single need
alone (other institutions are relied on to satisfy the other needs) and in as far as the food produced is
toxic and nutrient poor this need is not satisfied adequately. The profit generated from this harvest is
funneled to shareholders and highly placed individuals within the corporation to enable these
individuals, to paraphrase Mario Kamenetsky, to acquire more than their fare share of satisfiers
(Kamenetzky, 1992 pp. 185-186). Whilst within such a corporation there will be elements of self-
organization and participation, such a corporation is, structurally speaking, an overwhelmingly
counterfeit whole, hierarchically organized and non-participatory. Because of this, the quality of
relationships within such organizations is low, and top down management is necessary in lieu of any
natural social unity.
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The process of appropriation of decentralized and place-based satisfiers by counterfeit social
wholes eviscerates the Domains. Counterfeit holism is essentially a process of homogenization and
as everyday life is increasingly dominated by organizations that can be thought of as counterfeit
wholes, so everyday life itself becomes homogenized. The story is the same the world over: it is the
story of industrial-capitalist civilization’s encounter with a pattern of everyday life as old as
humanity itself. When a supermarket empties an English high street (the Domain of the
Neighbourhood) of its independently owned shops; when a Chinese village (the Domain of the
Village) is uprooted to make way for a new manufacturing complex; when a Spanish village dies
because its inhabitants must go elsewhere to earn a livelihood; when the economy of an American
industrial city implodes because of the availability of cheap labour in other regions of the world;
when an Ecuadorian tribe has its land (the Domain of the Region) polluted by an oil corporation.
The diversity found in the myriad manifestations of the household, village, neighbourhood, city and
region disappears in the face of a globalised but fragmented homogeneity that is controlled by
institutions that are not meaningfully integrated into the web of relatedness of any Domain.
The Domains of Everyday Life and the transition to a sustainable society
The transition to a sustainable society will require the reconstitution and reinvention of
households, villages, neighbourhoods, towns, cities and regions everywhere on the planet as
interdependent, nested, self-organized, participatory and diversified wholes. This will essentially be
the transition from counterfeit to authentic holism in everyday life. The result will be a
decentralized and diversified structure of everyday life which is in contrast to the centralized and
increasingly homogenized structure that we have become accustomed to. It will resemble the
“community of communities” that Martin Buber envisioned (Buber 1958 p.136), except that it will
embody the communion not just of people, but of people, their artifacts and nature, and will come
into being at multiple, interrelated levels of scale.
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It should be emphasized that this should not, and cannot, represent a simple return to
traditional life ways. Modernity has brought with it many social and technological advances that
should not be dispensed with. Furthermore, an additional Domain, the Domain of the Planet, has
been introduced. This Domain can potentially bestow upon everyday life a cosmopolitanism and
diversity which was not available to pre-industrial communities. Reconstituting the Domains,
therefore, is not simply about re-localization; it is about establishing a symbiotic relationship
between the global and the local.
The Domains cannot be reduced to separate social forms, economic forms, political forms,
cultural forms, technological forms, artistic forms or architectural forms: when they are vital they
represent the integration of all of these facets of everyday life in ways unique to particular places
by particular communities. Reconstituting the Domains is an inherently transdisciplinary and
grassroots process that represents an opportunity to reintegrate and recontextualize knowledge,
embedding it in both community and everyday life. It calls for the intentional, or designed,
reintegration of all facets of everyday life in place, and suggests that a new kind of designer is
needed, a ‘transition designer’.
Any place-based self-organized and participatory activity aimed at satisfying a need at any
level of scale, that protects or engenders the intrinsic relatedness (the relatedness of people, artifacts
and nature) within and among the Domains, will contribute to the transition to a sustainable society.
Such activities will comprise facets of everyday life through which the Domains will reemerge as
vital, semi-autonomous authentic wholes. Firstly, we need to look at the Domains, as they exist
today, and ask what needs are currently being endogenously satisfied, and how this satisfaction
might be protected and ‘amplified’, to coin sustainability designer Ezio Manzini’s term (Mendoza
2010). Secondly, we need to develop new, endogenous satisfiers for needs that are currently
exogenously (and probably inadequately) ‘satisfied’.
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The variety of endogenously organized and controlled projects and practices that could be
established (or where they are already present, must be protected) within this framework are as
limitless as the myriad features of everyday life itself. A composting lavatory, kitchen garden or a
larder of home preserved food in the Domain of the Household; a community laundry, cafe,
grocery, art studio, garden, cinema, health centre, school, manufacturing and repair workshop or
neighbourhood council in the Domain of the neighbourhood; a municipally owned and managed
bank, theatre, concert hall, park, ecologically sensitive factory, food market, transport system,
telecommunications company or citizens council in the Domain of the City; a farm, forest or large
scale renewable energy facility in the Domain of the Region. When such projects and initiatives
begin to be connected and integrated in particular places (the farm and forest with the market, the
cafe, the grocery, the health centre, the garden, the larder and the composting toilet; the workshop
with the laundry, the cinema, the factory, the transport system and the renewable energy facility; the
school, the bank, the art studio, the councils with all of these) they will create ecosystems of
interdependence and mutual benefit, parts and wholes of everyday life at all levels of scale
enfolding and reciprocating one another.
Conclusion
I began this essay by arguing that a framework for transition needed to provide a narrative
which explains how our contemporary plight arose; a vision of a desirable alternative to
contemporary society; a means of addressing problems and connecting solutions at appropriate
levels of scale; a structure within which transdisciplinary and grassroots collaboration can take
place; and a humane definition of sustainability. In updating the radical holist tradition by the
application of a holistic paradigm to everyday life, all of these features of a framework have
emerged. Hopefully it will provide a useful tool to ‘transitionists’, whatever problem their efforts
are directed at, and where ever they are on the planet.
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