Stability vs. Sustainability
Cultures will promote two different ways to live as a member of a community, either in an individualistic or collectivist way. In recent years, Western society has pushed for individualism as the way to live. This kind of mentality serves selfish and unsustainable wants (not needs). In many Indigenous cultures the group is very important, and the mentality is collective. In a collective mindset, we can see our impacts much better and often learn to want less for ourselves (again excluding needs).
The art installation, Untilled, by Pierre Huyghe is interesting to study because its existence is fluid. Humans generally like stability. However, stability cannot truly exist. Small things will definitely change. Perhaps those small things will be like the gradual decomposing of compost or the growing of plants. Big things will also inevitably change. Take the growth of the bee head on the statue, for example. The head gradually grows with time and so does the visual look. This growth is healthy though, because a colony of bees is expanding and that helps both the bees themselves and the Earth!
Stability is a human construct that we like to believe is possible but is promoted along with individualism in today’s Western culture. Stability is not sustainable. In the process of trying to achieve stability and thinking individually, we miss the bigger picture. We create plastics that takes thousands of years to decompose, we build houses that take the place of trees (causing the near-extinction of them in some cities), and we work tirelessly to extend the human life-expectancy. Instead of working on the world, we work for ourselves. If we take the imagery in Diderot's D’Alembert’s Dream as an example, the collective being of all the bees together is strong. Without the teamwork and collectivistic thinking, they would not be able to make honey or be strong against attack. Bees stick together. However, we have not taken the examples set by both Indigenous cultures and bees. We charted our own path, and we are failing. Individualism is not sustainable.
The changes happening in our world because of individualistic thinking and industrial growth are not positives ones. What we have created is the equivalent to the statue in Untilled, which will be there long after us.
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