An open letter to Apple-CEO Steve Jobs

Showing that space and time are related Einstein introduced a radically new worldview into science transcending the notion of fixed space and continuously flowing time. Expressing lasting time in the moment, presence becoming transparent in its wholeness by reflecting eternity, Picasso's paintings anticipate an arising structure of consciousness which being in its formation is new and aperspective implies that certain values, norms and ways of thinking and behavior have to be questioned for its recognition. Restricting himself to only those things that can be shared with the whole humanity, Gandhi not just teached the principles of nonviolence (ahimsa) and "self-sufficiency" (swadeshi) but also lived what he believed in. And Apple? An apple poisoned Snow-white, a golden apple lead to a ten years war and the fall of Trojan and all the misery of the last five thousand years root in the plucking of the apple from the tree of knowledge. [apple-symbol] So easy as the primordial sin No other industry devaluates its own products as quickly as the information technology industry and creates new desires to keep the business going. It tells us that computers will save nature, boost education and bring wealth, prosperity and democracy. How many trees have been felt for magazines and books on information technology (IT), which are outdated short after release? How much energy is wasted for idle stand-by? How many children suffer the consequences of sitting for hours in creepy electromagnetic fields of screens indulging in violent and sexistic videogames? How much wealth and prosperity when the machine is outdated after a few years and you have to keep pace with technology in order to stay in business? People are praising the internet for bringing wealth and democracy ("...allows everyone to be publisher or pundit"), forgetting that the major part of the world's population don't even have access to phone lines and nevertheless enough income to afford the infrastructure to become an internet programmer; and internet is written with capital 'I' meanwhile Democracy seems to deserve just a small 'd'. What computers introduced is a 'global casino', a stock market in which - by transferring trillions of dollars daily across the globe - a handful of rich and in position can gamble with the labor, energy and resources of humankind. No - computers are not good nor bad. They're just tools. But our use, our lifestyle, our values promoted with that will form the outcome of our society in future are. If we use IT only for fast capital flows, if the philosophy behind the business focuses just expansion and raising numbers, if the values promoted with is consumption non-stop, then it is time to plant an apple tree! There is another side: Computers revealed the beauty of fractals (the Divine Spirit in [root] -1), brought light in complex dynamical systems and non-linear differential equations, discovered the hidden order in chaos and gave us insights for a deeper understanding of our universe bringing forth a new paradigm. A paradigm transcendenting the Neo-Darwinian survival of the fittest into 'continual cooperation and mutual dependence among all life forms'(1) where 'evolutionary change is seen as the result of life's inherent tendency to create novelty'(2); a paradigm, in which the final, thermal collapse of the universe due to ever-increasing entropy becomes a cosmos of spontaneous order arising out of chaos; a paradigm, in which the determined, clockwork man as machine becomes an organically growing and spiritually evolving human integral part in and of the Web of Life and endowed with self-reflexive consciousness. From an universe of being to an universe of becoming. THINK DIFFERENT! The urge for a new paradigm "The extension of the law of non-violence in the domain of economics means nothing less than the introduction of moral values as a factor to be considered in regulating international commerce."(3) Gandhi, 26-101924

Meanwhile physicists changed their worldview drastically after the introduction of quantum physics, other fields of science and especially politics and economics still sleep Newton's sleep in the graves of the old paradigm. As Capra writes: "This paradigm consists of a number of entrenched ideas and values, among them the view of the universe as a mechanical system composed of elementary building blocks, the view of the human body as a machine, the view of life in society as a competitive struggle for existence, the belief in unlimited material progress to be achieved to economic and technical growth, and - last, not least - the belief that a society in which the female is everywhere subsumed under the male is one that follows a basic law of nature."(4) A paradigm has deep impacts on the behavior of a society. It is "a constellation of concepts, values, perceptions, and practices shared by a community, which forms a particular vision of reality that is the basis of the way the community organizes itself."(5) Values are part of a paradigm. Toady's economy especially that of IT - where 'just the paranoid survives' reflects pitifully the old worldview, life as a deadly competition in a hostile environment where remaining alive is the only thing that counts. Dignity, love, charity are alien in this world. To introduce moral values into economics means therefore to shift to a paradigm whose values have value. Moral values derive from ethics and ethics can't be separated from spiritual awareness: "Human life being an undivided whole, no line can ever be drawn between its different compartments, nor between ethics and politics...One's everyday life is never capable of being separated from one's spiritual being. Both act and react upon one another."(6) Gandhi, 30-3-1947 Deep ecology - the paradigm of peace expresses Gandhi's thinking in modern terminology and accounts for the spiritual need: "Deep ecology recognizes the intrinsic value of all living beings and views of humans as just one particular strand in the Web of Life...Ultimately, deep ecological awareness is spiritual and religious awareness. When the concept of the human spirit is understood as the mode of consciousness in which the individual feels a sense of belonging, of

connectedness, to the cosmos as a whole, it becomes clear that ecological awareness is spiritual in its deepest essence."(7) "It is my firm belief that in order to solve human problems in all their dimensions, we must combine and harmonize economic development with spiritual growth."(8) H.H. the Dalai Lama THINK GLOBALLY Advertisement is not enough. If you really intend to link Apple with Gandhi, you have to take into account what Gandhi stood in for, i.e. his beliefs and his ideology. And these have a deep impact on business practices and our way of life: "You cannot build non-violence on a factory civilization, but it can be built on selfcontained villages...You have, therefore, to be rural-minded before you can be non-violent, and to be rural-minded you have to have faith in the spinning wheel."(9) Gandhi, 4-11-1939 The spinning wheel represents simple machines that can be manufactured and maintained in the villages and lead to employment of the villagers. "It is mass production, but mass production in people's own homes. If you multiply individual production to millions, would it not give you mass production on a tremendous scale?"(10) Gandhi was not against machines as such but "opposed to machinery which displaces labour and leaves it idle"(11) - "I would welcome every improvement in the cottage machine, but I know that it is criminal to displace hand labour by the introduction of power-driven spindles unless one is, at the same time, ready to give millions of farmers some other occupation in their homes."(12) He even accepted lager conglomerates when the production required it: "I do visualize electricity, ship-building, iron works, machine making and the like existing side by side with village handicrafts. But the order of dependence will be reversed...In the State of the future, ...[industrialization] will subserve the villages and their crafts."(13) Gandhi believed that the nonviolent society could best be achieved through a thoroughgoing decentralization of power, production and wealth. "True democracy ... has to worked from below by the people of every village."(14) "Therefore we have to

concentrate on the village being selfcontained, manufacturing mainly for use."(15) The village to him was a 'manageable small group of people' constituting a 'unit of society' large enough to offer a diversified life and small enough to generate and sustain a sense of community; it should be self-sufficient in the matter of its 'vital necessities' - food, clothing, shelter'(16) "Provided this character of the village industry is maintained, there would be no objection to villagers using even the modern machines and tools that they can make and can afford to use."(17) The second fundamental principal in Gandhi's thinking is the duty of bread-labour, 'the obligation for each and everyone to engage in productive physical labour.'(18) "If all laboured for their bread and no more then there would be enough food and enough leisure for all ...Such labour would be the highest form of sacrifice...Let anyone who doubts the acuracy of this proposition try to sweat for his bread; he will derive the greatest relish from the product of his own labour, improve his health and discover that many things he took where superfluities."(19) The duty of bread-labour can be generalized into a plea for 'integrated living' where daily duty and daily needs form an interconnected, interdependent whole. From the viewpoint of health daily physical labour in natural surroundings could prevent many of today's diseases. If we focused on integrated solutions today's fitness tools would not just lead to the growth of muscles but also of plants and crops - and provide a healthy diet in addition; the kitchen wastes can serve as food for the nearby farmer's cow, whose dung is used as fertilizer, etc. In this way we have to revive the literal meaning of the word oikonomia (economy), the household management. Such economic theory describes the ways in which the households and the villages can properly use the means at their disposal for the better living of a good life.(20) This way of life being like an ecosystem where all wastes are transformed into resources is termed ecoliteracy. "Being ecologically literate, or ecoliterate, means understanding the principles of organization of ecological communities (i.e. ecosystems) and using those principles for creating sustainable human

communities."(21) IT that is subservient to the village, i.e. promotes and supports ecoliteracy, can not just lead to thoroughgoing decentralization of our society but also provide and transfer coded experience, i.e. information for its optimization. "Let us become really village-minded. Village children come to us. Let us teach them how to live truly."(22) Gandhi, 1-9-1946 ACT LOCALLY "The idea is not to force the poor to accept the institutions designed for the non-poor, but to develop new institutions or adapt existing institutions - weather credit, agricultural extension or marketing - so that they become subservient to the poor and not the other way around"(23) A company has therefore to take into account all the consequences that come among directly or indirectly - with the sales and propagation of their products - socially, environmentally and spiritually. Its products have to be integrated into a concept, a vision for the future so that they become subservient to the society as a whole and not just to a few. "Every village has to become a self-sufficient republic. This does not require brave resolutions. It requires brave, corporate, intelligent work."(24) Gandhi, 18-11-1922 IT has the potential to change our society into a sustainable one but this potential won't be implemented by the invisible hand. "If we are to protect and preserve our environment on a global scale, we all must do our part, as nations, as families, as individuals"(25) - and as companies! I invite Apple to work together with people engaged in the fields of deep ecology, third world development, humanistic economy etc. and integrate its products into a coherent concept for solutions for a small planet. "The most urgent need today is not to create an affluent society, but a no-poverty society where all people have their basic needs satisfied...We believe that using modern technology, and ancient value systems and traditions, we can directly link up villages communities in the world with one another"(26) A.T. Ariyaratne

Einstein, Picasso, Gandhi show the path. Where do you want to be tomorrow? Maybe one day humankind will think different about the [apple-symbol] and its products and say All Poor People Love 'Em App(l)endix How the Apple should be: A affordable, not aristocratic Whatever cannot be shared with the masses is taboo to me."(27) P practical, not pretentious "Under the Gandhian economic order, the character of production would b e determined by social necessity and not by personal whim or greed."(28) P path, not paunch "I want the concentration of wealth, not in the hands of a few, but in the hands of all."(29) L legitimate, not licentious "True economics...stands for social justice, it promotes the good of al l equally including the weakest, and is indispensable for decent life."(30) E essential "Swadeshi is that spirit in us which restricts us to the use and servic e of our immediate surroundings to the exclusion of the more remote."(31) not equivocal "What do you mean by 'think different', Steve?
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Endnotes (1) Fritiof Capra, The Web of Life, HarperCollins, '96; p. 226 (2) Capra, '96; p. 221 (3) Gandhi, quoted in R.K. Prabhu, U.R. Rao, The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1967; p. 263 (4) Capra, '96; p. 6 (5) Capra, '96; p.4 (6) Gandhi, quoted in Prabhu, Rao, '67; p. 101 (7) Capra, '96; p.6 (8) Tenzin Gyatso,. the 14th Lama, A Human Approach to Worlpeace, Wisdom Publications, '87; p.22-4 (9) Gandhi, 4-11-1939, quoted in Prabhu, Rao, '67; p. 369-70 (10) Gandhi, 2-11-1934, ibid.; p. 237-8 (11) Gandhi, 15-9-46, ibid.; p. 236 (12) Gandhi, 5-1-1925, ibid.; p. 240 (13) Gandhi, 27-1-1940, ibid.; p. 251 (14) Gandhi, 18-1-1948, ibid.; p. 340 (15) Gandhi, 28-9-1946, ibid.; p. 244 (16) cf Jayaprakash Narayan, Towards Total Revolution, Popular Prakashan, Bombay, '78; p.218 (17) Gandhi, 28-9-1946, quoted in Prabhu, Rao, '67; p. 244 (18)Gandhi, quoted in Manmohan Choudhuri, Exploring Gandhi, The Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi; p.193 (19) Gandhi, ibid.; p.194 (20) cf. Ernest Barker, The Politics of Aristotle, Oxford University Press, '79; p. lvi (21) Capra, '96; p.289 (22) Gandhi, 1-9-1946, quoted in Prabhu, Rao, '67; p. 395 (23) Idriss Jazairy, in Share International, Vol. 12 No 4 - May '93 (24) Gandhi, quoted in Prabhu, Rao, '67; 371 (25) Al Gore, 'Respect the Land', in Time, Nov '97 (26) A.T. Ariyaratne, in Share International, Vol. 13 No 2 March '94 (27) Gandhi, 2-11-1934, quoted in Prabhu, Rao, '67; p. 5 (28) Gandhi, quoted in Choudhuri; p.211 (29) Gandhi, 13-11-1924, quoted in Prabhu, Rao, '67; p.238 (30) Gandhi, 9-10-1937, ibid.; p. 264 (31) Gandhi, quoted in Choudhuri; p.200.

May all beins be free from suffering and its cause, May all beings have happiness and its cause, May all beings find their inner Truth, May all beings be happy!