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practical problem solving—one that is engaging and rewarding, that respects people and allows them to develop their own values in interaction with one another. This means learning, modeling, and mentoring the “democratic arts.”
    Fully understanding democracy as a process rather than a structure of government means accepting that it can never be fully realized. In his 1990 address to the U.S. Congress, Czechoslovakia’s President Vaclav Havel reminded Americans:
    One may approach [democracy] as one would the horizon, but it can never be fully attained.… You [Americans] have thousands of problems, as other countries do, but you have one great advantage. You have been approaching democracy uninterrupted for 200 years.
    Can we come to believe in democracy as an ever-unfolding dynamic to which there can be no final resting point? Such a vision suggests a fragile ecology of democracy —democracy as ever-evolving relationships through which people solve common problems and meet deep human needs.
    Midwives to the New
    The view I have attempted here would allow us finally to leave behind the worthless debate about whether we should address environmental problems by convincing people to alter individual life choices. Or, instead, should we work for changes in our economic rules and structures?
    I’ve held—and believe my intuition confirmed by people’s experience during the last 20 years—that so-called structural changes can come only as we reshape our very understanding of ourselves, gain confidence in our intuitive sense of connectedness, and therefore gain courage. That confidence and courage, as I argue throughout Diet for a Small Planet , come through making new choices in every aspect of our lives. Gaining confidence in our capacities and values, we’re able to challenge messages telling us that market exchange is a virtual divine law whose consequences we must live with; and to question economic dogma making giant corporations “private” and therefore outside democratic accountability.
    As we begin to let go of the notion that there are economic laws that take us off the hook, the environmental awakening reminds us that there are indeed laws— ecological laws—that we cannot escape.
    There is no “away.” (Radioactive wastes cannot be stored away because that place doesn’t exist.)
    And if that is true, then so is the corollary—everything is connected. We can’t do just one thing.
    And, finally, since in a wink of historical time we have spent our “fossil fuel” savings, we have no choice but to live on our solar budget.
    Now these are pretty obvious truths. And the environmental scolds will tell us that these truths determine our limited means, to which we must now resign ourselves. But is this bad news, really? What such a negative casting ignores is the deep human need precisely for limits—for what are limits but guidelines, a coherent context for human conduct, helping us make choices?
    Looked at thusly, a feeling of relief might come over us instead of panic. For it is unboundedness, endless choices that make people crazy. If little kids need rules to know they’re loved and to be happy, perhaps all human beings have that need. Limitlessness means meaninglessness. Nature’s very real, nonarbitrary, and universal laws can offer a sense of boundedness, imbuing our individual acts with meaning and giving us direction in making choices.
    As we gain the courage to let go of the human-made laws of economic dogma, in which we have sought relief from choice, perhaps we can discover instead the real laws of the biotic community. In this discovery we can take joy in becoming contributing members, not masters, of that community.
    Yes, it is an extraordinary time to be alive. Can the 21st century be the era in which human beings finally come home, meeting our deep need for security and meaning not in ignoring or conquering, but in living within the community of nature? Now that the stakes are