In this book Janet McIntyre-Mills makes a heart-felt appeal to us as humans to practice "caring stewardship" as a way of being on the planet. This is a way of being where, via participatory democracy, we think though (without denying the role of human emotions in the process of thinking) the possible consequences of choices being made on any level (local, national, regional, international). She suggests that "rational caretaking praxis" would amount to ensuring that the voiceless (who need to gain more voice), the very poor (whose poverty the richer are complicit in producing), and the powerless (whose restricted life chances restricts possibilities for empowerment) "do not live in misery". At the same time she shows that these concerns themselves need to be bound up more closely with an understanding of our responsibilities vis-a-vis caring for the earth of which we are part, so that we do not treat "resources" - whether natural or human - as exploitable for their use-value to us.
Norma R.A. Romm
August 2010
Democracy and Sustainability for Healing Pathways
Democracy and Sustainability for ISCE Chapter3