Samba and Sustainability?

Ok, you are probably thinking: "What does music has to do with sustainability?" or "Of course, she is brazilian so samba has to be woven into anything". Well, both of these thoughts ran through my mind. Mostly, this connection happened by chance for me. I just recently finished reading "O Misterio do Samba" by Hermano Vianna (there is an english version, for those interested click here) and was amazed by how he describes the "mystery" of how samba went from being rejected by society into becoming a symbol of brazilian nationality and pride. Samba was not only frowned upon, it was banned from being played and danced in public and musicians and enthusiasts were gathering in secret places. What really stuck for me was how culture at the time was in a sense manipulated to reflect the growing sense of nationalism that the current president (Getulio Vargas) was trying to instill in the population. The shift from outcast to spotlight happened with a lot of help from a Brazilian anthropologist Gilberto Freyre who believed in the beauty of the expressions of the african and indigenous people and in a sense rejected all american and european influences in the brazilian culture.

And what about sustainability? Well, a book that I am reading right now is the 2010 State of the World report on "Transforming Cultures" (click here for more info and to download free chapters). Yes, that is the connection, transforming cultures. In this report, several scientists and professionals from different areas discuss the impact of consumerism in our planet's ecosystem. The current levels of consumption are so high that to sustainably support the world's population we would need a third more of Earth's capacity than is available. In other words, humanity now uses the resources and services of 1.3 Earths, undermining the resilience of the ecosystems that we depend on. This report proposes that we curb consumerism and stop shopping for "unnecessary" items. This is a very hard thing to ask. Transforming cultures is no easy task but the samba example gave me a glimpse into a cultural shift that happened when politicians, artists, social scientists and the population were willing.

"Preventing the collapse of human civilization requires nothing less than a wholesale transformation of dominant cultural patterns. This transformation would reject consumerism - the cultural orientation that leads people to find meaning, contentment and acceptance through the way they consume - as taboo and establish in its place a new cultural framework centered on sustainability. In the process, a revamped understanding of "natural" would emerge: it would mean individual and societal choices that cause minimal ecological damage or, better yet, that restore Earth's ecological systems to health. Such a shift - something more fundamental than the adoption of new technologies or government policies, which are often regarded as the key drivers of a shift to sustainable societies - would radically reshape the way people understand and act in the world."

So I wonder if this shift is possible, can culture change at this scale? Can people as a whole (and not just in some specific places) have a sense of pride not by what they own but by who they are and what they stand for?