Good Shepherd Paradox, The

The paradox of the shepherd that cares for his sheep, even at the risk of his own life, only to surrender them for slaughter in the end.

This paradox is one of the keys to an understanding of natural systems. All natural ecologies contain paired properties which seem to be inconsistent but are in fact enabling characteristics: making and unmaking, my lunch and your undoing, your lunch and my undoing, extravagance and efficiency, life and death.

 

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David Fleming
Dr David Fleming (2 January 1940 – 29 November 2010) was a cultural historian and economist, based in London, England. He was among the first to reveal the possibility of peak oil's approach and invented the influential TEQs scheme, designed to address this and climate change. He was also a pioneer of post-growth economics, and a significant figure in the development of the UK Green Party, the Transition Towns movement and the New Economics Foundation, as well as a Chairman of the Soil Association. His wide-ranging independent analysis culminated in two critically acclaimed books, 'Lean Logic' and 'Surviving the Future', published posthumously in 2016. These in turn inspired the 2020 launches of both BAFTA-winning director Peter Armstrong's feature film about Fleming's perspective and legacy - 'The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?' - and Sterling College's unique 'Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time' online courses. For more information on all of the above, including Lean Logic, click the little globe below!

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