“It’s all smart kitchens and talking bikes these days.”
Futurists often talk about values and their impact on the way the future unfolds.
Earlier this year, as my wife and I were planning a trip to New Zealand, my Foresight Alliance colleague Josh Calder made me aware of the thesis of David Hackett Fischer’s book, Fairness and Freedom: A History of Two Open Societies: New Zealand and the United States. According to the Amazon summary of the book, the two nations share many common political, economic, social, and cultural elements, “but all of these elements take different forms, because constellations of value are far apart. The dream of living free is America’s Polaris; fairness and natural justice are New Zealand’s Southern Cross.”
During our visit we saw and heard many ways in which the values of fairness and natural justice play out in New Zealand life.
Waitangi Treaty Ground (Image: Croasmun)
The Treaty of Waitangi between the Maori (the Polynesian settlers of New Zealand who arrived at least 700 years ago) and the British settlers was signed in 1840. The two cultures still coexist and there is active discussion even today about the treaty’s meaning and its practical implications for relations between the two cultures.
Image: Croasmun
The Polynesian settlers of New Zealand weren’t just the first human inhabitants of the islands, they were the first mammals to arrive (other than bats). The Polynesians and the Europeans introduced a number of other invasive mammal species—rats, opossums, pigs, and so forth. Now there is an active effort to create and expand preserves where these invasive species have been eliminated so that remaining native species like the kiwi can again flourish.
Image: Croasmun
Native kauri trees were prized for their timber, which was widely used for shipbuilding. Kauri grow slowly and it is now illegal to cut them down. Kauri products are still produced and sold, using trees that fell that have been preserved for thousands of years underground.
A small example—New Zealander’s apparently have the option to refuse delivery of junk mail.
New Zealand recognized women’s right to vote in 1893, the earliest of any current nation in modern times.
Values matter!
Image: Croasmun
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