Values and sustainability at penland school of crafts

Abstract

In 2010, a consortium of five environmental organisations 1 in the United Kingdom publishe d a report online that argued that the global challenges posed by humanitarian and environmental crises are unlikely to be sufficiently addressed until specific ‘values’ are first articulated and strengthened (Crompton 2010: 5). Entitled ‘Common Cause: The Case for Working with Our Cultural Values’, the report argues that presenting the facts and evidence about an issue - the approach used by many advocacy organisations - fails to appeal to the emotions and personal values of individuals, which a large body of evidence (and the experience of advertising agencies) indicates is necessary to move a person to take action. This failure to appeal to emotions and values explains the insufficiency of some national policies and individual behaviours in many countries to ‘bigger-than-self’ problems, as characterised by the report, such as global poverty, climate change, and loss of biodiversity (ibid.: 8). The report makes the case using empirical research from the cognitive sciences that what is needed is a different approach to communications and campaigns that strengthens specific values in a process that is ‘transparent, inclusive, and reflexive’ and that intentionally stimulates public debate about the ‘consequences of cultural values and the mechanisms by which they evolve’ (ibid.: 5).