The Watermelon Chronicles

Pursuant to a message recently received, I encountered a phrase which gave me cause for pause: "social sustainability:

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Okay, like, whateva. What exactly does it mean?

I have no idea, but I'm sure it's chillingly like the "socialist new man" who isn't allowed to object to the instructions given by people who have no actual stake in your personal well-being, and thinks that we should "take one for the team" in ways that we are ordered to.

The Wikipedia entry on social sustainability defines it this way:

Social sustainability is one aspect of sustainability or sustainable development. Social sustainability encompasses human rights, labor rights, and corporate governance. In common with environmental sustainability, social sustainability is the idea that future generations should have the same or greater access to social resources as the current generation ("inter-generational equity"), while there should also be equal access to social resources within the current generation ("intra-generational equity"). Social resources include ideas as broad as other cultures and basic human rights. Also we can speak of Sustainable Human Development that can be seen as development that promotes the capabilities of present people without compromising capabilities of future generations. In the human development paradigm, environment and natural resources should constitute a means of achieving better standards of living just as income represents a means of increasing social expenditure and, in the end, well-being.

So it's, like, basically, like, y'know everything except the tangible, or anything associated with free market decision-making, or the choices made in social interest by an individual on their own. It does seem to recognize the concept of wealth and income, but is too vague to directly indicate their motives or hostility to managing your own resources, especially given that it looks like its' trying to form a philosophy that takes the role of faith in society, employing a concept similar to "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" which is attributed to Karl Marx.
I suspect that the access provided to future generations is not by you to your spawn, but by a larger, more "authoritative" entity, a kind of cozy equivalent of the test tubes the population of Logan's Run was hatched in, or something... who knows.

Like Marxians, I'm sure they believe that people will work hard for "the good of man" when wanting resources for yourself are no longer an issue. However, that doesn't explain the need to pass through a variety of rites (which seem to be used in operant conditioning) associated with those with less. In their brave new world, no-one would be wanting for anything they needed anyway.

While leadership and motivational topics focus on prosperity in wealth and different social status, social sustaining role models take on the role of taking the risk upon changing what is necessary instead of what is wanted. From this point of view, in order to achieve a social sustainable system, there will be a possibility of challenging current infrastructure and common expectations. Some radical examples are: starvation by choice to understand the actual need of a starving individual, or the vow of poverty to understand a certain level of built-in social expectations, in which proved unnecessary when it comes to solving community issues as listed.

[Bold emphasis mine.]

Note the taking over of Lenten fasting and the clerical vow of poverty. Anyone promoting this should deemed to be proslethyzing a philosophy, which means that any donation to them should not only NOT be tax-deductible, but that if the organization conducts itself as a charitable non-profit, that they are in violation of the law. They are no different than a church, and should be subject to the same constraints put on the churches by government.

I think its motives are unclear, and that it's probably concealing some things that would easily be deemed evil (in the original, non-recreational definition of the term) by the faithful, if they presented their views plainly, rather than hide it in an environmental Trojan Horse.

Ah, but it's their way.