Advanced societies were on the threshold of a new humanism where persons and companionship could take the place of things and their acquisition, the American political scientist Prof Robert Lane told a conference yesterday.
Prof Lane, of Yale University, told a conference in Ennis on roles and relationships that markets had made people rich enough so that they could afford a social rather than a materialist programme, one which was "closer to our natures".
But market economics, partly by requiring us to place a high premium on money, prohibited us from putting people at the centre of things. Societies had encountered the "disturbing dilemma" that materialism did not make people happy but the market, whose fruitfulness made it possible to value non-material goods, imposed limits on the careers and values that would be more satisfying.
"We allow desire for possessions to block our attraction to people at our peril," he said.
But there was evidence of the development of "a postmodernity" state, marked by diminished priority for economic efficiency and growth, rejection of both religious authority and absolute moral values, tolerance for ethnic minorities and for deviance from sexual and other norms, and an emphasis on warmer communal ties.
Father Sean McDonagh, co-ordinator of the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Programme of the Columban Missionary Society, said redefining human relationships with the natural world would be one of the most important developments over the next decade.
Environmental degradation was present right around the world. "Global warming will cause major and, in the main, deleterious, climatic changes throughout the world."
The effect on the environment was an effect on localities. "We may need many more Clonmels. The reality is it is happening because our global world, particularly our industrial world, is not addressing it," he said.
A collective political, social and religious will was needed to effect change.