THE HUMAN ECOSYSTEM vs THE GOOD CITIZEN

I think we risk entering dangerous grounds by using analogies such as the 'human ecosystem'. I feel it is not personable enough, it is characterized as a scientific phrase by the use of the word 'ecosystem', which will immediately inspire skepticism and increase peoples tendancy to alleviate their guilt by attributing their way of life to scientifically proven truisms. Basically it is easy for one to remove themselves from the analogy as it focus's on society holistically instead of the self.The word ecosystem itself suggests complexity, fragility, stability/instability, life, survival e.t.c which is perfect for our topic, however it is codified. We understand it because we have just been researching social responsibility for the past few weeks. But if I try to think objectively about the meaning of the 'human ecosystem' and the connotations the expression would hold for someone who was freshly introduced to it then things like 'strata of class', 'theory only' and 'culturally biased' spring to mind. Besides, doesn't the 'human ecosystem' basically mean the 'human society' as the meaning of the word society encompasses all elements of the word 'ecosystem'.

If we were wanting to communicate a sense of foreboding, fragility, complexity, a connection with the natural world and universal importance then wouldn't the phrase 'Human Life' be more appropriate/universally understood/vivid/emotive/commanding/personable?

As for the good citizen, well I love the sentiment of this quote by Ghandi:

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

But its far to wet, far to idealistic and alludes to effort and sacrifice. Its like Dekart said, bad things are easy to obtain and god things are hard to obtain. The ideal of self sacrifice and restriction of ones self for the benifit of others does not have a place in the capitalist framework. This ideal should, by now, be public policy if we are going to sucsessfully co-inhabit the world with up to 15 billion other people. Might it be that we as designers have to perform 'cultural therapy' and use our design rhetoric and powers of persuasion to shepperd the dominant towards a more viable societal structure (e.g lifestyle, cultural and racial divides.attitudes, the natural world etc) introduce some socialist values as public policy and demonize some of the consequences of the capitalist agenda like unrestrained progress and efficiency? Do we label consumption as a problem of the state or the individual?