Seven Generations — The Ethic of Long Vision
The Haudenosaunee teaching that every decision must be weighed against its effect on the seventh generation yet to be born is perhaps the most radical and necessary ethical principle ever conceived by human civilization.
The Seven Generations principle originates in the Great Law of Peace: 'In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.' The seventh generation from any given person is approximately 150-175 years in the future — well beyond the individual's lifetime. This creates an ethical framework that is categorically different from Western political and economic thought, which rarely projects consequences beyond a four-year election cycle or quarterly earnings report. The Haudenosaunee applied this principle to decisions about war, agriculture, trade, and governance. Applied to modern industrial civilization, it provides a clear measure of every energy policy, chemical production decision, and genetic modification: does it benefit or harm people who will live in 2175?
In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.
Environmental philosopher Joanna Macy argues that the Seven Generations principle is the most powerful antidote to what she calls 'the temporal parochialism' of modern industrial civilization — the inability to care about consequences beyond the next fiscal quarter.
Gayanashagowa — The Great Law of Peace
Written about in
- What Native American teachings say about community
Every decision is weighed against its effect on people roughly a century and a half away. It stretches 'we' to include those who can never thank you or vote for you.
- What Native American traditions say about raising children
The seventh generation is roughly 150 to 175 years out, past everyone now alive. Applied to a child, it moves the question from what this child will become to what this child's decisions will do to people no one in the room will ever meet. It is the only standard here that cannot be satisfied by loving your own child well.