Society

Allowing corporations decisive power over our governments was a huge mistake– like the sorcerer’s apprentice thinking his dandy automated broom was such a great idea till he realized he should have put an “off” switch on the thing.

In these increasingly chaotic times, change is inevitable but evolution is not. We can choose to lean in and be transformed by it or sit around and wait for it to show up on our doorstep. If we decide to lean in, why not learn how to turn it to our advantage? If not us, who? If not now, when?

We are smart, linguistic, ultrasocial, tool-making primates who have recently stumbled upon an energy bonanza. We’ve accomplished wonders. But we have also become our own worst enemy. Collective survival will require setting aside our hubris and coming to terms with environmental and social limits.

Cities like Evanston, Illinois, and Asheville, North Carolina, are paving the way for local reparations in the absence of a federal plan.

A new worldview is emerging, and it’s much richer, more meaningful, and more beautiful than the thinking that currently dominates our societies. I’m talking about planetarism, or what some also call planetarity.

Humane values, if they are to find a field of exercise, must be broadcast over a terrain populated by institutions that operate at human scale.