Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
As I’ve shown in my latest book, creating the car-free city is possible, and urgently necessary, right now. We have all the technical and policy know-how. But we lack a vision of how it could be different, and the recognition that far from a sacrifice, it will bring mainly improvements, rather than constraints, to our lives. Such visions are necessary.
Though a varied and complex story, the widespread separation of humans from nature in Western culture can be traced to a few key historical developments, starting with the rise of Judeo-Christian values 2000 years ago.
Faith in progress really is the established religion of our time. Most people nowadays believe in the inevitability of progress just as fervently as medieval peasants believed in saints and angels.
I can already see a growing recognition that connection, inclusion, creativity and celebration are the keys to a genuinely better future.
A National Imagination Act could have a key role to play in making that a reality. What would you do? How would you enable the imagination to flourish where you live, work, study? What if…
So try something new and get uncivilized. Banish plastic words from your vocabulary, just as you might eliminate plastic from your household.
The easily identifiable forces propelling humanity on its current course are the special interests that gain financially and politically – at least, in the short-term – from continued economic growth and use of fossil fuels.
In a world made nonsensical by rapid climate change, perhaps stories, one of the oldest forms of human meaning-making, can help make sense of the changed and changing world.
We are not alone. “Where there is danger,” the German poet Hölderlin reminds us, “the saving power also grows.” That power is always available to us. The Societal Transformation Lab aims to be a global practice field for this.
The book is based on a simple but compelling theme – culture shapes values, and those values shape history. It will show the layers of values that form the norms of mainstream Western culture, and how these continue to shape our world today.
Human activities have degraded ecosystems globally to the point that Earth is now in overshoot-and-collapse. We need to restore ecosystem functions in the coming decades in order to safeguard our collective future.
These three axial shifts, political, economic, and educational, are replacing the traditional 20th-century public discourse with a new axis of conversation and thought that supports a new avenue for societal renewal.
