Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Unless the elites of the world transform their understanding of security, things are going to look good for extreme movements in the 2030s and beyond, whether they stem from perverse religious identities, ethnicities, nationalisms or political ideologies.
Psychologist Jamil Zaki has described ‘distant socialising’ as something most of us might wish for in current conditions: to be connected despite physical distance. He points to the confusion created by the go-to label of social distancing, which implies a loss of companionship and connection.
The Biden administration is about to require COVID-19 vaccinations for all U.S. visitors. The plan is likely to become unworkable in very short order. It is an attempt to get around a now very clear fact about widespread international travel: That travel has become a threat to all humankind.
As modern society faces climate change and the sixth extinction, these oldest stories of place and survivance are evolving. And they are also remaining the same, allowing us to see the past and imagine alternate futures as we move with the Earth around the sun.
The great challenge is not to deny this fear, but to take responsibility and overcome it, avoiding paralysis and nihilistic or cynical attitudes. In other words, converting fear into preventive and effective action, into awareness of all species.
Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. Rushkoff’s work explores how different technological environments change our relationship to narrative, money, power, and one another. He addresses the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?”
The point is: the prophet’s vision is a harder sell than the glitzy wizardly version of the future. Thus, we need more attempts to imagine that world.
If we want to stop the fires, we have to decolonize California.
That decolonization must necessarily include restoring the rights of native people and humbly asking for their guidance.
This is what “living like a perennial” should look like: having an attitude of longevity and love that fights back against the consumerism of our age, and against that incessant internal voice that asks, petulantly, “How does this benefit me?”
As much of the world struggles to cope with the pandemic and its impacts, we begin today’s show with the authors of a new book that examines the social and environmental roots of poor health. “Your body is part of a society inflamed,” write the authors.
With such an understanding of the continuity of all life we can develop a more robust cosmological ethics highlighting responsibility and reciprocity for our magnificent Earth community.
As flooding events like those seen in Germany, Belgium, China and London become ever more common, policymakers must not see people just as potential victims of the climate crisis.
