The Great Turning
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The best response to rogue regimes is cooperative international action to cut off their access to international arms, funds, and the technology required to create offensive weapons. When removal by military force is required as a last resort, it is properly undertaken only with broad international consensus for the use of multilateral military forces dispatched under the authority of the United Nations.
Long supply lines; concentrated supplies of volatile fuels, toxic chemicals, and radioactive materials; disposable workers subject to instant dismissal in a moment of disruption; core industries subject to extreme swings of consumer confidence; and an unstable financial system built on debt and speculation — all these pose security threats in that they can turn even minor local disturbances into major disasters.
We reduce shocks and thereby increase security by favoring local production and procurement to shorten supply lines; reducing reliance on volatile fuels, toxic chemicals, and radioactive materials; giving economic priority to meeting basic needs that generate a stable demand; limiting debt and financial speculation; recycling; and being more frugal in our use of natural resources.
Perhaps the greatest fear any of us can have is that no one will care enough to be with us in our time of need. Again, relationships are the key. Dominator relations create an illusion of security but in fact undermine the security that only caring communities can provide. 308
EARTH COMMUNITY MEANING STORY
We humans are the only earthly species with the capacity to ask the most basic of questions: “Where did we come from, and what is the purpose of our existence?” We have long sought answers to such questions through creation stories—usually metaphorical and of ancient origin—that embody our collective understanding of our origin and give meaning to our existence.
As discussed in chapter 15, the contemporary culture of Western societies presents us with a cruel choice between two incomplete stories. One, the now seriously outdated story of Newtonian physics, reduces the whole of reality to chance and material causation; denies consciousness, intelligence, and free will; and strips life of meaning. The other, the prevailing Western religious story, affirms the transcendent but denies human experience and observation as sources of valid learning and presents our earthly condition as but a way station in which we are condemned to live out our time in an evil world and to pray for deliverance in the afterlife. To choose either of these stories is to deny the capacities for choice and service that make us distinctively human.
Our creation stories may be based on factual evidence, but the interpretation of what that evidence means and its implications for our lives ultimately come down to questions of belief or faith, which progressives rarely discuss even with one another although they are foundational to our work. I believe it is important that we engage this discussion through sharing our meaning stories. In this spirit, I offer the following as the meaning story that motivates my commitment to the work of the Great Turning.
The cosmos — and all within it — is an integral interconnected whole that flows forth from a universal spiritual intelligence, the ground of all being. We humans know this intelligence by many names.
This spiritual intelligence is engaged in an epic journey of self-discovery, a quest to know itself by actualizing its possibilities through an eternal process of learning and becoming. Everything that exists is both a product of this sacred quest and an instrument of its continued unfolding. Because Creation is a manifestation of the Spirit some call God, God and Creation are one and the same, which means we live in ever present relationship to God — indeed there is no other possibility, because there is no existence apart from the Spirit. 309
Life, which instills matter with the capacity to choose, takes Creation’s journey of self-discovery to a new level of possibility. By its nature, life exists only in relationship to other life and is at its most vital in cooperative communities rich with diversity and the dynamic interplay of individuals and species engaged in actualizing their individual and collective potential. Competition for territory, food, and sexual partners contributes to the dynamism of the whole, yet is no more than a counterpoint to deeper patterns of cooperation and mutuality.
The well-being of the individual and of the community are inseparable. The health of the whole depends on the health and integrity of the individual, and the health of the individual depends on the health and integrity of the whole; neither can survive and prosper without the other. The species that survive and thrive are those that learn to sustain themselves in ways that simultaneously serve the needs of the whole. The defining challenge for each new species is to find its place of service, a challenge we humans have yet to meet.
As far as we know, we humans are Creation’s most daring experiment in reflective consciousness and the capacity for mindful choice. It is our nature to choose and, in our most mature manifestation, to discern the difference between good — that which serves Creation’s purpose — and evil — that which is contrary to that purpose. Deepening our understanding of the difference between good and evil so defined, and learning to organize our lives in service to the good, are central to our life’s work.
Throughout our history, we humans have demonstrated that hatred and love, greed and generosity, ruthless competition and selfless cooperation, are all within our nature. It is also in our nature to choose among the possibilities of our nature, and it is our responsibility to choose wisely. Because we live in complex and interdependent relationships with one another on a planetary spaceship with a fragile and now overstressed life support system, we humans ultimately share a common destiny. It is ours to choose whether that common destiny will be one of peace, justice, and abundance, or violence, tyranny, and deprivation.
The idea that the human species represents the ultimate accomplishment and end purpose of Creation is an unwarranted conceit of a still immature species — an extension of the ancient conceit that the whole of the cosmos revolves around our earthly planet and thereby around humans. It is an 310even greater conceit to assume that we humans are the only conscious intelligence manifest in the cosmos. We are manifestations of the Spirit that birthed, and at each instant rebirths, the cosmos, but we should not assume that we are the center of its attention or that it will assure our survival. Many species that once defined the frontiers of evolutionary accomplishment passed into oblivion long before our arrival.
In granting humans the power of reflective consciousness, Creation has given our species a distinctive gift of opportunity. It is left to us to choose how we use that opportunity and to bear the consequences of our choice.
The next step in our own journey is to create societies that support the development of the fullness of our positive human potential as we advance our understanding of how we might best develop that potential and apply it to the service of the whole. Progressive Christians refer to it as creating God’s kingdom on Earth — a world of deeply democratic societies in which all people have the opportunity to carry forward the work of Creation through productive and fulfilling lives in dynamic, creative, and balanced relationships with one another and the living Earth.
This story, which draws together the insights of the spiritual wisdom of religious mystics and the data of modern science, sets the deeper frame for Earth Community’s prosperity and security stories. The prosperity, security, and meaning stories presented here all converge on Creation’s unifying truth that relationships are the foundation of everything. So too, human prosperity, security, and meaning are all found in the life of vibrant, interlinked communities that offer every person —without exception—the opportunity to contribute their creative energy through joyful, creative, engaged relationships with one another and Earth.
Our deepest human desire is to live in caring relationships with one another. This desire is our call to engage the invisible curriculum of our lives through which we learn to become fully human and find our collective place of service both as individuals and as a species. Engaging in the work of the Gre
at Turning is a form of spiritual practice.
DISCOVERING AND SHARING STORIES OF THE POSSIBLE
In the oral traditions of cultural storytelling, stories passed from person to person, generation to generation, as the living, evolving, creative 311expressions of a people’s understanding of themselves and their world. The intention of the storyteller was not the verbatim recitation of some static text. It was to bring alive the underlying truth of a story in a manner appropriate to a particular audience at a particular moment.
I have outlined my own version of three stories based on my current understanding of the truths emerging from the collective inquiry of global civil society. I urge you to approach these stories in the spirit of the ancient oral tradition as contributions to the living, evolving, creative expression of the shared learning of an emerging human era.
If you feel so inclined, I urge you to organize a discussion group with friends and colleagues to reflect on both the stories of Empire presented in chapter 14 and the stories of Earth Community presented above in light of your own experience and understanding. Gather as storytellers of a new era. As you find your own stories, share them with others in your own words and in the manner true to your experience.
We humans devote much of our lives to a search for prosperity, security, and meaning. Whether at this defining moment we choose as our guide the prosperity, security, and meaning stories of Empire or those of Earth Community will in substantial measure determine whether future generations will know our time as the time of the Great Unraveling or the time of the Great Turning.
It is at present far from an equal contest. The New Right echo chamber, greatly amplified through the corporate media megaphone, saturates the information environment with the stories of Empire.
Yet the ultimate advantage lies with those of us who are engaged in the great work of living into being a new era of Earth Community. Empire at its core is the consequence of our alienation from life. Seducing us with fantasies of personal power and glory, Empire entices us to find meaning where it cannot be found—in violence, domination, and material accumulation. Alienated from life, we become blind to the truth that meaning comes from finding our place of service to Creation’s continuous unfolding.
The Great Turning begins with relearning how to live, which depends in turn on new life-affirming stories. The life-denying stories of Empire 312cannot compete with the life-affirming stories of Earth Community, which—in combination with practical demonstrations—give voice to the deep human yearning for healthy children, families, communities, and natural environments.
PART V
Birthing Earth Community
I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.
Deuteronomy 19:30
We must become the change we seek in the world.
Mohandas K. Gandhi
The work of the Great Turning is not to fix Empire. It is to birth a new era that makes the choice for life, gives expression to the higher potential of our nature, and restores to people, families, and communities the power that Empire has usurped. The work is not to claim the dominator power of hierarchy for a better cause. It is to distribute power and eliminate the hierarchy.
Leadership for birthing this new era will not come from those who feel comfortable with the status quo or who are intent on preserving their special privilege. It will come from the people who are feeling out of step with the beliefs and values of the imperial cultures and the institutions of contemporary life. They will live it into being by giving practical expression to the change they seek.
These final chapters offer a framework to help us all see more clearly how our often seemingly small and fragmented individual efforts can add up to a powerful social force to change the course of history as we break the silence, end our isolation, and change the story. Specifics will vary from country to country, depending on their distinctive histories and circumstances. The examples focus on the United States, where the challenge is particularly daunting. The underlying principles are universal.
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CHAPTER 19
Leading from Below
I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man’s pride.
William James
In nature, change doesn’t happen from a top-down, strategic approach. There is never a boss in a living system. Change happens from within, from many local actions occurring simultaneously.1
Meg Wheatley
Albert Einstein famously observed, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” Our task is to bring forth the higher levels of human consciousness and recreate our cultures and institutions to align with our possibilities.
Throughout the twentieth century, most revolutionaries used guns to wrest control of dominator institutions from ruling elites in the name of justice. They missed the truth that violence begets violence, domination begets domination; and dominator institutions are unjust no matter the party affiliation of the rulers.
Violent competition for dominator power is the way of Empire, and its practice affirms Empire. Societies based on the organizing principles of community, democracy, and love of life are created only by living them into being through the practice of community, democracy, and love of life.
A few of the twentieth century’s greatest leaders, most notably Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., worked with a higher-order vision of how truly transformational change comes about—not from the barrel of a gun, but from living the change that we seek. Their 316vision and example inspired the great global social movements of the twentieth century that demonstrated the human capacities for radically democratic, nonviolent self-organization and prepared the way for our current work.
The leaders of Empire use the power and resources of the institutions of Empire to motivate followers to submit to their personal authority, values, and definition of purpose. Leadership for Earth Community emerges through processes of mutual empowerment that encourage every person to recognize and express their capacities for leadership on behalf of the whole. Almost inevitably, this leadership comes from outside the institutions of Empire —from the growing millions of people with the mature consciousness that enables them to envision the possibilities of this human moment and to accept responsibility for bringing those possibilities into being. In Earth Community, leadership roles evolve and rotate in response to the needs of the situation and the skills and circumstances of the participants.
Although the leadership styles of Earth Community may seem chaotic and diffuse to those accustomed to the dominator styles of Empire, they fit the pattern by which all healthy living systems self-organize. This pattern of self-organizing, distributed power gives contemporary social movements their distinctive vitality and makes them nearly impossible to suppress.
THE STRATEGY
Global civil society is appropriately engaged on many fronts—a reflection of its diversity and the complexity of its task. Because its leadership is diffuse and self-organizing, it may seem odd to speak of strategy. Yet each act by each of its many leaders—and the convergent expression of those acts—reveal an implicit strategy, with four essential imperatives:2
ACCELERATE THE AWAKENING OF CULTURAL AND SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS. Empire’s fabricated culture creates a kind of trance. Awakening from that trance occurs one individual at a time, but each occurrence creates a new role model to inspire others. The greater the number of active role models, the more quickly the awakening spreads and the more easily the culturally liberated are able to find one another to break free from the powerlessness induced by isolation. We facilitate the processes of awakening through our individual engagement and 317d
ialogue with others, creating cross-cultural experiences, encouraging deep reflection on meaning and values, exposing the contradictions of Empire, spreading awareness of unrealized human possibilities by changing the prevailing stories.
RESIST EMPIRE’S ASSAULT ON CHILDREN, FAMILIES, COMMUNITY, AND NATURE. This means resisting the institutions and agendas of Empire, demanding the repeal of unjust and undemocratic rules, and abolishing programs that serve Empire’s interests at the expense of community. The resistance can be assertive and may involve principled civil disobedience, but it must always adhere to the principles of nonviolence as practiced by Gandhi in India’s independence movement, Martin Luther King Jr. in the U.S. civil rights movement, and other nonviolent resistance movements—even in the face of violent police and military repression. The discipline of nonviolence underscores Earth Community’s moral authority, draws attention to the illegitimacy of Empire, and breaks the cycle of violence.
FORM AND CONNECT COMMUNITIES OF CONGRUENCE. The creative potential of the world’s hundreds of millions of Cultural and Spiritual Creatives is being expressed through the formation of communities of congruence in which people develop the relationships, institutions, and authentic cultures of living societies. A community of congruence may be as simple as a local study group. It might be a farmers’ market, a school to develop inquiring minds, or a course on voluntary simplicity. It might be a socially responsible local business, a church congregation devoted to spiritual inquiry and community service, or a holistic health clinic. No matter how small or isolated such initiatives may originally be, each creates a protected space in which diversity, experimentation, and learning can flourish to create the building blocks of a new mainstream economy, politics, and culture.