Our time has come to trade the sorrows of Empire for the joys of Earth Community. Let our descendants look back on this time as the time of the Great Turning, when humanity made a bold choice to birth a new era devoted to actualizing the higher potentials of our human nature.
The work begins with embracing the truth that it is within our means to choose our future and to place our capacity for reflective choice at the service of Creation’s continued unfolding. We are the ones we have been waiting for.
Notes
THE GREAT TURNING
1. Joanna Macy, “The Shift to a Life-Sustaining Civilization,” para. 3 on the Web page “The Great Turning,” n.d., http://www.joannamacy.net/html/great.html.
Prologue: In Search of the Possible
1. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, De hominis dignitate, as translated by the revered Anglican theologian Richard Hooker (1554–1600).
2. Further details of my life journey can be found in the prologues to When Corporations Rule the World and The Post-Corporate World: Life after Capitalism and on my Web site (http://www.davidkorten.org/).
3. Deirdre Strachan and David C. Korten, “The Overcrowded Clinic,” in Frances F. Korten and David C. Korten, Casebook for Family Planning Management (Boston: Pathfinder Fund, 1977), 49–62.
4. The details are extensively documented in Frances F. Korten and Robert Y. Siy Jr., Transforming a Bureaucracy: The Experience of the Philippine National Irrigation Administration (West Hartford, CT: Kumarian, 1988); Benjamin U. Bagadion and Frances F. Korten, “Developing Irrigators’ Organizations: A Learning Process Approach,” in Putting People First: Sociological Variables in Rural Development, ed. Michael M. Cernea (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 52–90; and David C. Korten, “Community Organization and Rural Development: A Learning Process Approach,” Public Administration Review, September/October 1980, 480–511.
5. Key works include Mae-Wan Ho, The Rainbow and the Worm: The Physics of Organisms, 2nd ed. (Singapore: World Scientific, 1998); Elisabet Sahtouris, EarthDance: Living Systems in Evolution (San Jose, CA: iUniversity Press, 2000), also at http://www.ratical.org/LifeWeb/Erthdnce/erthdnce.html; Sidney Liebes, Elisabet Sahtouris, and Brian Swimme, A Walk through Time: From Stardust to Us: The Evolution of Life on Earth (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998). For an extensive Sahtouris bibliography see http://www.ratical.org/LifeWeb/. For a guide to the ideas and publications of Ho see http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/MaeWanHo/.
6. A detailed history of the Earth Charter Initiative is available at http://www.earthcharterusa.org/earth_charter.html.
7. Frances Korten and Roberto Vargas, Movement-Building for Transformation: Bringing Together Diverse Leaders for Connection and Vision (Bainbridge Island, WA: Positive Futures Network, 2006).
8. We published our joint paper on the Web site of the People-Centered Development Forum in December 2002. David C. Korten, Nicanor Perlas, and Vandana Shiva, “Global Civil Society: The Path Ahead,” a discussion paper, http://www.pcdf.org/civilsociety/.
PART I: Choosing Our Future
Chapter 1: The Choice
1. Michael Lerner, “Surviving the Bush and Sharon Years,” editorial, Tikkun, March/April 2001.
2. Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade, rev. ed. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), xix–xxiii.
3. This story is abstracted from a teaching case I wrote with John C. Ickis while on the faculty of the Central American Management Institute in Nicaragua.
4. Eisler, Chalice and Blade.
5. See http://www.earthcharter.org/ for more details.
6. This discussion of the defining narratives draws from Korten, Perlas, and Shiva, “Global Civil Society.”
7. Eisler, Chalice and Blade.
8. Jonathan Schell, The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2003), 28–31.
9. Andrew B. Schmookler, The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution, 2nd ed. (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994).
10. Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, rev. ed. (New York: Pocket Books, 1984).
11. Ibid., 86–87, 157.
12. Ibid., 86–87.
Chapter 2: The Possibility
1. The description of these five stages is based primarily on Robert Kegan’s framing, but it also draws from the work of other developmental psychologists, including Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, Lawrence Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan, and Stanley Greenspan, to bring in a stronger focus on the moral and emotional dimensions. I am particularly indebted to Larry Daloz and Sharon Parks, who worked with Kegan at Harvard for some years, for their assistance in interpreting and elaborating the Kegan categories. In addition to Kegan’s work, the descriptions of the third and fourth orders draw on Eleanor Drago-Severson, Becoming Adult Learners: Principles and Practices for Effective Development (New York: Teachers College Press, 2004), 23–32. Discussion of the fifth order draws in part on Laurent A. Parks Daloz, “Transformative Learning for Bioregional Citizenship,” in Learning toward an Ecological Consciousness: Selected Transformative Practices, ed. Edmund O’Sullivan and Marilyn M. Taylor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
2. Robert Kegan, In over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 39.
3. Robert Kegan, The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 56.
4. Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson, The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World (New York: Harmony Books, 2000).
5. John C. Friel and Linda Friel, The Soul of Adulthood: Opening the Doors… (Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, 1995), 120.
6. Kegan, In over Our Heads, 40–41.
7. See Daniel Maguire, A Moral Creed for All Christians, forthcoming from Fortress Press.
Chapter 3: The Imperative
1. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, 179 (see chap. 1, n. 10).
2. Episode 74 first aired on February 28, 1969.
3. Worldwatch Institute, Vital Signs 2003: Trends That Are Shaping Our Future (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003), 29.
4. Janet L. Sawin, “Making Better Energy Choices,” in Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004, ed. Linda Starke (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004), 29.
5. Christopher Flavin in Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004, xviii.
6. Worldwatch Institute, Vital Signs 2003, 35, 41, 49.
7. World Wildlife Fund for Nature, Living Planet Report 2002 (Cambridge, UK: WWF, 2002). Available at http://www.panda.org/downloads/general/LPR_2002.pdf.
8. Ibid.
9. Chris Bright, “A History of Our Future,” in Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004, 5.
10. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, World Meteorological Association and United Nations Environment Programme, Third Assessment Report: Climate Change 2001 (Geneva: 2001), available at http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/online.htm.
11. Jonathan Leake, “Britain Faces Big Chill as Ocean Current Slows,” Sunday Times, May 8, 2005, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1602579,00.html.
12. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Third Assessment Report.
13. Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security, October 2003, 1–2, 22, available at http://www.gbn.com/ArticleDisplayServlet.srv?aid=26231.
14. Sawin, “Making Better Energy Choices,” 27.
15. James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency: Surviving the Long Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005).
16. Nicholas Varchaver, “How to Kick the Oil Habit,” Fortune, August 23, 2004, 102.
17. The implications for humanity of system overshoot and collapse on a finite planet was a defining theme of Donella H. Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth (New York: New American Library, 1972).
18. Worldwatch Institute, Vital Signs 2003, 34�
�35.
19. Kunstler, The Long Emergency.
20. James Howard Kunstler, “The Long Emergency,” Rolling Stone, March 24, 2005, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/7203633.
21. Ibid.
22. See compilations by Matthew White, available at http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat8.htm; and Piero Scaruffi, http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/massacre.html.
23. World Health Organization, Injuries and Violence Prevention, n.d., http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/collective/collective/en/index2.html.
24. United Nations, “Land Mine Facts” press kit for International Conference on Mine Clearance Technology, 2N, July 4, 1996, Copenhagen, http://www.un.org/Depts/dha/mct/facts.htm.
25. Doug Rokke, interview by Sunny Miller, “The War against Ourselves,” YES! A Journal of Positive Futures, Spring 2003, http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=594.
26. Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (New York: Henry Holt, 2004), 100.
27. Public Broadcasting Service, Now report on posttraumatic stress disorder, http://www.pbs.org/now/society/ptsd.html.
28. Immanuel Wallerstein, “The Eagle Has Crash Landed,” Foreign Policy, July 1, 2002, 60–68.
29. This argument is set forth in elegant detail in Schell, Unconquerable World (see chap. 1, n. 8).
30. United Nations Development Programme, 2003 Human Development Report (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 2–8.
31. Luisa Kroll and Lea Goldman, “The World’s Billionaires,” Forbes, March 10, 2005, http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/2005/03/10/cz_lk_lg_0310billintro_bill05.html.
32. Matthew Bentley, “Sustainable Consumption: Ethics, National Indices and International Relations” (PhD dissertation, American Graduate School of International Relations and Diplomacy, Paris, 2003), as reported by Flavin in World-Watch, State of the World 2004, xvii.
33. United Nations, “World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision,” February 26, 2003, vi.
34. Market capitalization figures available by subscription from Data-stream, a division of Thomson Financial.
35. Edward N. Wolff, Top Heavy: The Increasing Inequality of Wealth in America and What Can Be Done about It (New York: New Press, 2002), 29–30.
36. Nelson D. Schwartz,”The Dollar in the Dumps,” Fortune, December 13, 2004, 113–14.
37. Ibid.
38. Emmanuel Todd, After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 123.
39. Pete Engario and Dexter Roberts, “The China Price,” Business Week, December 6, 2004, 102–12.
40. Barney Gimbel,”Yule Log Jam,” Fortune, December 13, 2004, 162–70.
41. Engario and Roberts, “China Price.”
42. Stephen Baker and Manjeet Kri-palani, “Sofware: Will Outsourcing Hurt America’s Supremacy?” Business Week, March 1, 2004, 84–94.
43. “Inside the New China,” Fortune, October 4, 2004, 92.
44. Engario and Roberts, “China Price.”
45. Argentina: Hope in Hard Times was produced by Mark Dworkin and Melissa Young. For information see http://www.movingimages.org/page22.html. The Take was produced by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein. See http://www.nfb.ca/webextension/thetake/.
Chapter 4: The Opportunity
1. As quoted by Philip H. Duran, “Eight Indigenous Prophecies,” http://home.earthlink.net/~phil-duran/prophecies.htm.
2. Thomas Berry, The Great Work (New York: Bell Tower, 1999), 201.
3. This characterization of the organizer cells is from John Feltwell, The Natural History of Butterflies (New York: Facts on File, 1986), 23.
4. Elisabet Sahtouris, EarthDance: Living Systems in Evolution (San Jose, CA: iUniversity Press, 2000), 206–7.
5. Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson, interview by Sarah Ruth van Gelder, “A Culture Gets Creative,” YES! A Journal of Positive Futures, Winter 2001. Ray and Anderson make the link between the civil rights movement and a widespread cultural awakening. Their insight triggered the realization for me that something far more profound is at work than simply a shift in values. In subsequent personal discussions Ray has affirmed his support for the thesis that what his research has uncovered is in fact evidence of a step to a new level of human consciousness that has profound implications.
6. Ray and Anderson, Cultural Creatives (see chap. 2, n. 4).
7. As reported by Duane Elgin and Coleen LeDrew, “Global Paradigm Report: Tracking the Shift Underway,” YES! A Journal of Positive Futures, Winter 1997, 19; Duane Elgin with Coleen LeDrew, Global Consciousness Change: Indicators of an Emerging Paradigm (San Anselmo, CA: Millennium Project, 1997). For further information visit http://www.awakeningearth.org/.
8. Ronald Inglehart, Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997).
9. Parker J. Palmer, interview by Sarah van Gelder, “Integral Life, Integral Teacher,” YES! A Journal of Positive Futures, Winter 1999, http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=796.
10. The People’s Earth Declaration is included as an annex to David C. Korten, When Corporations Rule the World (West Hartford, CT: Kumarian, and San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1995). See also: NGO Documents for the Earth Summit, 1992, http://www.earthsummit2002.org/toolkits/Women/ngo-doku/ngo-conf/ngoearth5.htm.
11. For a text and further information on the Earth Charter see http://www.earthcharter.org/.
12. Frances F. Korten, “Report from the World Social Forum,” YES! A Journal of Positive Futures, Spring 2004, http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=710.
13. Patrick E. Tyler, “A New Power in the Streets,” New York Times, February 17, 2002.
14. Eisler, Chalice and Blade.
PART II: Sorrows of Empire
Introduction
1. Cornel West, “Finding Hope in Dark Times,” Tikkun, July/August 2004, 18.
Chapter 5: When God Was a Woman
1. Eisler, Chalice and Blade, 20.
2. I use gatherer-hunter rather than the more familiar hunter-gatherer at the suggestion of Riane Eisler, who points out that in most of these societies the basic subsistence depended more on gathering than hunting. The conventional emphasis on hunting reflects a bias toward presenting men, who generally led the hunt, as the primary providers and downplaying the role of women, who more often had the responsibility for gathering.
3. Eisler, Chalice and Blade, 66.
4. Ibid., 66–69.
5. Edward McNall Burns, Western Civilizations: Their History and Their Culture, 5th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1958), 11.
6. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2003, deluxe ed. CD, s.v. “Human Evolution”; Philip Lee Ralph et al., Western Civilizations: Their History and Their Culture, vol. 1, 9th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997), 6–8.
7. Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 267–68.
8. Burns, Western Civilizations, 124.
9. Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel, 16.
10. Eisler, Chalice and Blade, 16–21.
11. Merlin Stone, When God Was a Woman (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1976), 2–4.
12. Eisler, Chalice and Blade, 28.
13. Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 168–84.
14. Eisler, Chalice and Blade, 28.
15. Sydney Smith, in Myth, Ritual, and Kingship, ed. S.H. Hooke (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), quoted in Stone, When God Was a Woman, 130.
16. Stone, When God Was a Woman, 41–42.
17. Ibid., 11–12.
18. A. Moortgat, The Art of Ancient Mesopotamia (London: Macmillan, 1970), quoted in Stone, When God Was a Woman, 130.
19. Quoted in Stone, When God Was a Woman, 34–35.
20. Stone, When God Was a Woman, 63–64.
21. Eisler, Chalice and Blade, 45.
22. Swimme and Berry, Universe Story
, 184.
23. Eisler, Chalice and Blade, xxiii, 42–48, 51–53.
24. Ibid., 48–53.
25. Ibid., 91–92.
26. The global history of slavery is documented by Milton Meltzer in Slavery: A World History (New York: Da Capo, 1993), 1–3.
Chapter 6: Ancient Empire
1. Ilarion (Larry) Merculief, “The Gifts from the Four Directions,” YES! A Journal of Positive Futures, Spring 2004, 44–45. Based on his studies of oral prophecy.
2. These sources include Ralph et al., Western Civilizations; Burns, Western Civilizations; Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel; Will Durant, Heroes of History: A Brief History of Civilization from Ancient Times to the Dawn of the Modern Age (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001); Encyclopaedia Britannica 2003, deluxe ed. CD; and a variety of Web resources, including the BBC Internet service history collection, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ (accessed September 10, 2005); and http://www.historyguide.org/.
3. Ralph et al., Western Civilizations, 32–33.
4. Burns, Western Civilizations, 77.
5. Ralph et al., Western Civilizations, 36.
6. Ibid., 44.
7. Burns, Western Civilizations, 76.
8. Ralph et al., Western Civilizations, 44.
9. Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel, 411.
10. Burns, Western Civilizations, 40.
11. Ibid., 46.
12. Ralph et al., Western Civilizations, 118–20.
13. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Roman Empire: The Paradox of Power. From the BBC Internet service history collection, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/.
14. Ralph et al., Western Civilizations, 229.
15. Ibid., 229–30.
16. Durant, Heroes of History, 143.
17. This brief survey of emperors who ruled for more than a hundred years of the roughly two-hundred-year Pax Romana is compiled from Encyclopaedia Britannica 2003, deluxe ed. CD.
18. Ralph et al., Western Civilizations, 249.
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