Kerry,
Thanks for sharing those other links to Eisenstein. I'm also enjoying listening
to his earlier book, Ascent of Humanity (which of course is freely available as
an e-book and as audio).
As for what we can do-
I think that is a great question.
Part of it for me is simply learning to live in a more interconnected way.
To paraphrase Thic Nhat Hanh-
i am the unjustly foreclosed upon worker
and the "bankster."
Also, I think it is about starting to apply some of the ideas in the book (none
of which, as Eisenstein acknowledges, are new anyway) like Gift Circles.
Incidentally, Eisenstein references Alpha Lo as someone who is active with Gift
Circles, and I had the good fortune of meeting him at the San Francisco 2008
WOSonOS...
One thing I've resolved to do is hold a monthly gift circle where I live. I
held my birthday last month as a gift circle- and it was wonderful! It took
some courage to do a birthday a little differently...but it was really
beautiful.
Will that change the world? i don't know. Will it make the world more just?
good question.
For me, holding the gift circle was about opening a little space.
That said- for a gift circle to truly be powerful, we must really need each
other. And our lives are often set up so that we are pretty darn separate. As
eisentein posits, since we don't really need each other, community doesn't
really happen.
that said, i see value in gathering in a circle like this....
Part of the positive story I hear in Sacred Economics is that this "Age of
Separation" is ending whether we like it or not- the process of the shift,
though, can be rather bumpy...So, this old system- including this financial
system with "banksters," he seems to suggest will just collapse.
my two kopecks/rials/drams,
greetings from this southwest corner of continental obamastan,
raffi
p.s. i've also enjoyed this three hour chris hedges interview given on cspan
early last year http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/303072-1 I'v shared it with
a lot of people (especially those who were seriously contemplating voting for
Obama in the '12 election) While I share a lot of the criticism and can look
past the critical/negative tone, I think the worldview he is operating from is
a limiting one.
Dear Listers Thanks Raffi for introducing SACRED ECONOMICS. If we can find a
way to get rid of money by reinventing the way we exist,
the banksters will disappear along with all the greedy and selfish people
who have accumulated the world's riches on the backs of others through the
shibboleth of globalisation. There is something disastrously wrong when
the three richest people have more wealth than the poorest 48 countries in
the world. How did 0.5% of the population amass 38% of the world's wealth
when 68% of the population have only 4.2%? How can capitalism, which depends on
consumption economics to create more
and more growth, continue when the earth's resources are finite and the
environment is ravaged to produce yet more wealth for the few. In our
hearts we know the old system is bankrupt and corrupt, so something must
change. Eisenstein's book is one attempt to look at what the transition
might involve. For some years I have believed there is another way we can move
away from
production and consumption of quantity by focusing on quality, making and
doing things that last and allow people to feel good without using more and
more precious resources. Do you have any thoughts? More specifically, does Open
Space have a role to play here? How do we get
from Bruce opening space from his park bench in deep winter to transforming
the world? Peace Kerry
Edinburgh
******
"The truism that we reap only what we sow only goes back as far as agriculture.
Before then, we could reap without sowing: nature was fundamentally provident.
For the hunter-gatherer, the providence of nature requires little labor or
planning, but only an understanding of nature’s patterns. Primitive
survival is a matter of intimacy and not control.."
-- Charles Eisenstein, Ascent of Humanity
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