Listen now | Researcher Sally Goerner says oligarchy is the final stage of most human civilizations—and a symptom of dysfunctional human systems.She joins me to explain why the future is integral and collaborative, why empowering people with vision and hope is key to creating systemic changes, why citizenship is the foundation of any human system, and how to measure the health of those systems.Sally is the Director of Edinburgh University’s Planetary Health Lab.
Great conversation! Analysis was cogent and empowering until Ms Goering veered into "hierarchies are necessary", and you had this riff on how to select a leader, that benign philosopher king/queen, whose selflessness would save us. It sounded to me like she's still on the oligarch's side of the fence, assuming there would need to be institutions that are in control, and that we need a continuity of institutional power, precisely what the oligarchs want us to think. According to her model, we remain embedded in unequal relationships, and she fails to take her own analysis to the next level: because the system is suicidal, and the oligarchs will not allow revolutionary change while they hold power, the system will collapse, and the democratic, collaborative systems that she advocates will have to emerge from the inchoate aftermath.
Sorry about error in name! Goerner. (See below)
Great conversation! Analysis was cogent and empowering until Ms Goering veered into "hierarchies are necessary", and you had this riff on how to select a leader, that benign philosopher king/queen, whose selflessness would save us. It sounded to me like she's still on the oligarch's side of the fence, assuming there would need to be institutions that are in control, and that we need a continuity of institutional power, precisely what the oligarchs want us to think. According to her model, we remain embedded in unequal relationships, and she fails to take her own analysis to the next level: because the system is suicidal, and the oligarchs will not allow revolutionary change while they hold power, the system will collapse, and the democratic, collaborative systems that she advocates will have to emerge from the inchoate aftermath.