Thanks for this Rachel. As usual, a beautiful mixture of excellent and bleak. I'm so incredibly admiring of your tenacious, determined and important work.
I suppose, for me, prying apart government, corporation and the values (that drive both) being those of the powered classes mean that it's extremely difficult to predict from where true resistance will come.
When various African nations achieved their "independence" in the early 60's, the triumvirate of Western governments, corporations and their supporting values surreptitiously and overtly interfered for their own benefit at the expense of Africans and the everyone's future. Today's African issues are caused by Western lifestyles. Today's planetary issues are the same? Maybe. Maybe not.
My feeling is that nothing has changed. But I don't want to predict horrors. I want to say thanks for keeping people like me optimistic that, although new imaginings are sometimes beyond me, you are working to remind us of the possibly nobility of humanity, instead of seeing only so much lunacy.
It will not change until the average citizen of the so-called global north abandons the consumer behaviour of which they have been groomed to operate. It will change when they stop acquiescing and allowing themselves to be subjugated. It will change when they take back control, accountability and responsibility for their own lives rather than being told (overtly and covertly) how to live, how and what to think, what to buy, what to wear, what to drive, what to eat, how to raise children, etc. - in effect, how to consume. It will change when they begin to appreciate and revere the earth and all that is in it rather than merely expecting and demanding that it fulfil their every consumptive desire. It will change when they learn to live with enough (which will entail redefining in a realistic and pragmatic way, "enough"). It will change when they stop being manipulated for the purposes of unlimited growth capitalism to keep the machine and it's technocratic, elitist operators in the position of power and control. It will change when family and community take precedence over individual fulfilment, greed and gluttony. It's not going to be up to governments and COP meetings and vocal but ultimately ineffective protestors and technology miracles. It will be grass roots anarchy underpinned by a deep and sincere understanding, recognition and acceptance that this is an existential set of crises unfolding and accelerating in real time and that resilience and survival starts with mindset and value changes within each and every one of us.
Thanks for this Rachel. As usual, a beautiful mixture of excellent and bleak. I'm so incredibly admiring of your tenacious, determined and important work.
I suppose, for me, prying apart government, corporation and the values (that drive both) being those of the powered classes mean that it's extremely difficult to predict from where true resistance will come.
When various African nations achieved their "independence" in the early 60's, the triumvirate of Western governments, corporations and their supporting values surreptitiously and overtly interfered for their own benefit at the expense of Africans and the everyone's future. Today's African issues are caused by Western lifestyles. Today's planetary issues are the same? Maybe. Maybe not.
My feeling is that nothing has changed. But I don't want to predict horrors. I want to say thanks for keeping people like me optimistic that, although new imaginings are sometimes beyond me, you are working to remind us of the possibly nobility of humanity, instead of seeing only so much lunacy.
Thanks.
"We need to switch the engine off."
OK ... how?
It will not change until the average citizen of the so-called global north abandons the consumer behaviour of which they have been groomed to operate. It will change when they stop acquiescing and allowing themselves to be subjugated. It will change when they take back control, accountability and responsibility for their own lives rather than being told (overtly and covertly) how to live, how and what to think, what to buy, what to wear, what to drive, what to eat, how to raise children, etc. - in effect, how to consume. It will change when they begin to appreciate and revere the earth and all that is in it rather than merely expecting and demanding that it fulfil their every consumptive desire. It will change when they learn to live with enough (which will entail redefining in a realistic and pragmatic way, "enough"). It will change when they stop being manipulated for the purposes of unlimited growth capitalism to keep the machine and it's technocratic, elitist operators in the position of power and control. It will change when family and community take precedence over individual fulfilment, greed and gluttony. It's not going to be up to governments and COP meetings and vocal but ultimately ineffective protestors and technology miracles. It will be grass roots anarchy underpinned by a deep and sincere understanding, recognition and acceptance that this is an existential set of crises unfolding and accelerating in real time and that resilience and survival starts with mindset and value changes within each and every one of us.
Insightful article. Thanks for sharing.