Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Per Espen Stoknes is a psychologist with a PhD in economics, a TED Global speaker, and also serves as the director of Centre for Green Growth at the Norwegian Business School. He answers the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?”
By moving beyond binaries and incorporating the worldviews of previously marginalized voices, we can co-create shared visions of the future rooted in regenerative justice.
We’re currently on a pathway to collapse, but the future doesn’t have to be bleak. We can develop communities where we take care of one another and the ecosystems we inhabit.
Perhaps, as the shamans of old-time cultures knew, what matters most is the patient’s proper integration into the wider community. Which I take to be an encouraging pointer to the possible good health available in a small farm future.
Think of it as a garden: you start with the soil, preparing it for seeding, and you work with the grassroots, cultivating a crop and nurturing it carefully over time. Democracy is more like an annual crop than a perennial one; it needs to be refreshed periodically. It won’t keep thriving if it’s left alone.
The mechanism by which survival-of-the-fittest brings about prudence therefore cannot work any more. The analogy with nature has broken down. It can no longer support the belief that the pursuit of individual benefits will ultimately lead to balance in society and economics.
Douglas Rushkoff revisits Crazy Town, where he and Asher discuss why so many billionaires, academic institutions, and “serious” people are drawn to longtermism – the view that our top priority should be ensuring that humanity can spread its wings throughout the physical and virtual universe.
Re-localize, reduce, repair, and reuse. Build resilience. Become more independent of the monetary economy in any neighborly ways you can.
We can still choose our path forward, we can still sacrifice for what we value. But to do so we must recognize the power we possess, build on it in community with others, and acknowledge the ways in which we wield it.
It is my belief that we will create the future we long for only because we are able to master the art of telling the most compelling stories. Stories that are delicious, irresistible, mesmerising.
But what if our voracious appetite is less to blame than the types of things that hunger has been directed toward? Could we direct our attention instead toward beauty, tenderness, and collective action?
Blues may be America’s greatest cultural gift to the world; if not, it’s certainly on the short list. Blues embodies human resilience in the face of adversity and suffering.
