Outdated cultures behind America’s failing political system
The political systems of Western liberal democracy are failing. Blinkered by their cultures, most politicians and journalists do not see the extent of this failure.
The political systems of Western liberal democracy are failing. Blinkered by their cultures, most politicians and journalists do not see the extent of this failure.
Now’s the moment for us to learn from our eco-civilizations of the past to ensure we can have a civilization in our future.
This story weaves the indigenous cultural revival of the Muysca people of Suba in Colombia, together with the transition to more sustainable living.
Fish traps have a long history around the world, and a vast network in a Vancouver Island estuary reveals generations of ecological wisdom.
The prospect of getting back to normal, of being released from the current peculiar restricted condition is suddenly almost as overwhelming as was the initial lockdown.
Jeremy Lent is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. He addresses the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?”
The somber truth is that the vast bulk of nature’s staggering abundance has already disappeared. We live in a world characterized primarily by the relative silence and emptiness of its natural spaces.
When you put these examples of cultural revival, land restoration, and community healing together, it shows us that restoration is not so much about “finally making peace with nature”, as it is about finally making peace with our cultural past.
As our civilization careens toward a precipice of climate breakdown, ecological destruction, and gaping inequality, people are losing their existential moorings. Our dominant worldview has passed its expiration date: it’s based on a series of flawed assumptions that have been superseded by modern scientific findings.
For almost every important political moment in Western Europe and North America over the past 20 years, there was an article or book by David Graeber that could be said to have helped define it.
We are realising the true value of working on the land to grow food – an activity that has been the cornerstone of Ladakhi culture forever. A young farmers’ movement is emerging in Ladakh – a movement that we showcase and celebrate in our film.
Then I found the blood moon eclipsed through the trees, an elemental mystery that reaches deep into our ancestral memories, before our consciousness was obscured by science and reason.