We have a regeneration and food forest project in the Andes, and one of the trees I wish to grow – for biodiversity, food for animals and humans, and income – is the traditional Maya nut tree (Guáimaros as they are called locally).
Last November, I was lucky enough to find two sources of Maya nuts in our neighborhood, so we now have about 100 Maya nut trees growing – some in the ground and a few still in large growing bags. This is just the start, and I hope to plant a few hundred more trees over the coming years.
I have been in contact with someone advising people on growing Maya nut trees, and we were recommended to plant them four meters apart, in full sun, and remove nearby plants since they compete for resources (water, nutrients, sun, etc.).
I understand where those guidelines come from, and I know it’s meant well. At the same time, we are doing something quite different. We wish to work in a deeper partnership with nature, natural processes, and the local ecosystem.
WHAT WE ARE DOING
We are creating a food forest that’s as wildly diverse as possible. We create terraces, swales, and porous dams to slow down the rain water so it is absorbed by the ground. We work actively on building soil, which for now includes bringing in compost and soil materials. We use mulch to protect and build the soil, and retain moisture longer.
This plant diversity creates a more healthy and resilient ecosystem. It helps build soil, encourages healthy and diverse soil life (including microbes and fungal networks), create shade to retain moisture, reduce the chance of an explosion of one types of insects, supports the insect life and wildlife, and produces a variety of foods for us and wildlife, and so on.
This diversity means the Maya nut trees will be about 10-15 meters apart from each other, which is fine since we will rely on a wide diversity of food plants, not just Maya nut trees.
WIN-WIN VS ZERO-SUM FOOD GROWING
As I see it, what we were recommended reflect a zero-sum approach to food growing, and what we are doing reflect more of a win-win approach.
In zero-sum food growing, we see plants – and life in general – as primarily competing for resources, so what doesn’t produce food needs to go. We may use artificial fertilizers and pesticides, which destroys the soil and the web of life supporting all life. We may rely on just one or a few crops, which creates vulnerabilities. We create ecological deserts that lead to habitat loss and extinctions.
We are, in essence, gradually destroying the web of life we and all life depend on.
In a win-win orientation, we support the web of life that supports all life – including ourselves, what we eat, and all we love. We seek diversity since a diverse system is more resilient. We seek to build soil and create healthy soil, since soil is the foundation for all plant and animal life. We seek to make maximum use of rainwater by slowing it down, allowing it time to infiltrate, and retaining moisture.
We help regenerate the web of life which we all depend on.
WHY IS THE MAINSTREAM APPROACH STILL MAINSTREAM?
This mainstream zero-sum approach is relatively new. It has happened over just the last one to three generations. It’s a blip in human history.
The modern conventional approach seems successful on the surface. We have dramatically increased the world’s food production over the last few decades, which seems desirable.
And it comes at a high cost. It’s part of the unraveling of the web of life supporting us all. It’s extractive food growing that’s destructive to soil, ecosystems, and ourselves. We borrow against the future. It cannot last.
It comes from a zero-sum orientation, and what loses is not only the others – what we call weeds and pests, and wildlife – but eventually ourselves. We are all in it together.
So why do many still use this approach? Because it does produce a lot of food. It’s a profitable business for those selling machinery, pesticides, fertilizers, and so on. Our whole system is now set up to support it. It has become the norm. It’s what’s expected. It’s what farmers now know and understand. It’s what they learn and pass on.
HOW DO WE SHIFT OUT OF IT?
What does it take to shift out of it?
That’s obviously a big and complex question.
Some answers are: Knowledge and education. Pointing out who benefits and who loses from each system. (In our current mainstream food system, we eventually all lose.) Good examples of alternatives, including some that work at larger scales. Systems change to encourage win-win systems, which includes putting the real cost into the finances of food systems.
We are doing our small part by developing and living a more life-centered alternative.
The old left–right political map grew out of 18th-century France and no longer captures the challenges of our time. Today, two dimensions matter more: whether policies are green, aligning with ecological realities in the face of global overshoot, and whether they are inclusive, expanding the circle of who is cared for and who has a voice, from marginalized people to non-human beings and future generations. These axes reveal four broad orientations — inclusive but extractive, exclusive and extractive, exclusive but green, and inclusive and green — with the last offering the only truly sustainable, win-win path forward. By adopting this updated map, we can better see through superficial politics, focus on what matters, and orient ourselves toward futures where both people and the Earth can thrive.
We all use mental maps to think about political parties and their policies.
I like to ask myself some important questions about these maps.
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
What mental models do I use to organize political parties and their policies?
What do these mental maps say about me? How do they shape my views and behavior? What do I see because of them? What do they hide?
Are they aligned with what I really value? Are there models that better fit what’s important to me?
THE LEFT-RIGHT AXIS
For a couple of hundred years now, we have used a left-right axis to understand politics.
This comes from the seating arrangement in the French National Assembly after the 1789 storming of the Bastille at the beginning of the French Revolution. Those who defended the monarchy, church, and aristocracy sat on the right. Those who wanted radical change sat on the left.
This was more broadly adopted in Europe in the 1800s, when right came to mean defense of privilege, and left meant reform, redistribution, and often a more inclusive democracy.
THE SHORTCOMINGS OF THE LEFT-RIGHT AXIS
As with any map, the left-right axis has shortcomings.
It reflects the political situation of France in the late 1700s where the focus was on tradition versus revolution, and the social distribution of money and resources.
That’s why others have used other axes, often in addition to the left-right one. For instance, progressive-conservative (more about openness to change), urban-rural, secular-religious, globalist-nationalist, libertarian-authoritarian (the Political Compass), and so on.
So the question is: What’s different today from revolutionary France? What’s important to us in our world?
GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT
These days, our overarching crisis comes from global ecological overshoot. We are spending far more natural resources than this living planet can replenish. Our collective ecological footprint is larger than this planet. That means unraveling of ecological systems and eventual ecological collapse, and with it, civilizational collapse. We are on a path that’s ecocidal and suicidal.
So shouldn’t our political maps reflect that urgency?
THE GREEN AXIS
In my mental maps, the green axis is essential.
Do the policies take our ecological reality into account?
Do they come from an understanding of the urgency of our situation?
Do they reflect the understanding of a need for a profound transformation of our civilization?
Are they regenerative?
THE INCLUSIVITY AXIS
I also use another mental dimension, the inclusivity axis.
How inclusive are the policies? How wide is the circle of WE?
How wide is the circle of those we aim to benefit through the policies? A segment of our own society? All of our society? Everyone globally? Non-human beings and species? Ecosystems? Rivers? Future generations? Who are harmed by our policies? Who is left out?
How wide is the circle of those that have a voice in the forming and implementation of these policies? How deep is our democracy? Do we include all of society? Passively, by allowing them to vote? Actively, by seeking out the voices that are often quiet, including of those who are marginalized? Do we give a voice to non-human beings, rivers, and mountains? Do we give a voice to future generations?
This dimension is perhaps most similar to the partnership-domination spectrum from Rianne Eisler, rephrased as power-with and power-over by Starhawk.
Unlike the libertarian–authoritarian axis, inclusivity is not primarily about state control vs. personal freedom. It’s about who is included in our circle of concern and who has a voice.
IT MAY SEEM NAIVE
As I write this, I have a mental image of people dismissing this as naive.
And yet, is it naive?
To me, it seems more naive to use political maps that belong to the 1700s and a very different world than the one we live in. It seems naive to ignore Earth’s limits and pretend it has infinite resources for us to use, and infinite capacity to absorb the waste of civilization. And it seems naive to continue on a path we know leads to ecological and civilizational collapse.
As I and many others see it, we have two main tasks ahead of us:
Reducing our collective ecological footprint, which means a thorough redesign of our civilization – from our basic assumptions about the world (separation vs interconnectedness) to education, technology, energy production and use, and every other aspect.
Creating a deeper democracy. One that actively seeks win-win solutions that benefit as many as possible, including non-human beings and species, ecosystems, and future generations. And one that actively seeks input from as many voices as possible, including the same.
And those two go hand-in-hand. We cannot have one without the other. To gain support for regenerative policies, we need the support of the people. They need to know it benefits them as well. They need to be heard and included.
GREEN-INCLUSIVITY MODEL
I made a simple diagram of the green-inclusivity map of politics and policies.
It doesn’t cover everything that’s important, of course, but it does cover two essential dimensions.
The horizontal/green axis shows how green a policy is, or how green a political party tends to be. At the far left is explicitly anti-green policies. To the far right, deeply regenerative policies.
The vertical/inclusive axis shows how inclusive it is. At the bottom are strongly exclusive (authoritarian) policies. At the top are deep democracy policies.
That gives us the following quadrants:
A. Inclusive but extractive
B. Exclusive & extractive
C. Exclusive but green
D. Inclusive & green
FAMILIAR POLITICAL PARTIES
I’ll take some examples to see where they fall in this map. First, some familiar political parties.
In the U.S., Democrats are moderately inclusive within the human sphere, although still in the pockets of Big Money and only marginally green. Trump Republicans would be quite far down on both dimensions. They want to exclude minorities from voting through gerrymandering and other policies, and their policies are often explicitly anti-green.
In Norway, the Green Party are somewhere in the top right quadrant. They are averagely democratic, and somewhat include the imagined views of non-human beings and species and future generations. They are about as green as any political party can be in our society. In both areas, I imagine they would go much further towards the top right if it was realistic in our society. Most other parties are middling in terms of democracy, and somewhere on the left side on the green axis.
EXAMPLES BY QUADRANT
And then, some examples of each quadrant, including some especially clear ones.
A. Inclusive but extractive. In this quadrant, we find 20th-century welfare states, or liberal parties that champion human rights but rely on extractive growth. This liberal orientation can be strongly inclusive within the human sphere, which brings them somewhat into the inclusivity side of the map.
That said, it’s difficult to imagine an orientation that’s deeply inclusive while also strongly extractive. In this map, if you are highly inclusive, it means you bring in the voices of the non-human and future generations, and that means you’ll have to be at least somewhat green.
B. Exclusive & extractive. Authoritarian regimes are often also extractive. As mentioned above, the Trump Republicans unfortunately fall into this category. Historical fascist regimes, under Hitler, Mussolini, Pinochet, and others, were even lower on the inclusivity scale and equally extractive.
C. Exclusive but green. Ecofascism is an interesting example of a dangerous orientation that’s at the low extreme of one axis and the high extreme of the other. We’ve seen only hints of this so far, which is for the best, though the risk may grow as ecological collapse deepens. We may, for instance, see forms of ecofascism emerge among some of the super-wealthy. Among existing ecofacists, for instance in Eastern Europe, I get the impression that they claim to be green without actually being very green.
Some forms of fortress conservation is another example for this quadrant, where nature is preserved at the expense of the indigenous population.
D. Inclusive & green. Green parties are mainly in this quadrant, as mentioned earlier, although they can typically go much further on both dimensions. They are limited by the realities of our current society, culture, and civilization. Bhutan is likely here too, reasonably green and inclusive, a somewhat flawed democracy although young and aspiring.
The imagined future society in my own Long Journey Home project would be in this top right quadrant, and further along than just about any political party today. They strive to be deeply democratic and actively engage marginalized people and include the voices of non-human beings and species, rivers, mountains, oceans, and future generations (they give voice to them, as best as they can, in councils, community decisions, and the law and legal system). This society is also regenerative and deeply green.
REFLECTIONS ON THE QUADRANTS
The top left (inclusive/extractive) and bottom right (exclusive/green) are, in some ways, mirror images of each other. They are both high in one dimension and low at the other. As I see it, they are both self-contradictory. One cares for people but not so much for the living systems we are part of or future generations. The other cares for our living systems, but less for (other) people.
Both come from a zero-sum orientation. To make life better for people today, we need to extract natural resources. To protect our living systems, we need to oppress people.
The bottom left (exclusive/extractive) and top right (inclusive/green) quadrants are, at least, more internally consistent.
The exclusive/extractive quadrant is a kind of lose-lose quadrant. Most people lose, and our living systems lose. Just a very few benefit from it, and only in a narrow sense and in the short term.
The inclusive/green quadrant is a win-win quadrant. Since it’s inclusive, it does depend on people wanting it and that’s its weakness. If people want it, that’s also its strength. It’s the only one that’s sustainable both socially and ecologically, as long as people want it.
Looking at the few examples I placed in the diagram, I wonder if more examples would create a pattern similar to a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram for stars (!) – a diagonal band across the chart, with a few outliers.
THE TOP SECTION OF THE DIAGRAM
I mentioned briefly that it’s difficult for me to find examples for the top of the diagram from current politics, whether for the left or right side of the diagram.
On the left side, it’s because none are as inclusive as they can be in terms of including voices for non-human beings, ecosystems, and future generations. (In practice, it would be someone speaking for them, and their rights embedded in enforced law.) Current parties and policies are, at most, inclusive within the human realm, and that brings them only up to the middle or just above.
On the right side, it’s because none are as green as they can be in terms of working for a thorough transformation of our society, culture and civilization, and creating deeply regenerative versions of these. I assume many Greens want this and have it as a vision, but it’s not yet realistic in our society and culture.
Some do write, speak, and do work on these topics, and live it in their own lives and in smaller groups. They fit higher up. Some examples are Arne Næss with his Deep Ecology, Joanna Macy, ecovillages, people working with deep democracy models, and so on.
A FEW MORE THOUGHTS
I first called this article A politics of oneness. That’s what it is, of course. A wish to create a regenerative and inclusive society grows out of recognizing our interconnectedness. We are all local and temporary expressions of the living system we call Earth. Our own health and well-being, and even our existence, depends on a thriving social and ecological whole.
Our old maps were useful, and now they hide what matters most. A politics that ignores ecology and excludes voices drives us toward collapse. A politics that is both green and inclusive gives us a chance to thrive. Our political maps need to reflect this reality.
These dimensions don’t capture everything, but they highlight what matters most in our time. They show us whether our politics align with the living systems we depend on, and how wide our circle of concern reaches. They help us cut through superficial politics, focus on what truly matters, and create a future where life can thrive.
WHO IS THIS FOR?
Who are these kinds of updated political maps for?
I imagine some groups will resonate with it, especially people who are into sustainability, systems views, and so on. They will at least understand it, although I am sure they have their own views and see inevitable shortcomings of this and similar models. (Spiral Dynamics Green and second tier.)
People who have a modern mainstream mindset may not see the need for such a model. It may seem naive, hippieish, idealistic, and so on. To speak to this group, emphasizing the science and the pragmatics of it may be important. We are in ecological overshoot, which has dramatic consequences, and this is a framework we need to include to understand politics, society, and our economy. By exploring these kinds of maps, and taking these kinds of concerns into account, you can be ahead of the competition. (Spiral Dynamics Orange.)
People who are traditionalists and religious will likely see these maps as irrelevant to their lives. To speak to these groups, it may be good to emphasize that the aim is to care for God’s creation, family, community, and our children and their children. It’s about creating a world where people are taken care of. (Spiral Dynamics Blue.)
Of course, even by adapting the language and speaking to their values, only a few will likely be interested. That’s fine. That’s how the world works.
A NOTE ON AI USE IN THIS ARTICLE
I used AI to summarize the article, which is the first paragraph. Otherwise, I used AI minimally for feedback of the kind you would receive from an editor.
Norway has a parliamentary election this Monday (the voting has been open for a month), and as so often, it brings up the topic of ideological purity versus pragmatism.
In Norway, parties that get more than 4% of the votes are rewarded with extra seats, and this year, the Green Party is at that limit. The traditional liberal and conservative blocks are close in size, so whether the Greens get more or less than 4% can determine the outcome of the election.
I have three parties I can vote for without holding my nose. I obviously don’t agree with every policy of all of those parties, but it doesn’t matter. They are close enough, and since all of them are relatively small, I vote for whatever one is at risk to go below 4%. This year, it was the Green Party. (Which I also happen to be a member of.)
Other years, it has been one of the other two. And IF another party on the liberal (red-green) side was close to 4%, and whether they go above or below could determine the outcome of the whole election, I would vote for that one, even if it would mean voting for a party I agree with less.
To me, it’s more important that the liberal coalition wins than that I personally get some kind of satisfaction in the voting booth. I am more than happy to hold my nose slightly in the voting booth, and have four more years with a coalition I generally agree with. (Or, at least, don’t strongly disagree with.)
The perfect is the enemy of the good. I see the value of voting for exactly the party you agree with the most, although for me, it’s not worth it if it risks a loss for the coalition as a whole.
In reality, I don’t see any party going far enough, apart from possibly the Greens. By far, the most crucial topic in our age is to avoid going further into global ecological overshoot (which means ecocide and suicide, ecological and civilizational collapse), and to create a deeply regenerative civilization. We are very far from that, and no party really even talk about it apart from some within the Green Party.
Some like to talk about the polycrisis – a confluence of several different global crises from climate change to biodiversity loss, from huge economic disparity to authoritarianism, and so on.
What if this is really a monocrisis? (Or a unicrisis?)
In terms of the unraveling ecological systems, it all ties back into global ecological overshoot. We are collectively using far more resources than this living planet can replenish. This is due to a combination of numbers, technology, and worldview.
And that brings us to the even more essential monocrisis, which is a civilization organized around the idea of separation. This idea comes with a zero-sum mindset (I seek solutions so I win, and I don’t care if you lose. If you win, I assume it means I lose.) and an either/or mindset (if this thought is true, that competing one is not). In our civilization, it’s tied in with a domination or power-over orientation. It depends on some degree of collective and integenerational trauma. And it’s the reason we have organized ourselves so what appears beneficial for a narrow us is often destructive for others – ecosystems, nonhuman beings, future generations, and so on. This is also what has led to global ecological overshoot.
It’s sometimes misguided to simplify a diverse set of symptoms to one underlying apparent cause, but in this case, it makes sense. Without the idea of separation, a visceral sense of separation that comes from internalizing it from a very young age, and a civilization organized around the same idea – in terms of culture, science, technology, infrastructure, production, education and everything else – we very likely wouldn’t see all the many troubles we have today.
It’s not so difficult to imagine a civilization organized around the idea of interconnectedness. It wouldn’t be without its own challenges, but many of the most serious challenges we see today would or could be designed out of our systems and lives. We would see ourselves as temporary and local expressions of this seamless living planet. We would seek win-win solutions and have a both/and mindset. We would use a deep partnership orientation – seeking solutions in partnership with natural systems, and taking what works best from both partnership and domination orientations. We would create a civilization and society where what’s easy and attractive to do, for organizations and individuals, is also what benefits the larger whole and future generations.
Of course, I am sure many who speak about the polycrisis are aware of this, and point it out.
Still, I like the terms monocrisis or unicrisis. It doesn’t mean we have all the answers, but it does invite curiosity about whether it is really one unified crisis that leads back to an essential assumption behind just about everything in our civilization. It also invites us to investigate other ways to organize ourselves.
Whether we notice or not, we are part of this seamless, evolving, living system we call Earth. For most of our history, we lived without being consciously aware of this bigger picture, or of how basic cultural assumptions shape our civilizations.
The question then is: If we join in with the evolution of this living system in a more conscious and intentional way, how may it look? What role do we wish to play?
Just about any time I look at the news, even relatively good news sources like The Guardian, I see reporters not doing their job.
They report on the drop in visitors to the US and like to mention tariffs as a reason, since that is the most innocent-sounding one. They forget to mention the far more serious backdrop: Most people don’t want to visit a country… Whose leader threatens to take their country (Canada) or part of their land (Denmark/Europe). Whose leader regularly uses blackmail and threats to get the upper hand in negotiations with other countries. Where a majority elects an authoritarian with fascist dreams. Or where tourists can be thrown in for-profit immigration prison for the most ridiculous reasons and have to endure inhumane conditions indefinitely without access to legal representation.
They report on Gaza without mentioning genocide, the real extent of the horrors, and that it’s systematic and supported by several Western states.
They report on climate change and don’t mention that it’s just one of many expressions of a far more serious issue – global ecological overshoot. They report on it as an inconvenience and not as the inevitable end of civilization and humanity – unless we find the collective will to make a dramatic course change.
Of course, there is the skill aspect of art, and the better the skills the more able you may be to express what you wish to express, and have it appreciated by more people.
At the same time, art is more essentially about a match. Is there a match with someone? If so, then the technical quality is secondary.
If we are doing it for ourselves, for our own sake, to satisfy something in us, then there is already a match, the most important match, which is with ourselves. Anything else is icing on the cake.
The sketch is one I did a long time ago, when drawing and painting were part of my daily life.
In the news today is a flood story from Texas where a river went over its banks due to heavy rain, leading to loss of life and a great deal of damage.
The news reports mainly focus on the damage and the lack of warning, some on climate change, and less on other equally important underlying causes and solutions.
ECOSYSTEM DEGRADATION
Climate change does play a role in this, of course. Increased heat (energy) in the atmosphere leads to more extreme weather, including heavier rainfall.
Still, in many cases, the main cause of disastrous flooding is not climate change itself. It’s degraded ecosystems.
Degraded ecosystems are unable to effectively deal with the inevitable occasional heavy rainfall. They make heavy rain into a problem instead of a resource.
ECOSYSTEM REGENERATION
The solution is ecosystem regeneration. Restore rivers and creeks – through porous stone dams and native vegetation along the banks – so they don’t go dry. Restore the flood plains. Restore the native vegetation in the whole area, the natural layer of mulch, and the soil, so water can slow down and absorb into the ground.
Do this in all public spaces. Encourage it in private spaces, including gardens and farms. (Through training, making plants available, help with the work, subsidies, tax cuts, and so on.) Remove any unnecessary asphalt and replace with native vegetation, or at the very least porous paving.
Install food forests wherever possible, to provide food for animals and the community.
WIN-WIN SOLUTIONS
This helps prevent flooding, makes heavy rain into a resource instead of a problem, and it benefits us in innumerable other ways. It provides habitat and food for others in the web of life we are part of. It provides food for us. It enhances our well-being. It improves the quality of the community. It reduces our ecological footprint. (Which is crucial in our age of global ecological overshoot.)
Also, in terms of climate change, ecosystem regeneration and reducing our ecological footprint are essential parts of the solution.
It’s a win-win-win solution and it’s very doable.
WHAT’S REQUIRED
What’s required is collective will, and perhaps a shift out of a zero-sum to a win-win mindset, and a shift from a view of separation to a view of connection.
Our current modern communities are largely a result of a zero-sum mindset. We use solutions that harm the web of life we are part of. And this is also tied to a view of separation. We see ourselves separate from the web of life, so we don’t care much what happens to it.
The reality is that we are all part of the same seamless web of life and living planet. What happens to the wider web of life happens to us. Win-win solutions are the only ones that make sense in this reality, especially when it comes to how we collectively organize ourselves.
At the center of our civilization is an illusion, and reality reminds us – including through this kind of flooding.
I am watching the final episode of Andor, where the resistance leaders are reluctant to take the info about the death star seriously.
As I was watching it, my thoughts told me this is unrealistic, far-fetched, and written just to create tension.
The source has been reliable in the past. People have died for the info. Creating a super-weapon is just what the Empire would do. If there is just the tiniest possibility it’s true, they need to take it very seriously. It doesn’t cost much to take it seriously and seek to gather more info and do something about it. And it wouldn’t take away from what they would do anyway. It fits right into what they need to do no matter what.
So why reject the info? It seems too illogical to be realistic.
Then I remembered this world. A world where climate change is still debated and not taken seriously, even if… (a) The science is clear. (b) It’s a subset of a far more serious issue, global ecological overshoot, which we know is happening. (c) It doesn’t change what we need to do. We need to create a civilization with a much smaller ecological footprint, that’s not in ecological overshoot, and that is regenerative as a whole and in the details.
The resistance leaders in Andor rejecting the info seems illogical, childish, and unrealistic.
And yet, it’s exactly what we see in the world today when it comes to climate change and global ecological overshoot.
I should add something about why they reject the info. In Andor, they reject it because it comes from someone they don’t particularly like. They allow their own dislikes to override a more rational decision. That too is what we see in this world. Some of those who reject climate change – and don’t take ecological overshoot seriously – do so because they don’t like the ones who traditionally have taken it seriously. They don’t want to be associated with (the ones they see as) hippies and liberals. They hold onto an identity that doesn’t allow it.
Of course, that too is very human, a trauma response typical of our domination culture, and misguided, childish, and irrational.
We live in a traditionally (and weirdly) homophobic culture. In such a culture, gay people internalize homophobia (as we all do) and experience homophobia from others. So pride, and pride month, is an antidote to that. It can help someone continue living instead of deciding to end it all.
That’s why I see any kind of anti-pride sentiments as petty, misguided, and a sign of heterosexual privilege. If you don’t understand why we need pride month, then take five minutes to imagine how it is to be gay in a culture that’s made for heterosexuals and has a subtle and often not-so-subtle anti-gay bias.
I also don’t love pride month. I don’t love that it’s necessary in the first place. I would prefer a culture and civilization that’s radically inclusive. But that’s not the reality we live in.
As usual, there is a lot more to say about this.
HOW I RELATE TO MYSELF AND MY OWN EXPERIENCE
The way we relate to society and the outer world is how we relate to ourselves, our experiences, and our inner world. If I wish to get to know more of me, find and live more from my inner richness, and find peace with who and what I am and my always changing experiences, it only makes sense to be radically inclusive of society and the wider world. (Keeping the paradox of tolerance in mind.)
I AM INEVITABLY IN A MINORITY
Also, I am inevitably in a minority in society in some ways, and I can easily find myself as a minority in more obvious ways (for instance, by being disabled), so here too, it only makes sense to work towards a society that’s radically inclusive. I personally benefit from it already now, and may do so in a more obvious way in the future.
DOMINATION VS PARTNERSHIP CULTURES
This relates to the topic of domination and partnership cultures. In domination cultures, some groups are automatically seen as less-than and marginalized. A more deep partnership orientation tends to be more radically inclusive.
We all internalize marginalizing attitudes from the domination culture we live in, but we can be aware of it, we can be aware of the harm it does to others, ourselves, and society, and we can choose to see through it and live from a more inclusive orientation. Not (just) for the sake of the marginalized but for all of us and for the health of society as a whole.
ZERO-SUM VS WIN-WIN
A domination orientation tends to also come with a zero-sum mindset. If you are honored and actively included, it means there is less for me. I don’t want you to be honored or actively included since it can mean less for me. This is trauma behavior.
In contrast, a partnership orientation tends to come with a win-win mindset. If you are honored and actively included, that benefits all of us and me too. That’s the type of society I want to live in, because it’s better for all of us.
IN ESSENCE
So, in essence…
Pride saves lives. It creates a more inclusive society, which directly benefits me since I too need and want to be included. And it helps me find peace with more sides of myself and my own experience.
It also costs literally nothing. It doesn’t cost me anything. It doesn’t cost society anything.
I mentioned to someone that a lawn could be made into an old-fashioned diverse garden with fruit trees, berry bushes, flowering bushes, perennial flowers, and wild areas. His response was: won’t the wild animals take the food? Isn’t a manicured lawn good?
To me, this illustrates a few different things.
First, it’s a reminder of the general lack of ecological literacy in our society.
We are in global ecological overshoot, and whatever we can do to regenerate ecosystems – even if it’s “just” converting a lawn into a more natural garden or a food forest, moves us in the right direction.
We have a massive loss of insects here in Norway, and the recent fashioned of overly manicured lawns is part of the problem. Where there used to be trees, bushes, flowers, and wild areas and edges, there is now a green desert that can’t support much if any life. (Pesticides used in agriculture and green area is another reason for the collapse of the insect world, as is natural areas made into buildings and roads.)
Converting a lawn to a more wild area with a diversity of flowers will support the local insects, which is invaluable. What happens to the insects will happen to us. What we do to the web of life, we do to ourselves.
Then, there is the difference between a zero-sum vs win-win mindset.
The fear of animals taking the food comes from a zero-sum mindset. If they take it, there won’t be enough for me. It may be better to not do anything than allowing the wild animals to eat food from the garden.
The reality is that a diverse and lush garden provides more than enough food for everyone. Also, we can get our food from the supermarket, and the wildlife can only get it from nature.
A win-win mindset comes from recognizing that we are all part of the web of life. Our existence depends on a thriving web of life and wildlife. We can’t exist without it.
We all win or we all lose, together. And right now, we are all losing. The whole web of life is losing because of our civilization organized around the idea of separation and a zero-sum mindset.
Recognizing this can be challenging and bring up grief, despair, and more, and the remedy – for us collectively and individually – is for each of us to do what we can, including in our own literal backyard.
The featured photo is from one of the apple trees at my childhood home. The rest are from a recent trip to Drøbak where some old-fashioned gardens still exist.
When I hear the phrase the right side of history, it brings up a few questions.
What we see as the right side of history obviously depends on who, where, and when we are.
We tend to use the phrase about anything that contributes to creating a world that works better for all of us. Anything that moves in the direction of widening circles of inclusivity, widening circle of “us”, and so on.
Why? Mainly, because it aligns with the values of the ones who tend to use the phrase – Western educated liberal people.
I see it that way too, so considering that inevitable bias…
What may future generations see as the right side of history when they look back to our time? And why?
GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT & CREATING A REGENERATIVE CIVILIZATION
I imagine they will see one issue – global ecological overshoot – as the primary one.
We live in a civilization with an assumption of separation at its center.
We assume that humans are separate from the web of life. That we can externalize cost to other people, the rest of the web of life, and future generations, and that it won’t come back to bite us. That Earth’s resources are infinite and has infinite capacity to regenerate. That humans somehow, intrinsically, are more valuable than the rest of the web of life. And so on.
This has led to a global human civilization that has an ecological footprint larger than Earth and lives in global ecological overshoot. This is similar to living on a savings account. It looks fine until we reach the bottom and our lifestyle comes crashing down. In our case, globally, we are in the bottom layer and it’s our civilization that will come crashing down.
Actions that (a) tries to stop the destruction, (b) works on creating and living from a more life-centered worldview, or (c) creates and lives life-centered alternatives tend to be on the right side of history.
Future generations will very likely see this as being on the right side of history. (Assuming there will be more future generations, which is not a given.)
The ones most clearly on the right side of history are the ones who (a) go to the essence of the problem which is a civilization and system built around the assumption of separation, (b) recognize that the remedy is a thorough and profound transformation of our civilization, and (c) actively work on this and live the alternatives.
Why will future generations likely see this as being on the right side of history? Because this is not only sane, it’s what creates a better life – or the possibility for life – for those future generations.
This is an example of an issue that most today will agree with in a general way, and yet few realize the gravity of the situation, how profound the changes need to be, and are actually doing it in their own life.
When later generations look back and sees something as on the “right side of history”, that’s how it often seems to be. A good number of people may have sympathized with it in a general way, and a much smaller number actively lived it and brought it into society.
OTHER EXAMPLES
What can be more important than preserving the web of life that we are part of and depend on for our life?
That said, I imagine future generations may see some of the following as being on the right side of history…
Rights of ecosystems, non-human beings, and future generations
Considering the interests of future generations, I imagine they will see any promotion of the rights of ecosystems, non-human beings, and future generations as being on the right side of history.
In our civilization, built on the idea of separation, the rights of individuals and corporations are at the center. Individuals are seen as the default legal unit, and corporations as almost sacred in an economy that assumes unlimited natural resources, the rights of humans to use everything in the commons of life for themselves, and that we can get away with destroying the web of life we are part of.
In reality, if we are to preserve what’s most precious to us – our lives, the lives of future generations, and what’s valuable in our civilization (science, art, etc.) – we need to give the rest of the web of life equal rights. We need to give legal rights to rivers, mountains, the ocean, ecosystems, species, and future generations.
That’s the only way we can protect what’s most valuable to us. That’s the only way we can protect the web of life we are part of, depend on, and that gives life to everyone and everything valuable to us.
Regeneration & growing non-toxic food
One of the things we can do to slow or reverse our global ecological overshoot is regeneration – of ecosystems, oceans, forests, meadows, agricultural fields, and our parks and gardens.
For this to happen at a global scale, we need a global and thorough transformation of our civilization and the basic assumptions of our civilization. That’s a tall order, and although it needs to happen soon if we are to avoid an even more massive ecological (and civilizational) crash than we already are in, it’s unlikely to happen. It’s not something we can wait for.
So what can we do – as individuals, families, communities, and organizations?
One of the most powerful and rewarding things we can do is regeneration. We can engage in regeneration of our veranda, garden, local parks, rural land, or whatever we have to work with.
If it’s our own land, we can do it on our own, and if it’s communal land, we’ll need to find partners. Coalition building is vital, and it’s also good to start small and do it in small steps – for learning, to create something of better quality, and to gain more support.
Staying close to science
Science is a method for learning about the world, and it is, in a very real way, organized common sense.
What’s produced by this method, the content of science, is always changing, up for revision, and reflects our civilization and general worldview.
The way science is used is yet another thing, and depends on our civilization and society. In our case, with our civilization built on the idea of separation, it’s often used in ways that harm society and life.
That’s not the fault of science, it’s the fault of our civilization.
I imagine future generations will see those who stay close to science, especially in their approach to learning about the world, as on the right side of history. They will likely also see those who criticize the way science is often used in our society as on the right side of history.
Not falling for conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theories are sometimes, at least partially and indirectly, rooted in reality.
Whether they are or not, they are often a distraction from what we know is happening and what’s far more serious than the topic of the vast majority of conspiracy theories.
What we know is happening is global ecological overshoot. We live in a civilization organized around the idea of separation. This system externalizes cost to the wider web of life and future generations, creates vast inequality among humans, allows huge numbers of people to die from preventable and treatable diseases, and so on. And it’s far more serious – for us, the web of life, and future generations – than the topic of most if not nearly all conspiracy theories.
We know from history that conspiracy theories flourish in times of uncertainty, like today. They are a way for people to feel they understand what’s going on, to feel smart, to have a place to put their fear and anger, and so on.
I imagine future generations will see most if not all the conspiracy theories flourishing today as a distraction from far more serious and immediate issues.
Empires
The US, Russia, and China are all empires, and they all share many of the same (unsavory) characteristics and power-over dynamics that harm their own citizens, their neighbors and/or people in other places in the world, and the web of life.
The US has historically damaged both their own citizens (lack of social safety nets, huge wealth inequality, etc.) and people around the world (toppling democracies, wars). Russia has damaged their own citizens (repressive) and their neighbors, including through their invasion of Ukraine. China is damaging their own citizens (repressive), and especially ethnic minorities. One is not very much better than another. They are all empires – or want to be empires – and do what empires do.
I imagine future generations will see those who focus on the harmful characteristics of all empires as on the right side of history. (Not those who take sides, for one and against another.)
Israel & Palestine
It’s similar with Israel and Palestine. I imagine future generations won’t see those who automatically take sides as on the right side of history.
The situation is far more complex. Israel acts on trauma. Palestinians fight for their survival. And as the UN and innumerable aid and human rights organizations say, what has happened in Gaza for decades are systematic human rights violations. It has been a slow genocide for decades, and it has dramatically intensified over recent months.
Israel is doing to others what was previously done to them. They are acting on, continuing, and passing on the trauma to new generations. Hurt people hurt people.
I imagine future generations will understand both sides.
I imagine they will also find it baffling that the international society didn’t take a stance against Israel in their human rights violations and genocide. How could they witness perpetuation of pain, suffering, and trauma without doing anything?
What happens to the web of life happens to us, and what we do to the web of life, we do to ourselves.
We are part of one seamless living system, so it’s inevitable.
INSECT COLLAPSE
I am in Norway these days, at my childhood home, and I am reminded of one aspect of this.
What happens to the insect world happens to us.
When I grew up here, the yard was full of insects of many different kinds. We had ladybugs, lacewings, all kinds of spiders, butterflies, ants, bumblebees, wasps, swarms of tiny flies, and so on. We had many kinds of birds, including large flocks of swallows.The yards in the neighborhood, and in Norway in general, were full of trees, bushes, flowers, and wild patches and edges.
These days, the yards are manicured lawns. Most of the trees, bushes, and flowers are gone. Almost all the insects are gone, apart from the occasional bumblebee or wasp. The only birds left are a few magpies and pigeons, and even those are almost gone. We have the doors and windows open during the summer, and no insects come inside because there are none outside.
This collapse has happened over the last few decades, with a marked drop even over the last ten years.
Most likely, this is happening through a combination of habitat loss (less nature, more houses, roads, and manicured lawns), pesticides used in agriculture and yards, and a few other factors.
WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?
What happens to the insects happens to us, so where is the outrage? Where is the urgency?
Why do people seem so complacent about it?
Why don’t people throw their robot lawn movers in the garbage, and create wild, alive, and beautiful natural gardens – full of trees, bushes, and wildflowers?
Why do they choose to buy and eat food grown with toxins and support that industry?
I am genuinely baffled by it.
COMPLACENCY AND THE BANALITY OF EVIL
Where is the outrage over this civilization that’s not only ecocidal, but suicidal?
How can people continue to live as if nothing is happening?
How can they continue to vote for the same old parties that don’t take this seriously?
How can they continue to focus on the next vacation, the next dinner with friends, the next movie to watch, when the world is collapsing around them?
How can they continue to buy food grown with toxins, maintain a green desert around their house, buy things they don’t need, and so on, when this is how the web of life collapses?
This is the banality of evil in our age. This is good people and good citizens doing what’s expected of them, and doing what they expect of themselves, and actively being part of the collapse of life.
SOME ANSWERS
I have explored this in other articles, and really since my teens in the ’80s, and I am still baffled.
At the same time, there are some answers.
It has to do with…
Shifting baselines, and getting used to the gradually eroded web of life.
Social expectations, norms, how we think we should live, and what we imagine the neighbors think.
Seeing others appearing to not take it seriously, so we think we don’t need to take it seriously.
Politicians thinking in four-year time spans and the next election.
Assuming others will take care of it, now or later.
Assuming it’s happening “out there” separate from us, and won’t impact us too much.
Identity and not wanting to become like those green party folks, lefties, hippies, or tree huggers. Not wanting to admit they may have been onto something. (Is pride or survival more important?)
A system and civilization set up this way, which means that doing it differently takes effort, and changing the system takes numbers, effort, a sense of urgency, and maybe an even more obvious collapse.
A civilization with an assumption of separation at its center. We are separate from nature and the web of life. Nature is here as a resource for us. We can export the consequences of our behavior and civilization, and it’s gone. We are inherently more important than the rest of the web of life. If we win, the rest of life loses.
A civilization and system where what’s easy and attractive to do, as organizations and individuals, is often inherently destructive to the web of life.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. We can create a system that comes from an understanding of the web of life and seeks partnership and win-win solutions. The unfortunate news is that changing requires a collective will to change it, as well as diagnosing the problem correctly.
WHAT CAN I DO?
So what can we do?
Here is some of what I am doing.
I recognize that the problem is systemic, it’s a civilizational problem. It’s not (primarily) about corporations, greed, or any one particular group. It’s about all of us.
It’s about our fundamental mindset and assumptions of separation.
I buy organic as much as I can, even if it’s more expensive (another sign of the fundamentally flawed priorities in our society). I eat low on the food chain. If I can, I buy from local farmers.
I have educated myself on the ecological footprint, global ecological overshoot, and our idea of separation and its history (going back to the agricultural revolution).
I have educated myself on a simple and powerful framework to understand what’s happening: domination vs partnership orientation, power-over vs power-with, and the consequences of each for us, society, and the web of life.
I connect with like-minded people in real life and online.
I vote for political parties that take this seriously. In my case, I vote for and am a member of the Green Party in Norway.
We have 15 hectares in the Andes that we are regenerating, rewilding, and protecting, and we are developing a food forest around the houses.
Here in Norway, during our short stay, we are letting the lawn grow wild in May to encourage the wildflowers so they can feed the few insects left.
If I lived in Norway with a garden, I would do something similar to what we are doing the in the Andes. I would create a food forest – with native flowering trees and bushes, fruit trees and berry bushes, wildflowers and more – to feed wildlife and us.
The photo is from our garden / food forest in the Andes.
I know a few times when I didn’t die. That one time in the car in Oregon, when the driver pulled out right in front of a car going at full speed. (Saved by the miraculous quick reaction of that driver.) The day on the coast of California in winter, when each wave only took me further out. (Saved by the kind guy from Boston built like a truck.) The midsummer when I blacked out and woke up naked, shaking like crazy, and dripping of sweat. (Saved by the ambulance people and the doctors and nurses giving me immediate treatment for sepsis.) And likely the time I went between our beloved cat and a dog, she bit my leg, and I got a persistent infection. (Saved by antibiotics.)
There are also innumerable times I didn’t die that I don’t know about because nothing happened.
And why did nothing happen? Because society is set up to prevent a wide range of things we can die from.
We have clean water. Just about every day, I don’t die from polluted water.
We have sidewalks. Just about every day, I don’t die from being hit by a car when I am out walking.
We have grocery stores with a variety of foods. Just about every day, I don’t die from malnutrition.
We have water and food. Just about every day, I don’t die from dehydration and hunger.
We understand how infectious diseases spread and take precautions. Just about every day, I don’t die from an infectious disease.
We have remarkably effective vaccines. Many times in my life, I didn’t die from diseases people in earlier generations died from.
We have antibiotics. Many times in my life, I didn’t die from an infection that would have killed me just two or three generations ago.
We have laws and a relatively safe society. Just about every day, I don’t die from violence or war.
We have a good social safety net. I don’t have to die from not having enough money.
None of this is a given.
It’s easy for this to become invisible to us, which is why it’s so important to regularly remind ourselves and others about it.
It didn’t happen by accident. It happened because enough of us decided to do something about it. And we need to make that decision anew each day, each election, each time we speak about society and what we value.
The video No One Knows When They Didn’t Die is by Hank Green and is on this topic, and is the inspiration for this brief article.
When I was around twenty, I did a structured form of multi-phasic sleep. It was four sleeps each 24 hours and I think one hour each. (I initially thought it was 1/2 hour each, but I am questioning that now.) It worked great, especially since I was so passionate about meditation, Daoist practices (Tai Chi, inner yoga), doing my Ngöndro practice, drawing, painting, photography, reading, studying, and so on. I wanted as much time as possible during the day (and night) to do all of that.
Predictably, the reason I didn’t continue for more than a few weeks (or months?) was social. I sometimes found myself in situations that interfered with my sleep schedule, and missing just one had a big impact on me and the system.
These days, I still sleep in two or more parts each 24 hours, but it’s more organic and fluid. For instance, last night, I went to sleep around 10pm, I woke up and got up around 3am, and it’s now about 6am. (I love early mornings and sunrise.) After writing this, I’ll go back to sleep for one or two hours and then get up again. I’ll likely take a nap late morning or early afternoon, and possibly one late afternoon or early evening.
This works well for me, especially since it’s flexible and I can follow my body and whatever the day requires of me in terms of activities at certain times.
We are mammals, and mammals often sleep in sections through the day and night. It makes sense.
At the same time, we have created a civilization at odds with our natural biology and psychology in many ways, including when it comes to sleep. Most jobs still require us to be active and engaged from morning to late afternoon, with a brief break for lunch. They are not set up for naps, or for the possibility of working when our bodymind is ready for it and resting when that’s needed.
I suspect that many, if not most (?), sleep disorders have a connection with this. We follow the clock and schedules instead of the natural rhythms of our body and mind, and that’s bound to create different kinds of imbalances.
If so, they are not really sleep disorders, they are symptoms of culture disorders. The real problem is in the culture.
Why do some still operate from the idea of human exceptionalism, that we somehow are separate from and inherently different from the rest of life?
ALWAYS CHANGING LIVING SYSTEM
Why do some ask whether we are still evolving or not when all life – the living system we are all part of – is always changing and adapting?
We are part of a self-regulating living system so how can we not?
WHY ASSUME UNIQUENESS?
Why do some still assume that cognition is uniquely human, as the guy about two minutes into this video does? Why do some seem to default to the assumption that if we know something about ourselves from our own experience, that’s unique to us rather than universal among many, most, or all beings?
In this case, why assume that we are the only ones using mental representations and maps to help us navigate and function in the world?
Why make that assumption… When we are closely related to so many other species and so similar to them in every other way? When observation shows us that a great deal of other species, and maybe all of them in their own way, use cognition for the same purpose? When it clearly has an important survival function, so it’s likely to be almost universally present? When cognition can take many different forms, not just as the cognition we are familiar with that reflects about itself?
We scientifically justify using other species to learn about ourselves because they are so similar to us, while we ethically justify those same (often cruel) experiments by saying they are so different from us. Why do we willingly go into that, frankly absurd, mental gymnastics?
Why is the default to assume uniqueness instead of assuming shared traits? Of course, a part of it is to not make assumptions about the presence of something when we can’t know for certain, which is sensible. And yet, assuming the absence of something is also an assumption, and an equally potentially misguided and harmful one.
ASSUMPTIONS OF SEPARATION AND HUMAN SUPERIORITY
The answer to these questions lies in our deep cultural assumptions of separation and superiority.
We assume we somehow – magically, against all we know and see and experience – are separate from the rest of life and this planet. That’s why we may have the idea that evolution is somehow “out there” and also not “in here”.
We also assume that humans somehow – magically and contrary to what we can plainly observe – are superior to the rest of this web of life we are part of. We think while others do not. We feel while others do not. We suffer while others do not. We “have” consciousness while others do not. And so on.
These ideas have been used to justify using the rest of the web of life for our own purposes, without considering the effects on this web of life and the beings that are part of it.
That’s inherently self-destructive, as we are seeing more and more clearly in the world today.
A CHANGE
This is all changing. More and more people seem to realize this.
I can’t help wondering if not the age of the scientist in the video above is a factor in his assumptions of human exceptionalism. Are younger people and scientists more inclined to question those assumptions and see it differently? I don’t know, but I hope so.
THE COST OF THESE ASSUMPTIONS
The assumptions of separation and exceptionalism have some upsides. They have allowed us to go far in science, technology, extracting resources to maintain (a hugely inefficient) civilization, and so on.
They also have a great cost.
We make ourselves feel disconnected and alone by those fantasies. We mentally disconnect ourselves from the web of life we are part of and depend on for our life and (physical and psychological) well-being.
We also give ourselves permission to destroy the web of life we are part of through those fantasies. It’s inherently ecocidal and suicidal.
THE ROOTS OF THESE ASSUMPTIONS
These assumptions are central to our domination culture.
And this domination culture has its roots in the agricultural revolution 10-12 thousand years ago.
When we started domesticating land, vegetation, and animals, and when some of us amassed wealth while others did not, we needed to justify it. And we justified it through developing fantasies of separation, superiority, divine order, and so on. We collectively developed and bought into the assumptions of domination culture, which has taken many forms over time and across cultures.
Today, these assumptions are inherently ecocidal and suicidal. We collectively did OK for several centuries since we were not that many and our technology wasn’t particularly efficient. These days, with 8-9 billions of people and far more advanced technology, the ecocidal and suicidal nature of these assumptions is unavoidable.
Note: The video above is Are Humans Still Evolving? from the American Museum of Natural History, which includes an interview with Ian Tattersall.
A friend of mine (JH) talked about her past vision for her life. She said it was a dream for another time.
PERSONAL DREAMS FOR ANOTHER TIME & DREAMS FOR THIS TIME
It’s a good phrase. Some of my dreams were dreams for another time as well – of having children, doing a PhD, studying at CIIS, and so on. They are no longer my active dreams or the ones I engage with. They were for another time, another set of circumstances, and another person.
For this time, this set of circumstances, and this person, I have other dreams – of regeneration, community, developing a food forest, and so on.
These dreams are not new. Since my teens, I have been passionate about sustainability, community living, permaculture, a more life-centered way of life, and more. Because of my life now, these particular ones have come into the foreground and other dreams have faded into the background.
COLLECTIVE DREAMS FOR ANOTHER TIME & DREAMS FOR THIS TIME
It’s similar for us collectively. To me, so many of our collective dreams seems to be for another time and another set of circumstances.
The dreams tied to the domination and separation aspects of our civilization are, really, for another time.
These are dreams telling us that business as usual is OK. We can live as if our impact on the web of life has no consequences for ourselves. We find security through accumulation. Meaning comes primarily through career, family, or recreational activities. Success is having a house with a lawn. And so on.
In an age of global ecological overshoot and collapse, these are dreams for another time.
What are the dreams for this time?
Obviously, this will say as much or more about me as they do about our collective situation, but here are some of what comes up for me:
Dreams of community, strong community bonds, and mutual support. Dreams of regeneration of ecosystems – of lawns, parks, farmland, ocean ecosystems, plantation forests, deserts, and so on. Dreams of finding meaning through engagement in creating a regenerative civilization. Dreams of regeneration of ourselves and our communities. Dreams of creating a civilization – in ourselves, our life, and our network – that takes the best from domination and partnership cultures and orientations.
These are hopeful dreams that show us the way out of our situation. These are dreams we can engage with and bring into life, in whatever way is suitable to our situation. These are dreams that are profoundly meaningful, enriching, and nourishing, independent of whether they are implemented collectively or at a large scale.
Photo from Finca Milagros, the land we are stewards of / participants in / “owners” of in the Andes.
Even this morning, I saw this type of comment on social media.
I am not sure if people actually believe it or if they are intentionally trolling. Maybe it’s some of each.
It doesn’t take much to understand the essence of our situation: We live on a finite planet, and we live as if the planet is infinite. That cannot last. If we continue, it will lead to the collapse of ecosystems – beyond what we are already seeing. We are part of the living systems of this planet, so what happens to the web of life happens to us.
In short, our civilization – founded on an assumption of separation and infinite Earth – is inherently ecocidal and suicidal.
We got away with it for centuries and millennia since we were not that many, our technology was not that effective, and the “savings account” of Earth was large. Now, with a population beyond eight billion people, a far more effective technology, and a rapidly declining ecological savings account, we are in global ecological overshoot.
We are using more resources than Earth can replenish. We need more than one Earth to support our collective way of life as it is today, and we don’t have those extra Earths.
Being in ecological overshoot is similar to living off a savings account and a dwindling income far below what’s needed to replenish the savings account. It looks fine for a while until we reach the bottom of our savings account and our lifestyle comes crashing down.
In terms of our global ecological overshoot, we are getting closer to the bottom and we are seeing signs of it everywhere: Insect apocalypse. Rapid loss of the number of most animals. Rapid loss of fertile topsoil. Rapid loss of species. Unraveling ecosystems. More extreme weather. And much more.
What we are seeing is exactly what we would expect seeing, and what scientists have predicted for decades.
Collectively, we are like someone living off a savings account, and increasing spending rather than finding ways to reduce spending and increase the income.
How can we increase our income from Earth? The simplest and most direct is regeneration. We can apply existing to regenerate ecosystems and develop new ones. In the process, we will increase the yield of these ecosystems in terms of food and several other natural resources which will benefit wildlife, ourselves, and future generations.
When we take ecological realities seriously, we can create a world of abundance and a civilization that’s more ecologically sound and has the possibility of lasting longer.
The question is how far into the collapse we’ll go before a significant number of us realizes this, and how many of us will die before we get to that point.
The question is also what we will do in this age of unraveling. How do I chose to live my life?
I am in the fortunate situation that we have land in the Andes that we are regenerating and developing into a food forest. If I was in another situation, I would find another way. For instance, connecting with likeminded people. Learning and sharing what I learn. Making my yard into a food forest. Working on transforming public spaces into food forests. And so on.
Global Ecological Overshoot: A Civilization Living Beyond Its Means
What Is Ecological Overshoot?
Ecological overshoot occurs when humanity’s demand for natural resources and ecosystem services exceeds the Earth’s capacity to regenerate them. This means we are consuming more than what nature can sustainably provide, depleting resources and degrading ecosystems faster than they can recover. Overshoot is driven by overconsumption, population growth, and economic systems that prioritize short-term profits over long-term sustainability.
The Core Issue: Biocapacity vs. Ecological Footprint
The Earth’s biocapacity is its ability to regenerate resources like forests, fisheries, soil, and fresh water while absorbing waste such as CO? emissions. Humanity’s ecological footprint measures how much land and sea area is needed to support our consumption and waste production. Overshoot happens when the global footprint surpasses biocapacity.
According to the Global Footprint Network, humans currently use the equivalent of 1.7 Earths each year. This means we deplete resources meant for future generations and weaken the planet’s ability to sustain life.
Signs of Overshoot
Resource Depletion – Overfishing, deforestation, soil degradation, freshwater scarcity, and the loss of biodiversity all point to unsustainable consumption.
Climate Disruption – Excessive CO? emissions from fossil fuels exceed the planet’s ability to absorb them, leading to global warming, extreme weather, and ocean acidification.
Loss of Ecosystem Services – Natural systems that provide food, clean air, and stable climate conditions are being eroded, increasing risks for future generations.
Overshoot Day – Each year, Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has consumed more resources than the planet can regenerate in that year. This date has been creeping earlier over time, now landing in late July.
A Historical Perspective
Ecological overshoot is not new. Civilizations like the Maya, the Romans, and the Mesopotamians collapsed partly because they exceeded their environment’s capacity to sustain them. The difference today is that overshoot is happening globally rather than regionally, affecting ecosystems across the entire planet.
The Role of Economic Growth and Fossil Fuels
The industrial revolution, powered by fossil fuels, allowed humanity to temporarily surpass natural limits by using stored energy from millions of years ago. But this is a one-time carbon subsidy that cannot be replaced. Our current economic model depends on continuous growth, but infinite growth is impossible on a finite planet.
Possible Outcomes of Overshoot
Managed Decline (Degrowth & Sustainability) – A controlled reduction in consumption, population, and economic throughput to bring human demand within planetary boundaries.
Collapse – If overshoot continues unchecked, depletion of resources, ecosystem breakdown, and climate instability could lead to widespread food shortages, migration crises, and societal breakdown.
Technological Fixes? – Some argue that innovation, renewable energy, and efficiency improvements can solve overshoot, but without reducing consumption, these measures only delay the crisis.
Pathways to Sustainability
To avoid collapse, humanity needs a fundamental shift in how we live and organize society. Key strategies include:
Reducing Consumption – Prioritizing needs over wants, consuming less energy, and moving toward regenerative systems.
Rewilding and Regeneration – Restoring ecosystems, protecting biodiversity, and shifting to regenerative agriculture.
Energy Transition – Moving away from fossil fuels toward low-impact renewable energy while reducing overall energy demand.
Economic Transformation – Moving beyond GDP growth as a measure of success, implementing circular economies, and ensuring equitable distribution of resources.
Decentralized Resilience – Strengthening local economies, food systems, and governance to reduce dependence on global supply chains.
The Choice Before Us
Ecological overshoot is the defining challenge of our time. We are living in a moment of decision, where we can either transform our systems and lifestyles or continue down a path that leads to collapse. Recognizing overshoot as a systemic issue—rather than just a collection of environmental problems—is the first step toward meaningful action.
A sustainable future is possible, but it requires a profound shift in values, priorities, and ways of living. The question is not whether we will transition, but whether we do it by design or by disaster.
There is hardly a religious bone in me, but I respect Sundays as a day of rest.
Why? Because it feels right and nourishing and makes a lot of sense.
I crave days where I don’t have anything scheduled and where I can say “No, not on that day, I keep that day free”. So I try to make sure to include one of those each week, and Sundays are a natural choice in my culture.
I love that the stores here in Norway are closed on Sundays. Our society is perhaps not completely about doing and consumption. There is still one day of the week when we collectively value and prioritize something else – rest, family and friends, nature, pleasurable activities.
It’s also a quiet day since everything is closed, which I appreciate. I don’t have to consider whether I should go to the store or not. The choice is already made, which I love.
Indigenous people live in an increasingly degraded landscape and they are losing their culture because of it.
This is a dream image without a story unfolding in time.
For Indigenous people, the loss of nature is a loss of culture since their culture is so intertwined with the nature they live in. They lose the experiences and references their traditional culture is built on.
That’s how it is for all of us. For most of us, this has already happened over many generations. Even between my parents’ generation and mine, much is lost because they lived much closer to nature and there has been a dramatic loss of ecosystems, birds, insects, and animals over the last few decades.
When there is a loss of nature, there is a loss of the knowledge and tradition tied to that nature. For cultures closely tied to nature, it means a loss of a great deal of their culture, and that’s a loss for all of us. Humanity as a whole loses something important.
Why did I have this dream?
It may have come up since I am back in Ski, Norway, at the house where I grew up. It’s difficult to not be impacted by the changes here. When I was little, we had badgers, hedgehogs, a lot of different birds, lots of insects, many tall trees, and many wild areas and edges with bushes and wildflowers. Now, almost all of the trees are cut down, there are no wild areas left, there are almost no insects, it’s rare to see any kind of birds, and I can’t remember the last time I saw a wild animal. Almost all life is gone and it’s replaced with manicured lawns.
I am similarly concerned about the area where we live in the Andes. It has been impacted by colonizers culture over the last five centuries, and there is now a lot of development there with more and more houses. Although some are engaged in regeneration and reforestation, many are not.
The dream may show me that the loss of the wild and mature ecosystems is not just a loss in an ecological sense, it’s also a cultural loss.
I notice I am different depending on where I am. I feel far more alive, rich, and rooted when I am on our land in the Andes, engaged in the reforestation, regeneration, and food forest there. In a city or suburb, I feel more disconnected.
My inner culture is far more rich in nature and especially in more mature ecosystems, and something is lost when I am in our current civilization.
I am also reminded that with another type of civilization, it could be very different. It’s easy to imagine a civilization that’s deeply aligned with ecological realities, operates from a deep partnership orientation, where human activities support the regeneration of ecosystems, and that prioritizes the wild, non-human species, future generations, and an inner life as rich as, mirroring, and fed by healthy mature ecosystems.
Naomi Klein is here talking about what many have pointed out: Fascism is doing within a country what colonialism did to other countries.
DOMINATION CULTURE TAKEN TO THE EXTREME
I find a bigger picture useful here: It’s all domination culture taken to the extreme.
On the partnership-domination culture spectrum, fascism and colonialism are extreme versions of the latter.
The way Israel treats Palestinians is an extreme expression of domination culture, just like the way the Nazis treated Jews – and many other minorities – was an extreme expression of domination culture. Hurt people hurt people. Traumatized people traumatize people. Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is trauma behavior, and it continues the cycle of trauma, hurt, and hurting. It will continue to play itself out in that part of the world.
With the new Trump presidency, we predictably again see an extreme version of domination culture play itself out.
In two weeks, he has already inflicted immense pain and suffering on a large number of people: Immigrants, trans people in the military, all the ones – children, refugees, the sick – who will not receive help from USAID, the federal employees who are fired, and so on.
As authoritarian leaders do, Trump uses dominance as a means to funnel resources to the already wealthy and powerful and to inflict suffering on everyone else, especially the ones opposing it.
DOMINATION CULTURE & COLLECTIVE TRAUMA
Why do people vote for someone like Trump? One answer is that it’s the same reason Israel commits systematic and horrific human rights violations against the Palestinians, and has done so for decades. It’s because hurt people hurt people. It’s trauma behavior.
They have been hurt by domination culture, in their families and by lacking opportunities in life. They hurt and are in pain. And they deal with it by siding with the oppressing dynamics. They justify these dynamics, support them, likely live them out in their own lives, and vote for someone who is living it out in an even more extreme way.
A FEW MORE WORDS ABOUT TRUMP AND THE US
There is a lot more to say about this and I’ll just touch on a few points.
It will lead to the erosion of the US empire. That’s Trump’s explicit agenda, so it’s not a surprise. He wants to isolate the US from the rest of the international community, and that – by definition – means the erosion and hastened end of the US empire. They won’t have the same strong position in the world as they did. Their former allies will find other alliances – for trade, security, and so on.
It also leads to the erosion within the US – of democracy and democratic institutions, of the legal system and justice, of the systems set in place to prevent corruption and abuse of power, of systems in place to help those least fortunate in society, and so on.
He is doing exactly what he said he would do. He is following the Project 2025 game plan to a T.
The ones voting for him are getting exactly what they voted for. The ones who would have voted against him, and didn’t, are getting exactly what that kind of inaction leads to. They are all getting exactly what they knew they would get. (At least if they had taken one minute to think it through.)
Why does he want to isolate the US and pull out of international agreements and institutions? Why does he want to undo all those systems of democracy, justice, and social safety nets?
It’s partly because he thinks he doesn’t need them. He is wealthy, his buddies are wealthy, and they’ll manage and do fine without it, which is true in a limited way.
Mainly, it’s because he is deeply suspicious of any kinds of agreements or systems that seem to benefit others.
ZERO-SUM VIEW
He operates from a zero-sum view of the world, which is a hallmark of domination culture. Everything is a limited resource. If you win, I lose, and if I win, you lose. So it’s better to be aggressive and use any means to make sure I win first. That’s his life in a nutshell.
He looks for how, imaginary or otherwise, he is losing if someone else is winning. He overlooks – and is deeply distrustful of – the ways we all may benefit from international agreements and institutions, and from systems of justice and social safety nets. (That said, not all international agreements and institutions benefit everyone. For instance, neo-liberal trade policies hurt the Global South and nature.)
He looks for ways to win in a way that makes others suffer because that’s what winning means to him. If others don’t visibly lose, it can’t be a real win.
This is also trauma behavior. It’s the view of someone deeply traumatized. It’s the life and outlook of someone deeply damaged by domination culture and how it played itself out in their own birth family.
THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION AND THE BIRTH OF MODERN DOMINATION CULTURE
Where does this come from?
It’s not new. All of history is full of examples of domination culture, sometimes taken to an extreme.
That’s a clue in itself.
All cultures have elements of partnership and domination orientations, and the more extreme versions of domination culture came with the agricultural revolution.
Before agriculture, we were all indigenous. Our cultures were more on the partnership side of the spectrum. We lived in partnership with nature and the small number of people in our group. We saw ourselves as nature. We saw the sacred in everything and everyone. We lived with the seasons and what nature naturally provided. We had some hierarchies of course, typically based on skills, experience, and knowledge needed for survival. Nobody had a lot more than anyone else since it was not possible to accumulate much.
With agriculture came ownership – of land, animals, people, and resources in general. Some amassed large amounts of resources. This was a big departure from how we had lived before. So how could the ones with the new resources justify it? How could they get people to play along and even support this new system, even if they were at the bottom of the hierarchy?
They did it partly through ideologies. They imagined that… We are separate from nature. The sacred is removed from us and nature and is found in sky gods or the afterlife. Other species don’t feel and experience similar to us. Nature is unlimited in its resources. And so on.
They promoted hierarchies and inequality as divine will and justice. If you are lower on the hierarchy, it’s because of a fault of your own (lazy, karma), and if you don’t question it, you’ll get your reward in the afterlife.
This is domination culture. It’s all set up for domination – of land, animals, and people. It’s a culture of domination and control even of ourselves.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Many cultures even after the agricultural revolution were, and are, further on the partnership side of the scale. Modern Nordic countries are an example of social partnership orientation. (Although still a domination orientation with nature.)
GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT
This is all happening in a larger context:
All resources come from the commons shared by all life.
All of our resources, all wealth in society and among humans, come from the commons of Earth, it comes from the commons produced by all of life.
When we amass wealth, as we are at an increasing rate, we take resources from the web of life we are all part of.
Our collective ecological footprint is far larger than our planet. We are using far more resources than Earth can replenish. That’s similar to living on money from a savings account. When it reaches the bottom, our lifestyle comes crashing down.
When Earth is getting closer to the bottom of its savings account, which it already is and which is happening at an increased speed, civilization comes crashing down. Ecosystems unravel, and with them our civilization.
This is an expression of domination culture and a zero-sum view. Our modern civilization is built on zero-sum systems where we benefit in the short term at the cost of all of nature, future generations, and ultimately ourselves.
THE SOLUTION IS FOUND IN A DEEP PARTNERSHIP ORIENTATION
The remedy is found in a partnership orientation.
We can save ourselves by developing a genuine and deep partnership culture.
This is a culture where we… See ourselves as nature. See the sacred in everyone and everything. Acknowledge that all beings and natural systems have rights. Recognize that other species experience and feel much as we do. Create systems that take ecological realities into account.
It’s a culture with a deep partnership with nature, ourselves as nature, each other, and even future generations.
We seek win-win solutions where our life is sustained so everyone has the basics needed for a good life, and that regenerates ecosystems. We create systems where what’s easy and attractive to do is also what’s fair and regenerates this living planet.
We win. Society wins. Ecosystems win. Wildlife wins. Future generations win.
From a domination culture mindset, this seems naive. It will never happen. It can’t work. There are no such solutions. People won’t want to do it. This is one of the ways the domination mindset maintains itself. It defends itself by telling itself stories to justify itself and make alternatives seem naive and unrealistic.
WILL WE FIND THE COLLECTIVE WILL?
The reality is that we don’t have much of a choice.
If we are to survive – as a civilization and species – that’s our only real option. (The other option is collapse, a huge reduction in our population, and either learning from it or continuing with cycles of collapse until we as a species are gone.)
The reality is also that we have those solutions. We have workable win-win solutions, and we’ll find more if we collectively choose a more life-centered and partnership-oriented path.
Will we collectively choose to take that path? How far into the collapse do we need to go before we find that collective will?
How many will respond to the collapse with a solution-oriented and win-win mindset? How many will respond by going further into a domination and zero-sum mindset?
We don’t know, but we can live what we want to see in the world.
We can develop a more genuine and deep partnership mindset. We can find, join, and develop communities of like-minded people. We can speak up about all of this. We can find and promote win-win solutions. We can live some of the solutions in our own life.
Two things stand out to me, partly because it’s highlighted in this documentary:
WHAT WE PRIORITIZE
One is what we prioritize in our lives and in organizations.
Do we prioritize reality and dealing with reality as best as we can? Do we prioritize the serious issues and investigating them thoroughly? Do we prioritize lives?
Or do we prioritize other things like hierarchy, norms, identities, authority, and business as usual? (Not questioning the decisions and views of those in authority.)
HOW WE SEE SOLUTIONS
The other is if and how we see solutions.
A manager shut down further inquiries into what led to the disaster. He said: Even if we knew, there was nothing we could do.
Someone under him wanted to investigate more thoroughly. He said: If we had known, there would be several things we could do. We would have an Apollo 13 situation where the brightest minds would look for solutions, including solutions we couldn’t see at the time. The crew could do emergency repairs. The Russians could send up a spacecraft to rescue the crew. We could angle the shuttle differently on re-entry to reduce the risk to the shuttle.
I don’t know what came first. Did they see it this way before the disaster, and this impacted what they prioritized? Did the manager shut it down because he thought there would be no solutions? Did the underling want everything in the open because he knew there were solutions, including solutions they were not aware of at the time?
Or did they emphasize it after? Did the manager say “there would have been no solutions” to justify his inaction? Did the underling emphasize the options to support his wish to investigate more thoroughly?
My guess is that both may be true.
LESSONS FOR US COLLECTIVELY TODAY
These are questions we are collectively faced with today.
We are in a massive ecological crisis and are only having a small taste of what’s to come.
We are in a global ecological overshoot. We are collectively using far more resources than this planet can replenish. This is similar to living off a savings account. It looks fine for a while until we reach the bottom and our lifestyle comes crashing down. If we continue as we do, it means massive ecological unraveling and a crash of our civilization and humanity.
Just like NASA, we know about the problem, and we can choose to take it seriously or not.
What do we prioritize? Reality and the future of humanity and Earth? Or tradition, business as usual, and not questioning authority? (In our case, authority is tradition, norms, and business as usual.)
What we prioritize is shown in our lives and actions. Collectively and individually, what do we put our resources and attention to?
What are we willing to live with? Are we willing to live with a disaster, as the NASA managers were? Are we willing to go against culture, norms, and tradition and prioritize life and the future?
NOTICING IT HERE AND NOW
Just like in NASA, some of us prioritize reality and life, and some will prioritize other things, and there is a mix within each of us too.
It’s good to notice, and it’s good to notice what we prioritize, through our choices and life, here and now.
What do I spend my resources on – my time, money, attention – here and now?
Which present and future am I giving my resources to here and now?
Am I focusing on the solutions? Do I trust we will find more solutions if we commit to it?
“THE ACTIONS WE TOOK WERE ADEQUATE FOR THE PROBLEM WE WERE FACING”
I saw more of the documentary. In the final episode, one of the NASA ex-managers (who refused to obtain more information about the situation while the shuttle was in orbit) said: The actions we took were adequate for the problem we were facing.
I imagine some will say that in one or a few decades when we are further into our ecological crisis and the collapse is undeniable. They will pretend they responded appropriately based on the information they had, even if they did almost nothing.
Of course, it’s complete nonsense. We know exactly what’s going on, and we know how serious it is.
We know we are in a global ecological overshoot. We know what happens if we continue as we do. (And continue to deal with it in the periphery.) We know it will lead to the unraveling of ecosystems and the collapse of civilization and humanity.
We also know that many will rationalize it exactly as that NASA manager: We responded correctly based on the information we had. We couldn’t have known it would be that serious. Nobody told us. We are innocent. If we had known, we would have done it differently. We are good people.
It’s a feeble excuse and an attempt to preserve a (false) self-image instead of being honest and taking responsibility. The information is easily available. We know what’s happening. And we are collectively doing almost nothing about it.
“FAILURE TO IMAGINE FAILURE”
Towards the end of the documentary, someone mentions a “failure to imagine failure”.
That may be part of the reason, but it seems more a symptom than a cause. It’s a symptom of prioritizing other things over reality and being honest with oneself.
Of course, we know that democracy is an anomaly, fragile, and can easily be eroded and undone. We know from history that it’s a rare anomaly and we know it can easily be eroded and undone. Still, many voted for Trump, and many who normally would vote for the Democrats decided to not vote. They did so knowing full well that Trump’s explicit project is to undo democracy and that he has the means to do so. (Especially in the US, a culture of domination, where people seem trained to yield to money, power, and influence.) It can very well happen, and they are OK with it.
We also know full well that continued global ecological overshoot leads to the collapse of ecosystems, civilization, and possibly humanity. Civilizations fall, and if we have a global civilization, it’s our global civilizations that fall. Species come and go. What comes together falls apart. It’s inevitable and the only question is when and how. In this case, the majority of people around the world prioritize other things over taking this seriously. They are, in how they live their lives, OK with the collapse of ecosystems, civilization, and possibly humanity. As long as they can continue to live their life much as before then the end of life as we know it is OK. They prioritize normality over life – and life in the future.
A growth and “more is better” mindset has a bad reputation among many and for good reasons.
In our current system – a system that assumes a limitless Earth – growth and “more is better” are often destructive to the web of life we are part of.
And yet, growth and “more is better” is not inherently misguided, wrong, or destructive. In some contexts, it can be beneficial. It can support life.
I notice that with our young food forest, and my vision for regenerating the 15 hectares of Milagros, I definitely have a growth and “more is better” mindset. I even have a slight obsession with it.
I envision the land as a mature ecosystem full of life. I envision all the layers filled in – small and tall trees, bushes, shrubs, roots, vines, and so on. I envision it bringing an abundance of food for wildlife and humans. I envision healthy soil. I envision the rainwater draining into the soil, giving life to the whole ecosystem, and recharging the groundwater. I envision it creating a different microclimate, one that’s cooler and more humid. I envision it as a home for innumerable beings of all kinds from insects to reptiles to birds to possums to mammals.
I am always looking for more and different food-producing plants for our food forest close to the houses. I am thinking of ways to generate income so we can continue the process of regeneration, reforestation, and creating a food forest.
I definitely have a growth mindset when it comes to Milagros, and I definitely have a “more is better” view on it. Of course, the growth and the “more is better” orientation has to be ecologically sound and informed, and I think it largely is, although we still have a lot to learn.
The focus on growth and “more is better” will look different as the project evolves. Right now, we have a focus on basic reforestation in the “wilderness zone” of Milagros, and on building soil and creating diversity in the food forest close to the houses. We are finding sources for different plants. We plant and see how the different ones are doing. We are learning a lot. We are exploring different visions for the future.
As it all matures, the focus will likely be more on what’s missing and filling in the gaps. What natives don’t we have in the wilderness zone? What native food-producing trees and bushes can we encourage and include more of? What other food-producing plants, from anywhere in the world, can we include in the food forest? What new plants will do well now that it’s more mature, and the microclimate is different?
So is growth and “more is better” inherently bad or wrong? Not at all. We may think it is because we typically see it play itself out in our current system. Since this system is out of alignment with ecological realities, it very often is.
In another context, in a system or project that’s more ecologically sound, growth and “more is better” can be very valuable. It helps us regenerate and support nature in producing abundance for the benefit of all life – including us.
I love Vananda Shiva and her work. What she says here is roughly accurate, but it can also be misunderstood.
It’s important to differentiate between the many scientific methods and the how they are used, the worldviews, assumptions, and aims of the people using them.
THE METHODS OF SCIENCE
The essence of science is the scientific methods.
These are common-sense ways to figure something out, which are then put in system. We all use the principles behind many of the scientific methods in daily life.
Scientific methods are inherently free from either domination or partnership orientations. They are just organized ways to learn about the world, some methods may be more appropriate for some situations than others, and all of them can be used with a domination or partnership mindset.
For instance, we can use quantitative methods with a domination mindset (genetic engineering of plants to make them propriatary) or a partnership mindset (measuring the increase in wildlife in a food forest). Similarly, we can use qualitative methods with a domination (generate data to justify xenophobia) or partnership (better understand the needs ot minorities) mindset.
IMMEDIATE REASONS
Of course, at one level, the difference lies in our goals, the demands put on us, what organization we are part of, and so on.
At another level, it’s all rooted in our worldview and basic assumptions about the world.
THE WORLDVIEWS THE SCIENCE HAPPENS WITHIN
Some worldviews and assumptions are inherently domination-oriented.
For instance: We are separate from nature. Nature is here for our use. Nature is infinite. The sacred is out there in a sky god and the afterlife. Non-human beings are inferior. We understand something best by taking it apart to its smallest parts. Life is a zero-sum game.
This worldview and these assumptions came out of the agricultural revolution and were used to justify the domination of animals, land, and people.
Other worldviews and assumptions are inherently partnership-oriented.
For instance: We are nature. We are ephemeral and local expressions of the living system we call Earth. The sacred is in everyone and everything. We understand something by seeing it in context and as part of larger seamless systems. We are the universe bringing itself into consciousness. We can find win-win-win solutions.
All scientific methods can be used within either of these worldviews and from any of these assumptions.
A SPECTRUM
It’s also important to point out that the domination and partnership orientation exists on a spectrum, and there is always some of each.
Also, even if we come from a partnership orientation, it makes sense to make use of whatever useful comes out of the domination culture and the science produced by the domination culture.
For instance, if we are developing a food forest, there is a lot of helpful science about soil, plants, ecology, succession, and so on that originally came out of a domination culture.
OUR BACKGROUND COLORS OUR PERCEPTION
Maybe this differentiation seems important to me since I grew up in and studied in Norway which has more of a partnership culture, so I have seen many examples of science being used with a partnership mindset.
I also understand why Vananda Shiva talks about it this way, and it’s obviously just a small exerpt from a longer interview. She has fought the horrors of the modern agricultural industry, so she knows how science has often been used from a domination mindset.
A new book called The Burning Earth: A History takes on a massive question: How did we get here? “Here” being this point in environmental history and decades deep into the climate crisis. Over the span of 800 years of history, the book connects the dots of how the pursuit of empire, environmental destruction, and human migration led us to this moment in time.
The most recent episode of Science Friday has a segment on domination culture and violence against people and Earth. It’s good to see that this receives attention in the mainstream media, which it does now and then.
I haven’t read the book or even listened to the segment. It’s very difficult for me to take in information as I used to, because of the fatigue and brain fog (CFS) and also my covid brain.
That said, the blurb itself reminded me of some familiar questions.
DOMINATION AND PARTNERSHIP CULTURES
(1) Why don’t more people talk about domination versus partnership cultures?
It’s a way to frame our understanding of human cultures and civilizations that is simple, makes sense, and allows us to explore the upsides and downsides of each.
One of the upsides of the domination culture – the one a sizeable part of humanity has lived with for a few thousand years now, and in a more modern version over the last few hundred years – is science, technology, art, and so on. A sense of separation has allowed us a third-person relationship with reality and ourselves, and a lot of value has come out of it.
An obvious downside of the domination culture, as the author seems to point out, is violence against ourselves, others, and the Earth. This has come about through internalizing domination culture assumptions: We are separate from the rest of nature. Nature is infinite. Humans are inherently more valuable than the rest of nature. The sacred is “out there” in the sky, the afterlife, or somewhere else. Only humans have souls. In most polarities, one end is good and valuable and the other less good and less valuable. (For instance, for the European culture: Heaven and earth, man and woman, European and non-European, Christian and non-Christian, etc.)We best understand something by taking it apart to its smallest parts.
I should also mention that there is always, by necessity, a mix of domination and partnership elements in our approach and culture. There is always an element of control and nudging, and always an element of conscious partnership with natural processes and dynamics.
This book seems to talk about this, which is very good. (I don’t know if the author uses Rianne Eisler’s language of domination and partnership cultures or Starhawk’s power-over versus power-with, but that doesn’t matter.)
GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT
(2) Why do so many talk about the climate crisis and not global ecological overshoot?
Global ecological overshoot is the overarching situation of which climate change is just one of many expressions.
We are collectively using far more resources than Earth can replenish, and we are creating more waste than it can handle without significant disruptions. Our collective ecological footprint is larger than our planet. The only reason we can do it is because there has been a larger surplus created by Earth over millions of years, but that’s rapidly spent. This is obviously not a situation that can continue.
We see the consequences of this all around us: Very few intact and healthy ecosystems remain, and with it, we have a massive loss of habitat and species. Toxins are everywhere in the air, soil, water, and our bodies. Important ocean currents may shift causing large changes to the climate on the surface. The climate is changing, causing drought, flooding, and more extreme weather in general.
If our global ecological overshoot is such a crucial topic, why do so few talk about it? Why do so many talk about climate change instead? I am honestly not sure. Maybe it seems easier to focus on one of the many issues, and see them in isolation.
The drawback of our attention on climate change instead of overshoot is also obvious: We miss out on a focus on the overarching and far more serious issue.
AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION
(3) Why did he focus on the modern Western culture and not the agricultural revolution?
The more extreme version of domination culture has indeed unfolded over the last few hundred years, at least when it comes to our worldview and its expression in science, technology, and the destruction of our planet.
And yet, the main shift from predominant partnership cultures to domination cultures likely happened with the agricultural revolution.
Before then, we were all indigenous.
With the agricultural revolution, we got people who owned land, animals, and people. They accumulated property and wealth from what had been the commons, while others found themselves on the other end of the spectrum.
All of this needed to be justified, and that’s where the worldviews and assumptions of domination culture come in.
The essential assumptions are the ones mentioned above:
We are separate from the rest of nature. Nature is infinite in its resources and capacity to absorb our waste. Nature‘s resources are primarily for our use. Humans are inherently more valuable than the rest of nature. The sacred is “out there” in the sky, the afterlife, or somewhere else. Only humans have souls. In most polarities, one end is good and valuable and the other less good and less valuable. (For instance, for the European culture: Heaven and earth, man and woman, European and non-European, Christian and non-Christian, etc.)We best understand something by taking it apart to its smallest parts.
And also:
You’ll receive your reward in the afterlife, so don’t rock the boat by trying to make changes now. Non-human species don’t feel or think so we can treat them as we want. Science and technology will save us. You are inherently sinful.
And an almost infinite number of other assumptions, most or all of them familiar to us since we live in this culture and have internalized these assumptions. They are with us whether they match our conscious view or not.
I assume the author focuses on the last 800 years since that’s the modern age, and certain aspects of the domination culture – especially related to science and technology – were amplified during this time.
A FEW MORE WORDS
I thought I would mention a few more things about this:
The remaining indigenous cultures and peoples are a very important correction to the domination culture, especially the Western globalized domination culture.
The violence of domination culture happens within all of us who have internalized it. We are violent towards ourselves 24/7. We have parts of us telling us that our natural impulses are wrong or bad, that we should be ashamed, that we are not good enough, that we need a savior “out there”, and so on. We don’t know how to consistently relate to our experiences with kindness and some wisdom. We feel lost and alienated. Most if not nearly all mental and emotional problems people in modern cultures live with come from – is rooted in or relates to – domination culture.
As I see it, a sane path forward is to (a) acknowledge global ecological overshoot and the profound transformation needed to create a more ecologically sound civilization, (b) recognize the difference between domination and partnership cultures and the role of domination culture in our ecological crisis, and (c) developing a civilization and culture that takes the best from past domination and partnership cultures, is ecologically sound, and where what’s easy and attractive to do is also what supports this living social and ecological system we are part of.
In this way, we can find a conscious and deep partnership with the living systems we are part of. We can be a conscious part of the creativity and evolution of this system.
It’s very much possible. We know how to do it, or at least enough to get a good start. At the same time, it seems unlikely that we’ll find the collective will to do it anytime soon. So it’s something we each can implement in our own lives and in formal and informal groups locally, regionally, and globally.
We don’t know how much it will change the world, but we know it will change our world and the world of the many beings who will benefit from it.
As I see it, regeneration of ecosystems is an essential and central part of this process. We can do this in our gardens, parks, local forests, and so on. Farmers can shift towards building soil health, polycultures, organic methods (Integrated Pest Management), natives, and perennials. Forest owners can diversify their forest to include more native species (to support insects, birds, and other birdlife) and more food producing perennials, and in the process also diversify their income. Individually and collectively, we can buy and regenerate land that’s degraded. Governments can regenerate public lands, land we all own together. Ocean ecosystems also need to be regenerated, and we need to develop approaches and knowledge of how to best go about this.
I see that several pilots reported UFOs near Eugene and on the Oregon coast some days ago. They saw lights and objects moving at impossible speeds and in several patterns. (I used to live in Eugene, Oregon, so this story caught my attention.)
As is tradition, interviewed officials and scientists try to explain it away with explanations that clearly don’t fit the observations. In this case, they say it’s Starlink satellites. Do Starlink satellites move in a corkscrew pattern? Do they move at extreme speeds? Are they a red sphere? Why do several independent pilots report them on this particular night and not on other nights?
At the same time, there has been a swing of the pendulum from the US government initially taking UFOs seriously (1940s, 1950s), to outright dismissal (1960s-2000s), to recent years where the Pentagon has released videos and information on unexplained aerial phenomena. Even the New York Times reported on it. (I happened to see two tic-tac-shaped UFOs in California headed towards the coast at about the same time these videos are from, long before the videos were made public.)
I have been interested in UFOs off and on since childhood and was a member of the Norwegian UFO organization in elementary school. I especially like the approach of John Mack, Jacques Vallee, and others who take a more open, curious, and cultural/psychological approach to it. And I have been especially impressed by the Ariel school mass sighting and stories like the one in Witness of Another World.
Since I am from Norway, the Hessdalen lights and observations made an impression on me as a kid. I also like that they have received scientific attention and are systematically observed and studied.
WHY AM I INTERESTED IN UFOS?
Why am I interested in the UFO phenomenon?
There are several reasons: The mystery of it. The invitation for sober thinking. The projection aspect. That UFO encounters often are transformative. That just the idea of UFOs challenge us to examine our views. And that whatever is behind some of the reports may well go outside of what’s currently familiar to us. I’ll go into these briefly below.
I should also mention that when I write about how governments relate to UFOs, it’s mostly about the US, partly because I have lived there most of my adult life and partly because my country of origin (Norway) has a similar orientation. I know that other countries are more openly interested in it and publicly take it seriously.
THE MYSTERY OF UFOS
One reason I am interested in the UFO phenomenon is the mystery of it. What’s going on?
Although most sightings have ordinary explanations, some seem credible and genuinely baffling and unexplainable. The US navy sightings, with video and radar data, is a recent example. Nothing known explains what several pilots saw and which is backed up by instrumentation. (The explanations some have put forward don’t match the data, not to mention that they are insulting to the intelligence and experience of the people in the navy genuinely baffled by it.)
Many reports are odd, with a mix of UFOs, synchornicities, unusual animal encounters, animals far larger than what’s possible, sightings of mythological creatures, and so on. These are anecdotal so have to be taken with a big pinch of salt, but there are also patterns across times and cultures in these reports, and they hint at something far odder than scientists from another planet visiting in nuts and bolts vehicles. (Odd for our Western materialistic mindset, that is.)
It’s natural and healthy that we have some degree of interest in mysteries. It’s built into us through evolution, and it’s one of the ways our ancestors learned about the world and gained a survival edge. It’s also natural and healthy that the degree of curiosity differs between individuals.
THE MYSTERY IN EVERYTHING
There is a bigger picture here, and that is that everything is mystery.
We have questions about the world, and that’s it. We don’t know anything for certain.
Life, the world, and ourselves are far more mysterious to us than many like to admit.
This the mystery I am most interested in, which is reflected in the name of this website. It’s the mystery that takes the form of everything. This overarching mystery is also why I don’t spend too much time on what’s conventinally considered mysteries, like UFOs, although I dip into it now and then.
SOBER THINKING
The UFO phenomenon is an invitation for sober thinking, which is another reason I sometimes get into it. It’s a good practice ground for sober thinking, being honest with myself, noticing imaginations as imaginations, and noticing if I get into wishful or fearful thinking.
What’s the data? Would it hold up in a court of law? Would it be accepted in a peer-reviewed journal?
How is the logic? Is it grounded and solid? Am I committing logical fallacies?
Do I pretend to know something that I don’t know for certain?
Our thoughts are questions about the world. Do I pretend that my thoughts are something else?
Similarly, do I pretend that all thoughts about it are equal? That some are not more grounded in solid data and logical thinking than others?
WHEN ABANDONED IT’S OPEN FOR CRACKPOTS
In the US, and several other countries, the UFO topic has largely been dismissed, ridiculed, and put on the margins of government and scientific attention since the modern UFO waves came in the 1940s.
That has left the field wide open for crackpots, which has made it even more of a pariah topic for serious politicians, government officials, and scientists. (Here, I consider those who have strong ideas about UFOs and think they know for certain as crackpots. Their ideas are typically based in poor data and flawed logic.)
With the publication of US navy videos of unexplainable aerial phenomena, and the New York Times article, there is a small shift, an invitation for people to take it seriously.
PROJECTIONS
Yet another reason I am interested is because of the projection aspect of UFOs.
What do we imagine onto the UFOs? Do we imagine beings? If so, do we imagine them as saviors, villains, detached observers? Maybe culturally, technologically, or spirituality evolved beyond us? Something else?
It’s good to notice that these are our own imaginations and find what they point to in ourselves.
What’s my stories about the UFOs? What’s my stories about how people – governments, media, scientists, crackpots – relate to them? What do I find when I turn each of those stories to myself? Can I find genuine and specific examples of how they are true?
If I remember correctly from his book on UFOs, Jung saw them as representing the Self, our mind-body whole at a human level. Since we don’t know what they are, they are good projection objects for just about anything our mind wants to project, which means they can also tell us a lot about ourselves.
TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCES
Several people report sometimes profound transformations following a UFO or alien encounter.
The man in the Witness of Another World documentary had his life profoundly changed. He was able to spontaneously know the future of people he met (touched?), and the future was sometimes revealed to him in dreams. (Just like, it turned out, the shamans of the tribe his ancestors were originally from.)
The children from the Ariel school also reported transformations when interviewed a quarter of a century later, and the ones closest to the UFO seemed to have experienced the most profound shifts. As far as I remember, the shifts were often into questioning the mainstream worldview, open to the mysteries in life and the universe, a deep love and concern for the Earth, and so on.
In the shamanic traditions around the world, it seems that UFO and alien encounters are part of their history and culture. A part of the initiations and transformations of shamans sometimes involve what we think of as UFOs and aliens. (Sky beings.) John Mack writes about this in some of his books.
It seems that UFO or alien encounters serve a transformative function and are in the general category of some other experiences: Near death experiences (NDEs), before-life experiences, some psychedelic experiences, some altered states, mystical shifts, and similar.
My interest in this comes from having had at least two nudges in my life that have been profoundly transforming. The first is the (apparent) flashbacks to the time between lives that would happen in early childhood, before school age. The second is the oneness shift that happened when I was sixteen (and didn’t go away).
UFOS & OUR VIEWS
The UFO phenomenon invites us to notice and question some of our assumptions and explore options that may fit the data better. In this case, we don’t have much solid data, so we can find options that make sense no matter what.
I. WORLDVIEWS
UFOs are a reminder that what we know about the world, ourselves, and the universe, is limited, and that our collective worldview is similarly limited.
We live within a particular Western worldview and mindset, and this worldview and mindset is cultural and temporary. It will be gone. Future generations (if we survive the coming ecological bottleneck) will see it as outdated, quaint, and misguided in many areas.
In the future, knowledge of other beings in the universe may be a core part of our collective worldview.
In the future, we may collectively acknowledge a far richer reality – perhaps one that includes synchronicities, awakening (the consciousness we are awake to itself), distance sensing and healing, and so on.
II. A GLOBAL VIEW
Since we (rightly or wrongly) associate UFOs with beings outside of Earth, they remind us that we are one Earth, one living planetary system, and one species.
Through our ideas about UFOs, we give ourselves a more global perspective.
That’s valuable in itself.
Of course, this happens in other ways as well: Images of the Earth from space, science fiction stories, systems views, and so on. The UFO phenomenon is just one part of this.
III. OUR ROLE IN THE COSMOS
Since we (rightly or wrongly) associate UFOs with beings from other places in the universe, they are a reminder for us about our own role in the cosmos and they invite us to look closer at this role.
Through science, we see the universe as a seamless evolving system, and we are temporary and fleeting expressions of this system.
It’s likely that this is not the only planet – or local system – that has come to life. We may share this universe with many other forms of life, and we are all part of the evolution of this seamless universe. With our reflective and self-reflective mind, we shape our own evolution and, in our small way, the evolution of the universe.
If we ever know for certain we are not alone, it will change how we see ourselves and the rest of the universe. It will shape how we see our role in it. It will invite us to have more of a cosmic context for our lives. And that changes everything, perhaps in a small way with big consequences.
WORTH STUDYING
The UFO phenomenon is worth studying, no matter what’s behind it. (Likely a variety of things – known misidentified phenomena, unknown natural phenomena, maybe something else too.)
It’s worth studying…
…for security reasons. For instance, some sightings may be of drones used for spying.
…for psychological and social reasons. It helps us understand the psyche and social dynamics better.
…since there seems to be something real and genuinely mysterious behind some of the reports.
…since some of it may be unknown natural phenomena. (For instance, some of the lights in Hessdalen, Norway.)
…since some phenomena seems to go outside of what’s understood and acknowledged in our current Western worldview.
…since what we find behind some of the phenomena, whatever it is, may give us a better understanding of the world and the universe. It has the potential to reveal something slightly or dramatically different from what we already know.
When you think you are your own separate, independent, self-made tree and not the forest, you care less when other trees are burning. This is a fatal problem of mistaken identity, colonized forgetting, and conditioned belief in your insulation from harm. You are always the forest. Indigenous ways.
– Jaiya John
We are fleeting and local expressions of this living system we call Earth, and the much larger evolving system we call the Universe or Existence.
What happens to the larger systems we are part of, as well as the smaller systems that are part of us, happens to us.
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE LARGER WHOLE HAPPENS TO US
We may think that in society, what happens to others don’t harm us but it does.
We may think that harm to ecosystems and non-human beings don’t harm us, but it does.
It harms us because we are all expressions of the same dynamic living systems, and what happens to a part happens to the whole. Harm to other people, non-human beings, and ecosystems harms the web of life we are all part of, and that harms us whether we notice or not.
The larger the scale of this harm, the more obvious the harm is to ourselves, as we are seeing now with our global ecological crisis and the inevitable coming mass migrations. We are all impacted already, and it will only be more obvious.
Similarly, the more the larger systems we are part of come alive, the more we come alive.
It harms us to be complacent to or support the harm since the world is our mirror. The way we relate to the world – to others, to ecosystems, to life – is how we relate to ourselves. If we live from intolerance, scapegoating, bigotry, blame, victimhood, and so on, that’s how we treat ourselves and that’s the world we create for ourselves to live in.
If we learn to live from more kindness, curiosity, and a partnership orientation, that’s how we relate to ourselves and our experiences.
WE ARE NEVER SELF-MADE
We are never self-made. Whatever is in my life comes from somewhere else.
I grew up in a middle-class family in Norway so the road was paved for me to get a university education. I grew up with lots of books so it was natural for me to read. I grew up with a family that loved nature, so it was natural for me to love nature. Any ideas that goes through my mind comes from somewhere else, both the stressful and the more life affirming ones. My curiosity, passion, motivation and so on is not self-made, it comes from somewhere else. (I don’t know where.)
Everything in my life comes from somewhere else. My life depends on the whole evolution of this universe, this planet, humanity, and this civilization. It depends on the whole of existence.
None of this would be here otherwise.
INSULATION FROM HARM
When we live from an imagination of separation, we can also imagine we are insulated from harm when others are harmed, whether they are people, non-human beings, ecosystems, or this living planet as a whole.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The health and well-being of the whole colors our own health and well-being in innumerable ways.
Why are we collectively not doing nearly enough to deal with our global ecological crisis? This assumption of separation and insulation from harm is likely a big part of it. We think it happens over there, to someone else, to future generations. They can deal with it.
We don’t realize how it impacts us now, and how we are impacted by the destruction happening all over the world even if we tell ourselves we are not.
TRUMP AND A CULTURE OF DOMINATION
In the US today, with the election of Trump, this quote may be especially relevant. Trump wants to sell of publicly owned nature to mining and petroleum companies. He wants to reduce or eliminate regulation of industry, use and release of toxins, and release of greenhouse gasses. He wants to minimize and destroy the already flimsy social safety nets in the US. He wants to cut taxes to the already very wealthy and put the cost on ordinary people. He wants to mass deport immigrants who pay taxes and do jobs others don’t want. He wants to implement policies that harm minority groups.
This harms everyone. It harms everyone to live in this kind of “burn it all to the ground” society that does not respect human rights or the right of nature, that scapegoats and harms minorities, that removes the social safety nets that makes society safer for all of us, that encourages further destruction of our ecosystems and the life support systems we all depend on.
MISTAKEN IDENTITY
As the quote says, this is a fatal problem of mistaken identity. This mindset of “what happens to others don’t matter for me” comes from a worldview of separation and alienation. It’s very much a trauma response.
Likely beginning with the agricultural revolution, we have created an imagination for ourselves telling us we are separate from nature, we are separate from others apart from a few in our in-group, we are special and different from other forms of life, we have soul and others do not, the sacred is out there in the sky or the afterlife or a sky-god and not anymore in all beings and all there is, we understand something best by taking it apart to its smallest parts, a thought can be absolutely true, if one thought is true another is not (either-or thinking), if you pretend to believe something weird you can’t check for yourself you’ll be saved, you’ll get your reward in the afterlife so there is no need to change the system to make a better life for yourself now, and so on. These imaginations were likely created to justify the domination and social inequality that came with agriculture, and they have been developed through the centuries to continue justifying it.
This worldview, and the domination culture that comes with it, creates and depends on trauma. It creates and depends on collective and intergenerational trauma.
It is very much a primitive, barbaric, and savage worldview and culture. It’s the mindset of empire and colonialism. (The irony is that people with this mindset have traditionally seen partnership-oriented cultures, including Indigenous cultures, as just that.)
WHAT WE CAN DO
We can learn to recognize this mindset, where it comes from, and what effects it has. We can learn to see through it. We can learn to recognize it as the imagination it is.
We can also explore and explore living from more life-centered mindsets and worldviews. We can recognize ourselves as nature. We can recognize this living system we call Earth as one seamless dynamic system that we are local and fleeting expressions of. We can create and live from more of a partnership culture in ourselves and our lives.
This may not happen on a larger scale, at least not yet, but we can do it in our life and that’s amazing. It may not change the world in an obvious way, but it changes our world.
The pasty white guy rolling his eyes, representing colonialism and the descendants of colonialists still benefiting from the original theft of land and natural resources.
The Indigenous using the power of their tradition to stand up for themselves and what’s important to them.
Theunimaginable horrors inflicted on the indigenous around the world, mainly by white Europeans, and the immense suffering that came from it. The theft, lies, rape, destruction of nature, and much more.
Colonialism is still going on, often through multinational corporations with the support of governments and the neo-liberal ideology, and the descendants of colonialists holding onto their privilege.
DOMINATION AND PARTNERSHIP CULTURES
Before the agricultural revolution, we were all indigenous. We lived in small egalitarian groups and from what nature provided. The global ecological crisis we find ourselves in today is an outcome of the agricultural revolution, including the worldview and mindset that came with it.
This is a worldview of separation and domination, imagined, promoted, and developed to justify the new gap between the wealthy and the rest, and the domination inherent in agriculture, husbandry, and having people working for you.
All cultures, worldviews, and mindsets have a mix of partnership and domination orientations. That said, and in general, agricultural cultures are on the domination side. Indigenous cultures are on the partnership side, although the ones with agriculture tend to a little in the direction of domination. Empires tend to be further over on the domination side. (We see that in the US today.) And some modern agricultural cultures, like the Nordic countries, tend to be a little more over on the partnership side.
The agricultural worldview of separation and domination, combined with our explosion in numbers and technology, has created the global ecological crisis we now find ourselves in.
THE IMPORTANCE OF INDIGENOUS RIGHTS
That’s one of many reasons it’s important with Indigenous rights.
They are human as anyone else and deserve it.
They have been marginalized, suppressed, killed, and more for centuries. It’s time to right that wrong, as much as is possible.
They were here first. They were first everywhere.
They are often far down on the list of marginalized groups to be included and given a voice in society. To me, it seems they are often prioritized near the bottom.
They have insights, knowledge, and perspectives crucial for us today. They are medicine for many of the problems inherent in the Western culture, which is now – to a large extent – a global culture.
WHY ARE THEY STILL MARGINALIZED?
Why are the Indigenous still marginalized?
There are many answers.
In most places, the Indigenous are not as many as the colonizers and other immigrants.
They have fewer resources because their land was stolen from them, their culture was suppressed, they have experienced centuries of racism, and they live with intergenerational trauma.
Acknowledging their rights brings up profound questions of reparation, returning tribal lands, the dark history of colonization, the continued privilege of the descendants of the initial colonies, and more.
Giving the Indigenous a real voice in society will shed light on the colonizer culture and its brutality, shortcomings, and ecocidal and suicidal characteristics.
Almost all historically marginalized groups are still marginalized. The system – the social system, the culture, and the mind – has inertia. Even the ones that portions of society actively strive to include are still marginalized in many ways.
THE VALUE IN THE INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES
I am not indigenous so I can’t speak with any authority on any of this. Even if I was, I could only speak about my own culture since Indigenous cultures are diverse. So I am sure much of this is missing the mark. But I can guess, and I can also make some guesses about the value in the indigenous perspectives.
They may reflect pre-agricultural views, so they serve as a correction to the post-agricultural worldviews most of us in the world today are familiar with and have internalized.
They often come from more of a partnership orientation – to others, ourselves, nature – instead of a domination orientation. This is what we need to find solutions to our challenges today.
They often see the sacred in everyone and everything. The sacred is here, not out there in the heaven, or the afterlife, or a sky-god.
They often have reverence for nature and the gifts of nature.
They look at wholes as much as the parts, while our Western culture traditionally has focused more on parts and has operated from a fragmented understanding and view.
They know we are nature. We are nature taking these local and temporary forms. What happens with the web of life happens to us.
They may have more of a big picture and deep time perspective. Some may think over generations and at ecosystem and global levels. This is in contrast to the typical small picture and short-term thinking of Western civilization including businesses, politicians, and most organizations.
They have experience with decolonizing the mind and seeing through the ideologies of domination cultures. That’s valuable for all of us doing the same.
These are just some of the ways Indigenous perspectives can be medicine for our Western and now largely global worldview.
After Trump was elected last week, I have seen people discussing how this fits into a larger trend and says something about the future.
Some think we are headed into an age of sustainability, inclusivity, and progressive values, and Trump is part of the backlash from a dying and losing mindset.
Some think Trump is a sign of the erosion and dying of democracies, and that the age of democracies was a brief blip in history.
Some think we’ll continue much as before with the usual cycles between right and left.
Some see it as part of a divergence in the US and the world, with some states and countries moving in a progressive direction and some in a more authoritarian and regressive direction. That’s how the world has been for a long time, and it may be even more so with the internet’s echo chambers.
It’s interesting and perhaps even helpful to explore and be aware of these different scenarios. And that’s what they are. They are imaginations about the future, nothing else. They may be more or less rooted in studies, analysis, historical patterns, and so on, and they are still imaginations.
They are not the future. We can’t know anything for certain about the future.
We may invest energy into one of these scenarios and fuel our hopes or fears that way, and that’s a way to find an illusion of safety. We tell ourselves we know how it’s going to be, and that may seem more comfortable than acknowledging that we cannot know.
In my experience, it’s far more comfortable to (a) recognize these scenarios as imaginations, (b) acknowledge that I cannot know, and (c) stay receptive and curious.
What I know is that I can imagine the world I want to live in and live that in my own life.
I am doing it in my own very small way with the food forest and the regeneration and reforestation project, building with local materials and traditional methods, exploring and living from more life-centered worldviews, and so on. And there is always further to go.
It’s always about what I can do and what I am living here and now.
I was lucky. Growing up in Norway, I had one main teacher in elementary school, one in middle school, and one in high school. The ones I had in middle and high school both aimed at highlighting the systemic problems in society. At the time, several teachers in social sciences, history, and language, were university-educated “radical” intellectuals. (I don’t know how it is now.)
My teacher in middle school introduced me to The Turning Point by Fritjof Capra which changed my life. First year of high school, I think my teacher there introduced me to Bak Tid of Rom by Erik Damman which was also very important to me. (I may have discovered it in a bookstore, if I am honest, but I suspect my teacher mentioned it to us.)
The first by going through scientific research on topics that cannot be explained by a materialistic worldview.
The second by introducing me to systems views, Eastern philosophies, domination versus partnership cultures, the importance of worldviews, and the need for a thorough transformation in our worldview and all aspects of our culture if we are to create an ecologically sound civilization.
I put radical in quotation marks since they were not really radical. They supported democracy. They wanted what was good for individuals, society, and future generations. They promoted human rights and spoke up about social injustice. That’s what a kind and healthy human being naturally does.
To me, it’s an example of the empire striking back.
People who have internalized the mindset of dominationand power-over voted for him and want that culture strengthened, even if it doesn’t seem to be in their interest.
A CULTURE OF DOMINATION
They seem to want a culture of domination and all that comes with it: A zero-sum mindset. Xenophobia, misogyny, racism, and bigotry. Continued destruction of nature. Continued marginalization of the already marginalized.
Why? Because they identify with the values of empire, with the mindset of separation, domination, and power-over.
They know what they are doing. They know what he wants to do. He has said it very clearly. They know he wants to consolidate power, be a dictator from day one, replace civil servants with loyalists, persecute his political opponents, use the military against his own citizens, and in general undermine and attack democratic institutions and principles.
They know he adores Hitler and read Hitler’s speeches to his ex-wife as bedtime stories. They know that the ones who worked most closely with him, including conservative generals, say he ticks all the boxes of fascism. (If they don’t, it’s because of willful ignorance since the info is easily available.)
They may not agree with everything he says or does, or with everything in Project 2025, but they are certainly OK with it. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have voted for him.
THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION
It’s easy to think that this domination mindset has always been here. It’s just part of human life.
In reality, it very likely came with the agricultural revolution.
Before, we were all indigenous. We lived in more egalitarian groups, although obviously with leaders and the higher status of elders with wisdom and practical experience. We saw ourselves as part of the web of life. We saw the sacred in everyone and everything.
With agriculture came the accumulation of wealth, domestication of land, plants, and animals, and social and economic inequality.
How could the wealthy justify this new social order? Why was it OK for them to accumulate while others went without?
To justify this, they created the mindset of empire: We are separate from nature. Nature is here for our use. Nature is infinite. We are better and more important than the rest of what’s living. The sacred is out there in the sky and in a sky god. There is a social hierarchy which is good and divinely prescribed. You will reap your reward in the afterlife. (So don’t bother trying to change anything now.) If you don’t behave, you’ll go to hell. It’s good and honorable to respect those higher up in the hierarchy and uphold the hierarchy itself. If you (pretend to) believe something weird others tell you, and you can’t check out for yourself, you’ll be saved. Thoughts can tell us a final, full, and absolute truth. If one thought is true, alternative ones are wrong. In most polarities, one end is good and the other is less good, bad, or evil. (Men vs women, mind vs body, humans vs non-humans, humans vs nature, our religion vs other religions, European vs non-European, civilization vs savagery, good and bad emotions, and so on.)
Don’t question or challenge any of this, or live alternatives. If you do, you will go to hell, you’ll be ignored, ostracised, ridiculed, marginalized, put in prison, or something else unpleasant.
I imagine that this mindset seemed strange at first and an underhanded way to justify social inequality. It likely came gradually and stepwise, and the specifics have changed over time, although the essence is to justify domination and a few living in luxury while others lived in poverty.
Over time, this mindset became the new normal. New generations grew up with it, internalized it, and most didn’t question it or realize that other worldviews are possible.
TRUMP AND THE MINDSET OF EMPIRE
It was so successful that we now have Trump, and half of the US population wants him to run their country.
The irony is that the alternative, Harris and the Democrats, is also an expression of empire, it’s just a gentler and more compassionate expression of empire. It’s empire with softer edges. (Unless you look at their support for Israel’s decades-long violation of human rights and year-long genocide in Gaza. They seem happy to do their domination abroad.)
It seems that was not enough for many people. They want the more extreme version of it. They want to live in a culture of even stronger domination and marginalization.
DOMINATION AND TRAUMA
Trauma is an important part of this.
A culture and family that operates largely on domination is traumatizing for its citizens and children, and this collective trauma is passed on through the generations.
Hurt people hurt people. If we are hurt, a common way to respond to that hurt is to continue to hurt ourselves and to also hurt others. That’s one way the domination culture continues.
Trump’s behavior is trauma behavior. Bigotry, anger, defensiveness, scapegoating, lies, and so on are all classic, and somewhat extreme, examples of trauma behavior. It’s one of the ways we deal with our own hurt and pain.
I suspect the same is the case for many of those who support and vote for him. Much of that too looks like trauma behavior.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN?
Of course, we don’t know what will happen in the next four years.
We don’t know if or to what degree the US democratic institutions will be able to resist and stay intact.
We don’t know what the consequences will be for what little nature is left.
We don’t know how much suffering women and minorities will have to endure.
We don’t know to what extent far-right bigots around the world will be emboldened by Trump and what they see in the US.
We don’t know how far his MAGA followers in the US will take it in terms of intimidation and even violence against minorities and political opponents.
We don’t know what wars Trump may start, possibly in an attempt to distract from unpopular policies and unite the US population behind him. He avoided wars during the first presidency, but Trump 2.0 will be different.
We also know very well what he wants to do, and some of the things he can do relatively quickly and easily. He clearly wants to deepen our already massive global ecological crisis and hasten a possible end to civilization. (That’s not hyperbole. It’s inevitable with his policies. We are already using far more natural resources than planet Earth can replenish.)
Whatever he does – with the support of Congress and the Supreme Court – can and likely will take decades to correct.
PEOPLE VOTING AGAINST THEIR INTERESTS
To me, there are many ironies in this situation.
One is the many people who seem to vote against their own interests. Why do they vote for someone who has promised to make their lives worse?
For instance, why do Latinos and Hispanics vote for someone who is publicly racist, bigoted, and has nothing but disdain for them? One answer is that they are conservative because of Catholicism, and they mistakenly see him as conservative. Some may want to join the ranks of the oppressor since it seems safer, and they think that voting for Trump and joining the Republicans will do that. Some may assume that when he disparages Latinos, he means the others, not them. Some may think that when he talks about deporting immigrants, he doesn’t mean it (he does) or it will impact others and not them (how do you know?).
Why do some Christians support him? He is clearly not a Christian. In his life, he is the polar opposite of the example set by Jesus in the New Testament. His policies of cruelty are the most un-Christian imaginable. The answer is likely that some brands of conservative Christianity, especially in the US, represent a very distorted form of Christianity, one that’s far from the original principles laid out by Jesus.
Why do women vote for someone who is a misogynist and rapist and wants to allow states to ban abortion? (Likely because they buy into patriarchy, other things matter more, or they think abortion is something others will need and not them.)
Why do minorities and vulnerable groups vote for Trump when they know his presidency will embolden bigots worldwide? Why do women support Trump when they know his presidency will cause an upsurge in misogyny and misogynist behavior that may even impact them directly? Why do ethnic minorities, like Latinos, vote for a racist who will invite openly racist behavior among many, when they may be the target of it? (A large percentage of Latinos voted for Trump, while few Blacks did – likely because they know what may and will happen based on their history.)
Why do workers vote for someone who wants to do away with unions? (Likely because they think he is anti-elite, while he really is in it for himself and his rich buddies.)
Why do working and middle-class people vote for someone who wants to cut taxes for the super-rich and increase taxes for everyone else? Why do they vote for someone who wants to impose tarrifs when it’s the ordinary people that will have to pay for it? (Likely because they are unaware of it, or other things matter more for them.)
Why do people who depend on the Affordable Care Act (ACA, PPACA, ObamaCare) vote for someone who wants to do away with it? (Likely because they don’t realize what will happen and the impact it will have on their lives.)
Why do people who depend on the (already imperfect) social safety net in the US, or who may depend on it in the future, vote for someone who wants to erode and – if he can – remove it? (Do they think this too is about others, not them?)
Why do people who want to shake things up and try something different choose an openly fascist felon, rapist, and con man like Trump? He is very unlikely to give them what they want, and far more likely to give them what they don’t want. From history, we know what authoritarianism and fascism lead to, and he is a textbook authoritarian and fascist.
Why would anyone vote for someone who wants to expand our collective ecological footprint when it’s already larger than this planet? Our planet cannot replenish natural resources at the rate we use them. We are living on a savings account that’s rapidly going down. This is ecocidal and suicidal.
BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN TO OTHERS, NOT ME
The ones supporting Trump know he wants to do terrible things to several groups in society, including migrants, women, LGBT+ people, and his political critics and opponents.
They must be OK with it.
Why? Perhaps because of dehumanization. They don’t see these people as real people. They don’t see them as deserving to be treated humanely and with respect and understanding.
Equally important, they likely think that bad things will happen to other people, not themselves.
History tells us a different story.
PROTECTED BY PRIVILEGE
The “bad things will happen to others” attitude has another aspect, and that’s privilege.
White people think the bad will happen to non-whites. Christians think the bad things will happen to the non-Christians. Born citizens think bad things will happen (only) to immigrants. Men think the bad things will happen to women. Republicans (including Latinos etc.) think the bad things will happen to non-Republicans.
They all feel protected by privilege. They are protected because they belong to a privileged group.
That’s not how this works.
THOSE WHO GET INTO HIS ORBIT
I am also surprised by those who willingly join his orbit. (Elon Musk is one of them.)
Have they not seen what tends to happen to those who do?
Do they think this too will happen to others and not them?
BLAME & SCAPEGOATING
The first chapter in the authoritarian playbook is blame and scapegoating, which Trump masters.
When things inevitably go haywire during his presidency, he will continue to blame and scapegoate. It’s not his actions and policies that are the problem, it’s all the other people.
Many of his followers will do this as well. When things get worse for them during his presidency – prices go up because of tariffs, they lose social safety nets, public programs they depend on are cut, people they know are deported, they find themselves in a more harsh and unforgiving society – they will overlook that this is the predictable and predicted outcome of Trump’s policies and instead continue to blame the same groups.
THE US HISTORY OF OVERTHROWING DEMOCRACIES
Another irony is that the US has a history of undermining and overthrowing democracies and installing far-right dictatorships. They have done so across the world for decades.
Now, they are installing someone as president who (a) openly admires dictators, (b) explicitly says he wants to create a dictatorship and be a dictator, and (c) has a plan (project 2025) and people in place to do exactly that.
Again, we don’t know exactly what will happen and how it will unfold. There are institutions and people who will resist. But we know that’s what he wants.
THE LARGER TRENDS
It’s always tempting to look at how these events fit into larger trends, although it’s by necessity speculation.
Some think the world is moving in a more progressive direction, focused on sustainability, inclusivity, and so on. Trump and his followers represent a backlash from the dying mindset of empire. I would like that to be true. The history of the West, at least, has been a slow movement of widening circles of inclusivity and who we see as “us”. It’s a projection into the future and it’s easy to see it as wishful thinking.
Some see liberal democracies as a historical aberration. They are a recent innovation, had their peak for a few decades after WW2, and are now on the decline in the world. Maybe we won’t see that many healthy liberal democracies in the future, and Trump and his movement are a part of the overall decline of democracies.
It’s also possible that this election is just part of the usual fluctuations between progressive and regressive tendencies, and it will be a blip in the larger history of a flawed democracy. It won’t be as bad as some think, or as good as his followers assume. (Personally, I think it will be pretty bad and it will take decades to undo and correct.)
If I were to guess, I imagine we’ll see a continued divergence in the US and the world. Some countries, states, and regions will move in a more partnership-oriented direction, and others will move in a more domination-oriented direction.
THE OVERARCHING ISSUE: GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT
One thing we know for certain is that we are in a massive global ecological crisis.
We are in a global ecological overshoot where we use far more resources than Earth can generate. That can’t last, and it will get much worse before it gets better if it gets better while we are around.
This is the context for our civilization today and it’s by far the most important issue, although it seems quite far down on the list of priorities for most people. (Understandably so since most people have enough with daily tasks and challenges and surviving.)
Will we find the collective will to make the necessary and thorough changes to all the systems of our civilization? How many will die before this happens? Will we be able to correctly identify the problem? Will we be able to focus on and implement the solutions, many of which we already have?
How will we deal with the consequences of the breakdown of our local, regional, and global ecosystems? The inevitable mass migrations? The loss of infrastructure? The food shortages? The lack of clean drinking water? Not having enough resources to repair and fix all the damage? Will large parts of humanity decent into infighting instead of focusing on the real solutions?
Will we see a world where some regions and countries take this seriously and do most of the heavy lifting, while other parts of the world continue much as before?
If we don’t find the collective will in time, there is only one outcome and that’s the unraveling of our civilization and huge loss of human life. (Along with an even more enormous loss of individuals of other species, and whole species.)
WHAT WILL HAPPEN WITH THE US?
It’s tempting to look at what may happen with the US in the coming decades, although that too is obvisouly speculation.
One thing that may happen is a shift from federal to state control and power. That’s what the Republicans want, and I imagine many in the more liberal states may eventually want it as well to avoid laws and regulations dictated by votes of conservatives in other states.
It will also indirectly reduce the problem with the electoral college which may be difficult to impossible to correct in itself.
In that case, we’ll see largely conservative states move further in a conservative direction, and liberal states move further in a liberal direction. We’ll also likely see more people moving to the states where they feel more at home.
It will also be a large scale experiment. We’ll get to see the effects of the different policies. Of course, the world is already that experiment. It doesn’t seem that countries often look to other countries for good solutions. (If they did, and they looked at what actually works in terms of the well being of the citizens, most would want to adopt a model similar to the Nordic countries.)
Several years ago, I started on a fiction story set a few decades in the future on the US West Coast. It’s set in that type of system where the states and local government decides most things, many states and regions have moved further in a conservative direction, and the West Coast has moved further in a progressive and sustainable direction.
I don’t know how that kind of process would unfold. What I know is that if it happens, it will come with its own drawbacks, many of which it’s difficult for us to foresee.
BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD
Whether this is the first day of the Apocalypse or the first day of the Golden Age, the work remains the same…to love each other and ease as much suffering as possible. – often attributed to Ram Dass
No matter what happens, we know what to do. As Joanna Macy says, there are (a) stopping actions to reduce the harm, (b) engaging in developing and living from more life-centered and partnership-oriented worldviews, and (c) developing and living practical solutions.
CONSERVATIVE PARTNERSHIP MINDSET
I know it’s unfair to real conservatives to call Trump a conservative. Other labels would be more fitting, like populist, nationalist, authoritarian, oligarch, fascist, reactionary, demagogue, or isolationist.
It’s also unfair to assume that a progressive orientation is always a partnership orientation, or that conservatism means domination.
There is always elements of both domination and partnership in all movements, cultures, and subcultures. It’s not possible to have just one.
It’s not difficult to find examples of domination elements in progressive politics. Sometimes, they are necessary since we live in that kind of system. Other times, they are excessive, misguided, and alienating.
It’s also easy to imagine conservatism with a partnership mindset. A conservative orientation can very well come with a genuine care of nature and creation, a genuine wish for deep democracy, a genuine desire to take care of those least fortunate in society, and so on.
I love that kind of conservatism. It may not be exactly how I see it in every way, but I love it and feel aligned with it.
WHAT I CAN DO
I lived in the US for about two decades, love the nature and the progressive subculture, and still feel quite connected, also because many of my friends are there. That’s why I still have some emotional investment in what’s happening in the US. Right now, immediately after this election, I make myself sad and angry over what I see happening there.
So what can I do?
I remind myself that about half of the people in the US didn’t want Trump. Many feel the way I feel now.
A lot of good things are happening in the world. Many people worldwide are working for a more inclusive and sustainable society. Many are developing and living the solutions.
In the bigger picture, it’s likely a blip. (Unless something catastrophic happens, but something catastrophic can happen anyway.) In five years, it may well belong to the past and the US is onto something quite different.
I am grateful for my friends and communities who tend to have more of a partnership orientation, and maybe especially the permaculture community these days.
I spend time in nature and work in the food forest. It’s nourishing and feels good.
I did tonglen yesterday – with Trump, his followers, and myself. I will do it again today and plan to continue. It feels good and softens a sense of I and Other.
I keep exploring projections, including Trump in myself. What stories do I have about him and his followers? What do I find when I turn those stories to myself? Can I find specific and genuine examples of doing the same? (Including right now, in how I see them?)
I use the natural stress-releasing processes of the body to release tension and find more resilience. (Tension and Trauma Release Exercises / TRE.)
I notice how the consciousness I am forms itself into my experience of all of it – this human self, Trump, the US, this world.
I remind myself that we are local and temporary expressions of the unfolding dynamics of the universe and this living planet. All f this is existence – the universe, this planet, consciousness – expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in always new ways.
I will be even more conscious of my news diet. I also read rather than watch, which makes it easier.
I will speak up about and live what I want to see more of in the world.
I keep living my life. My daily life consists of the same as before. Life goes on.
I remind myself that this too will pass. Authoritarian leaders are a natural outcome of the civilization we have (domination mindset), and they come and go.
I am often baffled when people talk about nature as if it’s removed from us – as if it’s a kind of luxury to experience now and then, or a kind of remote appendix, or a place primarily to get a few resources like timber and fish.
In reality, we are nature. Our life fully depends on the living systems we are part of. Nothing we are or value would exist without these living systems.
Our health and well-being is intimately dependent on the health and well-being of the larger living systems we are part of. Our existence depends on it.
The biggest issue in the world today is that we have a civilization that assumes a separation between us and nature, calculates the value of nature in terms of the market value of natural resources, and assumes infinite nature in terms of its resources, its ability to regenerate, and its ability to absorb the waste of our civilization.
Because of this, we are in massive ecological overshoot. Our collective ecological footprint is larger than our Earth. We are living off natural resources accumulated over very long timespans, and they are not being replenished nearly fast enough to keep up with our use. That’s a recipe for disaster.
It’s ecocidal and suicidal, and it’s astonishing to me that this is not at the forefront in just about any discussion in society – whether it’s politics, economy, business, science, art, philosophy, or anything else.
It is the context for everything, and it’s on the periphery of our collective conversation and what we are focused on.
What’s required is a profound transformation of all aspects of our civilization to take ecological realities into account, and that requires our collective will.
As it looks now, we are nowhere near to finding that collective will. We are, collectively, focused on everything and anything else. We prioritize just about everything else.
Everything we actually prioritize has been made possible by this amazing living system we are temporary and local expressions of, and we marginalize this living system that makes it possible.
So what’s the solution? What can we do as individuals and groups?
For me, Joanna Macy’s three types of actions are a guideline: (a) Stopping actions, (b) creating and living life-centered alternatives, and (c) creating and living from more life-centered worldviews.
I explore more life-centered worldviews and allow them to shape and transform me. I especially like the Universe Story, the Epic of Evolution, Deep Ecology, systems views, integral models, and indigenous wisdom.
I live a few more life-centered alternatives. I eat local, organic, seasonal, and low on the food chain, as much as possible. I avoid toxic chemicals in soaps and so on. I am a member of and vote for the Green Party in Norway. (They are represented so it’s not a “wasted” vote.) I am fortunate to have land in the Andes and we are developing a food forest here.
I seek out like-minded people and groups. It feels good to know there is a community of us, even if we live in different parts of this planet.
I find that living some of the solutions – whether it’s worldviews or practical solutions – gives hope. It shows it’s possible. It makes me feel like a small part of the solution. It helps nudge us all slightly in the right direction.
I am curious about the white / male / heterosexual / Christian etc. fragility we see in the Western world these days.
MY CONSCIOUS VIEW
On the surface, I can’t relate to it so much. I love Woke. I love inclusivity. It’s something that so clearly benefits all of us.
I want to live in a more inclusive society and culture because it means I am more likely to be included as well – with all my many sides and weirdnesses.
Also, it doesn’t cost anything. It doesn’t take anything away from me. It doesn’t in any way diminish me or my life. On the contrary, it enhances and enriches my life.
A more vibrant society makes my life more vibrant.
(In a more real sense, I am – of course – doing exactly what I see in others. I’ll come back to that later.)
WHY THIS FRAGILITY?
Why do we see this fragility? Why do some seem threatened by others being acknowledged, honored, and included?
Why is it so terrible to lift up and include those who have been marginalized?
Why do you act as if it costs you something? Why do you act as if you are somehow diminished by it?
ONE ANSWER: YOUR SELF-WORTH IS IDENTITY-BASED
One answer is what the quote above points to.
Maybe you wouldn’t feel so emasculated by feminism if your manhood was rooted in something other than oppressing women.
If you place your value and self-worth in certain identities, and in those being magically “better” than other identities, then I can understand it.
You see yourself as white / male / hetero / Christian / human and so on. You feel better because you imagine that white is better than non-white, male is better than female (or other genders), Christian is better than non-Christian, or human is better than non-human. So if society says that non-white / female / LGBT+ / non-Christian / non-human is as good, you feel threatened. You feel that your self-worth – built on imagination and fantasies – is threatened.
I am a man. I feel good about myself because men are better than women. If women are treated as equals, it means I can’t feel good about myself in this way anymore.
I am hetero. (At least, I tell myself that.) I feel good about myself because I am hetero, and being hetero is better than LGBT+. If LGBT+ people are included as equals, it means I can’t feel good about myself in this way anymore.
I am Christian. I feel good about myself because I am Christian and Christianity is better than other religions. If non-Christians are treated as equals, it means I can’t feel good about myself in this way anymore.
I am human. I feel good about myself because I am human and humans are better than other species. If all species have equal value, I can’t feel good about myself in this way anymore.
SELF-WORTH BASED ON A ZERO-SUM VIEW
This seems to come from a zero-sum view of life. If you win, I lose. If I win, it means you need to lose.
That’s a sad way to look at life, and it clearly doesn’t have to be that way. Life is not set up that way.
REQUIRES MENTAL GYMNASTICS
It also requires an impressive amount of mental gymnastics to (a) identify as something, (b) see that as superior, (c) make yourself upset because the idea of being superior is threatened, (d) continuously remind yourself of all of this and put energy into it, (e) avoid looking at and questioning these dynamics and see if it makes sense, and (f) avoid looking at more life-centered alternatives to finding self-worth.
PARENTAL LOVE
I suspect it may also come from a lack of genuine and accepting parental love.
Most of us in the Western culture are wounded here. We experienced conditional love, so we didn’t learn to fully love ourselves with all our different parts and experiences. That’s something we have to learn and discover in our own life, often as adults.
If we are unable to love ourselves – genuinely and fully, then one way to deal with it is to put ourselves above others based on whatever identity we can use, typically one that is supported by common ideas in our particular culture.
FINDING SELF-WORTH IN OTHER AND MORE LIFE-CENTERED WAYS
Why not find your self-worth in another way? In finding genuine love for yourself, the different parts of you, and your experience.
In being a part of a community of explorers, no matter what label we put on it? In being someone who loves, no matter who we love? In being a human? In being part of this amazing and beautiful web of life?
In just being? A baby has infinite worth independent of identities, so why not you?
OTHER ASPECTS AT PLAY
Of course, this is not the whole picture. There are other ways to understand why someone feels threatened by a more inclusive society. It may be unusual to them and they prefer status quo. They may be used to being privileged, and now they no longer are. They may be used to having certain out-groups to denigrade and put down, and now they feel they are no longer allowed to do that.
None of these are mutually exclusive, and several of them feed into each other and are expressions of the same underlying dynamics.
DIFFERENT CULTURES
This will obviously look different depending on what culture we happen to live in.
If my culture is pathriarchical and I am man, I can use my identity as a manly man to feel better about myself. If my culture is Christian and I happen to be Christian, I can use Christianity to feel better about myself. If my culture is heteronormative, I can use a hetero identity to feel better about myself. If my culture is anthropocentric, I can use an identity as a human to feel better about myself.
Similarly, if I live in a mainly Muslim culture, I can use my identity as a Muslim to feel better about myself, as long as non-Muslims are seen – and treated – as inferior.
COLLECTIVE TRAUMA & TRAUMA PASSED ON THROUGH THE GENERATIONS
This is all related to collective trauma and trauma passed on through the generations.
One form of collective trauma is the trauma many of us live with because we live and breathe this culture. Pathriarcy, heteronormacy, anthropocentrism, and so on, traumatize all of us, and are – in a very real sense – an expression of trauma. Trauma is what perpetuates it.
That’s also how it’s passed on. We learn from our parents and other we grow up with. These ideas and this trauma is passed on through the generations, until someone notices, relates to it more consciously, and is able to find some healing for it and another way of living.
AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION
I suspect these dynamics also largely come from the agricultural revolution.
Before the agricultural revolution, we were all indigenous. We were all mostly equal with a mostly equal status. We couldn’t amass things or material wealth. We saw the sacred in all. We saw ourselves as part of the web of life.
With agriculture came the possibility for some to amass material wealth and we got material and social inequality. To justify this, we needed to create ideologies that probably seemed very strange at the time and are very familiar – and even ordinary – to us today. We saw ourselves as separate from nature. We found ways to justify social inequality and social hierarchies. We saw the sacred out there in the sky and a sky god. We saw men as better than women. Humans as better than non-humans. Humans as separate from nature. And so on.
We created a lot of dynamics to control people and society. (Including ideas of heaven and hell, rewards in the afterlife, and so on.) We created ideas of polarities, and that one end of the polarity is good and the other bad. (Human and nature, human and non-human, men and women, spirit and matter, heaven and hell, whites and non-whites, hetero and non-hetero, and so on.)
We used these polarities, and the idea that one end is better than the other, to control society and people. At an individual level, we have used it to feel better about ourselves, as outlined above.
HOW DO I DO THE SAME?
The question here is: How – and where and when – do I do the same?
If I see it in them, it’s because I recognize it from myself.
Where do I create an identity for myself, pretend it’s better than something else, and feel threatened by the idea that it may not be better?
I do it a lot, including on this topic. I see myself as more woke, inclusive, insightful, kind, and so on. I see it as better than the opposite, so it means I am better than them. A part of me feel threatened by the idea that it may not be inherently better. (It clearly is not. Our ideas of better and worse are our ideas, they are not inherent in reality.)
ZEN VOW
I am reminded of a Zen vow from the Fusatsu ceremony: I vow not to elevate myself or put others down.
For most of us, me included, this is impossible to do all the time and in all situations, and that’s fine. Since we live in this culture, we are programmed to elevating ourselves by putting others down, one way or another, and this program runs in us whether we consciously want it or not, and whether we notice or not.
The precept is there to help us notice when we are doing it, and find some curiosity about it. When do I do it? What’s behind it? What do I hope to get out of it? What are the alternatives? Can I give to myself what I hope to get out of it in another way?
I am from a conservative family, and I am in many ways very conservative.
WHAT DOES CONSERVATIVE MEAN?
First, what does it mean to have a conservative orientation? What’s the essence of it?
For me, it’s to preserve what’s valuable, meaningful, and essential for us collectively.
How am I conservative in that essential meaning?
MY FORM OF CONSERVATISM
I can find many things I see as important to conserve, preserve, and protect.
I wholeheartedly support preserving cultures, especially marginalized and indigenous cultures. I want to see them alive and thriving.
I am all for preserving languages, especially small or indigenous languages.
I love traditional knowledge and wisdom, especially from indigenous cultures.
I am all for taking care of nature and our local, regional, and global ecosystems. We are nature, so taking care of nature is to take care of ourselves and future generations.
I love science. I love the methods of science. (Of course, I also know that the content of science is always up for revision and always changing. What’s mainstream science today is outdated tomorrow.)
I love history. I love how history changes when we change. I love the lessons that can be learned from history. (For instance, when the pandemic happened, I was not surprised it happened, or the measures put in place, or the conspiracy theories that flourished. I knew it was roughly time for the next one. I also know the history of medicine and epidemiology and what works when we have pandemics, so I was not surprised by the common-sense measures that most governments put in place. They are what history shows us works. And pandemics and other times of crisis tend to fuel conspiracy theories. That’s how some people deal with their fear.)
I support giving a voice to the voiceless – to future generations, nature, and non-human species. I support strong laws protecting these. I support appointing people to speak for them, and who have real power and are backed by the law. This may help them in the future, and it will certainly help us now by giving us a more sound guide than many of the ones we are currently using.
I want to preserve humanity and our civilization, which is why I support a profound transformation of all aspects of our civilization. Our current civilization is ecocidal and suicidal since it assumes nature is infinite. A sustainable civilization takes the limits of nature into account so what’s easy and attractive to do is also ecologically sound. This has to happen if we are to preserve humanity and our culture.
Even if I want a profound transformation of our civilization, I want it partly so we can preserve all the beautiful and wonderful things in our civilization. I don’t want it to be lost quite yet. I want more generations to be able to enjoy it.
I also want a transformation that comes from our collective will. A good portion of us need to be on board with it for it to happen.
TRANSFORMATION IS SOMETIMES REQUIRED FOR PRESERVATION
These days, with our global ecological crisis, transformation is essential for preservation.
We have a civilization that assumes nature is infinite and disregards ecological realities. That’s an ecocidal and suicidal civilization. To preserve humanity, culture, and life as we know it, we need a profound transformation of all aspects of our civilization. We need to create a more life-centered and ecologically sound civilization.
In this case, preserving what’s most important to us means we need a thorough transformation.
IN A MORE CONVENTIONAL SENSE
In a more conventional sense, and as how most people would label it, I am not very conservative.
I am liberal and progressive in my views on society. (I love Woke and see it as essential to creating a society that works better for everyone.) Green when it comes to politics. (I am a member of the Green Party in Norway). Radical in that I see a profound transformation of our civilization as necessary for our survival. And conservative in the essential ways described above.
All of it is true and more.
ALL IS PART OF ME
In terms of my conscious orientation, and in a conventional sense, I am not conservative.
At the same time, the world is my mirror and I have what I see in conservatives in myself.
Many views and orientations are conventionally labeled conservatism. Often, it has to do with preserving privilege – white privilege, male privilege, the privilege of mainstream culture, the privilege of money and status, and so on. To me, this is a less savory expression of conservatism.
Whatever it is, it’s something I can find in myself. Whatever story I have about conservatives in the world – Trump, Thatcher, Milei – I can turn it to myself and find specific and genuine examples of how it’s true, including in the moment I have these stories about someone else.
TOUNGE-IN-CHEEK?
The initial description of how I am conservative is slightly tongue-in-cheek, and it’s also not.
I am fully aware that the list I gave above goes counter to most forms of conservatism. If conservatism often is about preserving privilege, what I listed is far more oriented toward supporting the marginalized and voiceless. (I also love to redefine common words and labels so they go more to their essence and require a second or third look.)
At the same time, I do see it as aligned with the essence of real conservatism: preserving what’s most important to us.
And I know I have it all in me, all forms of conservatism and more.
It’s not neccesarily mainstream in that it’s very common, but within each field, my orientation is pretty mainstream.
When it comes to the Universe Story, Deep Ecology, The Great Turning, Permaculture, and so on, I see it pretty much as others do. I love what others say and the work they do, and love to learn from them.
The same goes for healing, parts work, inquiry, somatic work, and so on.
In my regeneration and food forest work, I am pretty mainstream. I have a very similar orientation and approach as many if not most people doing similar work.
In my general political orientation, I am pretty mainstream for someone with my background – middle class, university educated, from Scandinavia.
In terms of awareness of our global ecological overshoot and the profound transformation needed of our civilization, my orientation is pretty similar to others aware of the same.
With my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), my symptoms and what I find works for me is pretty common and mainstream for people with that condition.
And the same goes for awakening and understanding who and what we are, although I find I sometimes use a slightly different terminology than many. (For instance, I like to differentiate between small and big understandings of awakening, and I haven’t seen that too much out there although I am sure many are exploring the same.)
I find relief in the mainstream. It means others are doing similar types of exploration and it’s not all up to me..! We have a fellowship of people exploring similar things, and some are very good at promoting it and being public so I don’t have to do that part (which is more difficult for me).
Of course, in this way, most of us are pretty mainstream. We all may belong to different subcultures and explore niche interests, and in most cases, we share it with a community of people. We are often mainstream within each field, interest, and approach. And that’s a relief, at least for me.
Today is Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the US. For me, it’s a reminder of the importance of indigenous and life-centered perspectives in the world today.
They serve as a vital correction to the mainstream worldview and orientation in the world today. This mainstream worldview has justified treating nature primarily as a resource, which, in turn, has led to the massive global ecological crisis we are now living. Since it also includes a view of nature as separate from us, there is also a remarkable mainstream complacency about this crisis.
THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLDVIEW OF SEPARATION AND POWER-OVER
Where did this worldview and these assumptions come from?
They seem to have appeared with the agricultural revolution about ten thousand years ago, and they were likely invented to justify all that came with the agricultural revolution: wealth inequality, ownership of land and living beings, social hierarchies, domestication of plants and animals, control and use (and abuse) of living systems and living beings, and so on.
ASSUMPTIONS OF SEPARATION AND POWER-OVER
What are some examples of these worldviews and assumptions?
We are separate from nature. Humans have a special status. Only humans have souls. Non-humans are inferior.
Nature is infinite. Nature is an infinite source of resources for us. Nature has an infinite capacity to absorb our waste.
The sacred is out there in a god in the sky.
One end of each polarity is inherently better than the other: Heaven and hell. Light and dark. Spirit and matter. Mind and matter. Men and women. Adults and children. Whites and non-whites.
We understand things by taking them apart to the smallest parts.
Thoughts can tell us the truth. If one thought is true, a different one has to be wrong.
Emotions are good or bad, desirable or undesirable.
If you gain, I lose. (Zero-sum thinking.)
And so on.
MORE LIFE-CENTERED PERSPECTIVES
What are some examples of worldviews that are more life-centered and can help us today?
Systems views. This planet is a living system. We are temporary and local expressions of this living system.
This universe is made up of nested systems (holarchies). We are smaller systems within larger systems, and we contain smaller systems.
We are nature. We are nature thinking, feeling, developing technology and civilization, reflecting on itself, and so on.
Everything is the sacred – humans, non-human beings, nature, this living planet, the universe.
We can find solutions that benefit individuals, society, ecosystems, and future generations.
Thoughts are questions about the world. They are mental images and words to help us orient and function in the world. They cannot give us any full, final, or absolute truth. Realty is always more than and different from our ideas about it.
Multi-generational thinking benefits us now.
All “conscious beings” are consciousness to themselves and essentially the same, it’s only the body and psyche the consciousness functions through that differs.
This living planet that we are all local and temporary expressions of, is itself a local and temporary expression of this evolving universe. We are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feeling of the universe. The sacred is in all of it, all the expressions of this living planet, the universe, and existence as a whole.
INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES
The examples of life-centered views listed above are not all indigenous perspectives, of course, even if some or all of them may be roughly in the same family. (I am not sure, it’s not for me to say.)
So what are some indigenous perspectives? How do us non-indigenous find and learn from them?
The best is to get to know indigenous people, of course. I follow some indigenous people on social media, and I have read quite a few books written by indigenous people.
One that’s on my list is An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, which seems to be mostly the post-colonial indigenous history. On my shelf, waiting to be read, is also Brading Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, along with How to Be Animal by Melanie Challenger (not from indigenous perspective but aligned).
THE RIGHTS & POSITION OF THE INDIGENOUS
This is, of course, not only about the importance of life-centered and indigenous perspectives, although those are crucial for us to transform our civilization to be more ecologically sound and sane.
This is also about the rights and role of the indigenous people around the world. They have been treated in the most terrible ways by agricultural and colonialist cultures around the world, and still are. They have been displaced, lied to, raped, killed, forbidden to use their language and follow their traditions, and more. And their rights still seem far down on the list of priorities of most mainstream societies.
For them to have a strong position in society, to live in the way that is right for them, and have what they see as vital, is not only important for them but for all of us. It’s about their and ours dignity, and – as mentioned above – their perspectives are invaluable to the world today.
There was a planet that had come to life. It formed itself into vibrant and rich ecosystems and evolved and changed over millions of years.
ONE PART OF THIS PLANET
One expression of this living planet, one animal, lived like any other animal. They lived from what they found around them in nature. They were nature and lived as nature. They saw themselves as part of nature and the web of life. They lived an indigenous life.
THE BIRTH OF AGRICULTURE
At some point, this one type of animal learned how to grow food and settled down to take care of the crops.
At first, they did this to have food more steadily available. Maybe they had experienced a great hunger – the plants and animals they had relied on for food had gone away for one or several seasons – so they wanted to see if they could find another way.
With this one change, settling down to plant and take care of crops, a lot of other things changed.
THE ODDITY OF THIS NEW WAY OF LIFE
Some realized they could take control of land to grow food. Some also domesticated animals. They started trading the food they grew with other things. They amassed both food and things and a few became wealthy.
Others did not – maybe they couldn’t or wouldn’t because it didn’t make sense to them.
This was all a very odd turn of events. It was all new. It was strange to all of them.
Before, they all lived together. They gathered food together, hunted together, and shared what they had. They had just the most simple things as their own. They were all equal in the most essential ways.
And now, some of them suddenly were in a different position. They had leverage. They took control over land and things, other species, and even others of their own kind, in a way nobody had done before and nobody had even conceived of before.
CREATING IDEOLOGIES TO JUSTIFY THE NEW INEQUALITY
The ones who took control of what was previously shared had a problem. How could they justify the new inequality? How could they justify their new position? How could they justify controlling the land which previously just lived its own life? How could they justify amassing so many things? How could they justify controlling others of their own kind?
How could they make it seem natural and right?
They did it by imagining ideologies and finding ways to get others to buy into them. They found ways to make these ideologies seem right, good, and attractive. They found ways to make them seem inevitable.
IT WORKED: THEY BOUGHT INTO IT
At first, it was obvious that this was all imagined, and that those who took control of land and many things did it to justify what they were doing.
Although soon, it worked. They – the wealthy and the poor – started buying into these imaginations. As new generations grew up with these imaginations, they couldn’t even imagine something else. They just took these imaginations as given, as how it was, as how it should be. Even the ones that were taken advantage of by these ideologies bought into them and defended them.
The few in each generation who questioned these imaginations, and recognized them as imaginations, were ridiculed, shamed, ostracized, and punished in a variety of ways.
THE IMAGINATIONS
What were these imaginations?
There were many of them and they took many forms, although they all had one purpose: to justify this new situation. To justify the control of land and other species, and this new social inequality within their own kind.
They imagined their own kind as separate from nature. They imagined the divine rights of kings. They imagined the voice of the divine speaking through priests. They imagined laws to protect their property and position. They imagined the sacred as “out there” in an imagined god in the sky. They imagined rewards in the afterlife.
They imagined a divine order that justified social hierarchies. They imagined stories about those on top of the hierarchy – the kings, emperors, priests, and the wealthy – to make it seem as if they were inherently special and someone to look up to and admire.
They found ways to blame individuals for being at the bottom of the hierarchy instead of the system. They imagined ethics and norms that told people to stay in their place and not rock the boat. They imagined heaven and hell, and hell for those who don’t behave.
They imagined that the way to understand something is to take it apart to its smallest components.
They imagined their kind as intrinsically different from and better and more important than the rest of the web of life. They imagined a soul in themselves and no soul in other kinds of animals or nature. They imagined other kinds of animals as having no emotions or thoughts or inner life. They imagined that this justified imprisonment, slavery, and torture of beings not of their own kind.
They imagined polarities and that one is good and one is bad. They created and reinforced many polarities like this: The wild and tamed. Savagery and civilization. Man and woman. Human and animal. Civilzation and nature. White and colored. Written and oral traditions. Heaven and earth. Soul and matter. Mind and matter. True and false. Saved and doomed. Good and bad emotions.
They imagined that thoughts can hold some kind of full, final, and absolute truth. They imagined that some thoughts and perspectives are true and other thoughts are false. (Removing the curiosity to explore complexity and find the limited validity in many perspectives and a bigger and fuller picture.)
IT WORKED TOO WELL: A GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL CRISIS
This state of affairs – with almost everyone buying into, propagating, and evolving these imaginations – went on for millennia.
The imaginations took many different forms, although always on the same theme of justifying this new way of life, so different from how they all had lived in the past.
At some point, they imagined nature as infinite in its resources and capacity to absorb the waste created by their civilization, and they organized their whole economy and civilization around this idea. It worked for a while until their numbers and the power of their technology grew exponentially.
Their civilization now used far more resources than the living planet they were part of could replace, and they produced far more waste than the living planet could deal with seamlessly. The living systems of the planet started to wobble. Ecosystems were degraded. Species lost. The weather got more extreme and unpredictable. They saw and lived all the signs of a massive global ecological crisis.
Some of them recognized this, at least to some extent, and wanted to make changes. Others defended what they had been taught and the old ways of living and imagining, some because they were familiar with it and some because it justified their privileged position.
THE DELUSIONAL PRIMATE
We are, of course, this delusional animal. We are the delusional primate.
We are the expression of this living planet imagining itself as separate and imagining all these other things, and perceiving and living as if that’s how reality is.
We are the species that has become ecocidal and suicidal from taking these kinds of imaginations as reality.
HOW WILL IT UNFOLD?
How will it unfold?
Have we bought into the delusions so strongly that we are unable to make the profound changes needed to create a more ecologically sound civilization?
How bad will it get before enough of us realize the severity of the crisis and what’s needed to change it?
Will we, for very much longer, survive through it as a civilization? Or even as a species?
None of us know this, of course, we just have to live it.
HOW CAN WE WRITE A SATISFACTORY NEXT CHAPTER?
A more important question is: How can we write a satisfactory next chapter for ourselves?
One answer, at least for some of us, is to recognize these imaginations and how they came about, how they are perpetuated, and the consequences of perceiving and living from them.
We all play a small role in writing our collective chapter, and when it comes to writing our individual chapter, we play a much bigger role.
As Joanna Macy says it, we can engage in (a) actions to stop the harm, (b) developing a more life-centered worldview, and/or (c) live some of the solutions. We may not change the world (that much), but we can change our world, and that’s how the world changes.
A FEW CAVEATS
This is mostly about Western Culture, of course, which is now the dominant world culture, but it’s also to some extent about any agricultural culture. The indigenous have fully or partially been on the outside of this, which is why their perspectives are so valuable now.
It’s also a very simplistic view on what happened, and I am no scholar in this topic. Reality is always far more complex, and our view on the past reflect us more than it says something fully accurate about the past. Our views about the past, and anything, are mainly about us.
That’s also why this story can be helpful, even if it’s inaccurate and glosses over a lot of complexity. It helps us to recognize several of the assumptions we tend to operate on in our culture. It helps us see some of the limitations and downsides of these assumptions. It helps us explore other worldviews and assumptions that may be more life-centered and what we need to turn our civilization around.
EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS
I have written this in a way that contrasts the partnership and domination views and have left out of the bigger picture that embraces both. So I thought I would bring in a slightly bigger perspective.
We can see this as part of an evolutionary process. Human civilization, including the partnership-domination dynamics, is one of many ways this living evolving system is exploring itself.
Our Western civilization, with its ideas of separation, has brought science, technology, and much else of value, and we now have the opportunity to take the best from our past and create an ecological civilization.
RESOURCES
None of these are new insights. People throughout history have pointed it out, and it seems it has been especially clear to indigenous people.
I was first introduced to this view in Fritjof Capra’s Turning Point.
I also found books written by indigenous people very illuminating, although I don’t really remember which books talked about what. Black Elk Speaks, Lame Deer, and The Sacred Hoop come to mind. If I am honest, I read about these themes many years ago and I am not quite up to date. (Because of my chronic illness, I have been unable to read much for the last 15-20 years.)
There is an astonishing return on investment in our food forest.
We do some work, mainly now in the establishment phase. We learn, receive guidance and help, find the plants, plant, mulch, improve the soil, water a bit, and so on.
Nature does the rest. Nature grows, turns air into organic matter, creates new layers of mulch, improves the soil, brings out more and more food for us and the wildlife, and over time grows a rich and diverse food-producing forest that requires far less work.
THE SMALL RETURN ON INVESTMENT OF CONVENTIONAL APPROACHES
When we put money into a savings account, there is a relatively small and steady return on investment.
If we put it into a fund, we may get more although it’s slightly more risky since the economy goes up and down and we are also likely supporting a lot of destructive activities. That last aspect, in itself, is not a good return on investment.
We can conventionally grow food, planting every year and inputting a lot of chemicals and work. This gives some return on investment, but it’s inefficient. It requires us to start over every year, depletes the soil, and depends on petroleum.
THE NEAR-INFINITE RETURN ON INVESTMENT IN FOOD FORESTS
Food forests are different. They have a very different trajectory and they provide a great and diverse return on investment.
In a food forest, we always build on what was before. We gain more organic matter. Soil health continues to improve. We get more and more diversity. The forest grows and fills in more and more layers. We fill in more of the 3D space with root vegetables, vines, herbs, bushes, and trees of different sizes.
Although there is a lot of work in the establishment phase, there is less and less work as the food forest matures. More and more, it takes care of itself, with (pleasurable) harvesting becoming a larger and larger portion of the work.
A food forest produces a great diversity of yields.
First the commercial ones: Fruits, nuts, vegetables, and herbs. Value-added products like cacao, coffee, Maya nut flour, tea herbs, and jams. Seeds and saplings. Regular and worm compost. Information and knowledge. Ecotourism.
Then all the other yields, equally or more valuable: Food for us and wildlife. A great place to live. Flowers for pollinators. Habitat for wildlife. Seed dispersal. Improved soil health. Erosion prevention. Recharging the groundwater. Possible return of natural ponds, springs, and creeks. Community connections. An example and inspiration for others.
What comes out of a food forest, through nature’s work, is almost infinitely more than the limited work we put into it. It’s an amazing blessing.
The images are from our beginning food forest. We started small last year and got going only earlier this year, so a lot of the focus is on building soil and getting the basics of the food forest started, mainly close to the houses so far.
I love this from Astrid Lundberg. In many cultures, there has been a focus on honoring our ancestors. Maybe it’s time to honor and worship our descendants? That’s a mindset that will allow us to transition to a more ecologically sound civilization and create a world that works better for our descendants, all beings, and ourselves now.
If we make a world that works for our descendants and for future generations, we make a world that works better for us now. It can be a good general guide for making sound decisions in the present.
This is also about giving a voice to the voiceless. Future generations are among the many who are voiceless, and yet have huge stakes in the decisions we make now.
How would it be to give them a voice?
How would we do it? Would we make laws to protect them and their interests? (Some countries have made rivers legal entities protected by laws.) Would we appoint someone to speak for them – in society, organizations, corporations, and the different levels of government? Would we give these spokespeople real influence and power?
If it was up to me, then yes. That’s the kind of world I want to live in.
Yes, our ideas of age and just about everything else are cultural. They’re specific to our culture, and it’s easy to imagine and find examples of cultures that see it differently, including where old age is highly valued.
Value judgments come from our minds and are not inherent in reality. There is nothing in reality that says one age is better than another. It’s all part of life. It’s all part of natural cycles, and each age plays an important role.
Ideas about how aging looks also come from our minds and culture, and reality can be very different. For instance, for each age group, people these days are younger and healthier than just a few decades ago.
IDENTIFYING AND EXAMINING STRESSFUL THOUGHTS ABOUT AGING
Since we live in a culture with ideas about aging, we internalize and live with these ideas whether we consciously believe them or not. That’s why it’s good to identify and examine these ideas and find what’s genuinely more true for us. (It has to be sincere and genuine to sink in and transform us.) The Work of Byron Katie is effective for this, especially when guided by an experienced facilitator. We can find some of our stressful thoughts by answering prompts: Aging means… When I get old…
One turnaround I can see now is “I am too old to be useful” –> “I am too old to be useless”. I am too old to be useless because… I know too much. I have learned too much. I have lived too much. I have a different perspective compared to when I was younger.
SHAPING OUR AGING
There are also ways we can age with grace and even delight. Questioning our stressful thoughts is a good start. In addition, we can… eat low on the food chain. Find meaningful activities. Find or develop communities of people of many ages. Use gentle regular movement (tai chi, qigong, yoga, Breema, gardening, dance, etc.). Explore gratitude, for instance through all-inclusive gratitude practices.
COMMUNITY LEVEL
At a community level, there are also things we can do. We can build retirement homes and kindergartens in the same building and set up activities that join people of different ages. We can move to an intentional community with people of all ages, which helps us stay active and can give us the support we need.
FINDING ALL AGES IN ME AND MYSELF AS AGELESS
Another side is that we have all ages in us, and we are also ageless.
At a human level, everything I see in the world is something I have in myself. I have all ages in me, and all the different ways we can be at each age. The more I get to know these sides of me, the more rich my experience of myself and the world is, and the more fluidity I have in how I live my life.
More essentially, I find myself as that which the whole content of experience – this human self and the wider world and anything else – happens within and as. To myself, I am consciousness, and the world to me happens within and as the consciousness I am. I am what forms itself into the experience of this human self, the wider world, states, thoughts, feelings, and any sense of time and space. Here, I am ageless. I am no age space for any age. I am no age forming itself into the experience of any age.
WHAT I AM DOING
I am not very old yet, but this has been in the back of my mind since early in life, and I have done and am doing all of these things in different ways, although I want to emphasize tai chi, qigong, Breema, and other movement explorations more. I am getting more familiar with the many different ages in me, and I am also curious about how it will be as I keep exploring living from noticing my nature, or my nature noticing itself.
As with just about everything I write about, there is nothing new here and it’s all well known. At the same time, it’s relatively basic and essential to my life so I enjoy reminding myself of it.
The mind may want to find something new and exciting, and yet, bringing the essentials into my life in a consistent way is often more important and effective.
