During one of his debates with Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln quipped that:

You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

Today, America tests just how many are the voters who can be fooled all of the time.

I’m not saying that everyone who votes for the MAGA party is being fooled. Many may not be fooled, yet have their reasons for keeping the MAGA party in power. Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, and Steve Schwarzman certainly do.

But at this point — ten years into the increasingly cruel and corrupt MAGA rule — only those still fooled could think MAGA politicians care about the welfare of Americans as a whole.

Foolocracy

I came of age at the time John F. Kennedy inspired millions with his call,

Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.

How well would Kennedy’s words play in the focus group tests of today’s campaign advisors?

Winston Churchill famously observed that,

Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried.

Even in good circumstances, democracy can be a messy system of governance. But when the standards of the electorate degenerate, democracy becomes what P. R. Sarkar calls a “foolocracy”. And foolocracies give cover to the elites to engage in their rapacious plunder and to the demagogues to engage in their smarmy grift. It saves them from having to resort to outright fascism to satiate their greed.

Foolocracies don’t arise because voters are inherently unqualified to participate in democracy. It occurs because their capacity to be wholesome citizens hasn’t been properly nurtured. Or — as in America’s present situation — it’s been corrupted.

Terry Carrilio, one of the most insightful writers on Substack, has a recent article titled, “Can We Recover from Forty-Five years of Targeted Assault on the Soul of America?” and subtitled: “Repairing the rules won’t be enough! Can we rebuild the moral and emotional schema that makes democratic life possible?” I’d like to quote at length from the lead to her article because of its clarity in tracing the erosion of citizen qualities that fortify democracy.

A recent piece by Thom Hartmann hit me hard because, for me, the history and consequences of Reaganism that he documents are not a mere policy discussion for me. I lived through it. I witnessed and fought the demolition in person.

I began my adult and professional life inside institutions still shaped by a belief that public systems could help people develop, recover, participate, and exercise meaningful agency. As Reaganism embedded itself in our public life and culture, I watched that framework dismantled brick by brick—public responsibility replaced by privatization, professional judgment by measurement, shared purpose by competition, and human development by transactional ideas of efficiency and success.

I am old enough to remember when another moral language still had institutional standing. Younger people have lived almost entirely inside the replacement. What I experienced as dismantling may appear to them simply as reality.

. . . What did those forty-five years do not only to our institutions, but to us?

The same unhealthy project that demolished public structures also altered the mental and emotional schemas through which people interpret freedom, responsibility, success, and one another.

The think tanks, media networks, political messaging, and distorted incentive structure did more than change public policy. People now understand themselves differently. They understand other people differently. They have different ideas about success, progress, freedom, responsibility, and what — if anything — we owe one another.

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Three Essential Qualities of Voters

What voter qualities are essential for a healthy democracy? The list is short; there are only three: morality, education, and socio-economic-political consciousness.

1 — Morality. By morality, I don’t mean moralistic judgement of others but virtuous behavior that supports integrity in public life. If they tolerate corruption, then politicians will serve their self-interests, or the interests of their wealthy patrons.

Again from Carrilio’s article:

Crass transactionalism, fear, hate, greed, grievance, and indifference to the general good are no longer embarrassing departures from public morality. They are increasingly presented, even rewarded, as realism. Domination, abuse, and hierarchical sorting are defended as freedom, strength, or the natural order.

Maintaining ethical behavior is not the responsibility of politicians alone; the electorate bears primary responsibility to hold leaders to high standards of conduct.

Morality includes maintaining social unity — resisting racism, cultural chauvinism, religious chauvinism, language chauvinism, etc. Demagogic politicians are quick to fuel the divisions in society that break down social unity.

A truly moral person will possess compassion for all. They will not discriminate between the welfare of one and the welfare of another on the basis of superficial differences.

2 — Education. An educated electorate is a must for democracy. Being literate is not sufficient. An educated person must be capable of making rational judgments, and their thinking should be free of dogma. Their education should cultivate in them the awareness that their lives are interwoven with the lives of others.

Voters require power of judgment. Society’s educational institutions have the main responsibility to help develop this capacity. But, as we are now seeing, schools cannot carry out this responsibility if the political party in power uses schools to inject propaganda into students’ minds.

Just as Terry Carrilio can track for us how public policy has corrupted moral values in America, there are educators who can detail the impact of public policy on declining educational standards — a decline that has accelerated under the policies of the MAGA regime.

Knowledge of history has particular importance for a functional democracy. And it’s here, perhaps more than in any other realm of study, that MAGA policy has targeted.

In his dystopian novel, 1984, George Orwell wrote that,

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

MAGA politicians are keenly aware of this. America’s growing resemblance to 1984 is apparent to many.

3 — Socio-economic-political consciousness. Voters may have a good education, and they may have sound morality, but even educated, moral people can be misguided by shrewd campaign messaging and pervasive disinformation if they lack social, economic, and political awareness.

It’s not easy for voters to develop socio-economic-political awareness where corporate interests hold influence over the media — especially when it comes to reporting on the big corporations and the uber wealthy.

There is also the growing problem of social media that is unconstrained by facts or by a concern for people’s welfare — social media that’s become a tool of tribal politics and malevolent actors.

The socio-economic-political consciousness of Americans has sunk so low that, polling reports, nearly a third of Republicans believe in core QAnon tenants.

Building a New Electorate

If voter morality is low, it’s more likely that their leaders’ will be corrupt. If voters are uneducated, their leaders will lack competency. If voters lack socio-economic-political consciousness, their leaders will be polished demagogues.

And this is what America now has — leaders that are immoral, incompetent demagogues.

The costs of such leadership are becoming clear. Reality is sinking in. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Especially when their lives are becoming increasingly desperate.

Hopefully, today’s election will bring a change of political leadership — one that will curb America’s drift into oligarchy and kakistocracy.

But the changes that are needed go far deeper than can be addressed by a change to Democratic Party control of Congress. For deeper change to occur, we will need to rehabilitate American democracy. This will entail, in significant part, strengthening the American electorate.

This week’s Crisis and Transition post, “Who Can Best Weave the Life-Centered Society?,” begins with an interesting observation about how we understand living systems. For centuries, researchers studied the structures and functions of the human body without fully recognizing the connective tissues that support them. Similarly, our understanding of forests has expanded as we have learned more about the relationships among trees, fungi, and the surrounding environment. In both examples, the post draws our attention to something easily overlooked: the connections that help sustain the whole.

The post uses these examples to explore a similar tendency in how we understand society. We recognize individuals through their occupations, achievements, wealth, and positions of authority, yet often overlook those whose contributions are less visible. The neighbors who look after one another, the people who bring others together, and those who quietly maintain relationships within their communities may receive little recognition, even though their contributions are essential to collective well-being.

This resonated with my own experience in Lāhainā, particularly in the years following the wildfire. In the midst of so much loss and uncertainty, I have seen how important relationships are to a community’s ability to carry on. People checking on one another, sharing what they have, connecting others with help, and finding ways to work together. Some of these efforts are organized, while others happen quietly through everyday acts of care and responsibility. They may not always be visible, but they make a difference.

It has also made me think about what we recognize as recovery. We can see homes being rebuilt, businesses reopening, and services returning. These are important signs of progress. But what about the relationships that help make these things possible? How do we recognize the value of someone who brings people together, maintains trust during difficult times, or simply makes sure that others are not forgotten?

The post approaches this question through P.R. Sarkar’s distinction between human value and social value. Human value is inherent in our existence and belongs equally to everyone. Social value, on the other hand, reflects the recognition society gives to individuals, often based on wealth, status, achievement, or authority. Sarkar argues that human value must always take precedence over social value, and that greater social recognition should be given to those who work for the welfare of others.

I find this distinction especially important because it challenges us to reconsider what we reward and admire. If human dignity is unconditional, then no one’s worth should depend on their economic productivity, social standing, or perceived usefulness. At the same time, the ways we distribute recognition, influence, and responsibility shape the values that guide our communities.

But this also raises another question. How do we recognize contributions to collective well-being without creating another hierarchy of social value? Some forms of service are highly visible, while others happen quietly within families, neighborhoods, and communities. Some people have the time and resources to take on public roles, while others contribute in ways that may never be widely known. If we are not attentive to these differences, could we continue overlooking the very people whose contributions we hope to honor?

Perhaps the deeper challenge is not simply to identify those who deserve greater recognition, but to create social conditions in which care, cooperation, and mutual responsibility are more fully valued and supported.

This brings me back to the importance of relationships. We often think about social change in terms of leadership, policies, institutions, and organized initiatives. All of these matter. Yet the capacity of a community to respond to challenges also depends on how people relate to one another. Trust, reciprocity, and a willingness to act for the common good cannot be established through policy alone. They develop through everyday interactions and shared experiences.

There is also something important in recognizing that these relationships extend beyond human communities. From a neohumanist perspective, our responsibility is not limited to one another but extends to other living beings and the ecological systems of which we are a part. The examples of connective tissues and forests remind us that life is sustained through relationships we may not immediately see or understand.

The post concludes by describing those who uphold human dignity and connect people as the unseen connective tissue of society. I appreciate this image because it shifts our attention from individual achievement toward the relationships that make collective life possible.

As we consider what a more life-centered society might look like, perhaps we need to ask not only who should lead us, but also how we can better recognize and support the everyday work of caring, connecting, and sustaining one another.

What might change if we valued the strength of our relationships as much as the achievements of individuals?

Read the full post here.

Toward a more just and loving world.

The first dissections of the human body that we have record of were done by the surgeon Sushruta in the 6th Century BCE India. Greek physicians were doing it by the 3rd Century BCE. Research on human physiology has a long history, and knowledge of the human organ systems — circulatory, nervous, lymph, digestive, respiratory, etc — has long been established.

So when a new organ system — the interstitium — suddenly turned up in 2018, it was a big deal. And this isn’t a small organ. The interstitium is quite large in terms of the fluid volume. About twenty-five percent of the fluid in our body is contained in this organ system. More even than in the circulatory system.

Moreover, the interstitium is not obscure. It goes throughout the body, providing a kind of framework structure for many of our soft organs and tissues.

Yet, this organ system escaped notice for millennia.

A while back, the NPR program Radiolab did a feature story on research into the interstitium. It was discovered by a physiology research team that had gotten access to some new technology that enabled them to observe the functioning of living tissue. That is, instead of having to look at slices of dead tissue on a microscope slide, there’s now an instrument — a “probe-based confocal laser endomicroscope” — that can be inserted into the body to observe live tissue.

The Radiolab report included an interview with one of researchers who had discovered this new tissue, who recounted how the new technology had revealed this previously unknown phenomena.

He then said, “You know, actually, that’s not correct. It’s of course true that the new technology played an important role.” He then picked up a microscope slide containing some organ tissue and said to the interviewer, “Look at this. Look at the covering on this organ.” And it was right there — the interstitium fiber was covering it. And he said, “It’s been there in plain view forever, but we just didn’t see it.”

The reason for its not being seen has more to do with how humans see things. Humans are wired more to look at the parts rather than the connectivity of the whole.

What researchers had not been good at seeing is the connective tissue in living systems.

Seeing The Forest for the Trees

Another example of this phenomenon is how humans see forests. We see the trees in the forest as individual living beings. It’s only recently that scientists have noticed the vast web of mycelia surrounding tree roots that connects the trees of the forest. This connectivity is so extensive that it makes more sense to see a forest as a living organism and not as a collection of individual trees.

(In my yard there’s a stump of a Doulas Fir tree that I cut down almost two decades ago. It’s just a stump — no branches or fir needles — but it still lives. Where does it get its nutrients to remain alive? They are provided by the trees around it that support the life of the stump through the mycelia connectivity of their root systems.)

Another place in which the role of connectivity in a system has not been well understood or appreciated is that of people who don’t have clearly defined roles — they don’t have defined job titles. They aren’t attorneys, builders, nurses, store managers, teachers, and so forth.

Their roles are more to connect the fabric of the society. They are the grandmothers, the social club organizers, the party hosts, the neighbors that keep an eye on the children, etc. Of course, these roles are mostly filled by women. And, as we know, there’s little status or recognition associated with this kind of a role. Yet, these are functions that are crucial to maintaining the fabric of the society.

So, we have filters that mediate what it is that we see in others and how we value them.

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Judging the Value of Others

Our current culture is not good at seeing what gives worth to the lives of others. We judge others based on all kinds of things that have little or no intrinsic validity.

In my family, for my parents’ generation, the worth of a person was mainly tied to their wealth. The more affluent they were, the more respect they got. Their wealth trumped qualities such as generosity, wisdom, and amiability.

There are certain roles which have somehow been given undue worth. Being a celebrity confers adoration and deference. Value is also given to people having political power. And to people having a beautiful physical appearance. They may construct their aura of beauty from cosmetics, aesthetic surgery, tailored clothing, and personal presentation. In the end, of course, it’s just a superficial appearance. They may appear glamorous, but inside they’re a mess.

New ways of seeing others have emerged based on political or racial beliefs. Certain places are seen as shit-hole countries and the people from these places are unworthy to live in America.

Some of these newer lenses through which people are seeing others are making a mess of social cohesion.

Human Value and Social Value

Is the process of seeing and valuing others completely relative? Or is there a sound and universal standard by which we can judge the inherent worth of others?

Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar proposed such a framework. It’s based on two separate measures of value that he termed “human value” and “social value”.

When we refer to the value of a person’s individual existence, we attribute to them human value, and when we refer to the value of their social existence, we attribute to them social value.

What is it that should properly determine human value and social value?

Human value is based on our human existence. We are all children of the cosmos. Based on our common cosmic origins, we all possess human value that is inherent and inalienable. All people should be accorded respect, dignity and love. No one should be degraded, vilified or hated.

Social value is the respect society confers on people based on their attainments or status. Common factors used to determine social value are family lineage, financial worth, academic achievement, celebrity status, and position of authority. Those who are poor, outcasts, troublemakers, unlearned, or lowly are rarely given social value.

Social value almost always trumps human value. Most people hardly consider the human value of others. Those without social stature become objects of scorn, abuse, and neglect. They live and die without having the dignity of their existence affirmed by society. And society, ignoring their inherent worth, puts little effort into helping them progress.

This is a defective approach. Human value should always precede social value. Every person is a child of the Cosmos; their life is intrinsically sacred. All should receive love and encouragement to grow. None should be left to suffer in want, subjected to vindictive punishment, scorned for their beliefs, discriminated against because of their race, or left uncared for in their twilight years.

Social value gets attributed according to human-created standards. So, a person’s social value may have little to do with their actual contribution to society but be more about their value to privileged groups, or about their ethnicity, religion or gender. Corrupt politicians receive honor, while dedicated social reformers are vilified. A male athlete may be adulated, while a female athlete goes unnoticed.

Standard for Attributing Social Value

So, what should be the proper standard for attributing social value?

It should be framed by this principle: Those who most deserve social value are those who most respect human value and work to uplift humanity.

Human value is our permanent birthright. But social value should only be given to those who work for social good.

Unless our human value is placed first, neglect of the common people will continue. Our humanity must be put before property and profit, before scriptures, and before the interests of the state.

We should oppose any social order that puts social value ahead of human value. We should not compromise the ideal of universal human dignity.

Those who champion the cause of humanity are worthy of our highest respect. They should be entrusted with greater social responsibility. Humanity will greatly benefit if these champions of human value are held in highest social respect and given prominent roles in guiding society.

Champions of Human Value

Here, in my view, are some Americans who championed human value and whom I hold in high esteem: Dorothy Day, Peace Pilgrim (Mildred Norman), Thomas Merton, Thomas Banyacya, Dolores Huerta, Eugene Debs, and Sojourner Truth.

Substack writer Suzanne Taylor would have us recognize Marianne Williamson as a candidate for this list of Americans who have championed human value. And Suzanne advocates — correctly in my opinion — that Ms. Williamson therefore be given a prominent role in guiding us forward.

Of course, most of those who have given of themselves out of their altruistic love are little known. They hold together in some small arena of the fabric of social life. They may only be known to their family, their community, their neighbors, their students. Yet, they make the difference that keeps the flame of human dignity alive.

It is these lovers of the common humanity in each person who are best able to connect us all into a healthy, living whole. They are the unseen interstitium of society.

They are the ones who are capable of weaving together a life-centered society.

This week’s Crisis and Transition post, “Neohumanistic Progress,” begins with an advertising slogan from an earlier era: “Progress is our most important product.” At a time when technological innovation and economic growth seemed to promise a better future, material development was widely regarded as evidence that society was moving forward. Today, as we confront the ecological and social consequences of industrial expansion, the post invites us to reconsider what progress actually means and how we might recognize it.

As I read, I found myself returning to a question raised in an earlier post about economic alternatives: what do we mean when we speak of progress? New technologies, expanding economies, and increasing human capabilities have brought meaningful improvements to our lives. Yet these same developments have also contributed to ecological degradation, social inequalities, and new forms of vulnerability. How do we determine whether our growing ability to transform the world is actually moving us in a direction that benefits life?

This is where neohumanism offers a different perspective. Rooted in the idea that our sense of care and responsibility should extend beyond humanity to embrace all living beings, neohumanism challenges us to reconsider the values guiding human development. The post builds on this understanding by suggesting that genuine progress cannot be measured through material advancement alone. It must also involve intellectual freedom, the ability to question dogma, and a growing commitment to universal welfare.

I find this expansion beyond human interests particularly meaningful. Much of our understanding of development assumes that the natural world exists primarily to meet human needs. Even sustainability efforts can focus on preserving the resources required for continued economic activity. But what changes when we recognize other living beings as having value beyond their usefulness to us?

This also raises a question about the direction of development. Must moving forward always mean greater production, speed, or technological sophistication? There are circumstances in which innovation can improve lives. Yet there are others in which restraint, restoration, or reconsidering established patterns of development may be more beneficial. Perhaps what matters is not only expanding our capacities, but also developing the wisdom to discern when and how to use them.

The post emphasizes rationality as a means of overcoming dogma and expanding understanding. That seems essential when so many of our current challenges require questioning assumptions embedded in our institutions and economies. Yet understanding a problem does not necessarily lead us to change our behavior. We can recognize ecological limits while continuing to exceed them. What helps knowledge become compassion, responsibility, and action?

Here the relationship between individual and collective development becomes especially interesting. The post describes a mutually supportive process: societies that foster intellectual freedom and universal welfare create conditions for individual spiritual development, while individuals who cultivate greater awareness and compassion can help shape more caring societies. Our inner lives and the systems around us are not separate; each influences the other.

Still, I wonder whether this relationship also calls for greater humility about humanity’s place within nature. Other living beings participate in intricate ecological relationships, whether or not they possess the intellectual capacities humans tend to celebrate. If neohumanism asks us to extend our concern to all life, perhaps it also invites us to see ourselves as participants in a larger living community rather than its central measure.

The post closes by asking what tangible expression neohumanistic progress might take in this time of crisis and transition. That question connects with themes explored in recent weeks: imagining alternatives, cultivating new values, and creating the social conditions that allow those values to endure. Expanding awareness matters, but so does bringing it into the decisions we make together.

Perhaps the question is not simply how far humanity can advance, but whether our advancement helps create conditions in which more of life can flourish. What would change if that became our measure of progress?

Read the full post here.

Toward a more just and loving world.

When I was a boy, my family would watch the General Electric Theater, a television anthology show hosted by Ronald Regan. In addition to introducing the episodes, Regan would deliver the commercials for GE, the show’s sponsor. He would end these commercials with GE’s famous advertising slogan: “Progress is our most important product.”

This slogan, then featured prominently in GE’s TV and print ads, captured the American post-war optimism that tied the rise of household and industrial technologies — from appliances and lighting to aviation and power grids — to the idea of continuous societal progress.

This image of progress has now lost much of its luster. Its become an image that for many conjures up global warming, data centers, social media algorithms, food additives, forever chemicals, spambots and malware, factory farming, drone warfare — all the accumulating downsides of industrial “progress”.

In the acclaimed 1989 TV miniseries, Lonesome Dove, the central character — former Texas Ranger, Captain Woodrow F. Call — has the audacious vision to drive a herd of Texas cattle to the wide-open Yellowstone Valley in Montana. He marshals ambition and resolve and overcomes great obstacles to achieve his vision, though all at a horrible cost. The end of the show finds him back in Texas, a broken man, where a reporter seeks him out for an interview. Here’s the show’s concluding dialog:

Reporter to Woodrow Call: “They say you’re a man of vision. Is that true?”

Call’s mind flashes back to the hubris and losses of the long cattle drive to Montana.

Reporter, interrupting his reverie: “Captain Call?”

Woodrow Call, remorsefully: “A man of vision, you say. Yeah. A hell of a vision.”

Call’s answer speaks allegorically to the horrific outcomes of humanity’s prevailing vision of industrial progress — “a hell of a vision”.

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Nothing New Under the Sun

It was the prevalent view in ancient societies that the ways of life are unchanging. There may be cyclic changes that move with the seasons and with the stages of people’s life. Empires may even come and go. But, fundamentally, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

This notion is foreign to the modern age. We now hold a firm belief that there is progress in human history. The path of progress may not be straight, but looked at from a broad enough historical vantage humanity surely advances. There’ve been too many substantive changes for us to accept a static view of society. Just within the lifetime of many of you, we’ve gone from radio to AI, from Jim Crow segregation to legal integration, and from housewives being the norm to women dominating many professional fields.

Progress as Material Development

Humanity has surely progressed. But what is the nature of progress? How should progress be measured?

The measure of progress now prevalent is that of material growth — progress is measured by an increase in the material standard of living or an increase in the variety and sophistication of consumer products.

There are three problems with this measure of progress. The first is that material growth — especially under capitalism — becomes the driving ideology guiding economic activity. And this ideology is not suited to maintaining the regenerative balances needed to sustain life. American environmentalist Edward Abbey’s famous take on capitalist driven growth was: “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”

Industrial growth under capitalism has become a cancer, taking a heavy toll on the earth.

The second problem with equating progress with material development is that advances in the material realm inevitably have both positive and negative consequences. Auto transport gets us to our destinations with greater speed, but, on the downside, cars cause pollution, noise, congestion, accidents, carbon emissions, and alienation from nature.

If technological development is not guided by proper values, the negative effects of material advancement cancel out the positive. Or worse: In modern societies, the negative effects of material progress are bringing the quality of life into decline.

Material development is beneficial. It must not be stifled. We must creatively develop physical potentials for the benefit of human life. But it cannot run wild, in any direction that generates profits. It must be properly guided.

The third problem with material development as a measure of progress is that it doesn’t address the whole of the human being. It gives insufficient attention to the development of mind, the development of community, the expression of creativity, and refinement of morality, and the upliftment of spirit.

So, The measure of progress must include — in addition to material development — advancement in collectively created opportunities for people to develop their mental and spiritual potentialities.

Progress as Intellectual Development

People possess an inherent desire to liberate themselves from bondages and limitations. This urge operates at physical, mental, and spiritual spheres of life. We seek extension of our life span, new worlds to explore, deeper understanding of nature, increased scope for self-expression, healing of our wounds, and fuller freedom of spirit.

Our desire to overcome limitations creates a impetus for development in all spheres of life. One of the expressions of this urge is to free ourselves of ignorance. We seek the knowledge required to transform ourselves and our world.

Intellectual development comes readily where minds are open, but it is hindered when irrational constraints on thinking get imposed. This is the danger of the imposition of dogmas. Dogma imposes irrational boundaries to thought.

Intellectual exploration can proceed up to these imposed boundaries, but not beyond. Medieval religious dogma stifled acceptance of Copernicus’ discovery that the Earth revolves around the sun. Racist dogma in the Antebellum South maintained rigid belief in the system of chattel slavery. Cold War political dogma hindered Americans from feeling outrage over their government’s support for tyrannical client states. Anthropocentric dogma prevents humans from accepting the existential rights of other species.

Dogma is the enemy of mental expansion; it is the primary obstacle in our quest to attain the expansive understandings that can free our minds of ignorance. For humanity to progress, there must be dissipation of dogma and increase in rationality. The ascendancy of rationality in human life is the essential requirement of what Prabhat Ranjan Sarker calls “neohumanistic progress”.

Intellectual Liberation

But an increase in rationality does not fully define neohumanistic progress. Rationality must be combined with a concern for universal welfare.

The humanists of the Renaissance Era proclaimed that “Man is the measure of all things.” That is, human welfare is the proper measure of the value of human endeavors. But human welfare is insufficient as a “measure of all things” as it excludes the welfare of the rest of living beings. So neohumanism expands the standard to be inclusive of all living beings.

Neohumanistic progress increases the scope for the free expansion of mind. It enables our intellects to expand into increasing freedom from doubt and uncertainty. This state can be called “intellectual liberation”.

But intellectual liberation is a relative state; it has no absolute standing. Freedom from doubt and uncertainty does not endure. The world is ever-changing, and new questions and new forms of ignorance inevitably arise for our minds to probe and resolve.

Individual and Collective Progress

In the course of neohumanistic progress, society becomes increasingly responsive to the needs of all and can readily generate clearer understandings. In this process, human limitations and bondages can be overcome. As a result, our creative capacities increase. We are even now attaining creative powers once held exclusively by nature. We can split atoms, recombine DNA, store and instantly transmit information, and program generative intelligence.

But however far neohumanistic progress takes humanity, it will never take us to a final destination. There will always be new horizons of intellectual expansion; there will always be further scope to promote universal welfare.

Humanity’s collective progress is interminable. But this is not so for individuals. In their spiritual lives, individuals have the capacity to reach a culminating point. They can become spiritually realized.

If neohumanistic progress is the goal of the society, progress toward spiritual liberation is the goal of individuals. These two fundamental goals — of individuals and of society — are inherently intertwined. And they are mutually supportive.

The neohumanistic progress of society creates a supportive, dogma-free environment to support the spiritual progress of individuals. And the spiritual progress of individuals creates the expansive and compassionate awareness that inspires the neohumanistic progress of society.

Postscript: Suzanne Taylor’s Invitation

At least this is the theory. Is it a truth that can be demonstrated in this time of crisis? Suzanne Taylor, in her recent Substack article, New Idea: The Spiritual World Committed to Flipping Humanity, issued a challenge along these lines:

The spiritual world currently deals in spirit and the political world in matter, and we need the two to unite: the political world needs to be a spiritual one, too. How about the spiritual world becoming committed to flipping humanity? Get us to where the standard is to be caring and not warring.

I’m thinking about a conversation about how to flip us among people who head groups who work the spiritual side. . . . The subject is getting humanity into its higher nature. What could we do?

Suzanne’s passion is to get those who see this possibility to engage in organized conversation. But she is open to “other ideas to unite us and inspire us.”

I suspect — actually, I know — that there are many people out there who recognize the importance of spiritual progress for flipping humanity to a state in which the predominant value is caring, not warring, exploiting, or dominating.

But, what tangible expression should this take? What effective expressions do you see it being taken? What ideas do you have?

I’m confident that Suzanne would welcome your sharing thoughts in the comments to her article at suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/new-idea-the-spiritual-world-committed

This week’s Crisis and Transition post, “Harbingers of a Neohumanist Renaissance,” takes us to Camp Angel on the Oregon coast during World War II, where a group of conscientious objectors turned to poetry, theater, publishing, and other forms of creative expression as a response to a deeply troubled world. What began among a relatively small group of individuals eventually contributed to the San Francisco Renaissance and the broader countercultural movements that followed.

What struck me most was how something that began in such an unlikely setting could eventually influence so many others. These individuals were not working from positions of power or authority. They were questioning the values shaping society and finding creative ways to express something different. Their efforts remind us that meaningful change does not always begin with large institutions or organized movements. Sometimes it begins when people come together around a shared concern and a belief that another way of living is possible.

As I read, I found myself thinking about the relationship between cultural awakening and lasting social transformation. Before we can create a different kind of society, we need the capacity to imagine it. Our understanding of what is normal, desirable, or possible is shaped by the cultures in which we live. Art and creative expression can challenge those assumptions, awaken compassion, and help us recognize dimensions of our humanity that may otherwise remain overlooked.

Yet imagining something different and bringing it into being are not necessarily the same thing.

The post acknowledges that the countercultural movement, despite its influence, was eventually co-opted in important ways. This raises a question that feels especially relevant today: What allows a cultural awakening to become something more enduring? A movement can inspire new ways of thinking and relating to one another without necessarily changing the deeper social and economic structures that continue to shape our lives.

Perhaps part of the challenge lies in connecting the awakening of new values with the relationships, institutions, and collective practices needed to sustain them. Compassion may inspire us to care about the wellbeing of others, but how does that concern become reflected in the way we organize our communities, distribute resources, and make decisions? A deeper appreciation for the natural world may change how we understand our place within it, but how do we translate that understanding into the systems that govern our relationship with the environment?

This is where the idea of a neohumanist renaissance becomes particularly meaningful to me. Neohumanism invites us to expand our sense of care and belonging beyond narrow identities and interests, recognizing our connection with all humanity and the larger living world. But for that awareness to help transform society, it must also find expression in how we live and work together.

There is something encouraging about the story of Camp Angel. Those involved could not have known how far their influence might reach. They responded to the circumstances before them, cultivated their creative capacities, and built relationships around something meaningful. Their efforts became part of a larger process of change that unfolded over time.

I wonder how many similar beginnings are taking shape today, in communities, classrooms, creative spaces, and collaborative efforts that may not yet recognize their own potential. Perhaps our challenge is not only to encourage these efforts, but to help them connect, learn from one another, and contribute to something larger.

The story leaves me thinking about how cultural awakening and systemic change might strengthen one another. If a neohumanist renaissance is to become more than a moment of inspiration, how might we nurture the connections between imagination, compassion, and collective action that allow a more just and life-centered society to take shape?

Read the full post here.

Toward a more just and loving world.

A couple of years back, on a visit to the Oregon Coast, I drove a little south of the town of Waldport on a sort of pilgrimage. My destination was Camp Angel. This is now a Job Corps center where young people from disadvantaged backgrounds get trained in useful job skills. But Camp Angel has a storied history. It was here that a cultural movement was conceived that rocked the lives of millions.

When first built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, Camp Angel was carved out of the dense Coast Range rainforest, just a few hundred yards from the wild Pacific Coast. In the early ‘40s, it was converted into a facility to house World War II conscientious objectors. There were about 50,000 COs during the war, and many of them were assigned to serve in such camps. Camp Angel was camp number 56.

Most who came to Camp 56 were Quakers, Brethren, or Mennonites. But there were also some young men who had developed values in which their conscience did not permit them to participate in war, at least in the killing part of it. So, they were given the alternative of doing public service. At Camp 56, they planted trees for half of the year. The other half of the year they built roads and fought forest fires. It was all hard physical work, done in the inclement weather of the coastal rain forest. They maintained a 50 hour work week.

But even under those conditions of heavy physical labor, their minds were actively engaged in their concerns about the world — a world that was aflame — and they pondered what should be done to bring change.

They lived and worked on the remote edge of the continent, but they aspired to change the national culture that they believed to be deeply dysfunctional.

The direction they took was to cultivate creative expression through the arts, eventually founding a group called Fine Arts at Waldport. They put on dramas. They staged concerts. They conducted poetry readings. They published literary journals and collections of poetry. They learned practical skills such as graphic design, stagecraft, and how to promote community art events. They found themselves a press; and they learned printing. Their lives were intensely focused on all of this, these young, spirited men. Throughout the war, in their free time, they learned, created, and produced art.

Then the war ended, and Fine Arts at Waldport came to an end. But, as it happened, what they started lived on and gave momentum to the biggest cultural wave of the 20th Century.

The San Francisco Renaissance

After a decade of the Great Depression, and a half-decade of brutal war, most Americans were content to settle into the affairs of mundane life — finding jobs, buying homes, raising families, taking vacations. But a few young Americans were restless and did not find meaning in such pursuits. For a number of reasons, many of them were drawn to San Francisco. They were attracted to currents of thought on the fringe. Some were anarchist-leaning, some into worker democracy. But what they had most in common was a creative spirit.

And that drew into their midst many alumni of Camp Angel, who resettled in the Bay Area, among the poets, visual artists, and free-thinkers who were establishing what came to be known as the San Francisco Renaissance by some, and as the Beat Movement by others. The young men who’d created Fine Arts at Waldport brought to the San Francisco scene their knowledge of stagecraft, producing dramas, printing, promoting events, staging poetry readings — all the skills needed to give public exposure to the creativity that was surging among those drawn to the Bay Area Beat culture.

The San Francisco Renaissance eventually made enough impact that some East Coast cultural elites took notice. An art critic from Harper’s Magazine went west to do a feature story on the Beats. Her report was somewhat dismissive toward these people on the fringe who are not part of America’s cultural elites. She reported: “So they write poetry. They paint. They write philosophy. They go to galleries and concerts. They believe that only through art is it any longer possible to reach that all but buried spark of natural life dying under the intolerable weight of modern humanity’s sadistic superego. And only through art will humanity find its way back to its spontaneous natural creativeness.”

For all her dismissal of the Beat movement, she did convey an understanding of what they sought.

By the 1950s, social critics were seeing the deadening conformity that had gripped American society. Sociologist David Riesman published his landmark study, The Lonely Crowd, and Willian Whyte came out with The Organizational Man, which examined how large corporate institutions were breeding mass-conformity. Awareness grew that much creative talent was getting channeled by corporate America into producing commercials to promote consumption. And the American middle class was consuming.

Many of those who could not be satisfied by the 1950s American lifestyle were attracted to San Francisco to join the Beat Generation. By 1957, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder and other Beat Era icons had gravitated to San Francisco’s North Beach. San Francisco became a center of gravity for the dissident, creative spirit that was rising, and yet more were drawn to it.

One of the people drawn to the Bay Area was Ken Kesey. He’d grown up on an Oregon farm and had just graduated from the University of Oregon where he was on the college wrestling team. In the mid-1960s, Kesey entered a graduate program in creative writing at Stanford where he came across the experimentation being done on LSD. Kesey was inspired to put on parties, called “acid tests” (where the Grateful Dead got their start). And then he assembled a traveling band called The Merry Pranksters, which made an epic journey through the American heartland on Kesey’s bus Further. (Their journey was immortalized by Thomas Wolfe in The Electric Cool-Aid Acid Test.)

And then the momentum exploded. The first Human Be-In was held in Golden Gate Park in January of 1967, followed by the Summer of Love in Haight-Ashbury. The San Francisco Oracle was being published, the Fillmore Auditorium was a regular venue for San Francisco sound bands, the Diggers were providing services in the Haight — the American counter-culture was in full bloom, and rapidly metastasizing in local variations in cities across the country, with millions of youth identifying with it.

And that counter-culture movement, with all its vibrant creative spirit, and all the diverse cultural currents that morphed from it, can be traced back to what was born, during wartime, on the wild Oregon Coast, in the Civilian Public Service Camp at Waldport.

Bill Everson, one of the central figures in the Fine Arts at Waldport group — and who himself became a major figure in the San Francisco Renaissance — later reflected on that time:

There were men there, and they sought the heart of the pure creative substance, the rock, and they began cutting into it. They hued off layer after layer of incidentals. And they got to the heart of it, stripped it down, made it shine. They made it shine in painting, in music, in drama, and in writing, and nothing else really mattered. We called it Fine Arts at Waldport. And it is dead, and the great years of my life there with it. And I am proud, proud of my part in it. Proud to be of those clean men, and to have done what we did and built.

Everson had reason to be proud. The counter-culture that was incubated in Camp 56 brought a spirited vibrancy and renewed humanism to the lives of a great many. It was flawed, it was soon co-opted, it soon succumbed to the yuppie era. But in its time, it created a profound stir, and it spawned much change for the good.

Art for Service and Blessedness

The young men of Waldport were not just motivated to be creative. They saw a diseased society, a society that was following dreams that do not feed the human spirit, that failed to take people to the depths of their humanity. There was a profound sense of service behind what they were striving for, what they birthed. And so many benefitted from it.

Everson says they got to the heart of the pure creative spirit. And what motivated their dedicated search was a spirit of service. As should animate all true art. But service is not the whole of it. It is not the fullness of it. Something more should be behind the creative impulse.

Kenneth Clark, in his acclaimed BBC series, Civilisation, reflected that: “Humans have felt conscious of something about themselves which was outside the day-to-day struggle for existence, and they have felt the need to develop these qualities of thought and feeling so that they might approach an ideal of perfection. They managed to satisfy this need through myths, through dance and song, through systems of philosophy.”

Clark asserts that creative expression is the part of our humanity, and that we need art to take us beyond the drudgeries of our life to the essence of what makes us human — “to approach the ideal of perfection”. Art needs to help take us to that blessed place.

Our present society could use a little refinement,. There is much that is coarsening us, dragging us down. The many content creators may help distract us from the horrors of the American catastrophe, but very few can uplift us. Nor can the commodified music scene, etc.

As we go about the Great Turning to bring forward a life-centered society, we need those with creative spirits to help keep our hearts open and inspire and guide us in our struggles. We need them to help lift us to that place deep inside where we feel the blessedness of our human essence. We need them to be harbingers of a neohumanist renaissance.

Here are the lyrics to the song “Get Together”, written by Chet Powers of the 1960s San Francisco band, Quicksilver Messenger Service:

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This week’s Crisis and Transition post, “There Is an Alternative,” begins with a story from 1990, as the Soviet system was collapsing and people were searching for what might come next. At the time, the apparent triumph of Western capitalism led Francis Fukuyama to famously suggest that humanity might be approaching the “end of history,” with liberal democracy and free market capitalism representing the final stage of socioeconomic development. More than thirty five years later, the post asks us to reconsider that assumption. It points to the fundamental limitations of capitalism, particularly its inability to maintain the social, economic, and ecological balance necessary for a healthy society. The premise at the heart of this week’s post is captured in its title: there is an alternative.

As I read, I found myself returning to a question I considered a couple of weeks ago: what happens when self interest becomes so embedded in our thinking that it begins to define what we consider reasonable? This week’s post approaches that question from another direction. If the pursuit of individual gain cannot, by itself, provide an adequate foundation for a just and sustainable society, what principles might guide us instead?

The idea I kept returning to was balance. The post draws a parallel between living systems, which depend upon forms of equilibrium, and the societies we create. When wealth and resources become highly concentrated, or when economic activity places increasing pressure on social and ecological systems, it raises questions about how long those imbalances can be sustained. From there, the post introduces PROUT, the Progressive Utilization Theory, as an alternative socioeconomic framework and considers how its principles might offer another way of thinking about development, distribution, and our ability to adjust as conditions change.

What interests me about balance is that it does not necessarily mean choosing one side over another. Individual wellbeing and collective wellbeing do not have to be opposing goals. Neither do economic development and ecological responsibility. The harder question is how we hold these needs in relationship with one another, particularly when the pursuit of one begins to undermine the conditions necessary for the others.

Balance also cannot mean keeping things as they are. Communities, technologies, economies, and environmental conditions change. One of the PROUT principles discussed in the post is “progressive adjustment,” the idea that the use of resources and human capacities must continually respond to changes in time, place, and people. This feels particularly relevant when so many of the challenges we face involve systems struggling to keep pace with changing conditions.

We see this in housing, where the cost and availability of a basic necessity have become increasingly disconnected from what many people can afford. We see it in climate change, where infrastructure, policies, and patterns of development created under one set of environmental conditions are being tested by another. We see it in rapidly developing technologies such as artificial intelligence, where technological capacity can move much faster than the institutions responsible for considering its broader consequences. These are very different issues, but each asks whether our systems can adapt as the world around them changes.

Yet adjustment by itself does not tell us where we should be going. We can become more efficient without becoming more equitable. We can produce more without necessarily improving wellbeing. We can develop new technologies without addressing the social or ecological problems already before us. This is where the post left me thinking less about whether we are progressing and more about what we mean when we use the word progress.

PROUT offers a direction by grounding development in principles of balance, equitable access to resources, the development of human potential, and the ability to adjust as circumstances change. What resonates with me is that these principles do not present society as something that can be perfected and then left alone. Maintaining balance requires continued responsiveness while remaining attentive to both individual and collective wellbeing.

This feels particularly important during periods of crisis and transition. Crises reveal where systems are resilient and where they are brittle, who is protected and who is exposed, and where institutions have or have not adapted to changing realities. They can also expose assumptions about what we have come to accept as normal or inevitable.

Perhaps saying “there is an alternative” is therefore about more than imagining that something different is possible. It is also about having principles that can help orient us toward what we are trying to build. For me, that may be the most important question raised by this week’s post. If our economic and social systems are always evolving, how might we help them evolve toward greater balance, wellbeing, and care for the larger whole?

Read the full post here.

Toward a more just and loving world.

In 1990, I was invited to give a weekend seminar in Khabarovsk, Russia, organized by the Soviet Far East People’s Academy of Science. This organization was a progressive alternative to the more orthodox Soviet Academy of Sciences, and it had a pressing reason for inviting me to speak. By that time, it was apparent that the Soviet communist system was collapsing, and they were intent on searching for an alternative to replace it — one other than transnational capitalism. They thought I had something to offer.

Many of the leading progressive academicians in Khabarovsk attended the seminar. It was an astute audience. Under the Soviet system, higher education was free and some of those present had multiple PhDs.

I ended the first morning’s program with a Q and A. The last question before the break was from Professor Simakov, head of the philosophy department of Khabarovsk’s major university. His question: “What do you think of Francis Fukuyama’s thesis?”

In 1989, Fukuyama (now a distinguished professor of political science at Stanford University) published the article, “The End of History?” in The National Interest which predicted the global triumph of capitalism. He argued, in brief, that with the fall of communism, the worldwide spread of Western free-market capitalism would be the final step in humanity’s socioeconomic evolution.

This was an obscure article in an academic journal, but it had made a stir in certain intellectual circles — all the way to the remote Russian Far East.

Somehow I had come across Fukuyama’s thesis. And I had thoughts. I leaned forward on the podium and said, in a forceful voice, “If Fukuyama’s thesis that capitalism is destined to reign supreme proves true [dramatic pause] — God save humanity!”

The audience rose in a standing ovation.

There Is an Alternative

Thirty-five years have passed. My view on capitalism has not changed. What has changed is capitalism’s growing failures.

But despite its failings, capitalism remains the accepted system for ordering our economic lives. The problem, is the prevailing attitude recently expressed by my favorite science YouTuber Sabine Hossenfelder: “I see no alternative.”

Capitalism deserves credit for lifting billions out of poverty. There are features of capitalism that give it a functional dynamism and that should not be lost. It far outperformed the communist command economy.

Yet it has a fundamental flaw. It is unable to maintain the balances that are needed to be sustainable. Its singular focus on maximizing profits and concentrating wealth ends up distorting the social, economic and environmental fabrics in ways that evolve toward collapse.

Consider the metabolic life of Gaia. All of its functions operate within certain equilibrium states. (Earth scientists have identified nine limits within which humanity must safely operate to maintain Earth’s stability and resilience — seven have been surpassed.) The metabolic functions of the human body similarly maintain equilibriums. Disrupt these equilibriums and you get a fever, or a chronic ailment. Disrupt them enough and you die.

The metabolic life of human society is no different. Disrupt the equilibriums of social life enough and societies collapse.

But if they are maintained in a refined state of balance, society thrives. P. R. Sarkar summarized the importance of societal balance in the following principle:

The excellence of the social structure and culture of a community depends on the degree of balance that community attains in its individual and collective life.

This is where capitalism fails. Balance is impossible where the singular drive is to maximize profits. This is what has moved $76 trillion in the past 50 years from the bottom 90 percent of Americans to the top 10 percent, gutting the quality of life for more and more people.

This will not end well. Imbalances reach tipping points. Signs of pending tipping points are upon us.

A new socioeconomic system to replace capitalism will soon be needed. Just as a new system was needed upon the fall of Soviet communism.

Which was why I was asked to speak in Khabarovsk. Not that I had come up with a new system, but I was familiar with the alternative socioeconomic theory, PROUT.

(After my program, the progressive intellectuals of Khabarovsk studied and debated PROUT, eventually becoming convinced that it was the superior social theory they wanted to establish.)

PROUT cannot be adequately described in a short article. But I’d like to share what it has to say about balance, as this is so fundamental to the metabolic functioning of a society.

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Fundamental Principles to Maintain Balance

PROUT promotes development that is dynamic. Economic expansion is promoted, but it is not allowed to override the constraints needed to maintain equilibrium.

To guide the dynamic, yet balanced, advance of society, PROUT puts forward five guiding principles. These principles promote the expansion of human potentials in all spheres — physical, mental, and spiritual. They would guide socioeconomic development that is balanced, holistic, equitable, adaptable, sustainable, and dynamic.

How is it that these principles hold this potential? It’s because they align with the deep patterning of natural processes which, if followed, is inherently sustainable. This is the same patterning that constrains ecosystems to maintain equilibrium yet enables life to flourish and evolve.

A society that is patterned in this way can maintain the conditions out of which will flow peace, progress, and freedom, and in which the society’s members can enjoy nurturance, vitality, expressiveness, and joy.

Here are the five principles, along with some commentary.

1 — Limitation on Accumulation

There should be no accumulation of physical wealth by individuals that is in excess of their needs without special permission from the society.

Unbridled wealth accumulation distorts, disrupts and disintegrates life in a myriad of ways. (Sebastian Junger recounts in Why Tribe? that in indigenous societies there were two behaviors that could get people banished: cowardice in battle and greed.)

Limitation on the accumulation of wealth by individuals is a primary precondition for maintaining a balanced society. A healthy society must set limits — ideally by instilling proper social norms.

All have a right to the wealth that they need for their necessities, for their development, and for their self-expression. Also savings for their future security. But they should not be allowed to accumulate in excess, unless they are given special permission to acquire wealth for a legitimate cause that benefits society.

2 — Maximum Utilization and Rational Distribution

There should be humanistic and rational distribution, and maximum utilization, of resources in all areas of manifestation.

Resources should not be wasted; and they should be optimally used for purposes that benefit human development. Our present society is characterized by flagrant misutilization of resources, profligate waste of resources, and vast underutilization of resources.

Resources should also be “rationally distributed”. For rational distribution, four conditions must be met:

• Everyone should be guaranteed the minimum necessities of life.

• With economic progress, all should enjoy increased purchasing capacity.

• Incentives should be given for meritorious and industrious work.

• There should be equitable development throughout the planet.

3 — Balanced Development

The physical, mental, and spiritual capabilities of every person should be allowed to develop fully; and the potentials of society should be maximally developed in all spheres.

This principle sets straight the balance between individual development and collective development.

Society should neither privilege individual welfare, as occurs under capitalism, nor collective welfare, as in communism. There should instead be full development both of individuals and the collective, recognizing that individual development and collective development are interdependent. Neither can develop fully without being in a balanced relationship to the other.

And, to be balanced, individuals and society should holistically develop in physical, mental, and spiritual spheres of life. There shouldn’t be suppression or lack of support for development in any of these three spheres. All three require full development.

4 — Balanced Utilization

There should be a balanced approach to the distribution and use of physical, mental, and spiritual resources so that there is balanced development in all spheres.

The 3rd principle calls for balanced and holistic development. But while supporting balanced development, society should give individuals the opportunity to use the best of their capacities.

During Cultural Revolution, China’s intellectuals were sent to do menial work on collective farms. In America, people with PhD’s are working in fast food restaurants. Or, selling junk bonds for securities firms. This goes against the natural patterning and is harmful to developing the potentials that benefit society.

At the same time that higher level mental and spiritual service is being encouraged among those developed in these spheres, society should make efforts to nurture the subtler capacities of all its members.

5 — Progressive Adjustment

The use of potentials and resources should be progressively adjusted according to the time, location, and people involved.

Change is constant, so to maintain social equilibrium, policies and practices must be fluidly and progressively adjusted according to changes in time, place, and people.

Consider these examples of arenas in which public policy is not progressively adjusting to change: global warming, artificial intelligence, homelessness, crypto currencies, food additives, species extinctions, water supply, ocean pollution.

Society must not become stagnant but be guided by changes in policies in light of modern ideas, technologies, and social structuring. When making progressive adjustments, society must maintain balance and sustainability in all spheres of life.

Result of a Balanced Society

When there is balance in all spheres — physical, mental and spiritual — and between all spheres, in both individual and collective life, and in relationship to the environment, and sustained over time, then the welfare of all can be attained. The society will have dynamism, progress will be properly directed, peace will be secured, culture will vitalize the human spirit, and the natural world will thrive.

During my college years I worked a summer job as a pipe fitter at Todd Shipyards in Seattle. One of those summers I had a co-worker who was also a student, a PhD candidate in psychology.

As I was myself a psychology major, he would seek me out during meals and breaks for conversation. One day he told me that his fantasy aspiration was to publish a research paper establishing the cause of consciousness. This, for him, would have been the ultimate accomplishment as an experimental psychologist.

That was 60 years ago. Sixty years of advancements in psychology have not diminished the problem of the cause of consciousness.

All that has really changed is the proliferation of theories. There are now some 29 contending scientific models of consciousness. And if we go beyond hard science models, the number of theories goes up significantly. Depending on how they are counted, they number 222, or 325, or 444.

The Hard Problem of Consciousness

In 1995, philosopher David Chalmers coined the term, “the hard problem of consciousness” to describe the formidable challenge of explaining what gives rise to subjective inner experience.

I have something to say about the hard problem of consciousness. This is a subject that lies outside the usual turf of the Crisis and Transition Substack. And it’s a subject that may feel overly heady for some readers. But if you stick with me, you’ll find that it has profound relevance to humanity’s transition to a life-centered society.

Theories of consciousness are the domain of serious researchers and philosophers, and they are intellectually challenging to follow. Self-disclosure: I have no academic expertise in this field.

Johan

Someone who does have the credentials, and the mind, for an inquiry into the study of consciousness is the Substack writer known simply as “Johan”.

Johan identifies himself as a “Professor of Behavioral Economics and Applied Cognitive Theory and a Former Foreign Service Officer”. His writings demonstrate uncommon breadth of knowledge, as well as moral fiber that I greatly admire. His moral and intellectual depth is paired with a writing style that’s at the summit of Substack prose. Johan may be a professor, but in his Substack articles, he delivers forceful, compact prose that can be exhilarating to read. He is Substack at its best.

A few months back, Johan did a series of articles that strayed from his typical fare. In introducing one of these articles he explained, “I have been writing lately outside my usual lane. The geopolitical analysis that anchors this publication is not going anywhere. But I have been exploring something adjacent, the terrain where neuroscience, consciousness, and the philosophy of mind intersect.”

This exploration included his thoughts on the hard problem of consciousness. In “The Headset Has No Clothes” Johan critiqued the theory of consciousness propounded by David Hoffman.

Hoffman is a UC Irvine cognitive scientist with joint positions in philosophy and computer science. So he’s well credentialed. But Johan dismantles Hoffman’s theory “That physical reality is a projection of something he calls software outside of spacetime,” and that “Neurons do not exist when they are not perceived.”

Here’s a sample of Johan’s pithy critique:

If neurons do not exist when unperceived, then Hoffman’s brain does not exist when unperceived. The cognitive apparatus generating this theory is, by the theory’s own terms, not real.

Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar takes much the same tact in critique of Mayavada, a prominent doctrine in South Asian philosophy that says that creation is only an illusion (Maya), that it has no substance. Existence is unreal. Sarkar points out the ridiculousness of Mayavada proponents arguing such a belief.

The irony is that the propounders of this theory built impressive temples and monasteries in the false, illusory world; they extracted large fortunes from the false, illusory world; they wrote numerous books on false, illusory palm or birch leaves, and they devoted all their time and energy to the propagation of their false doctrines of Máyá in this false, illusory world.

I relish critiques of the ungrounded notions of philosophy that — like those made by Sarkar and Johan — trenchantly reveal the nonsense at their core.

But while Sarkar critiques the logical foolishness of Mayavada from the vantage of a spiritualist, Johan critiques the illogic of Hoffman from the vantage of a materialist.

And this is a difference that goes to the purpose of my article.

Consciousness is the Fundamental Reality

Going back to David Hoffman: He “Proposes that consciousness — rather than space-time or physical matter — is the fundamental reality of the universe.” This is a belief that, as a general statement, I share.

But Hoffman’s problem is that he attempts to argue his belief using a fancy, mathematical concept from physics to claim that consciousness creates spacetime, rather than spacetime creating consciousness. Here’s Johan again:

[Hoffman] uses the amplituhedron, a genuine piece of frontier physics, as a kind of borrowed prestige to make the whole edifice [of his theory of consciousness] sound like it is standing on something solid.

Which, to Johan’s point, it’s not.

Unitary Consciousness

Hoffman’s approach to arguing that consciousness is the fundamental reality contrasts with that of the mystics.

For the mystics, consciousness is unqualified awareness, without object and without subject. It is pure awareness, without reference to time or space. Just “being here now”. It is an experience of the innermost self that is not attached to identity, role, or individuality. It is what remains when the mind is withdrawn from all perceptions, feelings and thoughts.

Of course, mystics may not use the word “consciousness” to describe their experience. Their writings employ a wide range of metaphors and terms. The American transpersonal psychologist, Abraham Maslow, who studied the teachings and lives of prominent mystics, coined the term “unitive consciousness” or “unitary consciousness” as a common descriptor.

“Unitary consciousness” speaks to the mystical realization that consciousness is singular. If consciousness is without subject or object, just pure awareness, then there is nothing to distinguish the consciousness of one person from that of another. Consciousness is one — a characteristic that I will come back to.

B-Values

Maslow linked unitary consciousness to “peak experiences” — spiritual states in which people experience a sense of unity, fulfillment, awe, clarity, and timelessness. These are states of transcendence, beyond ordinary ego-centered experience, in which individuals feel a sense of oneness.

Maslow found that people whose awareness gets established in unitary consciousness — though they may live in very different times and cultures — tend to share common values, which he called “Being-values”, or simply “B-values”.

These are values that come from their inner experience, not from culture or philosophy; values such as benevolence, honesty, justice, compassion, and simplicity. When a person experiences unitary consciousness, these are ways of living that are consistent with that inner realization.

As would be expected of a Professor of Cognitive Theory, Johan is dismissive toward spirituality:

This is what most of the spiritual machinery is for: It exists so that the flicker [i.e., our impermanent existence] can pretend it is a flame that will not go out.

What he appears to be saying is that spirituality’s purpose is to comfort us with beliefs that allow us to pretend our lives will continue after death — when the flame goes out.

But when we consider the B-values that arise from unitary consciousness, there’s obviously intrinsic value to the pursuit of spiritual life. If a major part of humanity held spiritually grounded B-values, the world would be a far better place.

Turtles all the Way Down

Why should mystical experience engender B-values? I want to go back to Johan to set up my thoughts on this question:

There is exactly one window where honest ignorance earns the word wonder: the bare fact that anything exists at all. Why there is something rather than nothing. . .

Ask why the universe exists at all, and every confident answer is a lie. . . . No one knows. No physicist, no priest, no philosopher, not me. We cannot say why there is a here at all. Why there is something rather than nothing. Why existence bothered to exist. That question sits at the floor of everything, and the floor has no floor. It is turtles all the way down.

“Turtles all the way down” is, as you may know, a metaphor for the problem of infinite regress. It comes from the ancient mythological idea that a flat Earth was supported by elephants that stood on the back of a giant turtle. But, then, what supported the turtle? Another turtle? Which takes us to “turtles all the way down.”

“Turtles all the way down” has its equivalent in modern cosmological speculations. Which I won’t get into here as it’s tangential. What I want to highlight is the respective ways that the materialists and the spiritualists set up the question of why there is something rather than nothing. Or simply, “How is there something?”

Something from Everything

For the materialist, the question is framed as “How did something come from nothing?” For the spiritualist, the question is “How did something come from everything?”

And that “everything” — for the spiritualist — is consciousness. Consciousness that is not defined by time, space, or person. Consciousness that is unbound. Supreme Consciousness, if you will.

All that exists derives from that consciousness, and is of that consciousness. The universe is consciousness that has been bound, imbued with qualities. But yet, in essence, all creation is of the same Infinite Consciousness. The same Supreme Entity. And it remains all One.

Which means it is all sacred. Each and every life has an intrinsic sacredness. Has intrinsic value which is to be respected.

This is the starting point for the neohumanism way of living that I have championed on this Substack.

Consciousness, Supreme Consciousness, is the cardinal ground of the neohumanist outlook. And the neohumanist outlook is, in turn, the ground out of which a united humanity can rise. A united human society that would honor Gaia. Along with all worlds beyond.

This week’s Crisis and Transition post, “Profiles in Cowardice and the Future of Humanity,” begins with the question of courage. It looks at people and institutions that have compromised principles they once defended when maintaining them began to carry a cost. From there, it moves toward a larger question about self-interest and the role it plays in shaping not only individual decisions, but the systems and societies we create. One idea in particular stayed with me: what happens when self-interest becomes the basis of what we consider reasonable?

Self-interest can be difficult to recognize precisely because it can sound so reasonable. Decisions that protect wealth, power, position, or institutional interests can be described as practical, necessary, or simply realistic. When this way of thinking becomes familiar enough, we may stop asking who benefits, who bears the costs, or what values are being compromised.

The consequences extend far beyond any single decision. Inequality can be tolerated because addressing it threatens existing advantages. Exploitation can be defended because it is profitable. Environmental destruction can be accepted because changing course carries an economic cost. Principles can be abandoned when defending them becomes inconvenient. Over time, a logic can develop that makes deeply unequal or harmful conditions appear rational, inevitable, or even necessary.

This is where the post’s discussion of Neohumanism feels especially important to me. It contrasts what P.R. Sarkar called the “principle of selfish pleasure” with the “principle of social equality.” The distinction asks something deeper than whether we are individually selfish. These principles also shape our institutions and societies, reflecting how far our sense of care and responsibility extends.

Neohumanism asks us to keep widening that circle, beyond ourselves and the groups with which we most closely identify. It asks us to recognize that the well-being of others matters, and that our lives are bound up with other people, communities, and the living world around us.

That feels particularly important in a time of overlapping crises. Climate change, ecological degradation, inequality, housing insecurity, food and water vulnerability, displacement, and political instability may appear to be separate problems, but each raises questions about how benefits, risks, resources, and responsibilities are shared. What benefits one person, organization, industry, or country in the short term may carry costs for people we never meet, places we never see, or generations we will never know.

There will always be competing needs, difficult tradeoffs, and legitimate disagreements. Caring about the larger whole does not make those complexities disappear. But there is a difference between acknowledging complexity and allowing self-interest to define the boundaries of what we consider possible or reasonable.

I also found myself returning to the question of courage. We may not all be called to take the same stand or have the same role to play, but the post left me thinking about the responsibility each of us carries from where we are. Perhaps courage means standing by a principle when doing so carries a cost, questioning choices that benefit us at the expense of others, or simply being willing to step forward when something asks more of us than remaining comfortable.

Systems are not sustained only by laws, policies, markets, or powerful leaders. They are also sustained through countless decisions about what we participate in, reward, tolerate, justify, and eventually stop noticing. Last week I wrote about how extraordinary conditions can gradually become woven into ordinary life. Perhaps something similar happens with values. Ways of thinking can become so familiar that we stop recognizing them as choices, and self-interest can begin to look like common sense. But if these are choices, then other choices remain possible.

If transition requires examining the assumptions underneath our systems, perhaps some of the most important questions are also the most basic: What do we consider reasonable? What do we believe we owe one another? And how far does our sense of responsibility extend beyond ourselves?

Perhaps courage begins there, with the willingness to question what we have learned to call reasonable and to act from a sense of responsibility to something beyond ourselves.

Read the full post here.

Toward a more just and loving world.

In 1956, John F. Kennedy was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his book, Profiles in Courage. Profiles in Courage features short biographies of eight American Senators who took principled stands on issues before the Senate, despite their stances being unpopular or going against party interests. Although subjected to severe criticism, they stood for what they felt was right.

Kennedy began his book with a quote from Edmund Burke on the courage of his fellow statesman Charles Fox who spoke out against the tyranny of the East India Company.

This is the same Edmund Burke whose famous for saying, ”The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” — a quote that gets trotted out a lot these days. And for good reason.

Ours is a time when so many people in public positions have not only done nothing in response to the evil of the MAGA regime but have become actively complicit.

This complicity is the subject of the recent book, Profiles in Cowardice: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era, by Jacob Weisberg. Following the playbook of Profiles in Courage, Weisberg profiles eight public figures who have not only bent the knee but actively colluded with Trump’s agenda.

Readers will be familiar with most of them. Mitch McConnell makes the list. John Roberts, of course. Megyn Kelly. Jeff Bezos — it would have been criminal to leave him out.

Also included is Brad Karp, chairman of the powerful New York law firm Paul, Weiss. Of the eight Trump collaborators (I’m tempted to say “quislings”) that are featured, it is Karp that got featured in Michele Goldberg’s recent New York Times editorial on Weisberg’s book.

Goldberg starts her editorial with the question that’s perplexed many of us:

What has stunned me has been the capitulation of so many American elites to Trump’s vulgar authoritarianism. . . . What’s harder to fathom is why people who presented themselves as bulwarks against Trumpism during his first term made such degrading compromises during his second. These are people who once knew how dangerous Trump was, but now that he’s worse than ever, they’re pretending not to see. Why?

The question of why so many institutions have caved to the Trump Administration demands an answer. And it is the example of Karp and his Paul, Weiss law firm that offers Goldberg the deepest insight into the mindset of complicity.

It is an insight that, I believe, is at the crux of determining humanity’s future at this pivotal time in our storied history. I’ll come to this in a moment.

Paul, Weiss

Here are a few facts from the Wikipedia article on Paul, Weiss:

• In 2007, Paul, Weiss was included in a ranking of Manhattan law firms in relation to demographic diversity. For diversity, the firm was ranked in the 60th to 80th percentile for Black, Hispanic, Asian, and LGBT categories. It ranked 52 out of 74 for advancement for female attorneys.

• In 2018, Paul, Weiss worked pro bono to find more than 400 parents who were separated from their families at America’s southern border and then deported. It was part of the ACLU lawsuit brought against the Trump administration over its family separation policy.

• In 2019, the group Lawyers of Color reported that Paul, Weiss had the highest percentage of black lawyers of the 400 firms it ranked.

• In 2020, Paul, Weiss said it wanted to join law firms and public-interest organizations across the U.S. in a pro bono effort to root out racism.

Just a few years back, Paul, Weiss’ website featured its work on voting rights, reproductive rights and immigrant rights. In Trump’s first term, it rallied 30 some law firms to join in its immigrant family reunification work. It positioned itself as “a bulwark against Trump”.

Yet, it was the first law firm to capitulate to Donald Trump’s Executive Order in 2025.

This Executive Order was part of a retaliatory campaign by Trump against law firms who’d represented his political opponents and had championing DEI. The Order prohibited Paul, Weiss employees from entering government buildings, working for the government, or having security clearances, citing its DEI policies and the work of Paul, Weiss partner Mark Pomerantz, who played a leading role in the case that led to Trump’s conviction on falsifying business records.

In exchange for the order against them being lifted, Paul, Weiss agreed that the firm would commit $40 million toward pro bono legal services in support of Trump administration goals and that they would no longer pursue diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.

Michael Luttig — a conservative judge appointed by George W. Bush — wrote that “Paul, Weiss chose to cower before the powerful and sell out its firm and the nation’s legal profession to the President.”

In contrast, other law firms Trump targeted successfully challenged the Executive Order in the courts rather then negotiating a deal with the administration.

Chairman Brad Karp

Overseeing the selling out of Paul, Weiss’ integrity was Chairman Brad Karp.

Karp expressed in an interview the noble position that “Each of us needs to do what we believe is right, whatever the consequences”. That was in 2024, the year before he submitted without a fight to Trump’s Executive Order.

As Weisberg points out, Paul Weiss’s surrender helped set off “a bidding war for submission.” Today, the firm’s culture has changed; gone from its website are pages that once described its work on voting rights, reproductive rights, and immigrant rights.

Michele Goldberg summarized what caused Karp to change:

Threatened by Trump, Karp feared an exodus of partners and the loss of one of the firm’s biggest clients, Apollo Global Management, whose chief executive is a powerful Republican donor. Karp repeatedly described Paul Weiss’s peril as “existential.”

Apollo Global Management is an asset management firm that manages close to one trillion dollars in assets. It’s huge. One of the world’s largest private equity firms.

For those who may not be tracking, its founder, Leon Black, resigned his position as CEO in 2021 in the wake of revelations of his close association with Jeffery Epstein — including that he paid Epstein $158 million for financial services, saving him $1.3 billion in taxes. (His worth is $13.8 billion.) Epstein also helped Black dispense at least $20 million to women, some of whom he had sexual relations with. This past month, Black was held in contempt of Congress for refusing to provide information about non-disclosure agreements involving women that a House committee sought pertaining to the Epstein investigation.

Goldberg comments on the possible loss of Paul, Weiss’s Apollo account:

Karp and his colleagues weren’t facing prison or penury. An average of $7.5 million per partner [annual earnings] might have fallen to, who knows, $4 or $5 million for a couple of years. That’s a hit, but it’s not exactly martyrdom.

Self-Interest as the Basis for Reason

Goldberg found help in understanding the craven behavior of Karp and his ilk in Susan Neiman’s book, “Call It Evil: Understanding the Trump Era”. Neiman believes that caving to Trump begins with an ethos of self-interest: “When self-interest becomes the basis of reason, evil no longer needs to justify itself. It’s already been mistaken for rationality.”

Neiman’s book reports research that shows that “the longer people study economics, the more selfish they become.” That is, they become convinced that that maximizing self-interest is normal.

Goldberg concludes:

The more the logic of capitalism pervades the rest of life, the less room there is for compassion, honor or heroism. Maybe that’s why some of the people most financially able to defend liberal democracy have decided it’s one of the few luxuries they can live without.

The Principle of Selfish Pleasure

All this tracks squarely with a core concept found in Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar’s philosophy of neohumanism.

Sarkar says that people are animated in their social lives by one of two principles. First is what he calls the “principle of selfish pleasure”. This is the principle of living that, as Susan Neiman points out, guides the thinking of Trump, his cronies, and those who readily submit to him.

The second he calls the “principle of social equality”. This is the principle that guides people to recognize that others lives are also important, that we should act out of a sense of responsibility to the good of others.

These two principles are not just active in our personal lives; they also play out in the collective sphere. That is, groups act out of either self-interest or out of a sense of solidarity with other groups. Where the principle of selfish pleasure dominates, we find racism, casteism, male chauvinism, religious bigotry, etc. And we find the exploitation of labor by corporate owners. And the exploitation of the natural world.

Where the principle of social equality dominates, societies are concerned that all people can get their needs met, that all enjoy equal opportunity and equal rights.

So this is the fundamental polarity in the world today.

For the most part, those who operate out of the principle of selfish pleasure have the upper hand. They may go along with liberal thinking, they may pander to progressive social causes. But in the end they know no logic but self-interest.

Theirs is a delusional understanding of how social life works. And their delusion is driving the polycrisis that is taking humanity to the brink.

Humanity’s choice is between allowing the principle of selfish pleasure to dominate or being able to survive. This is the choice upon which the future pivots.

Fortunately, the disastrous mess that results from privileging self-interest is beginning to make clear that this path only has dead-endings.

And the mess will only worsen. It is not just among the MAGA leaders that the logic of self-interest dominates. It is there as well, though perhaps more concealed, in the hearts of many Democrats. They too, many of them, are fully capable of compromising the principle of social equality.

So we have a ways yet to go. But when we get there, rough a journey as it may be, we’ll be in synch with nature. We’ll be in synch with the deep ways of the Cosmic order of things. With dharma. And much good will come of this — more than we can possibly imagine, standing as we do, amidst the paragons of selfish pleasure running wild with their evil ways.

This week’s Crisis and Transition post, “Two Year Update on the State of the Polycrisis,” looks back at the first article published here two years ago and asks what has changed. Many of the challenges described in that first article were already well understood: resource depletion, environmental degradation, climate change, economic instability, and the social and political conditions that make responding to them more difficult. What stands out in this week’s update is not simply that these problems remain, but how much has changed in a remarkably short period of time.

It made me think about how we imagine the future. For a long time, many of our largest challenges have been described in the language of what is coming. Climate change will disrupt communities, water scarcity will become more serious, ecosystems will be placed under increasing pressure, economic inequality will create greater instability, and our institutions will struggle to respond to increasingly complex problems. Yet increasingly, these do not feel like descriptions of some distant future. They describe conditions communities are already experiencing in different ways and at different scales.

Perhaps that transition is difficult to recognize because it does not happen all at once. There is no single morning when we wake up and discover that we have crossed from one era into another. Instead, conditions change unevenly. One community experiences catastrophic flooding while another struggles with extreme heat, wildfire, drought, displacement, rising costs, or pressure on food and water systems. At the same time, much of ordinary life continues. We go to work, children go to school, we make dinner, pay bills, celebrate birthdays, and think about what needs to happen next week. Somehow, the extraordinary becomes woven into the ordinary.

The idea of a polycrisis makes this even more difficult because these changes are not occurring independently of one another. Environmental, economic, social, and political pressures interact. A climate event can become an economic disruption, a housing problem, a public health challenge, or a source of displacement. Pressure on food, water, energy, or other resources can ripple through communities and economies. Political and institutional instability can make responding to all of these challenges more difficult.

That may be part of what makes this week’s two-year update so thought-provoking. It gives us a relatively short interval against which to consider change. If multiple conditions can shift significantly in two years, what assumptions are we still making based on a world that may already be changing around us? And what happens when those conditions are changing faster than our capacity to adapt to them?

Many of the systems we depend upon were developed around assumptions of relative stability. We make decisions about where and how we build, how we produce and distribute food, where our water and energy come from, and how communities prepare for emergencies based partly on expectations about the conditions surrounding those systems. When those conditions change, vulnerabilities that may have been easy to overlook can suddenly become much more visible. Preparing for an uncertain future, then, cannot simply mean becoming better at responding to individual crises. It also means becoming better at seeing the relationships among them.

We cannot know exactly what the next decade will bring, but uncertainty does not mean we know nothing. We can see where systems are already under strain. We can pay attention to patterns and relationships, ask where our greatest dependencies and vulnerabilities lie, and question whether assumptions that served us in the past still make sense for the future we are entering.

This week’s post ends with the possibility that deepening crisis will create greater openness to new values, new visions, and new ways of organizing society. That feels like an important reminder that recognizing the seriousness of what is happening is not the same as giving up hope for what comes next. Perhaps part of recognizing those openings is learning to see what is changing while we are still living through it. Crisis can expose what is no longer working, while also creating opportunities to think more intentionally about what we want to preserve, strengthen, and create.

This brings me back to the two-year time frame. Two years is such a small period when we think about societal change, and yet it can be long enough for what once seemed distant to begin feeling much closer. Paying attention to the direction and pace of that change may help us better understand not only the crises we are facing, but the transition already taking place around us.

The future does not arrive all at once. It emerges unevenly, often alongside the familiar routines of everyday life. Sometimes we may not recognize how much has changed until we stop and look back.

Perhaps the more important question is whether we can learn to recognize those changes while they are happening, and whether we are willing to change with them.

Read the full post here.

Toward a more just and loving world.

The Crisis and Transition Substack began publishing two years ago this month. Our opening two articles argued that humanity faces a polycrisis due to defective worldviews and that the only path forward lies in adopting a new collective psychology.

In those articles, we argued that there are four core facets to the polycrisis, along with several additional factors that exacerbate it.

At this time, I’d like to revisit our inaugural article — to review what was said about the polycrisis and report on what has changed in the past two years. I’ll quote directly from our first article and interject updates in bold typeface.

The theme of the Crisis and Transition Substack is that conditions are emerging that create opportunities for humanity to transition to what David Korten calls a “life-centered civilization” and what P. R. Sarkar calls a “true human society”.

While our focus will be on the transition to a new society, we are obligated to first report on the grim trends that will force humanity to make a civilizational shift.

With crisis comes opportunity. When catastrophic events occur, the system that causes them loses credibility and systemic change becomes possible. With collective survival at stake, people pay attention to new ideas — especially ones demonstrated in practice. This will open a pathway to a new society.

There are four arenas in which the polycrisis will have the most impact on shaping humanity’s future.

1 — Resource Depletion

The more that resources are used unsustainably the more that humanity moves toward ecological overshoot and population die-off. It’s estimated that 1.7 Earths are now required to sustain current rates of resource use.

[As of 2025, 1.8 Earths would be required.]

Resource depletion is occurring at three levels. First is the depletion of non-renewable resources, such as petroleum, phosphorus, and natural gas. Second is the depletion of renewable resources, such as fishing stocks and timber stands. These resources naturally renew and are only depleted if harvested unsustainably. Third is the depletion of the metabolic resources required to sustain life, most important among them top-soils and freshwater. Of greatest concern are diminishing oil production and growing freshwater shortages (nearly two-thirds of humanity already face water scarcity at least one month a year).

[The Ukraine and Iran wars have greatly exacerbated availability of several essential non-renewable resources — oil in particular. Dwindling water supply in the American Southwest is a deepening crisis. As a result of the oncoming historic El Nino, water from monsoon rain in South and Southeast Asia is expected to be critically diminished.]

2 — Environmental Degradation

The more we pollute the air and waters, deplete the soils, denude the forests, and dump toxins on the land, the more diminished is Earth’s capacity to support life. The biosphere is degrading so rapidly that Earth is undergoing its sixth mass extinction event.

The influential 1987 United Nations report, Our Common Future, drew attention to the profound impacts of environmental degradation on economic development. Since its publication, environmental degradation has greatly worsened. Of the nine “planetary boundaries” identified by a group of distinguished earth system and environmental scientists as being critical thresholds for global environmental stability, seven have already been crossed. Catastrophic environmental changes are now inevitable, though their intensity and onset remain unknown.

[The Trump administration has massively curtailed support for environmental protection and pollution reduction. At the same time, it’s accelerated environmentally destructive resource extraction.]

3 — Climate Change

The more greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere the more the climate warms and the more weather extremes occur. The Earth is rapidly approaching tipping-points that will accelerate climate change and intensify climate catastrophes.

[The first tipping point — that of destruction of coral reef ecosystems — was likely reached this past year. In the past couple years, Earth’s surface warming crossed the threshold of a 1.5 C increase that was set by the Paris climate accord as being the maximum allowable increase. This blows out the 2018 prediction by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) that a 1.5 degree increase would be reached by 2040 if the warming rate continued.]

Very recent research indicates that climate change sensitivity to increasing atmospheric carbon could be higher than previously assumed. If confirmed, this would mean that climate change will occur much faster than previously predicted. And there is growing evidence that climate change could collapse the North Atlantic Current that warms temperatures in northern Europe, leading to catastrophic consequences.

[Climatologist James Hansen’s research has shown that the Global Warming Coefficient for CO2 is at least 50 percent higher than assumed by the IPPC. The rate of global warming adds confirming evidence. Hansen also recently concluded that global warming is supercharging the 2026-27 “Historic El Nino”. Studies in the past two years conclude that the weakening of the North Atlantic Current is occurring 60 percent faster than previously assumed. In the last two years, Europe has suffered from heat domes of unprecedented frequency and severity.]

4 — Economic Crisis

The more that wealth is concentrated, and the more investments go into non-productive speculation, the more unbalanced and precarious the economy becomes, eventually leading to an economic depression.

A proposition known as Dornbusch’s Law states: Economic crises take longer to arrive than you can imagine, but when they do come, they happen faster than you can possibly imagine. Three factors have left the global economy with little resilience to weather economic shocks. First, wealth concentration has reached an unprecedented extreme. Second, vast amounts of capital are invested in unproductive speculative markets (cryptocurrencies, collectibles, precious metals, currencies, speculative real estate, financial derivatives, etc.) where they have little benefit. Third, the amount of financial debt poised to collapse in the event of an economic crisis has never been so extreme.

[A recent Rand Corporation study found that $79 trillion has been redistributed from the bottom 90 percent of American earners to the top 1 percent — wealth that would have remained with the bottom 90 percent if the income distribution among Americans in 1975 had remained the same. Added to the vast sums dumped into unproductive speculative markets, over $1 trillion has been invested in AI in the past two years in America alone. The American federal deficit just passed $40 trillion and has been growing at the rate of $1 trillion every four months. Servicing the federal debt now costs about $1.2 trillion a year. Ten year Federal bond yields have shot up to just under 5 percent.]

These are not humanity’s only big problems, but they are the most consequential. Each of them alone, if not resolved, will lead to catastrophic consequences.

Compounding Problems

The threat these problems pose is intensified by social and political conditions that make it difficult to implement solutions.

[Due to the American political situation, solutions are not just difficult but impossible. In almost all respects problems are intensifying at an accelerated rate.]

There is, first of all, the rise of illiberalism, neofascism and ethnic and religious nationalism. These forces are subverting democracy — what’s left of it. They create political polarization and promote reactionary agendas that paralyze progress. These forces are financially supported by the ultra wealthy, motivated by extreme greed.

[As you know, democracy in America is in precipitous decline. Tech industry leaders are making a play to establish a “tech oligarchy” in America. Ethno nationalist and Christian fundamentalist power has soared, along with their vision of a white, religious authoritarianism state. Dehumanizing treatment of ethnic minorities has surged. ICE is a national nightmare. The federal government has withdrawn much of the social safety net.]

Second, there is no global body with sufficient authority to curtail the destructive actions of nation-states and transnational corporations. There is no global authority to enforce greenhouse gas reductions, to demilitarize the nation-states, to protect the oceans and atmosphere, to prevent genocide, to maintain fair trade, etc.

[The past two years have seen the emergence of American-driven tariff anarchy, the growing destructiveness of the Ukraine War, increased Russian interference in the affairs of neighboring countries, genocide in Gaza, America’s lawless deposing of Venezuela’s ruler, the growing humanitarian crisis in South Sudan, Trump’s unsanctioned war on Iran, the global oil supply crisis, and much more.]

Third, certain social and cultural conditions add to the political paralysis. News media coverage of global problems is either biased or lacking. Social media abounds with disinformation. Popular culture acts to divert public attention toward inconsequential concerns. And, the quality of education has so deteriorated that many citizens lack the civic-mindedness or the capacity to understand social, economic and political problems.

[MAGA supporter, David Ellison, has taken over CBS. Jeff Bezos has asserted editorial influence at the Washington Post. Educational and cultural institutions have been stripped of diversity initiatives. History is being sanitized according to MAGA standards. Critical thinking at universities is being eroded. Social media has become so damaging that schools and whole countries are putting age restrictions on internet connectivity. AI is used to generate disinformation. And so much more.]

Fourth, many people who are aware of the threat humanity faces are immobilized by despair or cynicism. Others lack the courage or vision to think beyond limited reforms. They are without a social vision that is commensurate with the scope of the gathering crises.

[Polling, voting, town hall meetings, and other indicators suggest that in the past two years many have begun to engage. As yet, there is little meaningful focus on dealing with the polycrisis. But people’s spirit is waking up.]

Where Do We Stand Now?

Humanity will require unity and collective sacrifice to face the challenges ahead. Far more painful experiences may have to occur before we feel compelled to make sufficient change. [In 2024] the interdisciplinary scholar, Joe Brewer, asserted that within five years people working on deep solutions will be consumed in responding to humanity’s dire circumstances.

Five years — is this an alarmist prediction, or is it realistic? It isn’t unrealistic.

[We’re now down to three years. Does Brewer’s prediction seem any more or less realistic? I’d say his prediction has gained credibility. At the rate things have been coming apart, three years may be on the conservative side. Which, I believe, would be a good thing. The sooner we’re consumed in bringing about a deep transformation toward a life-centered society, the less will be the collective suffering. And the sooner will our suppressed humanity be able to flourish.]

This week’s article may appear to veer away from our commitment to emphasize positive, solutionary ideas. I apologize for its sobering tone. But the main takeaway should be that deepening crisis will create a growing currency for new vision, new values, and for solutionary ideas. And that there will be emergent openings for these ideas — those that have legs — to thrive.

The present system does not work for the many. It does not work for the earth. It is tainted by greed and domination. It will not stand for long. It is coming into its death throes. It will fall. It will get messy; it is already messy. Birthing the new will not be easy.

But the very human effort to birth a life-centered society will mobilize and focus the human spirit in ways that will benefit life for generations to come.

Every Tuesday. For two years. 104 articles. Every Friday. For 16 months, Christy’s reflections that illuminate the articles.

Our theme: Crisis and Transition.

Not “crisis” — crisis and TRANSITION. Transition to what? To a life-centered society. A new kind of society based on a new story of our humanity, one that calls for cooperation, regeneration and inclusion. A society that is for all. And that honors the Earth.

We‘re not naïve. We acknowledge the magnitude of the polycrisis, the scope of which goes far beyond collapsing democracy in America. In truth, we face a collapsing civilization. If we don’t transition.

Our belief: Four factors are essential to make the needed transition.

• hope

• vision

• empowerment

• solutions

Our articles seek to build these conditions. We’ve made them the sub-title of our Substack. We’ve made them the substance of our articles.

Our commitment: To give readers thoughtful and compelling content that builds hope, vision, empowerment, and solutions. This is not our brand. This is our mission.

Perfect Storm

As we begin our third year, what is the state of the global polycrisis?

There’s a reasonable chance of a perfect storm a few months out. Not one so momentous that it triggers collapse. But a significant ratcheting up in the dysfunctions, in the collective pain. In the number of lives impacted by a civilization in crisis. Consider:

• The 2026-27 El Nino that’s ramping up is variously characterized as “super”, “historic”, “uncharted”, and “Godzilla”. The last time there was a comparable El Nino was in 1877. Fifty million died of starvation. (A recent study by legendary climatologist James Hansen shows that this year’s El Nino is supercharged by climate warming — so a preview of El Ninos to come.) If the Godzilla El Nino powers atmospheric rivers into California, there may be an ARk Storm mega-flood in the Central Valley.

• Global warming has, for all practical purposes, reached the 1.5 C threshold set by the 2015 Paris Agreement as being the upper limit of allowable global warming to avoid geophysical tipping points. The first climate tipping point has probably been reached — tropical coral reefs now face irreversible collapse. James Hansen and others claim that climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon is far greater than the figure used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) projections. So, temperatures are rising much faster than projected, speeding up the onset of climate catastrophes.

• Global oil reserves continue to dwindle. The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has dropped from 714 million barrels to 243 million barrels. The SPR must retain roughly 150 million barrels in place just to maintain its basic operational structure. With constricted tanker transit through the Strait of Hormuz oil supplies continue to dwindle. The possibility of a few months out reaching “tank bottom” is real.

• American democracy — already hobbled by Citizen’s United, hyper gerrymandering, voter suppression, end of Voting Rights Act protections, social media disinformation, poll station closures, and voter intimidation — faces the possibility of near total collapse in the mid-term elections.

• Between El Nino destruction, tariff wars, inflation in diesel and fertilizer costs, climate change, water shortages, and the Ukraine War, global food production is increasingly precarious. Near term food shortages — or at least major food price inflation pressures — are all but certain.

• US governmental debt now stands at $40 trillion and grows by a trillion every four months, which, along with other factors, is driving up bond prices. There’s an AI investment bubble. Economic growth is stalling. Inflation remains high. Tariffs are disrupting global trade. Japan’s wobbling yen could force it to dump its holdings of US government debt. Among other economic fragilities. The 70 trillion dollar wealth transfer from the American working class to the uber rich. It’s all an economic house of cards, waiting for a good gust to topple.

• There’s the persistent Iran War, and all that could go wrong as it lurches on.

• Then there’s the growing possibility of black swan events. Consider, for starters, the people with power in America’s executive branch: Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, Robert Kennedy Jr., Howard Lutnick, Todd Blanche, and Markwayne Mullin. Donald J. Trump. What could go wrong?

The environment, the economy, the society, and the government are all under mounting stress. Resiliency is evaporating. Unease is growing. Cracks are expanding.

Our framing: The worn out, dysfunctional system must burn down before the phoenix can rise from the ashes. This is the dying of the old order to create space for a new era to emerge. If we rise to build it.

What Is Our Solid Rock?

The late Ben Bochner opened his anthem, Hold on Strong, with these lyrics:

What is our solid rock? How do we position our lives for the hard times that are coming? How do we position ourselves so we can resiliently function as harbingers of change?

This question of preparing is on the minds of many — not just the preppers, whose social media fodder is filled with hysterical conspiracy theories. There are many thoughtful people who maintain what Nate Hagens calls a wide boundary lens, and who rationally weigh the news with open eyes. They also wonder: How to position myself?

Better said: How should we reposition ourselves? — as we are all in this together.

I have thoughts:

• First and foremost: Develop ways to cultivate love, compassion, and universal respect. Appreciate the sacredness of life and let that be your guiding value.

• Second: Cultivate community, whether it be based in neighborhood, family, municipality, virtual community , intentional community, or affinity group.

• Third: Nurture your personal resiliency. Live well. Maintain positive thoughts. Avoid all that’s toxic to body and mind. Be resilient so that you can be present for others.

• Fourth: Engage in service. Be helpful to others and to your community. And to our planet. Where appropriate, serve in collaboration, as a social practice.

• Fifth: Know yourself. Don’t adopt self-images sanctioned by capitalist society. Or by creeds and cults. Or influencers. Root yourself in your essential humanity, in your human dharma. Seek wholeness in community and place.

• Sixth: Participate in spreading new social vision, building new social models, and supporting progressive social movements. Be in solidarity with those bringing up a new life-centered society, and those resisting parasitic power structures.

Dream Team for Transformational Change

Suzanne Taylor is the creator of the Now What? Substack. She’s had a personal mission to seek out Substack writers that are addressing the big picture. She’s aware of the power of collaboration, which has led her to suggest members of a “Dream Team for our transformational challenge”.

I’m aware of many of those that she’s named to her dream team list: Brian Swimme, Marianne Williamson, Geoffrey Diehl, Johan, Nate Hagens, Corbin Trent, and Ernesto van Peborgh. Christy Shaver, of course.

Each of these Substack luminaries has a strength to offer; each has a contribution to make.

The Crisis and Transition Substack rolls with this same spirit. It’s produced by a team of people having diverse talents and diverse social engagements. Clare is a pillar of the Regenerate Cascadia bioregional movement. Alberta is the Board Chair of the Neohumanist College. John works with an ad hoc group advocating for a state bank in Oregon. Christy is a weaver in the grassroots efforts to rebuild Lahaina.

Each of us have our feet planted in concrete projects. We are both dreamers and doers. But it is the dream, the vision, of a life-centered society that propels our collaboration in producing Crisis and Transition.

This is our piece, our Substack contribution, to transformational change.

It is an important contribution. It’s a contribution that deserves support, now more than ever.

As Crisis and Transition goes into its third year — a year that promises to be momentous — we’re more convinced than ever of the value of our voice, of our role in the Great Turning.

As with all worthy transformational endeavors, we require support to be sustainable. There is the support of “like, share, comment and subscribe” — which we appreciate. Truly. But our start-up seed money is running out. So the bigger need now is for paid subscriptions. And benefactors.

Despite our financial challenge, we’re not just determined to hold the course. We’re boldly envisioning new initiatives — which I’ll speak about in future articles.

Got to Hold On

In the work of affecting change, solidarity is important. To bring this home, I’d like to share the chorus to Ben Bochner’s Hold on Strong:

May we hold on to each other with all the love, compassion, respect and fierce strength our human spirits can muster.

And, please — like, share, comment and subscribe!

Subscribe now

There was something hopeful to me in the final section of this week’s Crisis and Transition post, “Revolution in the World Today”: “It only takes a few.” I think I needed to hear that. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the scale of the challenges we are facing and what it really means to make a difference. Climate change, inequality, political division, environmental degradation, economic uncertainty, and so many other challenges are connected to one another. The more I understand those connections, the harder it sometimes becomes to know where to begin.

This week’s post takes that even further, arguing that beneath these crises is something deeper: the values and beliefs that shape how we see ourselves, each other, and the living world. It describes this as the metacrisis underlying the many crises we are experiencing. The revolution being described, then, is not simply political or institutional. It is a deeper change in how we understand what it means to be human and how we relate to the world around us.

I feel that is a much more difficult kind of change to imagine. We can point to a policy that needs to change or an institution that is not working. It is harder to see the beliefs and values underneath those systems, especially when they have become so normal that we rarely question them. Ideas about progress, success, growth, individualism, competition, our relationship with nature, and even what we owe one another become embedded in the way society operates. Changing those things requires more than replacing one policy with another.

So how do you begin changing something that deep?

This is where the five conditions for deep revolution described in the post resonated with me: historical conditions that make people receptive to change, a new social vision, model projects, social movements, and aware leadership. What I appreciate is that change is not presented as something that happens through ideas alone. Ideas have to become visible and lived. People need opportunities to experience alternatives, learn from them, and see that something different is possible.

And then the post ends with this simple idea: it only takes a few.

I keep coming back to that because I have been asking myself similar questions in my own life. When the problems are so large and interconnected, what can one person really do? I have spent a lot of time trying to understand where I can be useful, and I keep finding myself drawn back to relationships. Who is already doing the work? Who else is asking these questions? What is already happening that could be strengthened? Where are people working toward similar things but perhaps not yet connected?

The more I think about this, the less I believe meaningful change comes from one person or organization arriving with the answer. Complex problems cross sectors, disciplines, and communities. The knowledge needed to respond to them is often spread among people who see different parts of the same system.

Maybe this is part of what “a few” can do. Not arrive with all the answers or try to fix everything, but find one another. Ask better questions, bring different perspectives together, connect work that is already happening, and help make other possibilities visible.

Perhaps this is also a way of thinking about leadership. The post calls for leaders with compassion, selflessness, and a larger social vision, while also making clear that meaningful change has to emerge from the grassroots and involve broad participation. To me, those ideas belong together for leadership does not have to mean having all the answers. It can mean being willing to begin, helping something take root, and creating space for others to become part of it.

This connects to another idea in the post that feels especially important to me: expanding our sense of identity beyond ourselves as individuals and toward the larger social and living world. We live within systems that often reward individual achievement, competition, and short-term thinking. Yet many of the challenges we face require cooperation, shared responsibility, long-term thinking, and recognition of our dependence on one another and the natural world.

Perhaps that shift begins when we recognize that our well-being is connected to the well-being of other people and the places where we live. In that sense, we all hold some responsibility for the systems we are part of and for what comes next. But we do not have to know how to solve these challenges alone. We can question what we have accepted as inevitable, find others who are asking similar questions, strengthen what is already working, and build connections where they are missing.

Maybe meaningful change does not begin when everyone is ready. Maybe it begins when a few people find one another and decide to start.

Read the full post here.

Toward a more just and loving world.

Most of those who are aware of the polycrisis recognize that its solution lies in making fundamental changes.

All of those who realize that we face a metacrisis — that there is a root cause that generates the polycrisis — are clear thatfundamental change is required. No other approach can avoid dead-endings.

How deep must this fundamental change go? Our very story of what it means to be human and what is the nature of the Creation must shift.

Change at this level constitutes a revolution.

Not a revolution in the sense of regime change. Not an overthrow of the government. Not in the sense of taking down the established order.

A deeper revolution. A revolutionary shift in values and beliefs. The predominant values and beliefs of today are not working for us. They are the metacrisis that underlies the polycrisis playing out in ecological, climatological, economic, cultural, social, psychological and governmental spheres of life.

They are the metacrisis because they do not conform to the way nature works, and they do not conform with the way our intrinsic human nature works.

If we can properly shift the beliefs, the values, we can move toward a life-centered society — a society in which all thrive and that exists in balance with planetary life.

But this shift of beliefs and values must play out in practical arenas of life.

Five Conditions for Deep Revolution

There are five important practical conditions required for bringing into existence a life-centered society

Historical circumstances. A new social vision can only take hold during times of deep crisis. There’s already a growing disillusionment with capitalism. In some places, people are attracted to fundamentalist ideologies as an antithesis to the excesses of materialism. But fundamentalism is a narrow sentiment, without the universal outlook required to uplift humanity as a whole. It breeds division when the only viable path forward is one that is inclusive. As people’s faith in capitalism falters, and as the allure of fundamentalism dims, this will be the opportune time to bring forward a new kind of society.

New vision.

A new social vision must be available to those seeking fundamental social change. They will require a common and uplifting vision to focus and link their efforts. If progressive minded people find a source of empowering ideas, they will take these ideas to heart and use them to build a better world.

Model projects.

Model projects can give practical examples of the life-centered society in action. They can showcase solutions to social problems. They can inspire people with new possibilities. And much practical knowledge can be learned in the process of putting theory into practice.

Social Movements.

Movements for change are born out of people’s rising aspirations for change. They are not manipulated into existence by political activists. When people decide to take up mass struggle to establish a new social system, they will make use of the ideas, inspiration, resources, and leadership they find available and valuable to them. If they find an approach that can further their aspirations, they will embrace it.

Aware leadership.

Impetus for change has to emerge from the grassroots and have broad participation. Without mass engagement meaningful change will not happen. But the success of mass struggle is highly dependent on good leadership. The leadership that is needed cannot be provided by those whose mentality is dominated by the values and beliefs that are prevalent in present society. We require leaders who have a new and positive social vision and who are motivated by love. They must possess an expanded vision and great compassion.

Socio-Political Atmosphere of Today

The world today is ruled by people whose hearts are filled with self-aggrandizing motives, by the desire for self-enhancement. Much selfishness exists in the world, and this must change. Those who would lead society must think of humanity and of the welfare of all living beings. There must be expansiveness, selflessness, and a desire to work for the interests of all.

This is the foremost requirement for building a humanistic socio-political structure. This is the only open pathway to a thriving future for humanity.

Society is facing the formidable task of turning around the damage done by greedy and powerful forces to form a new social framework based on universalism. For this, aware people must come forward to demand change and to offer new ideas and new ways based upon universal human values.

Many wonder: Can this be done in the present political atmosphere? It must be done. One way or another, society will change. It may change with great difficulty through upheaval, war, and economic collapse. Or it may change from visionary ideas, and awakened citizenry, and selfless leaders who spur society to new levels of integration and humanism.

If change can occur through an aroused people, selfless leaders and noble ideas, much suffering can be averted. So those who are capable should come forward and offer noble ideas and selfless engagement. They should proceed without hesitation, thinking of the possible new future that awaits humanity and commit themselves to see that such a future becomes reality.

Progressive ideals and concepts should become available to those who aspire for social change. Many people now want to think in an expansive way about how to care for the suffering humanity and the damaged earth. Those who hear these ideas and take them to heart will find ways to give them expression.

Spiritual Development and Social Progress

Society cannot go on being governed on the basis of self-centered motives. This mentality will only bring dead-endings. We are, in truth, one human family, diverse in our expressions yet united in our humanity. So we must work together to build a social order where no one is left behind, abused or uncared for. We must join together to build a society in which all people have the opportunity for spiritual, psychic, and physical well-being. And in which all planetary life is respected.

This won’t happen in the present society because there’s insufficient compassion and excessive greed. To counter this condition there is a need for spiritual values — for an awareness of the interconnected nature of all living beings. There have always been individuals who’ve held this awareness, but it must now become the predominate awareness in the society. We are all called upon hold the knowledge of our social connectedness. This expanded awareness requires an evolution in our thinking. It requires of us to develop subtle knowledge of the interconnectedness of living beings.

We must realize that our welfare is not secured by physical wealth alone, but by the proper development of the entire society. Our identity with the personal, physical body must loosen and become secured in the social body and in the very network of life. When our identity is so expanded, we become socially responsible.

This in turn will enable us to coalesce into a true society. In its essence, this is a matter of collective spiritual maturation. And in fact this maturation is rapidly occurring at this time of transition. Spiritual life is developed when we take our shelter in a universal source of being and in the interconnectedness of all life. Then we can build a proper and inclusive human society.

But there must also be those who are willing to step forward and do selfless work for the betterment of society and to help others adopt a universal outlook. Without genuine spiritual leaders who are able to show the way, forward movement will be difficult.

It Only Takes a Few

Capitalism is failing. Many people see the present situation as bleak. They don’t see any good alternatives. The welfare of the planet is in question and many are afraid. There are no good solutions to the deep problems; they only grow worse.

In this climate, a growing number of people are ready to hear about an alternative in which the personal independence found in capitalism may be maintained, but without capitalism’s greedy exploitation. Many people are ready for a new approach. And their numbers grow.

People must become aware that there is a sound alternative to capitalism. Then those who feel called to build a new society will take its principles and apply them. It is through the practical application of of a new paradigm of socio-economic development that a thriving society, inclusive of all, can be established.

Can only a handful of people affect the world? Christianity was brought to the world by a handful of people. Those who brought about the Renaissance were few.

It only takes a few. If they bring an idea whose time has come, it will blossom and bear fruit. It will have the power to open a new future for humanity.

This week’s Crisis and Transition post by guest author Marc Nevas, “Preparing the Ground for a Life-Centered Society to Sprout,” left me thinking about his idea of building a “seed bank” before the conditions for larger change fully arrive. There is something both hopeful and practical in that idea.

When we talk about systemic change, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the scale of what needs to change. Our economic, political, ecological, and social challenges are deeply connected, and there is rarely a single intervention capable of addressing them in isolation. We can spend so much time looking at the enormity of the system that it becomes difficult to know where to begin.

Marc’s idea of the seed bank offers another way of thinking about that question. We do not have to wait for the perfect conditions or for change to happen at the scale of an entire system. We can begin cultivating the ideas, relationships, skills, and practical models that a different future might require.

One part of the piece especially stayed with me. Marc writes about creating schools, medical clinics, cooperatives, housing, feeding programs, and other forms of service as places where we gain firsthand experience in how to heal society. These efforts meet immediate needs, but they can also do something more. They give us places to practice different ways of organizing, caring for one another, sharing resources, and building community.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between small, grounded action and systemic change. We often talk about the two at very different scales. There are the enormous structural problems that need to be addressed, and then there are the projects happening within neighborhoods, organizations, schools, farms, communities, and local institutions. But perhaps these are not separate forms of work.

Small models can become places of learning. They can show us what works and what does not. They can uncover barriers that are difficult to see when we are only discussing systems in the abstract. They can strengthen relationships, build knowledge, and give people the opportunity to experience an alternative rather than simply imagine one. That is what makes the idea of preparing the seed bank feel particularly relevant right now.

We are living through a period of profound uncertainty across many of the systems people have long relied upon. Marc’s garden metaphor asks us to look beyond the immediate instability and think about what will be needed as conditions continue to change. What ideas will be ready? What relationships will already exist? What have we practiced? What have we learned?

There is also something important in his reminder not to become so consumed by the crises immediately in front of us that we lose our capacity to imagine what comes next. Responding to immediate needs matters. Protecting people and communities matters. But alongside that work, we also need to be thinking about what we are building toward.

This is where Marc’s call for both visionaries and practitioners particularly resonates with me. Ideas without practice can remain ideas. Practice without a larger vision can become disconnected from the deeper change we hope to create. Bringing the two together gives us a way to begin preparing now. Small experiments and practical models can become places where new ideas are cultivated, tested, strengthened, and shared.

We cannot know exactly what the conditions ahead will demand of us or how the seeds we are cultivating now may eventually take root. But we do not have to wait to begin preparing. We can build relationships. We can strengthen communities. We can experiment with new models and learn through practice. We can create spaces where cooperation, care, and a more life-centered way of organizing society are not simply aspirations, but things people can actually experience.

Perhaps that is some of the most important work we can be doing during a time of crisis and transition. Not simply asking what needs to change, but asking: What are we planting now?

Read the full post here.

Toward a more just and loving world.

During the COVID pandemic, America went through a phase where fear was the unifying factor — fear of illness and fear of death.

Now the pending fear of many is that of not having enough money. This is a fear that will not be so unifying. It will further separate the haves from the have nots. And it will cross over political lines. Many liberals and MAGA conservatives will face the same problems of no work and little money for food and housing.

The ineptness of the federal government to operate in a rational way in the face of economic crisis will cause greater suffering and greater anger. Then there are those on the ultra-right who are already armed. Often anger is its own justification for violence. We may see pickup trucks with armed men flying flags and taking what they want. It could get ugly.

When earthquakes strike, when tsunamis arrive on the shores, it forces big changes in people’s lives and the political, social, and economic differences melt away. All are miserable, and all must pool their skills to survive.

Turning the Ground Before the Garden Can Flourish

When the economic earthquake strikes, facing adversity together will be the crucible, and in that time there must be a new social vision to light the way forward.

In establishing a garden the ground must be properly turned for the new crop to grow. Turning the soil is violent to the weeds and to the old plants that must be removed so that the new growth can flourish. But in the wake of tilling the soil, there is fresh ground in which the new seeds can be planted.

In the garden of human society, if we try to plant the seeds of new ways now, among the choking weeds, they cannot take root and the new ways cannot come to dominate. But when the ground gets turned, from the ashes of what was, a new and harmonious world society can be grown.

Building the Seed Bank

At this stage, we cannot use reason alone to bring in a new society. It will not take hold. This new thinking will need freshly turned soil to take root and thrive. The seeds from the old weeds will still be there, but the new ideas will now be the dominant crops and the weeds will be relegated to the sidelines and easily weeded out.

Our task now is to build up the seed bank. We must develop the ideas required for practical application in the future — a future that is not far off. We already can feel the rumblings of the plow coming.

We should not be discouraged that there is not full scope for these ideas to take hold now. But the new ideas need to be built up and small social models need to be established to demonstrate them. Because of the potential speed that now exists for the transmission of ideas, these seeds will spread very fast at the proper time.

Those of us with progressive vision must not get overly caught up in the day-to-day dramas of politics, wars, and fights between religions. We must of course support the struggle to save democracy, but we must withdraw enough from the craziness of the times to make our plans for tomorrow.

New ideas and new approaches do not come from the fighters on the front lines. They come from those who are quietly working behind the frontlines, developing the seeds and methods of implementation to grow after the dust has settled from the tilling of the soil.

As we witness the tilling of the soil of humanity, we may think: “This is all a great disaster. Where can I go to hide?” But it is not a time to hide.

The scientists who raced to find a vaccine for COVID started late and worked in an uncoordinated manner.

This should not be our approach. We should build our seed bank of ideas and create local models to try out these ideas. We need both visionaries and practitioners to engage in this work.

Lives Must Be Turned Over for New Ideas to Sprout

We may wonder why most people in the older generations are not now coming forward, despite society’s deep problems? It is because of their years of living amongst the weeds. They are satisfied with tiny amounts of progress and are willing to live out their lives amongst the weeds.

They have much potential to help grow a new society. But they are not waking up; they are not activating. So, they will have to go through the tilling process. The soil of their lives will have to be turned over. They must have freshly exposed soil in which to sprout the new ideas that they will carry.

When we engage in the creation of schools, medical clinics, cooperatives, housing, and feeding programs we gain some first-hand experience in how to heal society. So not only do the service projects serve people’s needs, but they can also become opportunities to create seed banks of ideas.

Young minds need to be impregnated with fresh ideas, with the seeds for the new society. We need not worry so much yet about the methods and ways of actual implementation on a large scale. When there is a great vacuum that draws forth new approaches, these visionary ideas will be released from the seed banks and sown around the world.

Awakening Love is the Antidote to Fear

At this point our number one enemy is fear. Fear is the weapon that is far more effective than guns for controlling the minds of the populations of the world. Fear is the weapon utilized by the most cynical of people who understand the immediate capacity of fear to control the citizenry. They warn of chaos and threats from the “others” and then claim that only they can bring order and safety to the society.

But there is no real safety in responding to fear with more anger, more police, more guns. What is it that is more powerful than fear? It is love.

Love is powerful because it is planted in and arises from the hearts of every human being. All people are born into the world with this core of love alive in their hearts. And all have an innate thirst for unlimited love, though for so many this thirst has become too clouded over to be easily recognized.

The root cause of fear and anger is the experience of losing the connection. Yet, the desire to gain it back remains alive. This is the greatest weapon in the arsenal of the neohumanists. They are able to hold out the promise and practical path to a life suffused with love — love for the humans and for the animals and plants.

This love gets its strength not from thinking as its wellspring. It doesn’t come from intellect. It is best accessed through the personal connection with the indwelling spirit within every human being.

The great service of the neohumanists is to provide to all the practical path back to the wellspring of love — irrespective of skin color or belief system.

Lives Turned Upside Down Will Have the Potential to Build the New Society

So, in the transition to a life-centered society, phase one of the unfolding is the tilling of the soil, the turning over of the weeds. The old ways must be sufficiently disrupted to open new ground for new ideas to sprout and take form.

When we put the shovel in the ground, and turn over the perfectly healthy grasses so we can plant the food crops, do we mourn for the grass and weeds that are turned upside down and die? No, this is not how we see the process of tilling. What we see is the soil being prepared for the new plants that will bear vegetables and fruits to nourish us for years to come.

This is what we should visualize as the weedy soil of the present society gets turned upside down. Those that live among the grasses and weeds will be greatly disturbed; their lives may be turned upside down. But we should see the future of the wonderful society that now has the potential to grow.

When the soil has been properly prepared, we will hopefully be there to plant the seeds that we have been nurturing. In this way we will participate in building a healthy, vibrant human society, and we will become guardians of the planet for all its forms of life.

Recently, I finished graduate school and along with the congratulations comes the inevitable question: what comes next? The truth is, I don’t entirely know. But maybe that is the issue, should our attention be so focused on what comes next. What if we thought less about the next thing we need to accomplish and more about how we want to live and what we want to be connected to? That is where I found myself as I read this week’s Crisis & Transition post, “Healing the Human Heart.”

We can move through life doing all the things we feel we should do or those things that others tell us we are supposed to do and yet still find ourselves wondering, is this where I belong? We can be surrounded by people and still feel completely disconnected. We can and do have access to more information, technology, convenience and communication, then at any other time in human history. All the while, we find ourselves less connected to the places where we live, the natural world around us and ultimately to one another.

When I entered graduate school, I wanted to find answers to questions I had. And over the past few years, this journey and my research on long-term community recovery following the Lāhaināwildfire deepened those questions considerably and I believe aligns well with this week’s post. As the post highlights, beneath it all we are yearning for a deeper connection with nature, with each other. And so, what does it mean to belong to one another, to a community, and to the natural world?

Again and again throughout my research, I found myself coming back to the importance of relationships. We don’t exist in isolation. In interview after interview, people spoke about the interconnected nature of recovery and of community. They spoke of the importance of re-establishing the balance with the natural world, the ʻāina. And as the post highlights, Mother Nature always finds a way to restore balance. Our role is continuing to recognize that we are part of the natural world, that our well-being is interconnected with its well-being, and that belonging carries a responsibility to care for what cares for us.

I find myself sitting with this, especially as I continue my journey. Perhaps this moment in my life is less about having a destination or having an answer. Rather it is about connection to people, to place, to the natural world. And being of service to the world.

I also believe it begins with noticing where we are, with listening and ultimately caring for one another and for the ʻāina that sustains us. And perhaps it begins with remembering that none of us were ever meant to wander through this world entirely alone.

Read the full post here.

Toward a more just and loving world.