CHAPTER 18
Stories for a New Era
The great spiritual-religious wisdom traditions of the world have all taught some variant of this message: The deepest human pleasures come from living in a world based on justice, peace, love, generosity, kindness, and celebration of the universe and service to the ultimate moral law of the universe.1
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Gandhi… entered public life as the defender of a small, immigrant minority in a dusty corner of a global empire, but before he was done he had led a movement that, more than any other force, dissolved that empire, and in the process had proposed a way of life in which the constituent activities of existence—the personal, the economic, the social, the political, the spiritual—were brought into a new relationship.2
Jonathan Schell
It is not enough, as many progressives in the United States are doing, to debate the details of tax and education policies, budgets, war, and trade agreements in search of a positive political agenda. Nor is it enough to craft slogans with broad mass appeal aimed at winning the next elections or policy debate.
Virtually every progressive issue, from peace to environmental protection and the elimination of racism and sexism, traces its roots to the cultures and institutions of Empire. Seeking to resolve them in piecemeal fashion is an exercise in futility. Either we resolve them all by putting Empire behind us, or we accept Empire and resolve none of them. Putting Empire behind us requires putting aside its imperial prosperity, security, and meaning stories and crafting a framing vision communicated through life-affirming stories of the possibilities of Earth Community. Such stories are implicit in the work of millions of people—the organizer cells of the new culture—who are bringing the perspective of the higher orders of human consciousness to bear as they create new cultural spaces 303that give people the freedom to experiment with cooperative relationships. We must learn to express these stories in clear and coherent narrative.
As the stories of Empire nurture a culture of domination and deny the possibility of partnership, so the stories of Earth Community nurture a culture of partnership, redefine prosperity and security, affirm the possibilities of the higher orders of human consciousness, and call us to find our place of service in Creation’s epic quest. As I have attempted to document in previous chapters, caring communities grounded in a love of life are by the very nature of life an essential precondition for achieving human prosperity, security, and meaning. This simple but profound truth is a unifying message of the narrative versions of the Earth Community stories that follow.
Let me say here that I share below versions of the Earth Community stories that work for me at this particular time. They are works in progress that draw on the shared experience and wisdom of many colleagues, but they are only a first cut. The New Right has been honing for many years the imperial stories I related in chapter 14. It will take at least a few years and the contributions of many thousands of people to arrive at comparably honed stories of Earth Community.
EARTH COMMUNITY PROSPERITY STORY
True prosperity depends on life-serving economies that satisfy our basic material needs, maintain a sustainable balance with Earth’s natural systems, strengthen the bonds of caring communities, and support all persons in the full realization of their humanity. This requires the localization and distribution of power within a framework of responsible citizenship and international cooperation. It is wholly within our means —and consistent with our human nature—to create such economies. The prosperity story of Earth Community speaks to the possibility.3
Prosperity is measured by the quality of our lives and the realization by each person of the creative potential of their humanity. A high-performing economic system supports the development of this potential, provides every person with an adequate and dignified means of livelihood, maintains the healthy vitality of the planetary ecosystem that is the source of all real wealth, and contributes to building community through strengthening the bonds of affection, trust, and mutual accountability. 304
Poverty, unemployment, high crime rates, and broken families are all indicators of an economic system that gives higher priority to maintaining and enhancing the power and privilege of a small elite class than to providing the essentials of life to all. Prosperity is best served by the just and equitable distribution of income and ownership among all members of society. As five thousand years of history clearly demonstrate, policies that favor the rich as a privileged class marginalize those who have less and facilitate the expropriation of their labor and resources, thus limiting their creative productive contribution and the prosperity of the whole. Poverty is an inevitable product of an unjust system designed to exploit those who work hard and play by the rules.
Those who make the greatest contributions to the community properly receive a greater material reward, but only within limits consistent with economic justice. Generally, the more equitable a society is, the greater its access to the creative potential of every individual and the greater its potential prosperity. The social costs of inequality increase to the extent that the wealthy use their power advantage to take more rather than to give more. Inequality and sustainability are incompatible as inequality encourages wasteful extravagance among the rich and desperation among the poor.
It is proper that those who have received the most from society pay proportionately higher taxes and contribute a greater portion of their time to community service. Similarly, it is appropriate to continuously restore balance and forestall the creation of family dynasties by a redistribution of assets to the society at the end of each life through an inheritance tax to maintain a balance between individual incentive, equity, and public benefit.
Markets are an essential and beneficial human institution, and as with any other human endeavor their efficient function depends on the participants’ exercise of a mature sense of responsibility for the whole. Markets also require impartially enforced rules that assure fair dealing, balance public and private interests, provide public services and infrastructure, maintain the conditions of fair competition, and assure an equitable distribution of ownership and income. There is no beneficial place in a healthy economy for predatory individuals or for enterprises organized for the sole purpose of making money for wealthy absentee owners. 305
Every person is at risk of becoming unemployed through no fault of their own, or of incurring a serious illness or injury requiring care beyond their means. None of us know how long we will live or what disabilities we may suffer in our elder years. Some will live well beyond the normal life expectancy, and a few among these will need years of expensive care. The quality of life and prosperity of all are enhanced by the sharing of these risks through unemployment benefits, retirement plans, and health insurance programs that guarantee coverage for all, irrespective of means.
In a resource-scarce world, the greater the capacity of the economic system to adapt to specific local conditions, the more efficient the use of resources will be, and thereby the greater the prosperity of the whole. This capacity for adaptation is greatest when each community is living within its own means, decision making is local, and exchanges among communities are fair and balanced. These conditions increase democratic control and accountability; limit the ability of economic predators to bid down labor, health, safety, and environmental standards; and preclude the accumulation of destabilizing external debts.4
The Earth Community prosperity story pretty much turns the imperial prosperity story on its head. This is wholly appropriate and scarcely surprising, because the priority of the imperial economy is to maintain the established relations of domination. The priority of the Earth Community economy is to build mutual prosperity through relations of partnership.
EARTH COMMUNITY SECURITY STORY
The primary role of political institutions is to maintain order and set priorities for collective action to advance the common good. Just as their contrasting prosperity stories do, the security stories of Empire and Earth Community reflect their differing priorities. For Empire, security means securing the established hierarchy of privilege, whatever the cost. For Earth Community, it means securing the well-being of present and future generations against avoidable risks and sharing the costs of the risks that are unavoidable. Here is a suggested security story for Earth Community:
Strong families and communities that build relationships of mutual trust and caring and that support all people in realizing the potentials of their 306humanity are the best guarantee of human security. They also serve as deterrents to criminal activity and as an important resource for apprehending those who engage in criminal acts.
Responsible citizenship, cooperation, and nonviolent conflict resolution come naturally to emotionally and morally mature adults. Long term, our best guarantee of physical security will come from public policies that support a healthy family and community life that strengthens mutual trust and caring and nurtures the growth of every individual to full moral and emotional maturity. The desire to harm, dominate, or demean others is an indicator of the failure of family and community to fulfill their essential roles, which is in turn an indicator of a failure of public policy to provide the necessary support.
The greatest threats to physical security now facing the world, short of nuclear Armageddon, are climate change, toxic contamination, water shortages, rising energy prices, and economic instability created by financial speculation and skyrocketing trade imbalances. These and other consequential security threats — including crime, terrorism, and war — are a direct consequence of the cultures and institutions of Empire that weaken family and community, mismanage natural resources, undermine the legitimacy of official institutions, create extremes of injustice, and suppress development of the higher orders of moral consciousness.
One of the most important indicators of a healthy society is a low crime rate combined with a low rate of incarceration. Imprisonment is a last resort, and for all but the most extreme cases its proper purpose is rehabilitation and eventual reintegration into the community. The goal is to achieve restorative justice that promotes healing and respect for all persons. That said, persons who repeatedly engage in criminal acts must, as a last resort, be subject to imprisonment through due process to prevent them from doing further harm to themselves and others.
Just as strong families and communities are the best guarantee of security against domestic crime, so too a strong community of nations is the best guarantee of security against the threats of international crime, terrorism, and rogue regimes. Militarization begets militarization, which in turn invites the preemptive use of military force to resolve real and imagined threats and grievances.
Military security is best assured through negotiating mutually agreed-upon 307and verified programs of disarmament, retooling from war economies to peace economies, and working through institutions of international cooperation to eliminate war as an instrument of national policy.
Similarly, violence begets violence, including acts of terrorism. Invading other nations to capture or punish terrorists legitimates violence as the means of settling disputes and fuels terrorist recruitment. Apprehending terrorists and holding them accountable requires the cooperation of national and international law enforcement agencies. The terrorist activities of nonstate political groups are generally acts of desperation by groups that find no other outlet for the expression of their grievances. Democracy to assure every individual a meaningful political voice is the best preventive measure. The United States and other nations can best support democracy by ending their support for dictatorial regimes and their dependence on the foreign resources to which these regimes provide access.
The best response to rogue regimes is cooperative international action to cut off their access to international arms, funds, and the technology required to create offensive weapons. When removal by military force is required as a last resort, it is properly undertaken only with broad international consensus for the use of multilateral military forces dispatched under the authority of the United Nations.
Long supply lines; concentrated supplies of volatile fuels, toxic chemicals, and radioactive materials; disposable workers subject to instant dismissal in a moment of disruption; core industries subject to extreme swings of consumer confidence; and an unstable financial system built on debt and speculation — all these pose security threats in that they can turn even minor local disturbances into major disasters.
We reduce shocks and thereby increase security by favoring local production and procurement to shorten supply lines; reducing reliance on volatile fuels, toxic chemicals, and radioactive materials; giving economic priority to meeting basic needs that generate a stable demand; limiting debt and financial speculation; recycling; and being more frugal in our use of natural resources.
Perhaps the greatest fear any of us can have is that no one will care enough to be with us in our time of need. Again, relationships are the key. Dominator relations create an illusion of security but in fact undermine the security that only caring communities can provide. 308
EARTH COMMUNITY MEANING STORY
We humans are the only earthly species with the capacity to ask the most basic of questions: “Where did we come from, and what is the purpose of our existence?” We have long sought answers to such questions through creation stories—usually metaphorical and of ancient origin—that embody our collective understanding of our origin and give meaning to our existence.
As discussed in chapter 15, the contemporary culture of Western societies presents us with a cruel choice between two incomplete stories. One, the now seriously outdated story of Newtonian physics, reduces the whole of reality to chance and material causation; denies consciousness, intelligence, and free will; and strips life of meaning. The other, the prevailing Western religious story, affirms the transcendent but denies human experience and observation as sources of valid learning and presents our earthly condition as but a way station in which we are condemned to live out our time in an evil world and to pray for deliverance in the afterlife. To choose either of these stories is to deny the capacities for choice and service that make us distinctively human.
Our creation stories may be based on factual evidence, but the interpretation of what that evidence means and its implications for our lives ultimately come down to questions of belief or faith, which progressives rarely discuss even with one another although they are foundational to our work. I believe it is important that we engage this discussion through sharing our meaning stories. In this spirit, I offer the following as the meaning story that motivates my commitment to the work of the Great Turning.
The cosmos — and all within it — is an integral interconnected whole that flows forth from a universal spiritual intelligence, the ground of all being. We humans know this intelligence by many names.
This spiritual intelligence is engaged in an epic journey of self-discovery, a quest to know itself by actualizing its possibilities through an eternal process of learning and becoming. Everything that exists is both a product of this sacred quest and an instrument of its continued unfolding. Because Creation is a manifestation of the Spirit some call God, God and Creation are one and the same, which means we live in ever present relationship to God — indeed there is no other possibility, because there is no existence apart from the Spirit. 309
Life, which instills matter with the capacity to choose, takes Creation’s journey of self-discovery to a new level of possibility. By its nature, life exists only in relationship to other life and is at its most vital in cooperative communities rich with diversity and the dynamic interplay of individuals and species engaged in actualizing their individual and collective potential. Competition for territory, food, and sexual partners contributes to the dynamism of the whole, yet is no more than a counterpoint to deeper patterns of cooperation and mutuality.
The well-being of the individual and of the community are inseparable. The health of the whole depends on the health and integrity of the individual, and the health of the individual depends on the health and integrity of the whole; neither can survive and prosper without the other. The species that survive and thrive are those that learn to sustain themselves in ways that simultaneously serve the needs of the whole. The defining challenge for each new species is to find its place of service, a challenge we humans have yet to meet.
As far as we know, we humans are Creation’s most daring experiment in reflective consciousness and the capacity for mindful choice. It is our nature to choose and, in our most mature manifestation, to discern the difference between good — that which serves Creation’s purpose — and evil — that which is contrary to that purpose. Deepening our understanding of the difference between good and evil so defined, and learning to organize our lives in service to the good, are central to our life’s work.
Throughout our history, we humans have demonstrated that hatred and love, greed and generosity, ruthless competition and selfless cooperation, are all within our nature. It is also in our nature to choose among the possibilities of our nature, and it is our responsibility to choose wisely. Because we live in complex and interdependent relationships with one another on a planetary spaceship with a fragile and now overstressed life support system, we humans ultimately share a common destiny. It is ours to choose whether that common destiny will be one of peace, justice, and abundance, or violence, tyranny, and deprivation.
The idea that the human species represents the ultimate accomplishment and end purpose of Creation is an unwarranted conceit of a still immature species — an extension of the ancient conceit that the whole of the cosmos revolves around our earthly planet and thereby around humans. It is an 310even greater conceit to assume that we humans are the only conscious intelligence manifest in the cosmos. We are manifestations of the Spirit that birthed, and at each instant rebirths, the cosmos, but we should not assume that we are the center of its attention or that it will assure our survival. Many species that once defined the frontiers of evolutionary accomplishment passed into oblivion long before our arrival.
In granting humans the power of reflective consciousness, Creation has given our species a distinctive gift of opportunity. It is left to us to choose how we use that opportunity and to bear the consequences of our choice.
The next step in our own journey is to create societies that support the development of the fullness of our positive human potential as we advance our understanding of how we might best develop that potential and apply it to the service of the whole. Progressive Christians refer to it as creating God’s kingdom on Earth — a world of deeply democratic societies in which all people have the opportunity to carry forward the work of Creation through productive and fulfilling lives in dynamic, creative, and balanced relationships with one another and the living Earth.
This story, which draws together the insights of the spiritual wisdom of religious mystics and the data of modern science, sets the deeper frame for Earth Community’s prosperity and security stories. The prosperity, security, and meaning stories presented here all converge on Creation’s unifying truth that relationships are the foundation of everything. So too, human prosperity, security, and meaning are all found in the life of vibrant, interlinked communities that offer every person —without exception—the opportunity to contribute their creative energy through joyful, creative, engaged relationships with one another and Earth.
Our deepest human desire is to live in caring relationships with one another. This desire is our call to engage the invisible curriculum of our lives through which we learn to become fully human and find our collective place of service both as individuals and as a species. Engaging in the work of the Great Turning is a form of spiritual practice.
DISCOVERING AND SHARING STORIES OF THE POSSIBLE
In the oral traditions of cultural storytelling, stories passed from person to person, generation to generation, as the living, evolving, creative 311expressions of a people’s understanding of themselves and their world. The intention of the storyteller was not the verbatim recitation of some static text. It was to bring alive the underlying truth of a story in a manner appropriate to a particular audience at a particular moment.
I have outlined my own version of three stories based on my current understanding of the truths emerging from the collective inquiry of global civil society. I urge you to approach these stories in the spirit of the ancient oral tradition as contributions to the living, evolving, creative expression of the shared learning of an emerging human era.
If you feel so inclined, I urge you to organize a discussion group with friends and colleagues to reflect on both the stories of Empire presented in chapter 14 and the stories of Earth Community presented above in light of your own experience and understanding. Gather as storytellers of a new era. As you find your own stories, share them with others in your own words and in the manner true to your experience.
We humans devote much of our lives to a search for prosperity, security, and meaning. Whether at this defining moment we choose as our guide the prosperity, security, and meaning stories of Empire or those of Earth Community will in substantial measure determine whether future generations will know our time as the time of the Great Unraveling or the time of the Great Turning.
It is at present far from an equal contest. The New Right echo chamber, greatly amplified through the corporate media megaphone, saturates the information environment with the stories of Empire.
Yet the ultimate advantage lies with those of us who are engaged in the great work of living into being a new era of Earth Community. Empire at its core is the consequence of our alienation from life. Seducing us with fantasies of personal power and glory, Empire entices us to find meaning where it cannot be found—in violence, domination, and material accumulation. Alienated from life, we become blind to the truth that meaning comes from finding our place of service to Creation’s continuous unfolding.
The Great Turning begins with relearning how to live, which depends in turn on new life-affirming stories. The life-denying stories of Empire 312cannot compete with the life-affirming stories of Earth Community, which—in combination with practical demonstrations—give voice to the deep human yearning for healthy children, families, communities, and natural environments.