De Beschaving

5,000 Years of Empire
The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community

By what name will future generations know our time?


Will they speak in anger and frustration of the time of the Great
Unraveling, when profligate consumption exceeded Earth's capacity to
sustain and led to an accelerating wave of collapsing environmental
systems, violent competition for what remained of the planet's
resources, and a dramatic dieback of the human population? Or will
they look back in joyful celebration on the time of the Great
Turning, when their forebears embraced the higher-order potential of
their human nature, turned crisis into opportunity, and learned to
live in creative partnership with one another and Earth?

A defining choice

We face a defining choice between two contrasting models for
organizing human affairs. Give them the generic names Empire and
Earth Community. Absent an understanding of the history and
implications of this choice, we may squander valuable time and
resources on efforts to preserve or mend cultures and institutions
that cannot be fixed and must be replaced.

Empire organizes by domination at all levels, from relations among
nations to relations among family members. Empire brings fortune to
the few, condemns the majority to misery and servitude, suppresses
the creative potential of all, and appropriates much of the wealth of
human societies to maintain the institutions of domination.

Earth Community, by contrast, organizes by partnership, unleashes the
human potential for creative co-operation, and shares resources and
surpluses for the good of all. Supporting evidence for the
possibilities of Earth Community comes from the findings of quantum
physics, evolutionary biology, developmental psychology,
anthropology, archaeology, and religious mysticism. It was the human
way before Empire; we must make a choice to re-learn how to live by
its principles.

Developments distinctive to our time are telling us that Empire has
reached the limits of the exploitation that people and Earth will
sustain. A mounting perfect economic storm born of a convergence of
peak oil, climate change, and an imbalanced U.S. economy dependent on
debts it can never repay is poised to bring a dramatic restructuring
of every aspect of modern life. We have the power to choose, however,
whether the consequences play out as a terminal crisis or an epic
opportunity. The Great Turning is not a prophecy. It is a possibility.' Lees verder:
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1463