I'd started to write this month's post inspired by an article in the February issue of YES! Magazine by Frances Moore Lappe entitled, "Free Your (Eco) Mind." She talks about thinking as if you're part of an ecosystem. I intended to go on to share some very creative applications of the notion of 'eco mind' to the history of our country by John Michael Greer in a current series of blog posts. For example, in his post of March 21, he refers to the build-up to the Civil War saying, "The struggle between Northern and Southern models of human ecology in nineteenth-century America, the theme of last week's post, determined more than the shape of American continental expansion." [Emphasis mine]. Reading his fascinating analysis through the lens of ecology applied to historical events made total sense to me. I assumed I'd make some reference to the talk by Charles Eisenstein that I knew I would hear on the 31st. BUT, I was so inspired by CE on Saturday, that I want to devote all of these brief remarks to his analysis and my experience of him.
I went early to attend the monthly pot luck of Transition Town Montpelier which immediately preceded Eisenstein's talk, and it's always good to gather with a group of (more or less) like minds. This kind of gathering and networking is an important part of building community for the Transition. After eating, we rearranged the room for the talk.
Eisenstein began by saying that he takes feedback seriously and mentioned a couple of things folks have suggested to him in the past about his speaking engagements. First, he referred the "possible inconsistency of format and content." He characterized the format as "a white male standing up talking in front an audience seated in chairs" and said he'd experimented with a circle but with over 30 people it doesn't work so well. (There were somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 people in Montpelier to hear him). Also, he'd been criticized for lack of rigor in the sense of carefully supporting all his assertions. I didn't see this as a problem for anyone who has read his books where he meticulously supports his analysis with fascinating information and references to the work of others, but impossible to do in a lecture, even in two hours. Most people there hadn't read the books (and I'm only half-way through each because he's so rigorous!). His response to this concern was to suggest we view him as a story teller and take in the information as if it were a story.
This issue of consistency of form and content is important to him as he seeks to model new ways of living in line with the ideas he promotes. This is why both books are available online with an explanation that he makes them available as a gift and there's a donation button for the reader to make a cash gift to him if they want. It's not necessary to donate in order to read the book. There is also a statement that reads, "Another gift that Charles appreciates is to spread the ideas of his book as widely as possible during this crucial time of transition." This edition of Navigating the Transition and some previous posts are my gifts to Charles along with many conversations I've had with friends talking about his books. In the basement of the Methodist Church in Montpelier there was a donation basket on the table in the back where print copies of his books were for sale.
The thrust of the story we heard Saturday had to do with the cultural story we live by. (I couldn't help but think of Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, where all cultures have their story which members of the culture live out without necessarily being aware of these cultural assumptions). The central theme of our cultural story is separation, from each other as we see ourselves as isolated individuals and not interrelated and in competition with one another. Also we humans see ourselves separate from nature, living in our own human domain, with progress toward and a goal of controlling nature totally. Charles referred to "the ideology of control," giving fun examples from, for example, 50's and 60's popular culture (think GE ads and The Jetsons) where our expectation was for our future to be full of robots doing all menial tasks and living in a totally controlled climate.
He quickly shifted to the story of money, the theme of Sacred Economics. Our cultural story around money and how it operates is a major force for separation from each other and from nature-the forest doesn't have economic value until it's 'harvested.' He reviewed the notion of money as having value only because of agreed upon symbols ("basically bits in a computer") and how it's basically used to count things, and then suggested that there are some serious problems with how we do money. One is that what we count depends on ideology and judgment. An example would be that natural beauty doesn't have a money value but the products of activities such as logging, mining, drilling, development, etc. that destroy natural beauty do.
Probably the most serious problem with money is how it's created: it is loaned into existence by the central banks at interest. Because of the interest, the economy has to continuously grow or money doesn't work and continuous growth is not possible on a finite resource base. The result: "Everybody is in competition with each other for always not enough money." "Growth of the money system comes with the diminishment of everything else, for example community, open space commons, and so on." He suggests that the formula to make money that has been used over and over again in many different areas of the economy is to find something in the commons (whether it be land or a natural, cultural, intellectual or social resource), appropriate it (mineral rights, drilling leases, patents, copyrights, services to provide that that our close community used to provide) and commercialize it.
"Our financial system reinforces our identity as separate selves," he said, "where the truth might be that it is our basic nature to be connected with one another." (He clearly has a well developed 'Eco Mind'). He speaks of early human economies based on gift giving and suggests the possibility of moving in this direction as we face the breakdown of the systems now in place.
One thing I find in the books and that was present in his talk is the inevitability of it all. When looking at the history of our species, he suggests that it's totally reasonable and understandable that it would have developed this way and come to the situation in which we find ourselves AND he sees the inevitability of it (money, industrial civilization, human self identity as separate from nature) all coming apart and the possibility of a bright future where we realize our eco mind (not his term), our non separation from the natural world and the rebuilding of effective community.
I'll end with another story he told about a recent video he'd seen about a man from a small village in Thailand who moved to Bangkok to get a job, worked long hours, lived in cramped quarters and had little money left to send home to his village. After a time, discouraged, he moved back his village where he was able to live in the traditional manner on a small piece of land working two hours a day for two months per year planting and harvesting. Extra work time enabled him to build himself a house and he was content.
Charles then suggested the reason that most folks in third world countries couldn't do what this man had done could be stated in one word: "Debt." The World Bank lends to developing countries to build infrastructure (bridges, hospitals, airports) and then the economy must shift to production of commodities for export in order to service the debt.
He suggested that it's time for new stories and "one of them is that we're all connected to one another and to all else." "If we co-create new stories with the Earth, we can reclaim life from money."
Someone from Montpelier referred to their time bank, a way of moving toward a gift economy.
I left more convinced that Eisenstein is an important voice in our conversation about Navigating the Transition.
