Comments on: Empire is dead, long live Empire

By: Facilitating Paradox

Facilitating Paradox — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 14:40:33 +0000

Something Earth-Changing is Afoot…

A more detailed look at the Great Turning: Paul Hawken shares his experiences and findings in this Orion Magazine article. He estimates there are over 2 million groups around the world all working toward a sustainable future, socially, economically, a…

By: Dhiro

Dhiro — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 18:11:40 +0000

Hear! Hear! One pervasive myth of Empire is that human beings are inherently violent, greedy and competitive. This is a MYTH that contradicts both scientific study and common experience. It doesn’t help that societies are engineered to promote violence, greed and competition.

http://greatturning.wikispaces.com/Myths+of+Empire
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1463
http://www.thegreatturning.net/

By: hafidha sofia

hafidha sofia — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 15:28:11 +0000

We have to decide how we are going to live - if we are going to live. I don’t think we’ve spent even a fraction of the available resources, time and people power on considering and developing viable alternatives.

One of the things we learn from looking at the cooperative and empire histories of the human race is that fundamental change can happen. But we will have to be intensely creative and committed to creating change in this increasingly politically interconnected world.

The question we should be trying to answer now is how can a society that has the aim of partnership and caring survive in the face of dominator societies?

We are missing a lot of imagination the subject, and I suspect it’s largely because not enough heads have been put together. Some of the greatest minds in the world are still lamenting our “inherent” human nature to destroy and oppress. So long as people think that empire is the natural state of humanity, or that human beings are born wanting to know how to blow things up most magnificently, our ability to create a new world for ourselves is delayed.

By: Lance

Lance — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 04:49:58 +0000

I’m not convinced we’ll grow out of it, at least not without significant evolution away from our apparently wired-in us-vs-them tribal attitudes. We humans just can’t seem to avoid playing the us-vs-them game, no matter how hard we try.

By: Dhiro

Dhiro — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 22:27:35 +0000

Yes, that’s the nature of the beast. That’s why people like David Korten and Yes Magazine are trying very hard NOT to be ANTI-Empire but rather PRO-Earth Community. The more we develop stories and myths about it, the more we focus on just & sustainable practices, the better our chances of creating something that is truly anti-empire in the way that anti-matter has nothing to do with matter.

By: Jaume

Jaume — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 22:21:29 +0000

Hmmm, Empire Reloaded… Are you sure that you are Chutney, and not Chutney 6.0? That there were no other Chutneys before you? You are the anomaly, you know. And by the way, which door will you choose this time?

By: anonymous

anonymous — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:57:26 +0000

As Pete Townshend pointed out: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

I agree with you, Chutney. Seems as though its human nature to build empires and hierarchies. I wish it weren’t, but it’s human nature we’re fighting.

I wonder if we’ll evolve out of it, or if we’re beholden to our own primeval nature as the most complex creatures of the Animal Kingdom. I sit and contemplate how in the span of all time, we humans have only been “civilized” for a brief fraction of the entire life of the world.