A New Story
Since the beginning of time people have been telling stories from Gilgamesh in Iraq to The Odyssey in Greece. These tales convey lessons and societal values and warnings about arrogance. The U.S. spins its own yarns. Take say, the one about brave pioneers who fought off savage Indians to settle the country and establish dominion from coast to coast. That Indians were defending their land against invasion is, well, an inconvenient fact. Fast forward to today and there are stories about the economy. If you work hard enough you’ll be justly rewarded. Money is everything. The market is all knowing. Bow before it. Worship it. The Earth is simply a source of raw materials. Inequality and environmental destruction are unfortunate but unavoidable. How do you change the narrative, change the story to reflect an ethical, compassionate and nurturing worldview?
Speaker
David Korten
David Korten is a philosopher and visionary. For several decades he was an insider in the development establishment. He worked for the Ford Foundation and USAID and taught at Harvard’s Graduate School of Business. Having severed his ties to the past, today he is a leading voice for economic and social justice. He is a co-founder of YES! magazine and author of When Corporations Rule the World, The Great Turning, Agenda for a New Economy and Change the Story, Change the Future.
Helen Haug –
Chapter 1: God created Heaven & Earth and everything in it. He created Man and gave him dominion over all, commanding him to be fruitful and multiply and cover the earth.
And so we did. We have multiplied exponentially and dominated as much of God’s Creation as we possibly could. And God says, “Well done, you have assured your continuation on this planet. Now for the next step.”
Chapter 2: We are not listening to God’s next-step instructions; we are stuck in the carrying out of the first instructions way beyond His intent in issuing them. God is now saying, “Stop the cacophony of praise and petition and thanksgiving and blame and just listen. Stop blaming me for disastrous ‘acts of God’ while dependent on famine and pestilence and war to limit your numbers. Just stop and listen for further instructions.”
The new commandment seems to be for all God’s Children to take care of each other instead of racing to produce more and more offspring to inherit more and more wealth and power over each other. Stop forcing women to bear children; stop owning each other; stop abusing each other and the earth; stop treating the rest of Creation as an extractive resource. Put all that energy and cleverness into taking care of each other instead of constantly petitioning God to save us from the results of our folly. Just listen; God is speaking. And it is rude to interrupt Him.
gary gackstatter –
We desperatelyrics need a vision for the future beyond the next election cycle. We desperately need a sustainable mutually agreed upon plan.