The Great Turning
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
This group exists to bring together people inspired by the writings of David Korten (The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community), Joanna Macy (Coming Back to Life: The Work That Reconnects) and Brian McLaren (Everything Must Change). We will engage in conversation about how to move ideas and practices of Earth Community forward. Related websites inclu ...learn more
GROUP DETAILS
Created: Apr 29, 2008
Updated: Nov 20, 2009
Membership: Open To Apply
Semi-Private
Topic: The Gap Between the World We Have and the World Most People Want
Posts (1 - 5 of 5)
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Dear David, I'm a student of your work from Jakarta, Indonesia. Have been reading numerous insightful and inspirational articles from YES! Magazine and would love to read and comment upon The World We Want, but the link seems to be dead or point to a non-existent page in your site. Or is it just me? |
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Bowo: Sorry for my delay responding to your note. Delighted to have you in this discussion and to know that you are a YES! fan.
You may not know that Fran, my wife, and I lived in Indonesia for five years in the mid-1980s and have a deep affection for your country.
Sorry about the link. It works for me so I'm not sure why you are having a problem. This is the full URL for the article. Try pasting it into your browser: http://davidkorten.org/content/world-we-want. It represents some of my most current thinking. I look forward to your comments.
David |
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Well I posted a reply, pressed the wrong button an lost it all. To recompose things straight after is strangley fustrating don't you think? Perhaps the world I want doesn't really involve computers? But to move back to the question you pose David. I agree that it is about the stories we tell each other about who we are. But also don't you think it may also go deeper? I mean we are stuck within a very constricting story at the moment, and we need a better one, this is true. But surely the problem lies around the question of why is it that we don't seem to be able to allow the story to be just that, a story? Why do we constantly confuse the relative for the absolute. The story becomes concretised and then is a truth that we fight over, as we come into conflict with "competing narratives". What is the way that we can put things back into order, and see the story as the relative, as the means of the formulation of perspective, and the absolute as the divine, as the sacred, which is beyond all stories, and yet is the subject of all stories at the same time. There is lots of talk of the truth of science, yet still this is just another story, another perspective. I think that we get what we really want, when we sort out this fundamental level confusion.
Lauren |
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David,
I have read all three of your books. I thought "When Corporations Rule the World" is an exceptional book. Being an Ecological Economic Planner witha MBA, I greatly appreciated what you had to "say".
Have you ever read "Changing Course" by Stephen Schmidheiny? He sets out to describe how to make the Capitalist system sustainable. While his remedies are not even close to being sufficient, he does a good job at documenting how the Capitalist Finance system works. I recommend it from that perspective.
I have created a blog and have been busily writing this past week. My interests span the full range of "great turning" issues and concerns such as financial systems reform, neighborhood/community/regional and global ecological economic planning, transportation planning, health care reform, and more.
I greatly respect your values, knowledge, writing ability, and your potential to influence others. Please peruse the twelve concise essays at your earliest convenience. I would greatly appreciate your feedback and input.
www.peoplesequityunion.blogspot.com
Thanks in advance, and I think that working together we just may be able to do some great things.
With much love and care,
Mike Morin |
There is considerable evidence that beneath our many evident differences most all of the world's people want the same thing: happy healthy children, families, communities, and natural systems. If this is true, then why is there such an enormous gap between the world we have and the world we want? Why don't we just get together and create the world we all want? Getting together to create the world we want is exactly what we must now do, because the world we want is much the same as the world we must now create if there is to be a human future.
I suggest that the primary barriers reside in the stories and institutions of Empire that deny our human possibilities for cooperation, compassion, and service. Change begins with a conversation about the possibility of overcoming the barriers and moving on.
I address these questions at greater length in a paper The World We Want based on my presentation to the 2008 Seattle Green Festival and invite your comments.