In recent years, we have been observing the emergence of a global network of people and organisations who are acting to catalyse, steward and accelerate what we have called a "Second Renaissance": a major civilisational transition from modernity to a new cultural paradigm.
Great to collect all the outgrowths of dealing with the fundamental need to move from an economic base to humanitarian one. That sort of labeling is another category for a collection of what's in play: from separation to union, from power over to power for, from fear to love, from rugged individualism to caring about each other as much as we care about ourselves, and more.
What you collected is missing what by my lights subsumes all those maps, where, if adopted as humanity's new creation story, would turn us into a species that creates the world we'd want to be in. It's the Universe Story, in a lineage from Teilhard to Thomas Berry to Brian Swimme as its most compelling contemporary storyteller. I repeatedly do posts related to that: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/s/changemaking.
There are a couple of questions that are prompted by what you wrote:
> What you collected is missing what by my lights subsumes all those maps, where, if adopted as humanity's new creation story, would turn us into a species that creates the world we'd want to be in. It's the Universe Story, in a lineage from Teilhard to Thomas Berry to Brian Swimme as its most compelling contemporary storyteller.
This kind of ecumenicism has much to recommend. However, it can also become quite a thin gruel and/or doesn't seem to work as well as we think it should e.g. saying to Christians, Muslims and Jews: "hey you all believe in a judaeo-christian god why don't you all just get back together" doesn't seem to go as we may hope. Even attempts to reunify the anglican and catholic churchs (which are pretty similar) have struggled.
This isn't to say we shouldn't have more unification in general - just that may want to think quite a bit about *why* it turns out to be hard and how "we" could do better (both general humanity "we" and the "we" of those in this second renaissance space).
For my part, i think looking through the commonalities *and* differences and co-sensemaking on those may be helpful.
Overall i think there is probably some kind of trade-off between making your tent bigger in the sense of having a more inclusive and more general narrative *and* having strong alignment that allows you to go far. In short, the bigger your tent the less deep alignment you have which turns out to matter when you want to do stuff.
Or to take a political analogy: large states include more people but the solidarity of the people within that state may be less ... and hence the willingness to engage in fiscal transfer may go down. Concretely put: the US has less welfare than scandinavian countries, perhaps, in large part because it is more culturally diverse.
> That sort of labeling is another category for a collection of what's in play: from separation to union, from power over to power for, from fear to love, from rugged individualism to caring about each other as much as we care about ourselves, and more.
Secondly, and relatedly, I think delving reasonably thoroughly into one's theory of change i.e. both "where do we want to go to" (what does that next paradigm look like) *and* "how do we get there" is important. One of the reasons we wrote the white papers is to try and provide that kind of depth for ourselves -- which we also hope is helpful to others.
For example, there is a commonality across many of these visions that (as you say) "caring about each other as much as we care about ourselves". However, how will that actually come about. Beautiful wisdom teachings from diverse traditions across thousands of years have taught this ... yet it is often hard to do (at least speaking personally 😉). Just saying "oh that would be nice to have" is in danger of what we term "Lennonish Imagine-ism" after John Lennon's famous (and wonderful) song Imagine - i.e. wishful thinking about what the world could/should be like but without any thought-through idea about how it happens.
What you've written makes me think you are not familiar with Brian Swimme, who could go down in history as one of its memorable changemakers. Just to get your attention, he says that the (inevitable) adoption of the Universe Story as humanity's creation story would create as big a shift as Copernicus did, taking Earth out of the center of the universe. And it's not some fanciful idealism but it's what science delivered to us which we haven't caught up with given as complex and enmeshed as all the gears of civilization are. The changes that will be wrought -- if we last long enough to get to them -- would reorder a world where money, that rules now, does not want to relinquish its position. For a little aside, it's why alcohol is legal and psychedelics, that revolutionize thinking, aren't.
How much can I say here? Before Hubble we thought ours was the only galaxy and although now we know there are 2 trillion, our story of who we are and what we are doing here hasn't changed to fit that radically changed understanding. And we thought it was a dead universe, all fixed, with Earth here for our use, but now we know it's an expanding universe -- i.e. it's alive, creating newness all the time. And that it had an origin whereby it all has evolved together, all interconnected. If we got it that we are one humanity (an inspirational storyteller delivers that), we would care about each other instead of the rugged individualism that still rules the day. How to get that story delivered? Join me in looking, as per my invite: "Looking for a committee to think with for a conversation to save the world" https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/looking-for-a-committee-to-think.
What mystics delivered, as per all the wisdom traditions, now has science to validate those perceptions. We ARE one. How much healthier it would have been had we not put gods outside ourselves, and seen Jesus and all the others who are worshipped as having pieced the veil of dense humanity to show us the bigger picture (where we all are sacred creatures in a sacred universe...just look around) that it is game-changing to tune into now.
Can I connect you to Brian? Could he do a program for your people?
And to be clear: i agree that adopting such a story at the level of even a culture (and even better at scale of humanity at large) would be completely transformative. That's the very logic of the second renaissance narrative. The point I'm emphasizing is for us to think in some depth about *how* such a major change in a core cultural narrative comes about. It took several hundred years for modernity to mature and to be adopted by a state elite. Let's hope this time it goes faster 😉
Connecting to Brian has to wait a while. From him: "I'm having surgery on my kidneys next week. The doctor said it'd be two weeks to recover, but it could take six weeks."
You're asked THE question. How? We didn't have the internet before. Also, the up-against-the-wall we find ourselves, where we are ripe for a shift.
It's a question I'll pose for that committee I'm looking for. This was the follow-up post I made to the invite I put out that's above:
Great to collect all the outgrowths of dealing with the fundamental need to move from an economic base to humanitarian one. That sort of labeling is another category for a collection of what's in play: from separation to union, from power over to power for, from fear to love, from rugged individualism to caring about each other as much as we care about ourselves, and more.
What you collected is missing what by my lights subsumes all those maps, where, if adopted as humanity's new creation story, would turn us into a species that creates the world we'd want to be in. It's the Universe Story, in a lineage from Teilhard to Thomas Berry to Brian Swimme as its most compelling contemporary storyteller. I repeatedly do posts related to that: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/s/changemaking.
And here's today's, where in my way I'm doing what you're doing, looking to create a timely path to get to a world that works: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/looking-for-a-committee-to-think.
Thank-you Suzanne.
There are a couple of questions that are prompted by what you wrote:
> What you collected is missing what by my lights subsumes all those maps, where, if adopted as humanity's new creation story, would turn us into a species that creates the world we'd want to be in. It's the Universe Story, in a lineage from Teilhard to Thomas Berry to Brian Swimme as its most compelling contemporary storyteller.
This kind of ecumenicism has much to recommend. However, it can also become quite a thin gruel and/or doesn't seem to work as well as we think it should e.g. saying to Christians, Muslims and Jews: "hey you all believe in a judaeo-christian god why don't you all just get back together" doesn't seem to go as we may hope. Even attempts to reunify the anglican and catholic churchs (which are pretty similar) have struggled.
This isn't to say we shouldn't have more unification in general - just that may want to think quite a bit about *why* it turns out to be hard and how "we" could do better (both general humanity "we" and the "we" of those in this second renaissance space).
For my part, i think looking through the commonalities *and* differences and co-sensemaking on those may be helpful.
Overall i think there is probably some kind of trade-off between making your tent bigger in the sense of having a more inclusive and more general narrative *and* having strong alignment that allows you to go far. In short, the bigger your tent the less deep alignment you have which turns out to matter when you want to do stuff.
Or to take a political analogy: large states include more people but the solidarity of the people within that state may be less ... and hence the willingness to engage in fiscal transfer may go down. Concretely put: the US has less welfare than scandinavian countries, perhaps, in large part because it is more culturally diverse.
> That sort of labeling is another category for a collection of what's in play: from separation to union, from power over to power for, from fear to love, from rugged individualism to caring about each other as much as we care about ourselves, and more.
Secondly, and relatedly, I think delving reasonably thoroughly into one's theory of change i.e. both "where do we want to go to" (what does that next paradigm look like) *and* "how do we get there" is important. One of the reasons we wrote the white papers is to try and provide that kind of depth for ourselves -- which we also hope is helpful to others.
For example, there is a commonality across many of these visions that (as you say) "caring about each other as much as we care about ourselves". However, how will that actually come about. Beautiful wisdom teachings from diverse traditions across thousands of years have taught this ... yet it is often hard to do (at least speaking personally 😉). Just saying "oh that would be nice to have" is in danger of what we term "Lennonish Imagine-ism" after John Lennon's famous (and wonderful) song Imagine - i.e. wishful thinking about what the world could/should be like but without any thought-through idea about how it happens.
What you've written makes me think you are not familiar with Brian Swimme, who could go down in history as one of its memorable changemakers. Just to get your attention, he says that the (inevitable) adoption of the Universe Story as humanity's creation story would create as big a shift as Copernicus did, taking Earth out of the center of the universe. And it's not some fanciful idealism but it's what science delivered to us which we haven't caught up with given as complex and enmeshed as all the gears of civilization are. The changes that will be wrought -- if we last long enough to get to them -- would reorder a world where money, that rules now, does not want to relinquish its position. For a little aside, it's why alcohol is legal and psychedelics, that revolutionize thinking, aren't.
How much can I say here? Before Hubble we thought ours was the only galaxy and although now we know there are 2 trillion, our story of who we are and what we are doing here hasn't changed to fit that radically changed understanding. And we thought it was a dead universe, all fixed, with Earth here for our use, but now we know it's an expanding universe -- i.e. it's alive, creating newness all the time. And that it had an origin whereby it all has evolved together, all interconnected. If we got it that we are one humanity (an inspirational storyteller delivers that), we would care about each other instead of the rugged individualism that still rules the day. How to get that story delivered? Join me in looking, as per my invite: "Looking for a committee to think with for a conversation to save the world" https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/looking-for-a-committee-to-think.
What mystics delivered, as per all the wisdom traditions, now has science to validate those perceptions. We ARE one. How much healthier it would have been had we not put gods outside ourselves, and seen Jesus and all the others who are worshipped as having pieced the veil of dense humanity to show us the bigger picture (where we all are sacred creatures in a sacred universe...just look around) that it is game-changing to tune into now.
Can I connect you to Brian? Could he do a program for your people?
I'd be delighted to be connected with Brian 🎉
And to be clear: i agree that adopting such a story at the level of even a culture (and even better at scale of humanity at large) would be completely transformative. That's the very logic of the second renaissance narrative. The point I'm emphasizing is for us to think in some depth about *how* such a major change in a core cultural narrative comes about. It took several hundred years for modernity to mature and to be adopted by a state elite. Let's hope this time it goes faster 😉
Connecting to Brian has to wait a while. From him: "I'm having surgery on my kidneys next week. The doctor said it'd be two weeks to recover, but it could take six weeks."
You're asked THE question. How? We didn't have the internet before. Also, the up-against-the-wall we find ourselves, where we are ripe for a shift.
It's a question I'll pose for that committee I'm looking for. This was the follow-up post I made to the invite I put out that's above:
"The urgency of NOW/Searching for what to do" https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/the-urgency-of-now
I will seed that with Ideas I've been posting. Here's a summary of them I did a while back: "What's on A ROADMAP TO THE FUTURE? What we-the-people can do" https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/whats-on-a-roadmap-to-the-future