Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Out of our Ego Houses, into the Collective Intelligence

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Out of our Ego Houses, into the Collective Intelligence

from Radical Relocalization.

...we've forgotten. We forget that we know about being part of a community, a tribe, in a deep and visceral, all-the-time way. Even though it's part of who we are and even though it resides deep in our experience, it moves with us invisibly, like a ghost. It's not noticed. Yet whatever else we are, we still are that.