Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The Golden Rule: Theirs and Ours [a must read]

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

Sunday, April 7, 2013

The Golden Rule: Theirs and Ours [a must read]

Click here to access article by Paul Street from Z Communications.

This article inspired by the author's reading of Gary Olson's new book, Empathy Imperiled: Capitalism, Culture, and the Brain, expresses the core values and political outlook of this blog better than any other article I have posted in the three plus years I've been maintaining my blog.

Read it and you will inevitably be led to the profound conclusion contained in his last sentence:

Our task as “dangerous Samaritans” and revolutionaries is to more properly align our institutional and ideological order with our underlying human and caring nature. Given the currently “ecocidal” level of capitalism’s threat to a livable environment, that task would now appear to be nothing less than a life or death matter for the species.