You are brilliant. The earth is hiring
This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food—but all that is changing.
Communities as hothouses for regenerative culture – part 2
Regenerative Space is a key component of any attempts to build Regenerative Culture. In order for us to adequately meet our fundamental needs we need access to the earth and her gifts, either directly by accessing the land or indirectly by accessing the means through which we can exchange our time for the products of the earth.
For the sake of this argument Regenerative Space consists of two elements: Place and Time.
Communities as hothouses for regenerative culture – part 1
This is Part 1 of Chapter 5 of New Economy, New Systems published by GoodWorks, an imprint of the Schumacher Institute. You can read Part 2 here. Communities as hothouses…
Musings on a soufflé dish or Why Capitalism has no space for love
This Christmas holiday I plan to make a soufflé. Not just any old soufflé, but what is probably the best pudding I have ever eaten, which was made…
From Dismal Science to Language of Beauty
Towards a New Story of Economics
Humans are storytelling beings. In fact one could argue that it is impossible to make sense of the world without story. Storytelling is how we piece together facts, beliefs, feelings and history to form something of a coherent whole connecting us to our individual and collective past, present and future. The stories that help make meaning of our lives inform how we shape and re-shape our environment. This re-created world, through its felt presence in structures and systems as well as its cultural expressions, in turn tells us its story.
We live in a time of powerful globalised narratives. We no longer (or rarely) sit and listen to tales that were born of places we know intimately and told by people deeply connected to these places. Ours is a world saturated with information from every corner of the planet, voiced by ‘storytellers’ on television, radio, the internet, mobile phones, newspapers, billboards, books and magazines. It would appear that we now have access to a multitude of perspectives and, with that, more understanding of the different options open to human beings to live fulfilling lives. In reality however, the majority of us have to conform to a narrow set of rules not of our own making: the rules of economics.