The
Great Turning is a work of amazing scope and depth. This is a wise
and much needed book that shows we can create cultures where our enormous
human capacities for joy, caring, and cooperation are realized.
—Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade
I love this
book! David Korten has done it again - created a masterpiece of big-thinking
to help us find our way in this death-or-life historical moment. With
fascinating analogies, intriguing stories and eloquent analysis, Korten
draws in the reader. He then emboldens us to believe that we can trust
and cultivate the best in the best in ourselves and, despite the lateness
of the hour, choose life. Frances Moore Lappé, author
Hope's Edge and Democracy's Edge
>>The Great Turning is now available on audio from Audible.com®.
David
Korten’s classic bestseller, When Corporations Rule the World,
was one of the first books to articulate the destructive and oppressive
nature of the global corporate economy. Now, ten years later, Korten
shows that the problem runs deeper than corporate domination—with
far greater consequences.
In The Great
Turning, Korten argues that corporate consolidation of power is
merely a contemporary manifestation of what he calls “Empire”:
the organization of society by hierarchies of domination grounded in
violent chauvinisms of race, gender, religion, nationality, language,
and class. The result has been the same for 5,000 years, fortune for
the few and misery for the many. Increasingly destructive of children,
family, community, and nature, the way of Empire is leading to environmental
and social collapse.
The Great
Turning makes the case that we humans are a choicemaking species
that at this defining moment faces both the opportunity and the imperative
to choose our future as a conscious collective act. We can no longer
deny the need nor delay our response. A mounting perfect economic storm
is fast approaching. A convergence of climate change, peak oil, and
the financial instability inherent in an unbalanced global trading system
will bring an unraveling of the corporate-led global economy and a dramatic
restructuring of every aspect of modern life.
We cannot avoid
the unraveling. We can, however, turn a potentially terminal crisis
into an epic opportunity to bring forth a new era of Earth Community
grounded in the life-affirming cultural values shared by most all the
world’s people and eloquently articulated in the Earth Charter.
The Great
Turning is an essential resource for those who understand this need
and are prepared to engage what Thomas Berry calls the Great Work. It
cuts through the complexity of our time to illuminate a simple, but
elegant truth. We humans live by stories. We are held captive to the
ways of Empire by a cultural trance of our own creation maintained by
stories that deny the higher possibilities of our human nature—including
our capacities for compassion, cooperation, responsible self-direction,
and self-organizing partnership.
Changing our
future begins with changing our stories. A work already underway, it
ultimately calls out for the participation of every person on the planet.
The Great Turning points the way to the inspiring outcome within
our reach.
Part I: Choosing Our Future
1. The Choice
2. The Possibility
3. The Imperative
4. The Opportunity
Part II: Sorrows of Empire
5. When God Was a Woman
6. Ancient Empire
7. Modern Empire
8. Athenian Experiment
Part III: America, The Unfinished Project
9. Inauspicious Beginning
10. People Power Rebellion
11. Empire’s Victory
12. Struggle for Justice
13. Wake Up Call
14. Prisons of the Mind
Part IV: The Great Turning
15. Beyond Strict Father Vs Aging Clock
16. Creation’s Epic Journey
17. Joys of Earth Community
18. Stories for a New Era
IMPERATIVE Business as usual is over. The era of cheap
oil is ending, climate change is real and deadly, and the U.S. economy
rests on an unsustainable foundation of financial and environmental
debt. For most people, the debate on each of these issues is now over.
Yet there is little prospect of constructive political leadership coming
from Washington, DC. The initiative in embracing the moral imperative
to fashion a constructive response to a growing planetary emergency
must flow from the community level upward through an inclusive process
that engages the interests and participation of everyone. Earth Community
Dialogues are a response to this imperative.
UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES Earth Community is a term from the Earth Charter,
a declaration of universal responsibility to and for one another and
the Living Earth crafted through consultations involving thousands of
individuals and hundreds of organizations from all regions of the world.
The Charter sets forth four overarching principles: (1) respect and
care for the community of life; (2) ecological integrity; (3) social
and economic justice; and (4) democracy, nonviolence, and peace. These
principles define universal values affirmed by all the world's major
faith traditions and embraced by a substantial majority of the world's
people. They are the foundation values of Earth Community and provide
the guiding framework for Earth Community Dialogues.
BEING THE CHANGE WE SEEK Negotiating a transition from the dominator
relations of Empire to the partnership relations of Earth Community
necessarily centers on nurturing the practice of partnership at all
levels of society from local to national to global. Partnership relations
are a product of trust building and the discovery of mutual interests.
By their nature, partnership relations involve a leadership of the whole
and represent the highest expression of the democratic ideal. Using
instruments of domination as means to achieve the end of partnership
assures failure. Partnership relations must emerge from the bottom up
through processes of mutual empowerment as people discover and cultivate
relationships of trust and otherwise dormant leadership potentials within
themselves. Think of it as a process of community building. Earth Community
Dialogues, which bring together diverse elements of a community around
a commitment to creating a partnership world that works for the whole
of life, are an essential part of this community building process.
DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS An Earth Community Dialogue is best understood
not as a single event, but rather as an intentional, broadly inclusive,
ongoing conversation centered in a community of place the embraces a
commitment to:
The defining
principles of the Earth Charter
The moral
imperative to create a world that works for all
Racial,
religious, cultural, political, and class diversity
Mutual
respect, deep listening, heartfelt communication
Values
based learning and problem solving
The work
of gaining currency for stories of Earth Community.
The individual
dialogues take many forms and go by many names, but share an underlying
commitment to turning the current planetary emergency into an opportunity
to create a world aligned with the deeper values most humans share.
A small group or even a single individual might initiate an Earth Community
Dialogue in a given locality, perhaps from within a local church, mosque,
synagogue, interfaith alliance, local government, college, socially
responsible business, or local nonprofit organization. It might build
on and support existing initiatives intended to advance local agriculture,
energy self-reliance, green building, or support for local businesses.
It might begin with a series of discussions on The Great Turning, a
YES! Circle, Conversation Café, or other regular discussion group.
As these dialogues take root in a growing number of localities, they
create a growing potential to merge into ever-larger dialogues of the
whole.
STRATEGIC PREMISE We humans are captive to self-limiting stories
that deny the possibility of any alternative to humanity's current suicidal
path. To change course, we must step forward to break the silence that
prevails when truth remains unspoken, end the isolation that undermines
community, change the stories that define the prevailing culture, and
thereby turn the human species to a future that works for all. Our collective
behavior will change as our collective stories change. No matter how
small the individual voice, it can contribute to changing the national
conversation, and thus our politics and the course of the human future.
POSSIBILITY Possibilities for a rapid expansion of the
processes of positive bottom up leadership in the United States are
far greater than our nation's bitter political divisions might suggest.
Eighty-three percent of Americans believe that we are as a country focused
on the wrong priorities. Substantial majorities of both conservatives
and liberals want to see greater priority given to children, family,
community, and a healthy environment. In short, a substantial majority
of Americans feel out of step with the way things are going and embrace
the foundational values of Earth Community. The result is a historic
moment of opportunity to make a conscious choice to turn from away the
sorrows of 5,000 years of Empire and embrace the joys of Earth Community.
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David
Korten’s classic bestseller, When Corporations Rule the World,
was one of the first books to articulate the destructive and oppressive
nature of the global corporate economy. Now, ten years later, Korten
shows that the problem runs deeper than corporate domination—with
far greater consequences.