To be or not to be: Responding to the 2020s

Many people despair and fear for the future of the planet, for civilizational collapse, for social inequity beyond human comprehension, for the disappearance of the rule of law, the list goes on.  How many of us feel overwhelmed, powerless, and ready to give up? 

Andrew Welch, our guest speaker this weekend, feels the same way.  And yet he is convinced that there is a solution out there.  Somewhere. Join us on Sunday as he shares his latest thoughts on that search.

Watch the recording here

READINGS

George Monbiot: "How Do We Get Out of This Mess?”

“These are the central, crucial facts about humankind: our amazing altruism and cooperation. But something has gone horribly wrong. Our good nature has been thwarted by the dominant political narrative of our times, which tells us that we should live in extreme individualism and competition with each other. It pushes us to fight, fear, and mistrust each other. It weakens the social bonds that make our lives worth living. And into that vacuum grow these violent, intolerant forces. We are a society of altruists, but we are governed by psychopaths."

Václav Havel, intro to "The Power of the Powerless"

“A spectre is haunting Eastern Europe: the spectre of what in the West is called "dissent". This spectre has not appeared out of thin air. It is a natural and inevitable consequence of the present historical phase of the system it is haunting. It was born at a time when this system, for a thousand reasons, can no longer base itself on the unadulterated, brutal, and arbitrary application of power, eliminating all expressions on nonconformity. What is more, the system has become so ossified politically that there is practically no way for such nonconformity to be implemented within its official structures...