We’ve entered the Turning Point

Growing up, those of us born during the middle part of the twentieth century were given the idea that this civilization was reaching a high point of progress and advancement, and that the United States was leading the way. Coming of age, we sensed otherwise. The feeling that we had been misled was actually pretty traumatic. That trauma is what was being acted out during “the Sixties.” The radicalism and the counterculturalism got pretty crazy. It was like a collective breakdown. And then a groping for sensibility and sanity.

It seemed as if we had to re-think just about everything . . . about The System and about our lifeways. About our civilization.

It’s been quite a process. But I believe the answers we’ve found will be recognized as opening doors to a most profound transition. A transition of thought and of direction.

There was a historical inflection point at the Great Cultural Leap Forward fifty thousand years ago; at the Neolithic Revolution ten thousand years ago; at the ascendance into civilization five thousand years ago; and at the Industrial Revolution three hundred years ago. At each of those points the growth rate of human population accelerated. From our current point of direction-change the human population growth rate — along with its production, consumption, pollution, and depletion corollaries — will start to decelerate. That’s quite profound.

Historically it will be viewed as: From approximately the inauguration of Earth Day during the twentieth century, humanity started to re-integrate into the broad community of life; started living more lightly while reinhabiting particular places-on-Earth; started rejuvenating local community life and restoring social sanity.

The new direction will gain momentum slowly. But I believe that it will gain momentum, generation by generation going forward. The consciousness enabling the transition — and the ultimate transformation of our lifeways — has finally, after decades of intense questioning and deep analysis, fully emerged. It’s explicated in a new video series by one of the most advanced thinkers of our era. I urge you to watch it, think about it, and then join the movement for the greening of our society:

https://simplicityinstitute.org/ecological-civilisation-video-series

Samuel Alexander has started producing a series of videos called “Ecological Civilization.”

Introduction: https://youtu.be/WxC-rqY5ngg