Greetings,
I’ve known Brian for over 20 years and we’ve been in frequent touch most of that time, sharing ideas and discussing activism. I’m in awe of the number and scope of projects Brian has contributed to. In this posting he tells us about his vision of a transformed world view, and the projects he is involved in currently to help manifest that vision.
Brian Hill wrote:
Hi Richard,
Here is my contribution to your constructive dialog:
I really like your present perspective. Hopefully others will tune into its reality. Here’s what I see left out – China seems to be following the traditional imperial nation state model in the East and here in the Americas. Its economic hitmen are acquiring new lands and peoples. It’s military is exploding. This is at least as counter revolutionary as WHO and the Western financial control of the Security Council, For me, China seems well set to go through the same imperialist cancer cycle as every other empire that has ever been. However the new world view is happening, it is pretty inevitable, unless we successfully destroy human life on earth, but when we will finally flush the exploitative world view still seems far away.
A well respected Systems Ecologist friend is proposing a new economy which values health. Instead of more being better, better is better. And he suggests a new bio- currency. Perhaps this integrates well with your thinking? It seems to me that a culture’s world view is the soul of that culture, and when a culture’s world view changes, the whole culture changes. My lifelong dedication has been to help nurture the new world view that was born out the 60s – the 180 degree change from the old culture world view of competition, control and exploitation to the new world view of harmony, reciprocity and sensitivity. Cultures usually slowly evolve new world views. Even the Industrial Revolution (so-called) was but a speeded up progression of class structured nation states. So I think the 180 degree culture change that made the 60s was the most profound since the invention of farming following the last great global warming which began the conversion of family based culture to male/conscious mind dominated class based culture. This is the cultural tsunami that has been little by little sweeping all cultures except those still caught in throes of the final stages of imperialism.
Why not “a global culture of bioregionally unified tribal nations”? You don’t seem to be taking into account Marshall McLuhan’s observation from the early 70s or late 60s that we are approaching a new phase in human cultural evolution in that this is the first human time that one culture is world wide, therefore the old model of nation states competing with one another will take on new forms. He predicted that this “universal literacy”, as he called it, will ultimately democratize the world because the truth would be known, i.e., in order for media to sell its products they will have to be advertised on the channels that are popular, and in order for media to be popular it must present the public with the latest socio-cultural occurrences, including the truth. You may object to this but, you surely must consider how universal cultural literacy will shape our future. My perpetually optimistic view is that for the first time the new global culture will use its conscious and sensitivity understandings to make the choices that will best promise global health and stability. The new world view will be conscious of its spontaneity, so the right choices will be consciously aligning ourselves with natural processes. And, yes, I understand that present radical fringes like Fox and MSNBC seem to make this seem impossible, but I’m pretty sure that they have reached limits of absurdity and will soon become mere farts in the wind just like Donald Trump.
And, let’s not forget to include the growing unity of the grass roots left and right against the 1% which is becoming more and more universal as the rulers squeeze everything they can out of us and the earth with little concern for the future. Indigenous peoples of the world are uniting, world labor and employee owned businesses are dawning, women of the world, psychedelic science is synthesizing spirit and science (see MAPS), environmental consciousness is unavoidable, family based culture is succeeding where the middle class has failedl.
A small group of us are presently putting together a cooperatively owned company made up of loggers, enviros and Native Americans which will do its best to inspire the profitable restoration of northern CA and southern OR forests and farming lands. We smile when we work together and share social events.
A friend and I have been planning on coming to Ireland to pay our respects to an old friend. Maybe we can visit.
BrianThanks Brian, very inspiring stories. You could be right about China. If so, China will be following in America’s footsteps, asregards hypocrisy. While America uses ‘freedom and democracy’ to mask its imperialism, China would be using ‘harmony and fairness’.If you make it to Ireland, then for sure let’s meet up.richardShare: