How To Improve Society: Culturequake
How can we improve society with 7 billion people addicted to consuming? Easy, our kids will look beyond their parent’s culture that got them into this mess. Yes, there are alternatives.
No offense mom and dad, but you and my grandparents messed up the world. Our forefathers have left us with dwindling resources, crashing climate, narrow-minded thinking, lousy government, poor education, and conditions ripe for pandemics. This goes to show that we have to re-design society for the benefit of our children, and of all life.
By society I mean human social organization. I do not mean civilization. Civilization cannot be fixed; waste no time thinking about it. This is the hardest concept for modern people to understand because we are taught to believe that civilization must continue at any cost.
By improving society, I mean re-inventing a new social organization. Better yet, restore the old one that actually worked. Correct His-story to show that the America’s were a garden of Eden before Columbus spread the civilization mind-virus.
Earth warning label: An ecosystem fails when a species over-expands. Too consuming now, little future for out children.
Think about it for a minute. Humanity somehow survived and evolved over millions of years to create us. How did it do that? Simple. Humanity survived by the diverse interdependency of communities making a living as part of the landscape’s web of life. Humanity survived through tribal communities.
How To Improve Society: Dump The Old And Create New
Tweaking what we have will fail like placing sticks in a river. Instead, we have to change the course of the entire river. Civilization cannot be fixed. Read, Culturequake: The Restoration Revolution.
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. Won’t Get Fooled Again — The Who. Play it loud.
How To Improved Society: Point The Way
Accept Responsibility — We did it. We messed up the planet. We did not examine nor react to the consequences of our actions. As long as we participate in civilization; it is our fault. We own it.
Let Civilization Go — Accept that the way our parents taught us to live is destructive for ourselves, our children and other life. Accept that there are better alternatives.
Think Small — Figure out how to live where we are with our community; our tribe. Connect with similar communities in other locations. After a while, our children may find they live in a tribal nation with a new identity.
Our numbers must become small, from 7.8 billion reduced to maybe 70 million. We maintain 7.8 billion on Earth for a short time by destroying most of the other remaining life until the biosphere runs down.
One Child Families — The only option off the population-precipice upon which we have climbed, are to either collapse or have one-child families. If we wait for collapse, we take most of Nature’s biodiversity down with us. If our children have one-child per couple we will have a peaceful soft landing.
No substantial improvement in society is possible until the human population is reduced probably below 1.6 billion, where is was in 1900 AD. Until then we will still have poverty, scarcity, environmental destruction, pandemics, war and more. Our numbers will have to go much lower still in the long run.
Renounce Ownership
All men and women are equal with all other life. Let us live this truth: end land ownership, end land ownership; end inequity in all ways from homes to education; and last, but not least, put an end to money.
Allow Nature To Heal Herself — Our action must become inaction. Nature knows how to heal by herself without humans. She heals by succession and from opportunistic plants that bring their own nutrients to prairies, to shrub-lands, to woodlands and to forests. When humans remove the dams and the hatcheries, the sheet of life will again flow up the rivers.
Nature is the mother, the teacher and the sustainer of all life. Every living thing has an inalienable right to its own life given to it by The Creator. Praise be to Nature. She is the whole of the seen and unseen universe.
Be Regenerative — We must shift out culture from consuming to being regenerative. A tree can remake itself multiple ways. Being sustainable and eking by until things fall apart is not enough. Regenerative supports the fecundity of life.
Teach Her-Story — Find the epic in time where society changed from indigenous Leavers to destructive Takers. Teach our children the difference of what it means to live in a regenerative society versus our current toxic culture. Teach our children of the time when humanity made the Great Mistake. Read, Culturequake: The Restoration Revolution.
New Languages — Learn a new vocabulary. How we speak and make a living are the primary foundations of our social structure. If we cannot describe a new society, we cannot create it. Right now we do not have the language for a better culture. Cultural self-identity and identity to a place is important. Love where you live; defend what you love — KS Wild.
Useful Education And Livelihoods — Probably 99 percent of skills taught today are useless in a regenerative culture. Even modern farming, fishing and forestry are useless. Start with wildcrafting, herbalism, seed saving, and natural building. An indigenous person knows the name and use of every plant and animal. Make all education free and return to the teachings of indigenous ways.
Access To Resources — Everyone owns nothing. The community members share an equal right to wildcrafts. All resource finds are brought back to the community to be shared with all. This ensures survival by encouraging everyone to share resources even in lean times.
No One Is In Charge — The U.S. Government forced Native American tribes to create counsels. Until this time, there was tribal person in charge to sign away tribal coal to Peabody company.
We must end power over one another. For example, democracy gives elected officials the power over others. Democracy can also be the tyranny of the majority. Consensus does force us to hear all reasonable options.
Optimally, only women vote for leaders of different areas of the community expertise instead of a unified government. For example, in community of Breitenbush Hot Springs in Detroit, Oregon, there are separate managers for each element of the community: reservations, business manager, energy and water systems, kitchen, maintenance, fire fighters, and lodging cleaning. It is the same in indigenous societies: when to move between camps, where to hunt, how to build lodging, shaman healing, women’s health, etc. A community governing system such as the Breitenbush model serves all elements of the community equally and is more effective in serving all varied peoples than a universal or global governing system.
There Is No One Right Answer — People of the original Americas spoke 500 different languages and lived different ways in pre-Columbus times. The common element is that we all must make a living working with Nature, and building biodiversity. This means the end of industrial food and material systems. But, we must cut our population numbers to allow this to peacefully happen. We must also become indigenous as one with our landscape.
Allow Experimentation — End monopolized government systems, the ownership of private property and give access to responsible regenerative uses of land. Basically, end the control system. Allow people to opt-out of the mainstream to create new cultures and set creativity free.
What Can We Do Today?
To keep the population from getting more out of control, consider getting a vasectomy or tubal ligation. Recycling and efficiency alone will not save us or other species. Consuming less will not necessarily make a difference as population growth will eliminate any savings. The only choice of survival we have as a species is to have fewer people on the planet, beginning with this generation choosing a one-child per couple ideology.
Next, educate yourself in a useful livelihood. Become an activist educator, policy maker, nonprofit, or writer. When seeking a community of like-minded friends, Look for skills not money. — Bill Mollison, co-founder of permaculture. Find people who can build a cob cottage, an heirloom timber-frame, or a rocket-mass heater. Learn new skills yourself and seek others who can grow and save seeds, wildcraft food and herbs, treat people with effective herbal remedies. Find people who can tell the time with their fist instead of with a watch. These are imperative qualities and elements needed to build and foster a strong and thriving community that works for all members of the community wheel. Go become part of all life together.
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Chuck Burr is author of Culturequake: The Restoration Revolution. Revised Fourth Edition. 10th Anniversary.
Post Editor, Beth Brown — Beth is a lifestyle writer and former assistant news editor of the Easley Progress. She graduated from Columbia College with a focus on Writing and Public Affairs. She is also a singer/songwriter/musician, yogi, activist and Love Warrior for Mother Earth.
Featured Image: Creekgiving by Will McKay Photography. https://www.willmckayphotography.com/
Originally published at http://culturequake.com on September 14, 2020.
