spring thoughts

Lately, I have been contemplating what threads tie together the concepts and theories that I have been examining over the last year at Evergreen. As someone who has already started down the road of homeschooling, I was glad to find so much research that confirmed my feelings about education. Having studied the work of Riane Eisler, I have found myself questioning much of what is accepted as the dominant paradigm.  Darwin, for instance, is a good example.  As a confirmed agnostic, I have always scoffed at those who questioned his ideas, taking evolution as an obvious explanation of what came before us, and labeling the rest as fundamentalists of one sort or another. Eisler helped me to understand that as important as Darwin's contribution is to our modern understanding, the notion that competition fuels the process is detrimental and misguided. Biologist Bruce Liption demonstrates that co-operation is a common strategy for life, even at the microscopic level. Eisler shows just how pervasive this acceptance of competition is in our culture, and how damaging that ubiquity can be.

As I look at the world around me, I see that the paradigm of competition is crumbling around the edges.  The winners are resented by the losers, and the losers are getting wiped out. It is time for a new paradigm that helps us to reorder our values in ways that are life-affirming, constructive, and cooperative.

I feel that the domination paradigm has infected many of our public spaces. Ranging from healthcare to education, from housing to the nature of our economy, we need new perspective. Science tells us we are on the brink of climactic disaster; doing things the same old way isn't going to serve anyone for much longer. 

So how can we get there from here?  We can recognize the truth in the work of William Glasser: everything we do is a choice, even the choice of inaction. We can actively make choices that lead us toward growth, health and connection. We can study the work of Marshall Rosenberg, and learn to speak from presence, compassion, and the belief that if we put our minds to it, we can get everybody's needs met. We can study Riane Eisler, who reminds us that human nature isn't defined through competition, and that there have been other successful ways of organizing society. We can practice mindfulness, and be gentle with ourselves and others as we learn new skills that help us to create a future that does, in fact, get everybody's needs met.