Hi Jamie – Indra here! Thanks for the mention – it was certainly a boisterous conversation and one that rippled through that festival for the following couple of days. But for the sake of my own colleagues and audience at The Alternative Global, I think I should set the record straight on what I said. (For anyone interested in listening to the whole conversation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPXiHSFoMYk&t=758s, I begin at 10.33) I’m a political entrepreneur and author of the book “The Politics of Waking Up: Power and Possibility in the Fractal Age" (Perspectiva Press) which describes an emergent ecocivilisation. I wasn’t contradicting Gabor, I was encouraging him. I reminded him that the current socio-economic-political system that dominates the public space, was designed by men. But that in the past 30 years, another system, historically held by women in the private and personal space, is now rising and shifting these dominant narratives because of the increased connectivity between people, communities and planet.
This new system – arising from human individual and collective waking up and self-organising – does not arise out of Western Civilisation but despite it, as a cosmolocal, global phenomenon. It is alive to - but not reactive to - the failures of modernity, patriarchy, colonialism, whilst building regenerative structures and pluralist culture. For that reason the emergent system appears as a parallel development, closer to Bucky Fuller’s idea of a new system which makes the old one obsolete. I’m in the process of writing a new introduction for a Second Edition of the book to catch up with AI, China and the exponential growth of feminine cultures and structures if you’d like me to send you a copy when it’s done?
Great thoughts here, and I like the view through the pre-tragic, tragic, post-tragic framework.
My conjecture is that there are both Enlightenment elements worth keeping, and there is no need to burn it all down because many aspects of our current civilization will be burned down whether we choose it or not. I agree with Gabor, Indra, and Wade. Humans have the capacity to form cooperative civil structures that allow them to prosper, but those institutions are also subject to corruption and being used to subjugate. And while Western civilization is offender #1, it's not universal.
I think the world is complex and interrelated. As Garret Hardin put it, "You can never do merely one thing". Or John Muir said, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe."
We all have different morals formed by our life experiences. So one thing is good for one and bad for another. When the fox hunts the rabbit, one outcome is good for one creature and bad for the other. The moral judgment depends on which creature you are.
Civilization is a complex web of interactions shaped by both environmental conditions and conscious thought, action, and morality. What we get is a variety of societal structures. It's evolution by natural selection of ideas. Different societies are on different parts of the arc of this evolutionary process. Many indigenous societies have existed for thousands of years. Our nascent Western civilization really only got going in the Industrial Revolution. It's grown rapidly and created more novelty, complexity, and stuff than ever before. We've created lots of good stuff and lots of bad stuff—but how to categorize them is determined by who you are and what you believe. Hence, culture wars.
However, I tend to agree with Joseph Tainter's framework, in which declining marginal returns in complex societies often lead to their collapse. Many past civilizations that collapsed have had at least some component of environmental degradation, often due to their own activities. That's also usually coupled with internal societal issues. Western civilization has both. I think collapse is inevitable.
But collapse doesn't mean universal death and destruction. It just means a rather rapid simplification of how we do things. And maybe a "Great Simplification," as Nate Hagens calls it, is exactly what we need to get back to the things that matter. The beautiful things that make life worth living. The things before smartphones, social media, stock markets, and server farms. The simple things that inspired awe and reverence for nature and the cosmic story being played out, of which we are a part. "The world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower," as Blake wrote.
So yeah, I think much of it will burn down, and we'll remember many good lessons from Enlightenment thinking. And then gradually, we'll forget and do it all over again.
For me, this says it all: "Can we sit in the deep acknowledgment of the pain of the past, while finding the simple courage and clarity to live into the future we want?"
AND we must not dwell on the negative of the past, but also recognize the positive as well.
For example, Thomas Jefferson, the White male slave owner who arguably laid much of the groundwork for the freedom of enslaved peoples and women's rise to prominence in our culture.
I'm not in the #burnitalldown camp. And I'm not interested in defending Western civilization as it has been.
I'm interested in what it could become.
Here's what I've found, both in the science and in my own experience: Human beings have an extraordinary capacity for cooperation. We can live among strangers, build institutions, create laws that protect the vulnerable, and extend compassion across vast distances to people we'll never meet. That capacity is real. It's biological. It's one of the most hopeful things about us.
But—and this matters deeply—that same capacity for cooperation can be weaponized. The discipline, planning, and shared narrative that make civilization possible also make systematic violence possible. Empires, death squads, organized cruelty. These aren't eruptions of primitive chaos. They're highly organized social projects.
So Gabor is right. We cannot retreat into mythology about Western virtue. The atrocities are real, the hypocrisy is real, and honest education demands we name them without flinching.
And Wade is also right. Violence is a human potential, not a Western monopoly. Despair about the future is a kind of intellectual indulgence we cannot afford.
What strikes me most is what happened when Indra spoke. She held both truths at once: the grief of colonizer and colonized in her own bloodline, and the simple, quiet courage to build forward anyway through relationship and conversation.
That's where I find my hope.
Not in the belief that we're becoming "better" through some inevitable biological process. But in the recognition that we can be. Our prolonged capacity to learn, to unlearn destructive patterns, to create institutions that restrain our darker impulses while amplifying our cooperative ones—these are real. They're not guaranteed. But they're possible.
The future doesn't depend on escaping our nature. It depends on consciously choosing which parts of it we cultivate.
Preserve the traditions of reason, rights, inquiry, and accountability. Expose the crimes without flinching. Transform the institutions so cooperation extends beyond the favored few. Use our power to increase human agency, not merely control.
That's the work. That's where the redemption lies.
Dr. Gene Eberts
Stanford University Ph.D., Retired Clinical Psychologist, Creator of the Effortless Change Method™
nicely put! yes, we're complex messy creatures and whether the better angels or worse devils of our natures prevail is a generation by generation toss up
Decision's already been made. Not burning it down, outgrowing the t-shirt. Funny thing is no one sees it as a new system because it's not a monolith, it's distributed, lacy and joyful.
The current regime(s) must die, to allow for the new. Enlightenment ideas haven't yet been implemented in many parts of the world, notably in the Good Ol' US of A - yet the ideas are spreading and frustration is rising.
We must continue the fight for justice, or those who don't play the eternal game will win (to use your phrase).
Hi Jamie – Indra here! Thanks for the mention – it was certainly a boisterous conversation and one that rippled through that festival for the following couple of days. But for the sake of my own colleagues and audience at The Alternative Global, I think I should set the record straight on what I said. (For anyone interested in listening to the whole conversation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPXiHSFoMYk&t=758s, I begin at 10.33) I’m a political entrepreneur and author of the book “The Politics of Waking Up: Power and Possibility in the Fractal Age" (Perspectiva Press) which describes an emergent ecocivilisation. I wasn’t contradicting Gabor, I was encouraging him. I reminded him that the current socio-economic-political system that dominates the public space, was designed by men. But that in the past 30 years, another system, historically held by women in the private and personal space, is now rising and shifting these dominant narratives because of the increased connectivity between people, communities and planet.
This new system – arising from human individual and collective waking up and self-organising – does not arise out of Western Civilisation but despite it, as a cosmolocal, global phenomenon. It is alive to - but not reactive to - the failures of modernity, patriarchy, colonialism, whilst building regenerative structures and pluralist culture. For that reason the emergent system appears as a parallel development, closer to Bucky Fuller’s idea of a new system which makes the old one obsolete. I’m in the process of writing a new introduction for a Second Edition of the book to catch up with AI, China and the exponential growth of feminine cultures and structures if you’d like me to send you a copy when it’s done?
Great thoughts here, and I like the view through the pre-tragic, tragic, post-tragic framework.
My conjecture is that there are both Enlightenment elements worth keeping, and there is no need to burn it all down because many aspects of our current civilization will be burned down whether we choose it or not. I agree with Gabor, Indra, and Wade. Humans have the capacity to form cooperative civil structures that allow them to prosper, but those institutions are also subject to corruption and being used to subjugate. And while Western civilization is offender #1, it's not universal.
I think the world is complex and interrelated. As Garret Hardin put it, "You can never do merely one thing". Or John Muir said, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe."
We all have different morals formed by our life experiences. So one thing is good for one and bad for another. When the fox hunts the rabbit, one outcome is good for one creature and bad for the other. The moral judgment depends on which creature you are.
Civilization is a complex web of interactions shaped by both environmental conditions and conscious thought, action, and morality. What we get is a variety of societal structures. It's evolution by natural selection of ideas. Different societies are on different parts of the arc of this evolutionary process. Many indigenous societies have existed for thousands of years. Our nascent Western civilization really only got going in the Industrial Revolution. It's grown rapidly and created more novelty, complexity, and stuff than ever before. We've created lots of good stuff and lots of bad stuff—but how to categorize them is determined by who you are and what you believe. Hence, culture wars.
However, I tend to agree with Joseph Tainter's framework, in which declining marginal returns in complex societies often lead to their collapse. Many past civilizations that collapsed have had at least some component of environmental degradation, often due to their own activities. That's also usually coupled with internal societal issues. Western civilization has both. I think collapse is inevitable.
But collapse doesn't mean universal death and destruction. It just means a rather rapid simplification of how we do things. And maybe a "Great Simplification," as Nate Hagens calls it, is exactly what we need to get back to the things that matter. The beautiful things that make life worth living. The things before smartphones, social media, stock markets, and server farms. The simple things that inspired awe and reverence for nature and the cosmic story being played out, of which we are a part. "The world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower," as Blake wrote.
So yeah, I think much of it will burn down, and we'll remember many good lessons from Enlightenment thinking. And then gradually, we'll forget and do it all over again.
nicely said!
For me, this says it all: "Can we sit in the deep acknowledgment of the pain of the past, while finding the simple courage and clarity to live into the future we want?"
AND we must not dwell on the negative of the past, but also recognize the positive as well.
For example, Thomas Jefferson, the White male slave owner who arguably laid much of the groundwork for the freedom of enslaved peoples and women's rise to prominence in our culture.
In Response to Your Question
I'm not in the #burnitalldown camp. And I'm not interested in defending Western civilization as it has been.
I'm interested in what it could become.
Here's what I've found, both in the science and in my own experience: Human beings have an extraordinary capacity for cooperation. We can live among strangers, build institutions, create laws that protect the vulnerable, and extend compassion across vast distances to people we'll never meet. That capacity is real. It's biological. It's one of the most hopeful things about us.
But—and this matters deeply—that same capacity for cooperation can be weaponized. The discipline, planning, and shared narrative that make civilization possible also make systematic violence possible. Empires, death squads, organized cruelty. These aren't eruptions of primitive chaos. They're highly organized social projects.
So Gabor is right. We cannot retreat into mythology about Western virtue. The atrocities are real, the hypocrisy is real, and honest education demands we name them without flinching.
And Wade is also right. Violence is a human potential, not a Western monopoly. Despair about the future is a kind of intellectual indulgence we cannot afford.
What strikes me most is what happened when Indra spoke. She held both truths at once: the grief of colonizer and colonized in her own bloodline, and the simple, quiet courage to build forward anyway through relationship and conversation.
That's where I find my hope.
Not in the belief that we're becoming "better" through some inevitable biological process. But in the recognition that we can be. Our prolonged capacity to learn, to unlearn destructive patterns, to create institutions that restrain our darker impulses while amplifying our cooperative ones—these are real. They're not guaranteed. But they're possible.
The future doesn't depend on escaping our nature. It depends on consciously choosing which parts of it we cultivate.
Preserve the traditions of reason, rights, inquiry, and accountability. Expose the crimes without flinching. Transform the institutions so cooperation extends beyond the favored few. Use our power to increase human agency, not merely control.
That's the work. That's where the redemption lies.
Dr. Gene Eberts
Stanford University Ph.D., Retired Clinical Psychologist, Creator of the Effortless Change Method™
nicely put! yes, we're complex messy creatures and whether the better angels or worse devils of our natures prevail is a generation by generation toss up
Very thought provoking panel and article, Jamie.
I am not for either propping up the system or tearing it down. It will die of its own weight.
The chore right now is to network, extend, and create viable local and community alternatives while exiting the system as much as possible
Decision's already been made. Not burning it down, outgrowing the t-shirt. Funny thing is no one sees it as a new system because it's not a monolith, it's distributed, lacy and joyful.
Thanks, Jamie, for listening deeply and between the lines, and capturing and pointing out the pre-tragic, tragic, and post-tragic threads here.
Really appreciated this report and its framing. I keep reminding myself that hope is a virtue.
The current regime(s) must die, to allow for the new. Enlightenment ideas haven't yet been implemented in many parts of the world, notably in the Good Ol' US of A - yet the ideas are spreading and frustration is rising.
We must continue the fight for justice, or those who don't play the eternal game will win (to use your phrase).