Kalle Lasn, 19 October 2013
As our planetary crisis deepens, radical new visions of the future are bubbling up like never before. All the norms, rules, traditions and taboos that we've taken for granted for centuries are suddenly up for grabs. As Einstein famously pointed out, we cannot solve a problem by using the same type of thinking that created the problem in the first place.
So what are some of the scenarios that could change the direction of our civilization?
Could a new messiah, a modern day Buddha, Muhammad or Jesus, suddenly appear on YouTube with a message that goes viral and sparks a spiritual movement that takes humanity by storm? Could he—or maybe this time a she—demolish all the sacred cows and false gods we currently worship—growth, consumerism, individuality, freedom, progress—and give us a new understanding of the true purpose of our existence here on this Earth?
Could an astronomer sitting in an observatory high in the Andes suddenly stumble upon intelligent life on another planet? What an existential jolt that would be! And then, could the humbling realization that we are not alone, that a spirit really does pervade the whole universe . . . that in the vastness of the cosmos other civilizations on other planets have sprung up, peaked and waned just like ours is doing right now—could this be the answer that finally solves the great civilizational quest for meaning we've been on since our beginnings?
Or, on a more mundane plane, could ten thousand university campuses explode like they did back in 1968 and creatively destroy our current global system? Could the Greek anarchists, Spanish indignados, the Occupy forces, the yabastaers, Gezi greenies and Rio revelers rise simultaneously on a clear Autumn day and pull off a coordinated occupation of the whole world?
Or imagine this: a bunch of fired up back end programmers develop an open source, real world KILLCAP game that gets a billion activists jamming the system every day until the cost of doing business as usual becomes too hard to bear. Yeah, these are beautiful pipe dreams . . . nicely served over a midnight bottle of tequila.
But maybe our best hope of derailing the planetary train wreck is something much more ordinary, anticlimactic even . . . like a slow, imperceptible cultural heave, one that gives way to a renaissance of conviviality. We grow tired of the consumerist orgy, the rat race, the moral one-upmanship . . . the wars, the secrets, the punitive strikes, the holocausts and genocides, the stultifying bureaucracy of techno-capitalism. We move, as Ed Vulliamy wrote in a recent Guardian Weekly article, from “some combination of cocaine, Red Bull and Viagra towards aromatic coffee, a cool aperitif and an afternoon snooze.” We jump from pyramid to rhizome thinking, from a hard helvetica, top-down corpo-driven culture towards a soft, organic DIY one. We learn to play jazz and start living lives of never-ending spontaneous creativity and uninhibited play . . . We wake up one morning feeling happy!
The capitalist algorithm we're currently caught in has turned our planet into a death star. The internet, virtual reality, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, green markets, wind turbines . . . none of these innovations will save us. Our only chance of transitioning into a sane sustainable future is to stumble onto something that we feel in our bones, something not yet here, but the spirit of which—its essence, its taste, its tone, its resonance—we can feel all around us in the touch of a lover, a chat with a bright-eyed stranger, a quiet moment in the wild.
George Washington’s Inaugural Speech April 30, 1789
America’s Covenant with God?
…….”I dwell
on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country
can inspire, since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that
there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between
virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of
an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and
felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of
Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of
order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of
the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of
government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally,
staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”
After his
inaugural speech George Washington, members of Congress and the house of
representatives
proceeded to walk to St. Paul’s Church to pray for America.
Quotes From Jonathan Cahn
Author of The Harbinger
“America was founded on prayer. Therefore, the removal of prayer from its public life was a central part of its fall from God. A nation that turns away from prayer will ultimately find itself in desperate need of it.”
― Jonathan Cahn, The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery that Holds the Secret of America's Future
“Some would call it tolerance, I said. Yes he replied, the
same tolerance that overtook ancient Israel - a tolerance for everything opposed
to God, a growing tolerance for immorality and a growing intolerance for the
pure-a tolerance that mocked, marginalized and condemned those who remained
faithful to the values now being discarded. Innocence was ridiculed and virtue
was vilified. Children were taught of sexual immorality in public schools while
the Word of God was banned. It was a tolerance that put the profane on public
display and removed nativity scenes from public sight..contraband, as if
somehow they had become a threat-a strangely intolerant tolerance. "But
still, I countered, how does all that compare to what happened in ancient
Israel? America doesn't offer its children on altars of sacrifice? "Does
it not? he said. Ten years after removing prayer and Scripture from its public
schools, the nation legalized the killing of its unborn.”
― Jonathan Cahn, The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery that Holds the Secret of America's Future
― Jonathan Cahn, The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery that Holds the Secret of America's Future
