Butterfly Future (Effective activism in these times) by Hank Stone, Rochester, NY, July 11, 2012
Opposing current wars is not enough. Even opposing the war system of dispute settlement is not enough.
Opposing fracking, coal burning, and the XL Pipeline is not enough. Opposing billions in subsidies for the fossil fuel and nuclear industries is not enough.
Opposing immorality by banks, corporations and government is not enough. Even opposing all injustice is not enough.
There is a complex, interconnected, international, and powerful system that profits from wars, fossil fuel use, and from corporate government. Our money-driven government hardly resembles the democracy we were taught about in school.
We engaged citizens write letters, protest and demonstrate. Yet we keep being surprised by our ineffectiveness.
The underlying problem is that the whole Western world is living unsustainably – beyond its means. We citizens want to “adjust” society so that the prosperity we have enjoyed for our whole lives can continue, without unwanted side-effects, like war and climate change.
Our money-driven government is broken. But it can’t be fixed, because pretending that corrupt government is the problem allows us all to avoid facing our difficult situation.
The system is a caterpillar, ravenously devouring the world’s resources. For generations, we enjoyed great wealth and power as a result. Now, that consumption endangers our future.
We cannot “adjust” the caterpillar to become the butterfly. It must be “transformed.”
In the cocoon, the caterpillar is destroyed from within, dissolving into a soup of nutrients. From that soup, “imaginal” cells assemble themselves into the butterfly.
Make no mistake! The human race is just starting out! We can have a peaceful, just, prosperous, sustainable, and transcendently beautiful future on this planet. Ideas for creating this future are on the shelf. For generations wise and good people have thought about what to do, but the time wasn’t right.
Our caterpillar society is unsustainable, and so cannot be sustained, despite our earnest attempts to adjust it. Opposition to wrong social choices is not enough.
For a positive human future to emerge from today’s society, new thinking will be required. We must tell a new story. We must be the imaginal cells for that future society. Effective activism in these times requires that we describe the positive future we want.
We must name and proclaim our butterfly future.
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