A transformation of some fundamental process or structure within a society.
I was never really comfortable with the conservative-liberal bifurcation of political thought or action. As a teenager, of course, I took exception to every political utterance my father offered. He was a staunch Republican who stood for absolute moral principles and standards of behavior, deviation from which could muster no excuse whatsoever. I was a … More Will the Real Conservative Please Stand up?
I must admit, I was almost as perplexed as the Democrat Party operatives were in struggling over whether they should continue supporting Joe Biden despite the debate disaster or to urge him to step aside for a younger candidate to defeat the would-be dictator—then Joe did what now seems to have been inevitable. Since the … More It’s Time for the Dem’s to Get Tough, and to Strategize
Our hyper-media culture of industrial modernity tends to send us off in all sorts of directions. In fact, tangential thinking seems to dominate most discussions of important matters. For example, I have been in many discussions of how to deal with the destruction caused by the heating of the planet and the extraction of ‘resources’ … More Back to Basics: Can We Return to Reality?
I am often puzzled by various ‘environmentalists.’ (I put the semi-quote marks around the word, since there are many types and variations among folks who either go by the designation or are called that by others.) All the various professionals, activists, academics, and even politicians (well politicians more than any others) go about their work … More There are No Do-Overs Now.
All this talk of Trump getting revenge is puzzling, at least on the surface. What could have possibly befallen the presumed multi-billionaire that could cause him to seek political revenge? Could it be that he actually knows he lost the election and resents the fact so much that he wants to inflict revenge by destroying … More Resilience vs Resentment and Revenge
The obvious can be very difficult for people to see. That is because people are self-correcting systems. They are self-corrective against disturbance, and if the obvious is not of a kind that they can easily assimilate without internal disturbance, their self-corrective mechanisms work to sidetrack it, to hide it, even to the extent of shutting … More Madness or Method: We Know What to Do, But Not How to Do It
Humans are an odd lot. We fret over the future, we lionize the past, and we are in denial about the present. Or, it might not really be about human nature, but rather about the present spot in the devolution of the dominant culture of our time. I think it is the latter. It seems … More Looking Forward: Doom Loop or Hope Spiral
Well, here we go again. The twenty-eighth United Nations “Conference of the Parties” (COP28) began last week in Dubai, the oil-rich city in the nation of the United Arab Emirates, led, believe it or not, by Sultan al Jaber, first CEO to ever serve as COP President. Dr. al Jaber directs Adnoc, the national oil … More Twenty-Eight Conversations Late: Words Without Deeds
My thoughts here were stimulated by a ‘Letter from the Director’ by Beth Sawin, Director of the Multisolving Institute, which I read last month. In that letter, she rightfully struggled over the ‘bad news’ that six of the nine key planetary boundaries between Earth System health and systemic danger had by then been breached. That, … More To Do or To UN-do: Is That the Question?
They are here now, faster and more furious than ever. The increasing intensity and frequency of “extreme weather events” is blatently apparent and associated with ‘global warming.’ Yet, television “meteorologists,” as they call themselves, can muster no more concern than to remark as to how many new high-temperature records were broken today, or what a … More Intensity and Frequency: The New Normal Cannot be Normal at All
