Imagining A Sustainable And Regenerative Society with Daniel Pinchbeck

Program Number: 3604

Change is going to come no matter what, so it behooves us to engage our imagination toward the kind of future we want. We need to go deep into what truly makes us happy. Pinchbeck is advocating nothing less than the need to embrace our responsibility for understanding what’s happening and play an active part in caring for the world. Even though the ecological data are frightening, he looks at the situation as an opportunity, as a kind of potential for global awakening, and an initiation that could shift humanity from its present self-involved, ego-based state to something more inclusive and transcendent. He emphasizes the need for good ideas to be in place in this unfolding planetary crisis, and reminds us of Milton Friedman, who has said that when a crisis comes the ideas that get applied are the ones that are lying around. Pinchbeck says of emerging social structures, “If you look at the history of evolution, biologists talk about how cooperation is more successful than competition.” He also outlines many present models of cooperation and he feels that this time in our human history can serve as our initiation to the next level of consciousness: ecologically, socially, politically, and spiritually. (hosted by Justine Willis Toms)

Bio

Daniel Pinchbeck has been described as a radical futurist. He’s a philosopher and keen cultural observer. He was featured in the 2010 documentary, 2012: Time for Change and was host of the talk show, MindShift, on Gaiam TV. He directed the think tank, Center for Planetary Culture. His essays and articles have appeared in a vast range of publications, including the New York Times, Esq., Rolling Stone, ArtForum, Dazed and Confused, The Village Voice and many other publications. In 2007, Daniel launched the web magazine Reality Sandwich and co-founded Evolver.net. Evolver currently includes Evolver Learning Labs, a webinar platform, and The Evolver Network, a nonprofit initiative. Daniel also edited the publishing imprint, Evolver Editions with North Atlantic Books.

Daniel Pinchbeck is the author of:

• Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism (Broadway Books 2003)
• 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl (Tarcher/Perigee 2007)
• How Soon is Now: From Personal Initiation to Global Transformation (Watkins Publishing 2017)

To learn more about the work of Daniel Pinchbeck go to www.danielpinchbeck.io.

Topics Explored in This Dialogue

• How our present ecological crisis can serve as a wakeup call for humanity
• How humanity does best when it has a common goal
• How technology alone cannot turn the tide of climate change
• Why we need to shift our vision of what progress consists of
• What is the correlation between economics and the inequality of wealth
• Why we need to create a shift in the way we create wealth and abundance in the world
• How artificial scarcity creates winners and losers
• How traditional or tribal cultures are community-based
• How there is a great opportunity for creating positive change when social and other structures are breaking down
• What will the evolution of social technologies look like
• Why we need to be an informed citizenry
• Why we are not prepared socially to manage unlimited clean energy sources, if they were available to us right now
• Why a process of initiation is necessary in order to reach a higher level of awareness
• How humans are like a giant, super-organism on the planet

Host: Justine Willis Toms          Interview Date: 3/7/2017         Program Number: 3604