I believe that we are part of a movement that is greater and deeper and broader than we ourselves know, or can know. It flies under the radar of the media, by and large. It is non-violent. It is grassroots. It has no cluster bars, no armies and no helicopters. It has no central ideology. A male vertebrate is not in charge. The unnamed movement is the most diverse the world has ever seen. The very word movement, I think, is too small to describe it. No one started this worldview. No one is in charge of it. There is no orthodoxy. It is global, classless, unquenchable and tireless. The shared understanding is arising spontaneously from different economic sectors, cultures, regions and cohorts. It is growing and spreading, worldwide, with no exception. It has many roots, but primarily the origins are: indigenous culture, the environment and social justice movements. Those three sectors and their sub sectors are intertwining, morphing and enlargening. This is no longer, or simply, about resources or factions or injustice. This is fundamentally a civil rights movement, a human rights movement. This is a democracy movement. It is the coming world. We do not know how big this movement is. It may be 250,000 groups. It may be 500,000 groups. Itâs marked by kinship, and community, and symbiosis. It is Pachamama. Itâs Mama! Itâs the Earth, talking back, âWaken up!â Itâs so new, we canât recognise it. Weâre familiar with armies, and wars, and governments, and churches and religions. But thereâs no precedent for what weâre doing. What youâre creating is completely unknown. Itâs everywhere. Thereâs no centre. Thereâs no one spokesperson. Itâs in every country and city on Earth. It is within every tribe, every race, every culture, and every ethnic group in the world. This is the first time on Earth that a powerful, non-ideological movement has arisen. And during the span of the 20th century, big ideologies were worshipped, like religions. They dominated our beliefs. They dominated us with socialism, capitalism, and communism. In the words of Ed Hunt, âIdeologies stalked the Earth, clad in armour. They fought for the control of our minds, and the lands, and it wasnât pretty.â We were told that salvation would be found in the domination of a single system. This is where salvation will be found. We know that as biologists. We know that as community organisers. We know that as ecologists. Itâs found in diversity. This movement is humanityâs immune response to resist and heal political disease, economic infection, and ecological corruption, caused by ideologies. So it is up to us to decide. How will we be? Who will we be? This is what it is weâre building: the capacity to respond. It is about possibilities and solutions. Humankind knows what to do. Excerpt from Blessed Unrest: How The Largest Movement In The World Came Into Being And Why No One Saw It Coming by Paul Hawken
Paul Hawken has spent more than a decade researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice. From billion-dollar nonprofits to single-person dot.causes, these groups collectively comprise the largest movement on Earth, a movement that has no name, leader, or location and that has gone largely ignored by politicians and the media.
Blessed Unrest explores the diversity of the movement, its brilliant ideas, innovative strategies, and centuries of hidden history. A culmination of Hawkenâs many years of leadership in the environmental and social justice fields, it will inspire all who despair of the worldâs fate, and its conclusions will surprise even those within the movement itself.
Header Photo by Samuel Ferrara on Unsplash
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