Tracking coordinates of possibility
Ethics beyond collapse
Since the inception of the Restorative Practices Alliance, which has always been conceived as a global alliance whose core mission is to renature the human family, we have been seeking models of governance and economic models that are congruent with our ethics, which are essentially drawn from Nature, and the expression of nature in Small Band Hunter Gatherer cultures, which represent the baseline of human normalcy.We observe, with reverence, that each of us has been gifted with life, though we in no way deserve such a magnificent gift, nor could we ever repay it. We find ourselves somehow on the one planet in the known universe with a biosphere capable of supporting us, where there is air to breathe, water to drink, and food to eat. We find ourselves enfleshed in bodies which, although they have an extraordinary capacity for suffering, are also endowed with physiological systems of such exquisite refinement that they can sing, dance, feel, and love in ways that most of us barely understand and too rarely experience.
Simply by being astounded at the generosity of Nature, and experiencing gratitude for Life, we have sought, and continue to seek, in our work at the Alliance, to align the way that we organize its governance and economic models with this appreciation.
At the same time, we find ourselves at a moment in history, where we are witnessing the endstages of a form of neoliberal capitalism whose core underpinnings are frameworks of domination, whose core logic is of extraction, and whose expression is enclosure.
The polycrisis of the modern world is, in fact, the perfectly logical teleological expression of this economic and cultural system, which is a self-terminating algorithm.
Capitalism turns the world into a mine, and renders virtuous those most effective at extracting from it. Its emblematic technology is the extraction engine.
We soberly recognize that this model of treating our Mother Earth, which elaborates from a domination paradigm rooted in empire and conquest, undergirds colonialism and enslavement, and is a form of mental illness. It is also making modern humans very sick.
Modernity, as expressed by our current economic and cultural praxis is functionally a death cult, driving all of life towards extinction.
Acculturation into this death cult, which takes place informally through indoctrination into cultural praxis in families and society, and which takes place formally through increasingly technical schooling, produces increasingly capable death technicians, who are trained to 'think' in ways that are detached from biospheric reality, and who are unleashing increasingly complex forms of 'technology' with no regard for the original instructions which govern what is permissible within the living laws of Life herself.
Modernity, as expressed by our current economic and cultural praxis is functionally a death cult, driving all of life towards extinction.
Acculturation into this death cult, which takes place informally through indoctrination into cultural praxis in families and society, and which takes place formally through increasingly technical schooling, produces increasingly capable death technicians, who are trained to 'think' in ways that are detached from biospheric reality, and who are unleashing increasingly complex forms of 'technology' with no regard for the original instructions which govern what is permissible within the living laws of Life herself.
The development of the modern sciences, so-called, which are characterized by technical competency in thinking based on dismantling complex systems down to their constituent elements (decay processes), but which systematically lack awareness of how complex systems create and conduct processes that self-organize into higher order (life processes) are unleashing, across most domains of science, 'technologies' that are in fact elaborate forms of death summoning.
From genetic engineering, whose crude alterations of DNA, made with no understanding of the trans-biotic context of eco-systems, is unleashing altered organisms into the eco-system whose consequences are potentially vile beyond measure, to artificial intelligence, whose very name should give us pause, which is generating clones of denatured mind in silicon-based form whose potential utility is matched by the existential risks they unleash, these are technologies developed with almost no understanding of their potential consequences.
We are developing things that rely on half of our brains, and sending them into the world with an astonishing lack of awareness of their consequence, because the essential mental models that we use to evaluate what is permissible are derived from modes of narcissism.
All of these 'technologies so-called' are the product of modes of thinking that are detached and denatured from the fundamental requirements of life because they are generated by foundationally alienated humans. Humans who are profoundly and multi-generationally traumatized, which essentially all modern humans are, generate thoughtforms that express this trauma. This foundational alienation expresses in people who are upside-down; whose minds are telling their hearts what to do, rather than whose hearts are telling their minds what to do.
We lack the ethical fortitude to consider our potential impacts on the next seven generations of life on earth, which is the appropriate metric whereby such undertakings must be judged.
From genetic engineering, whose crude alterations of DNA, made with no understanding of the trans-biotic context of eco-systems, is unleashing altered organisms into the eco-system whose consequences are potentially vile beyond measure, to artificial intelligence, whose very name should give us pause, which is generating clones of denatured mind in silicon-based form whose potential utility is matched by the existential risks they unleash, these are technologies developed with almost no understanding of their potential consequences.
We are developing things that rely on half of our brains, and sending them into the world with an astonishing lack of awareness of their consequence, because the essential mental models that we use to evaluate what is permissible are derived from modes of narcissism.
All of these 'technologies so-called' are the product of modes of thinking that are detached and denatured from the fundamental requirements of life because they are generated by foundationally alienated humans. Humans who are profoundly and multi-generationally traumatized, which essentially all modern humans are, generate thoughtforms that express this trauma. This foundational alienation expresses in people who are upside-down; whose minds are telling their hearts what to do, rather than whose hearts are telling their minds what to do.
We lack the ethical fortitude to consider our potential impacts on the next seven generations of life on earth, which is the appropriate metric whereby such undertakings must be judged.
I am speaking with this level of directness at a moment when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has confirmed that humanity has breached the 7th out of 9 planetary boundary conditions. We continue to dig out the mine that we perceive the world to be, even as it is collapsing on us.
Although many modern humans are asleep to these conditions, entranced by the distractions available to them digital and otherwise, even those capable of recognizing the excruciating trade-offs required to endure these cultural death momentums are starved for alternate thoughtforms that would allow us to escape the mine.
The Restorative Practices Alliance is therefore embracing, as part of our necessary work, the tracking of the coordinates of possibility required to exit this labyrinth.
Although many modern humans are asleep to these conditions, entranced by the distractions available to them digital and otherwise, even those capable of recognizing the excruciating trade-offs required to endure these cultural death momentums are starved for alternate thoughtforms that would allow us to escape the mine.
The Restorative Practices Alliance is therefore embracing, as part of our necessary work, the tracking of the coordinates of possibility required to exit this labyrinth.
Having succeeded already in determining how to do this physiologically, we turn our attention in this next stage to the question of how to do so organizationally, with the hope that this inquiry will be of service to Life.
We assert the necessity hereby to move beyond a capitalist frame. We assert the necessity to step outside of, in our conceptualization, economic and governance models determined by capitalism, which we assert to be products of alienated thought; artifacts of empire.
In our conceptualization of post capitalism we are drawing heavily on the work of Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy, and their work at the Transition Resource Council. In this awareness, we are seeking to define coordinates of possibility leading from where we are to where we want to be, where we are coming from to where we are headed to. We are seeking to transition our model from that of a mine to that of a garden.
The necessity to make this transition, as well as the specific actions and conceptualizations whereby we are so doing are arriving through our study and experience of how to navigate this moment, fueled by our own directed experiences and the inputs from our advisory network.
Our work is aiming to be neither 'for-profit' nor 'non-profit' but rather resiliently economically viable in a post transactional framework. Economics are, although required to keep the ligths on, at some level incidental to our purpose. We want to use capital as a tool with the level of technical rigor it is deployed in business, while inverting the core logics of extraction and enclosure that characterize the domination thoughtforms of the -ism.
This work that is emerging requires that it clothe itself in the body of a global village. It yearns to become mycelial, a network of rootedness to bind together islands of resistance and restoration in the midst of an increasingly accelerating and inevitable collapse of an extractive worldview.
Your support of our work, in addition to supporting our rigorously researched and tested model of wellbeing will now help us to track our way out of the mine and (back) into the garden.
May your heart guide your mine(d).
–Gabriel
We assert the necessity hereby to move beyond a capitalist frame. We assert the necessity to step outside of, in our conceptualization, economic and governance models determined by capitalism, which we assert to be products of alienated thought; artifacts of empire.
In our conceptualization of post capitalism we are drawing heavily on the work of Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy, and their work at the Transition Resource Council. In this awareness, we are seeking to define coordinates of possibility leading from where we are to where we want to be, where we are coming from to where we are headed to. We are seeking to transition our model from that of a mine to that of a garden.
The necessity to make this transition, as well as the specific actions and conceptualizations whereby we are so doing are arriving through our study and experience of how to navigate this moment, fueled by our own directed experiences and the inputs from our advisory network.
Our work is aiming to be neither 'for-profit' nor 'non-profit' but rather resiliently economically viable in a post transactional framework. Economics are, although required to keep the ligths on, at some level incidental to our purpose. We want to use capital as a tool with the level of technical rigor it is deployed in business, while inverting the core logics of extraction and enclosure that characterize the domination thoughtforms of the -ism.
This work that is emerging requires that it clothe itself in the body of a global village. It yearns to become mycelial, a network of rootedness to bind together islands of resistance and restoration in the midst of an increasingly accelerating and inevitable collapse of an extractive worldview.
Your support of our work, in addition to supporting our rigorously researched and tested model of wellbeing will now help us to track our way out of the mine and (back) into the garden.
May your heart guide your mine(d).
–Gabriel