The Great Turning

Years ago when I lived in Iowa, I watched a summer school teacher lead her class in a balloon game where the students were divided into two teams and each team was given a big box of uninflated balloons, some tape, and a small box of stick pins. Kids, balloons, and stick pins...it looked to me like a recipe for trouble. I braced myself for loud noises.

The teacher gave the teams two minutes to tape as many inflated, unpopped balloons as possible to the wall, and they could stay on their side or send as many members of their team as they chose to the other side. As soon as she said, "Go!" the children began blowing up balloons, but each side’s balloons were quickly popped by the other side’s stick pins as soon as they were filled with air. When the teacher yelled, "Stop", there was only one inflated balloon on one side, and none on the other.

The side with the one balloon began to cheer, but the teacher shook her head and explained that she hadn’t said anything about either side winning if they had the most balloons. She had told them the goal was to tape up as many inflated balloons as possible in two minutes, and just one unpopped balloon by the whole class in two minutes was pretty poor.

One of the children asked, "You mean we weren’t supposed to pop the balloons? Then why did you give us the pins?" The teacher explained, "You were allowed to pop the balloons, but it didn’t help you reach the goal, did it? Sometimes life gives us the tools to hurt each other or ourselves, and it’s up to us to decide whether or not to use them."

Last week, the President of the United States proposed a budget with a massive increase in military spending for next year, up to $481 billion, not including $145 billion in "off-budget" appropriations mostly for the war in Iraq next year, plus an extra $100 billion for the war this year. That comes to a military request of almost three-quarters of a trillion dollars, just through next year, far more than the military spending of all other nations in the world combined. The stock prices of weapons contractors responded favorably, and they’ve been doing quite well for some time. Not only does the United States have the biggest military in the world, but we also are the biggest supplier of weapons to other nations and groups around the world. The problem is, when you give people all these weapons, they tend to get used.

The path we are on in the United States right now is the path of Empire, where military might is all that counts, and domination of other people, nations, and their resources is the goal. Our nation’s founders did not want an empire–they specifically put military leadership in civilian hands, separated the power to declare war from the power to wage it, required re-authorization of the military each year so there wouldn’t be an automatic standing army, and argued against entangling alliances and military adventures. They knew the corrupting lure of military might, and they knew that war was the enemy of domestic rights and liberty.

They also knew the fate of empires through history. Empires over the centuries have repeatedly overreached and overextended themselves militarily and financially, ending in disaster. It’s a strategy that just doesn’t work in the long run, but some of our leaders seem hell-bent on trying it again. They seem not to realize that destructive power, whether in a nuclear bomb or in a stick pin, is only good at destroying. It isn’t very useful for achieving constructive goals or getting what we really want and need. Just look at the hundreds of billions of dollars we have already spent on Iraq, and what do we have to show for it? Imagine if that money had been spent on human welfare or development of energy alternatives instead.

The war (really an occupation) in Iraq is only one part of a bigger picture described well by author David Korten in his book, "The Great Turning: >From Empire to Earth Community." Last fall, a dozen JUC members read his book and came together over six weeks to discuss it, ending with a visit by David Korten himself while he was in Denver for a book tour.

Korten’s main thesis is that we are at a crucial point in human history, where the forces of domination and Empire have brought us to the brink of catastrophe, unless we turn and choose a better path. Especially in the United States, there is an unholy alliance of consolidated corporate wealth and military power, an expansion of what Eisenhower once called the military-industrial complex. It exploits people and resources both domestically and around the world, undergirded by patriarchal fundamentalist religion and a dog-eat-dog secular economic philosophy. As an extremely wealthy elite grows ever more wealthy and powerful, a poverty-stricken underclass grows ever larger, and countless people suffer. Among those we exploit, bitterness, hopelessness, and possible violence or terrorism are generated.

We are told stories about the necessity of this extreme inequality and concentration of power for the health of our economy and protection of our interests. But it doesn’t have to be this way, and it can’t last. Our present way of life and overall economic system are simply unsustainable. The United States is running up an enormous debt and an enormous trade deficit, neither of which can continue indefinitely. We are using ever more oil even as we face the inevitable reality of peak oil and then declining production. We are changing the planet itself, from its ecosystems to its climate. We are overextending ourselves militarily even as our military budget balloons to obscene proportions.

If we do not change course, some kind of catastrophic national and global collapse is unavoidable. But Korten believes we can change, to a pattern of human life that is more sustainable, more equitable, and more respectful of the planet that is our home. He calls this shift the Great Turning, and he describes it as a possibility, a choice, not an inevitability. It is up to us as a species what our future in the coming thousands of years will be.

Korten calls for new stories about what makes life genuinely prosperous, sufficiently secure, and meaningful. These will be the stories of a more sustainable Earth Community. Some of the elements of this Earth Community include a global consciousness and cross-cultural communication, combined with development of local community and greater local self-sufficiency in food, energy, mutual care and many other aspects of life. His vision includes a simpler, less energy-intensive way of life, and intentional constraints on the concentration of wealth and power, whether in corporations, in wealthy family dynasties, or in militaristic national government. Earth Community includes affirmation of human rights, concern for all forms of life, and renewal of the concept of responsibility to the common good. It includes empowerment of women, which will help stabilize population and help us move away from a dominator-style patriarchy.

In our book study, one of the questions we grappled with was whether Korten’s vision was realistic or not. Is it pie in the sky to think we could create anything like his vision of Earth Community? But we couldn’t help but agree that if anything is unrealistic, it is to believe that we could stay on our current path indefinitely. There is no future for us if we do not change course. Shouldn’t we at least try to envision a better way and attempt to make it a reality?

Even if a massive economic, environmental, or other form of collapse were to occur, many of Korten’s recommendations would still help, such as strong local community and localized food and energy production. We have little awareness most of the time of just how dependent we have become on vast global networks, and just how vulnerable we are to disruption of food, energy, communications, or transportation systems. Even our vulnerability to purely natural forces has increased. A large solar storm that once would have had little effect on human life now has the potential to destroy satellites and transformers and plunge most of the planet into darkness for months on end.

Human life on this planet will not last forever, but there is no reason we could not have thousands or millions of years ahead of us, with untold new learning and possibility, if we find a way to live more sustainably on this planet. As Korten points out, human life has already existed for millions of years on Earth, while the patterns of Empire have only been around for the last 5000 years or so. Our ways of life have changed before, and they can change again–must change, if we are to survive.

We can’t go back to the way life was thousands of years ago, and probably wouldn’t want to, but we can learn from our past and from our increased awareness of natural ecosystems. The interdependence of all people and all forms of life should be more apparent than ever; it is a delusion to think that we can ignore the effects of what we do on other people or on the natural environment. Business and trade are here to stay, and they have real benefits, but it should be fair trade, not so-called free trade, which isn’t really free at all. In our present world, trade laws are one of our primary points of leverage for or against the global common good, and we have a responsibility to use that leverage for the benefit of all humankind.

We will not go back to a time before military power and modern weapons, but we must do everything possible to stop wasting the world’s resources on destructive force. When I asked David Korten about how an Earth Community could prevent the rise of Empire again, he acknowledged that this is a difficult problem, but said that he thought we need a return to the concept of the noble warrior, who fights only for protection and only for just cause. Without creating an excessive global concentration of power, we need strong global agreements and international law to protect human rights and stop aggression. We need to use global institutions for the good of all humanity, not only for the profits of multinational corporations.

I admit this will not be easy, but at least we can turn our efforts in the right direction. Right now, the United States is leading the way toward global militarization, undermining nuclear nonproliferation agreements, favoring corporate exploitation and concentration of wealth and power, fighting against fair trade, weakening international law, opposing the International Criminal Court, blocking family planning programs, and refusing to join efforts to protect the climate and environment of our planet--all the opposite, in my opinion, of what we should be doing.

It may not be easy, but in spite of the tragedies of history, positive change has happened before, and it can happen again. Who would have thought two centuries ago that we would abolish formal slavery, establish the right of women to vote, create the United Nations and adopt an International Declaration of Human Rights, expand civil rights, witness the start of an environmental movement, eliminate diseases such as smallpox, and add decades onto human life expectancy? Who during the Dark Ages in Europe could foresee the Enlightenment?

Global and national trends may not appear favorable, but the success of social movements almost always appears impossible right up until the moment that they succeed. Our Unitarian Universalist principles have a lot in common with David Korten’s ideas, and while our membership may represent only a tenth of a percent of the U.S. population, these ideas are shared by a substantial portion of the population, including the 26% or more sometimes labeled "cultural creatives," and a majority who share many of our priorities and perspectives. In spite of the diversity of religions and cultures in the world, most people everywhere share many of the same basic hopes and desires.

Powerful new forces to connect and express these desires have emerged only very recently, particularly through the internet and what has come to be called the "blogosphere". While not everything about it is positive, if we can keep the internet open and independent, it provides great hope for change. There are other positive movements as well, including many innovative citizen-based nonprofit or nongovernmental organizations addressing all kinds of needs of people and our planet.

Korten believes that part of the impetus for the Great Turning will come from individual spiritual development, as more people move from an authoritarian or conventional social consciousness to a more enlightened and inclusive consciousness. Theologically, Korten has a form of pantheistic, or more accurately, panentheistic perspective, affirming a conscious and purposeful universal spiritual intelligence that is engaged in self-discovery and that evolves as we do, much like the God of the process theologians.

Now, if you didn’t get what I just said, don’t worry. I don’t think everyone has to share Korten’s theology for the Great Turning to occur. Most theologies can cut in either direction, and we have potential allies across the theological landscape. An evangelical Christian can either neglect the planet because the afterlife is all that matters, or care for it because it is God’s creation. An evolutionary atheist can either retreat into nihilism or care about this life passionately because it is everything that matters. A true understanding of evolution itself does not point to social Darwinism, for it is not just the most competitive individuals who survive, but whole species and ecosytems that develop an ability to cooperate and adapt. The whole notion of emergent properties in evolution is a hopeful one; perhaps we are on the brink of a new, emergent phase of intelligent life.

Much of what Korten calls for we are doing here at JUC, and we can do more. We encourage spiritual growth and learning. We are building local community that is rich with meaning and mutual care. We are engaging with issues that matter in our nation and the world, applying our principles outside our walls. As a Green Sanctuary, we are taking seriously our impact on the planet. I’d love to see us put solar panels on our roof, increase our energy efficiency, and begin a deeper discussion about how we can make our lifestyles more sustainable. We are exactly in the right place to respond to Korten’s call for a Great Turning.

On a larger scale, will the Great Turning happen? Or will we see instead what Korten calls the Great Unraveling? I don’t know. But the story isn’t written until we write it, and it is part of the very meaning of our lives to try to write a better story.

Sometimes just a simple conceptual change can make a huge difference. In that summer school class years ago, the children replayed the balloon game after they understood it better. Their sense of separate teams dissolved, and they put down the pins. In two minutes, their production of inflated balloons increased a hundred fold over their first attempt. All just from looking at the game differently.

If the Great Turning or anything like it is to occur, it will begin with people like you and me. We can’t just wait for someone else. The things we do and the stories we tell all matter. I have no illusions about our ability to create a utopia, but there is no need for us to plow ahead blindly on our present path to destruction.

In the words of David Korten, "Our time has come to trade the sorrows of Empire for the joys of Earth Community. Let our descendants look back on this time as the time of the Great Turning, when humanity made a bold choice to birth a new era devoted to...the higher potentials of our human nature.... It is within our means to choose our future and to place our capacity for reflective choice at the service of Creation’s continued unfolding. We are the ones we have been waiting for."

May it be so.