Helena Norberg-Hodge, Local Futures With Noam Chomsky

What is globalization?  Economic globalization is a process defined by the deregulation of trade and finance in order to enable businesses and banks to operate globally. Since at least the mid-20th century, national governments and international institutions have been nearly unanimous in supporting globalization, often through policies that prop up large transnational corporations to the detriment of small and local businesses. With the help of these policies, a single world market has emerged.

Corporate-funded think tanks and media outlets would have you believe that this global market is characterized by the free flow of ideas and technology, international collaboration, interdependence, and a worldwide sense of community – in other words, that the global market has created a ‘global village’.

But the reality is far different from this rosy picture. Our global economic system has become so large and complex – with producers and consumers, CEOs and workers, and cause and effect all far removed from each other – that ethical choices are almost impossible to make, and environmental and human rights disasters have become commonplace.

It can be challenging to understand the workings of a system that is so vast, out-of-control, and deeply ingrained into the fabric of our daily lives. But by breaking the global economy down into five key structural elements, and understanding how it came to exist in the first place, we can begin to comprehend it – and, ultimately, resist it.

What is localization? Ultimately, economic localization is about re-scaling the economy back to a human level. It is the process of building economic structures which allow the goods and services a community needs to be produced locally and regionally whenever possible. Localizing economies can strengthen community cohesion and lead to greater human health and material wellbeing, all while reducing pollution and degradation of the natural world.

From community gardens to credit unions, from alternative learning spaces to small business alliances and co-ops, local economies create networks of place-based relationships that affirm our human desire for connection to each other and to the earth. By creating this structural basis for community, local economies make caring for one another and for the land into guiding principles of daily life.

For the sake of planetary and personal health, business will have to change.

Special Presentation: Sarah Savory

Our existing systems of media and education provide a limited worldview. This reductionist worldview limits our ability to see and exist in the world properly, effectively and in total health.

For us to truly thrive as a species in harmony with the natural world, we will need to see the world as ONE LIVING BREATHING ORGANISM, and our part and place in the world as a part of this organism.  This will require a shift in our thinking, in our action and in the ways we make our decisions.  This very forward-thinking conversation will clearly identify where we are at, how we arrived at this point, what needs to happen, how we get there, what are the obstacles and how will we overcome these obstacles.  And yes, business will have to change.

As Bucky Fuller said: “Nature is a totally efficient, self-regenerating system. If we discover the laws that govern this system and live synergistically within them, sustainability will follow and humankind will be a success.”

But humans don’t know how to manage the complexities of our world. The increasing social, economic, and ecological disasters we are experiencing across the world are the mounting symptoms of our not considering the whole and managing our societies, economies, and nature in isolation of each other when they are an inseparable whole – no person or nation on earth can have physical or financial stability without ecological health.

Sarah Savory has worked alongside her father, Allan Savory who created the Holistic Management Framework. In this exhilarating conversation, we’ll discover a new and improved decision-making process to enable us to manage and balance the inseparable complexity of human societies, economies, and nature. Remember, we’re all in this together

Sarah Savory

Related Stories:

Barry Dossenko interview with Allan Savory

Allan Savory: How to effect meaningful transformation to address the global climate crisis.

For a healthier planet, management must change

https://mobilized.news/a-timely-message-for-world-leaders-from-holistic-management-pioneer-allan-savory-of-savory-global/

We will discuss  how to reset our anthropocentric Being-ness to Nature-centric Being-ness. It is clear that we have been turned into human knowings instead of human beings through the kind of education we have been subjected to. As we are taught the written word (the description) instead of the real world our cognitive system rewires to understand what is absent and also numbs our senses.

This activates ‘imaginary’ imagination instead of real imagination. The biggest damage to education is that from childhood we are exposed to the known and it destroys our ability to engage with the unknown.

We will discuss how to address your cognitive damages, re awaken your natural cognitive system and dare to step into the realm of the unknown.

Jinan Kodapully, EK Foundation, India

Jinan considers himself a victim of modernity, cognitively rewired to understand the written word instead of the real world. As a cognition activist, his basic concern has been to explore the cognitive crisis of modern humans who with their so-called education have become anthropocentric and turned against life itself. He considers cognitive rights as the most fundamental of existential rights which modern society brutally takes away right from childhood.

His exploration began with issues related to decolonization, especially of the aesthetic sense. His life with non-literate communities helped him to expand this exploration to include knowledge creation, “do nothing parenting”, and shifting the focus from sociological aspects to the biological roots of cognition and the formation of our sense of beauty.

His understanding further sharpened and clarified once he stopped reading — this helped him regain his biologically rooted cognitive system which is what all non-literate people have been using through eons. Another fundamental shift that brought in more clarity was shifting his enquiry from how to teach children to how do children learn. This question revealed the connection between our biological potential and what the context dictates — between the world and the word. This also revealed the falsity of using language as the primary cognitive source and the danger of solely engaging with ready made knowledge. This alienates humans from the living nature of the learning process and undermines children as creators of knowledge.

Currently, Jinan is involved in enabling people to explore and experientially recover their natural cognitive system damaged by schooling. The aim is to sensitize adults so they can provide the most conducive environment for their children to unfold naturally to their true potential.

Jinan has also been exploring ways to make the educated understand the matrix built by modernity in general and the damages caused by modern schooling in particular. He hopes to enable people to experientially understand the limits of language, reason, reading, etc and to empower them to address the maladaptive cognitive habits and attitudes.