Future Primal

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* Book: Future Primal. How Our Wilderness Origins Show Us the Way Forward. Louis G. Herman.

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Contextual Quote

Brianne Swinne on the Elements of the New Paradigm

"Since the mid 1980s, a number of leading theorists across academic disciplines have been involved in the common endeavor of articulating the outlines of what might be called a planetary civilization. It is in terms of this ongoing creative project that the significance of Louis Herman’s Future Primal can best be appreciated. . . . The primary motivation for this revisioning is the realization that the ecological and social devastation taking place around the planet will only continue until some powerful new ideas take hold in human consciousness.

My own sense is that, in a number of fields, remarkable progress has been achieved. Some of the landmarks would include:

  1. in economics, Herman Daly and his articulation of the theoretical foundations for economic sustainability;
  2. in technology, Janine Benyus and her recasting of industrial infrastructure as biological mimicry;
  3. in agriculture, Wes Jackson and his new paradigm of a perennial polyculture;
  4. in physics, Fritjof Capra and his deconstruction of scientism;
  5. in human-Earth relations, Susan Griffin and her work leading beyond the oppressions of dualism;
  6. in religion, Thomas Berry and his vision of the ultimate sacred community as neither humanity, nor a subgroup of humanity, but the entire Earth Community itself.

I would place the work of Louis Herman, (Future Primal, in this company of geniuses."

- Brian Swinne [1]


Description

"How should we to respond to our converging crises of violent conflict, political corruption and global ecological devastation? In this sweeping big-picture synthesis, Louis G. Herman argues that for us to create a sustainable, fulfilling future, we need to first look back into our deepest past to recover our core humanity. Important clues for recovery can be found in the lives of traditional San Bushmen hunter-gatherers of southern Africa, the closest living relatives to that ancestral African population from which all humans descended. Their culture can give us a sense of what life was like for the tens of thousands of years when we lived in wilderness, without warfare, walled cities, or slavery. Herman suggests we draw from the experience of the San and other earth-based cultures, and weave their wisdom together with the scientific story of an evolving universe to help create something radically new—an earth-centered, planetary politics which has the personal truth quest at its heart."