Why we need a new story that gives meaning to the world

"We once thought economists would fix poverty, political scientists would fix social injustice, chemists and biologists would fix environmental problems, the power of reason would prevail and we would adopt sane policies. I remember looking at maps of rain forest decline in National Geographic in the early 1980s and feeling both alarm and relief – relief because at least the scientists and everyone who reads National Geographic is aware of the problem now, so something surely will be done.

"Nothing was done. Rainforest decline accelerated, along with nearly every other environmental threat that we knew about in 1980. Our Story of the People trundled forward under the momentum of centuries, but with each passing decade the hollowing-out of its core, that started perhaps with the industrial-scale slaughter of World War One, extended further. When I was a child, our system of ideology and mass media still protected that story, but in the last thirty years the incursions of reality have punctured its protective shell and have ruptured its essential infrastructure. We no longer believe our storytellers, our elites. We don’t believe the politicians, we don’t believe the doctors, we don’t believe the professors, we don’t believe the bankers, we don’t believe the technologists. All of them imply that everything is under control, and we know that it is not."

Charles Eisenstein

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As they say, when there are too many elephants you shoot the elephants, when there are too many humans, you shoot the elephants...

This is the first article I have read in 2013 and I'm so glad it was this one and no other. How beautifully stated. Yes, we need a new story. All of humanity, all people need to rethink their stories of the world, so that we can start to live without fear, without violence, and with love and with respect for all including human animals, non-human animals and nature.