Excerpt | Theatre of Transformation
by Rama Mani, coming in Kosmos Journal, Fall | Winter 2016
Time for a Paradigm Change
We aren’t here just to make a little noise. We’re here to change the paradigm. - Neema Namadamu, peacemaker, DR Congo
Today, the world appears to hurtle towards irreversible manmade disaster on all fronts. However, breakdowns are being accompanied by breakthroughs. Since 2000, as crises have multiplied,…
Excerpt | Millennials and the Shifting Political Climate: A Chance for Libertarianism to Emerge
by Kristin Tate, coming in Kosmos Journal, Fall | Winter 2016
The 2016 presidential election has been a disaster for young people. Between the dishonest pandering of Hillary Clinton and the perceived boorishness of Donald Trump, many millennials are stuck in no man's land.
But the future of politics may not be as bleak as it seems. Libertarian views will likely shape the ideologies of…
Excerpt | The Predicament of Knowledge: A Challenge for Culture Design
by Joe Brewer, coming in Kosmos Journal, Fall | Winter 2016
Imagine if we collectively knew all that is needed to solve the hardest social problems in the world. Whether it’s political corruption or mass poverty, ecological devastation or terrorism, the refugee crisis or structural racism, the root causes for all of these issues are deeply and systemically cultural.
So what if we…
Excerpt | Open Group Practice: Eight Social Selves
by Bonnitta Roy, coming in Kosmos Journal, Fall | Winter 2016
In 2012, after retiring from my professional career, I was eager to participate in some of the practices I had read about that facilitated group practices aimed at realizing emergent capacities. My working hypothesis was that it could be possible for people to participate in ways that would catalyze new cognitive and conative…
Let’s ditch the economy of the 1% and replace it with a human economy
By Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director, Oxfam International via World Economic Forum
If we want an economy of the 1%, then GDP is very useful. It tells us all we need to know. But if we want an economy that works for us all, we have to pay attention to what it is not telling us.
In the face of a growing inequality crisis, GDP tells us nothing about the distribution of growth. When…
What is True Wealth? | Kosmos Readers Reply
We asked our Readers to share a few words about the meaning of "wealth". Here are some of their replies:
Shared by Kosmos Reader, David Hazen
"Wealth is waking up each day with a purpose and the passion to pursue it.
Wealth is recognizing that you have special talents and that you are using them to make your life and the lives of others better.
Wealth is having friends that…
Is a Wealthy Heart a Healthy Heart?
By Thomas Cowan, MD, from his new book, Human Heart, Cosmic Heart
It’s well known that one of the biggest risk factors for poor health is poverty.1 Countless studies have examined the relationship between obesity and poverty;2 between diabetes and poverty;3 between mental illness and poverty;4 between heart disease and poverty.5 As with the term heart disease, it’s important, if…
The Re-Emergence of Common Wealth
by Rivera Sun, for Kosmos Online
As a novelist, I used to think that true wealth lay simply in the scrawl of words across a blank sheet of scrap paper and along hours of uninterrupted quiet. A solid roof over my head, a pot of hot tea, and a hummus sandwich rounded out my list of "true wealth" . . . or so I thought.
However, one cold and snowy winter in the high desert of Northern New…
Pursuing True Wealth
Dear Reader,
"Money can't buy happiness." Cliches like this may seem empty, especially if one is poor! A hungry belly is obviously happier with food in it. And yet, we have to be careful not to equate money with well-being. Nor should we impose our country's skewed notions of abundance on the rest of the world.
Our excessive consumerism often buys us the precise opposite of happiness -…
Turning Around the Anthropocene | Unleashing the potentials of Abundance
By Brian Milani, for Kosmos Online
In recent years, ecological thinkers have increasingly popularized the notion of the Anthropocene. It is said to be our current geological epoch, beginning in mid-20th century (by most accounts), characterized by an unprecedented level of human impact—negative impact—on the biosphere. The concept seems a useful way of increasing of awareness, both socially…