Kosmos Quarterly Winter 2023

“Subject to countless historical examples, we know that the greatest danger to democracy is not terrorism, nor environmental crisis, nor nuclear proliferation, nor the results of any one election. The greatest danger to democracy is hopelessness” – Darren Walker

Article Human Rights

With Four Freedoms, Four Responsibilities

"'We the People' means that my freedom depends on your freedom. Similarly, if freedom for one of us is removed or restricted, it jeopardizes freedom for us all—and for the larger democratic principles we all hold dear. That’s why, when we live in a free society, we are charged with protecting freedom for one another through our responsibilities to one another."

Conversation Resources

‘The Grab’ | Conspiring to Control the World’s Food and Water

By Nathan Halverson

Seven years in the making, 'The Grab' examines the money and purpose behind secretive land and water grabs by some of the world's most powerful entities. The mix of players includes corporations and governments, farmers and mercenaries, activists and informants. Interview with the investigative journalist who brought the story to light.

Article Integral

The Promise of Liberty and the Pain of Separation

By Peter Merry

We have a civilisation that is unrooted from its embodied past, focused on separation and the “objective” world intelligible to the rational mind, and which has lost its ability to sense the relationships in the whole and feel the suffering that we inflict on other life forms.

Article Wealth

Philanthropy as a Territory of Transition

By Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy

This article focuses on philanthropy as a territory of transition, rebalancing wealth, knowledge and power while repairing historical injustices. It explores that philanthropy can exacerbates our current exploitative system through undemocratic and unaccountable processes; by increasing endowments through existing market mechanisms; and through a lack of imagination on how to support the requisite paradigm shifts.

Mixed Media Polycrisis

Deep Adaptation | A Quartet of Videos

By Jem Bendell

Many people spend time processing the emotional implications of the coming collapse before looking outwards to find roles on the local and global levels. Others, in the wake of their grief, turn inward and learn to trust their own hearts and emotions, which can be an invitation to others to do the same. The following four films were curated by the Deep Adaptation Quarterly, Issue 12, November 2022.

Essay Food

The Sanctity of Food

By Andrew Harvey and Carolyn Baker

The sacred within us instinctively resonates with the sanctity of food. Therefore, the growing, transporting, distribution, and consumption of food are sacred acts that deserve ritual and reverence from the moment the seed is planted in the Earth to the moment we have washed and put away the plate on which our food was served.