Liberal+society

Our liberated society of individual freedoms is dependent on an educated, engaged and enlightened population.

It is scepticism of belief, faith in the power of individual endeavour and an understanding of interconnectedness that will sustain the dynamic, adaptive, cohesive, resilient society in the manner to which we have been accustomed, which we believe should be shared by all people, and to be our legacy for the future – a life lived fully to an active old age; without backbreaking labour, plague, famine or war; able to pursue our individual passions, develop our strengths, contribute to the best of our ability and gain recognition for our efforts. Abundance vs Scarcity

Consumerist society and the monetary system have enabled this to happen for many but there have been tragic human and environmental cost in the process. And it has been built on unsustainable premises of unlimited growth and an infinite source of cheap energy. Domestic economy

We are facing an energy crisis. The end of cheap energy. The massive upswing of human population has occurred concurrently and, to some extent, consequentially, with our exploitation of non-renewable energy sources. We don’t know what population can be sustained without this cheap energy but energy efficiency measures will be key in maintaining what we have attained with the largess of fossil fuels.

We have learnt a lot in the last 20 years of the requirements in producing an educated, engaged and enlightened population. We know that investment needs to be made in the first 25 years while the brain reaches physical maturity. The first three years – from conception – are most critical. The Jesuit maxim "Give me the child till the age of seven and I will show you the man." reflects how the social environment strongly influences character development during early childhood. The African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” has been affirmed with acknowledgement of the need of children for community involvement and belonging.



“If the ultimate goal of society is to make its citizens happy, then it is desirable to consider policies that produce more income equality, fairness, and general trust.”

Read more: [|http://www.utne.com/The-Sweet-Pursuit/Happiness-Equation-Economic-Equality.aspx#ixzz1YRTTtuJX]

Talk, as Zen masters are fond of saying, does not boil the rice; in the rather more formal language of the traditions of Western esotericism where I received a good deal of my training, the planes of being are discrete and not continuous, which means in practice that even the clearest sense of how we collectively backed ourselves into the present mess isn’t going to bring in food from the garden, keep warmth from leaking out of the house on a cold winter night, or provide a modest amount of electricity for those bits of modern or not-quite-modern technology that will still make sense, and still yield benefits, in the world after abundance. []