We have to create conditions where people feel safe to feel and to care. That goes against a lot of our programming about how to make something change in the world. Sometimes you can pressure people into changing, you can force them, but the powers-that-be have more force than we do. I don't think we're going to win in a contest of force. I think we need to induce a change of heart. The narrative of "us versus them" is ultimately part of the problem. Traditional activism, which is about overcoming the latest bad guy, isn't deep enough. It just brings us another version of the same.
Charles EisensteinCommunity is woven from gifts, which is ultimately why poor people often have stronger communities than rich people. If you are financially independent, then you really don't depend on your neighbors for anything. You can just pay someone to do it.
Charles EisensteinI think people become environmentalists through experiences of beauty and grief. There was that pond that you visited when you were a child, and there were frogs and turtles. You go back there and it's dead now. The forest you went to, now there are bulldozers, now it's a strip mall. These experiences of beauty followed by grief affect us more than learning that CO2 levels are now 400 parts per million.
Charles Eisenstein