You would struggle to find three individuals more equipped to navigate the big picture of global economic mega-structures and civilizational transformation than Tyson Yunkaporta, Alnoor Ladha and Helena Norberg-Hodge. Between them, they share a wealth of diverse experiences, radical analysis and bold future-visioning, as well as a healthy dose of banter and laughter. Their far-reaching conversation analyses conspiracy theory, the global financial system and capitalist ideology, while outlining the power of localization and sacred activism to build a radically different future. This one is well worth a listen.
Tyson Yunkaporta is the author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World. He is a Bama from Queensland who carves traditional tools and weapons and also works as a senior lecturer at Monash University in Melbourne.
Alnoor Ladha is a researcher, writer and community organiser investigating inequality, systems change, mysticism and decentralisation. Co-founder and executive director of political think tank The Rules.
Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of Local Futures, a widely respected analyst of the impact of the global economy on community, economy, and personal identity around the world.
Please write to [email protected] with any comments and ideas for future topics/guests.
Intro music by Gillicuddy (CC BY-NC 3.0).
Peace friends, thank you for sharing your thoughts and yourselves this way.
An intact oral tradition might include families where the kids like what they see of how their parents are, and loyally go further in the trajectory of their parent’s footsteps.
Localisation is surely impossible as any kind of “sustainable” or “holistic” (trigger words for Mr Yunkaporta, I know…) goal without this. This is ever how tradition/culture is both maintained and built, locally and within “lookout”.
Oral and written tradition coming together, with the best of both worlds contributing rather than the worst, is perhaps where it has to be from here. An intact “recital” tradition perhaps, which improves on the oral tradition in that it includes a “literalist” and modern emphasis on rigorous Due Diligence. Insufficiently careful acceptance of what has been passed down to us cannot tide us over anymore – spiritually, socially, physically.
PS. One might argue intact Tradition is participatory, even democratic in a way, but it simply cannot be egalitarian and “sustainable” at the same time. The way modern egalitarian frames don’t seem to correspond with generational family health is a sign to not ignore.
If localisation wants to be more than a fad, it must carefully examine the roots of it’s (I argue very Western) egalitarian bias. That way it doesn’t have to be so emotionally reliant on any “hope” or “non-hope” romantic narrative. It’s better to just be based on the Real.