Author, Lecturer, Engaged Citizen
Welcome to DavidKorten.org
| Main Street Before Wall Street Time to Redesign the Money System |
| An Indigenous Perspective Conversation with Puanani Burgess |
| The World We Want Consumer Cooperatives Management Association Portland, June 2008 |
| Smart Security & the End of War |
| Finding Our Power in the Great Turning Joanna Macy and David Korten in a public conversation |
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Seattle Green Festival 2008
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| Only One Reason to Grant a Corporate Charter |
| Living Wealth: Better Than Money |
This site is my weblog or blog for sharing my current thoughts and reflections, as well as information on my schedule, current publications, and the personal history that informs my particular point of view. It is a companion to the Great Turning website, which provides an introduction to the Great Turning framework, resources for discussion, and stories of how others are using and contributing to these resources to advance a rapidly expanding national and global conversation on the work of creating a world that works for all.
Author Information
You can find all the usual author information on this website, including my calendar of speaking events, books currently in print, video links, recent articles and talks, biographical information, and organizational affiliations. My base organization is the People-Centered Development Forum, which is the legal home of the Great Turning Initiative. Personal Journey tells the story of the intellectual journey that informs my current work as author, lecturer, and engaged citizen.
Ideas
The most complete presentation of my current framework for understanding the epic choice we humans now face is my most recent book The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community. The web page The Great Turning: Epic Passage summarizes the arguments, as does my article in the Summer 2006 issue of YES! magazine. Story Power sets forth the proposition that the key to changing the human course is to change the stories that frame the dominant culture. This idea is at the core of change strategy underlying my current work.
If you are interested in a particular term take a look in the Glossary where you will find my decoding of key Empire words and some of the contributions of the Great Turning Initiative to developing a vocabulary for those who are charting a human course to a world that works for all. I regret that I cannot respond to individual questions, but you may find answers to your question in “Frequently Asked Questions”
Tools
If you are looking for tools to organize a Great Turning event, facilitate a Great Turning discussion or workshop , or want to know what others are doing to spread the Great Turning message you will likely find what you are looking for on the Great Turning website. For a broad range of tools and resources for getting involved in most any aspect of living Earth Community into being see the YES! magazine Action Resource Center.
Using This Site
This site is under continuing development. Use the syndication button on the left sidebar to receive notices when I post new content.
Most pages on this site invite your substantive comments. All constructive points of view are welcome. Spam and abusive comments will be removed. The site requires registration to comment solely to avoid abuse by automated spammers. Unless you choose to sign up for our periodic Great Turning Newsletter, your information will not be used for any purpose other than your access to this site and in no event will your e-mail address be shared without your express permission.
I hope you will find ideas and content on this website useful in advancing your work and understanding. Content that is not specifically attributed to someone else, is probably mine and you have my permission to reproduce and share it with proper attribution as you like. I believe that ideas are the common heritage of the species and should be freely shared in the ongoing process of deepening our collective knowledge and capacity as a species. My work builds on the work of countless others, as I hope your work may build on mine.
My thanks to Sam Rose and socialsynergyweb.com for technical support in creating
and maintaining this website.
Dear David:
I find your writing very interesting. I am most interested in your own inner and outer process through the 'establishment'. I am curious when you realized that your values and beliefs were incongruent with the institutions you represented? From that point I am curious how you managed to navigate yourself in these institutions, how long you continued serving them and how (and if) you stay in partnership with them today.
I ask as someone who is recovering from the inherent mass propaganda and cultural brain wash I was born into, going from confusion, to enlightenment and then back to brain washed. Currently I am not enlightened nor confused but partnering with anyone who is interested in learning the tools of Self As Instrument. It seems my goals and destiny are to be in the stream of our modern world, trying to wake up and help others wake up. I believe that your personal journey would be valueable for both learning and role modeling. Thank you in advance for sharing your story.
Sincerely,
Dr. Anna Gomez
Arvind Patil
I see that David is going to be in Henderson, NC on April 17 - 19, 2009. I want to explore the possibility of his coming to Charlotte, NC after that for a speaking engagement on behlf of Piedmont Liberal Forum. We are a non-profit organization that seeks to bring well known speakers on socio-economic, spiritual , cultural and scientific topics to Charlotte area. So far we have organized talks by Bill Schultz of Amnesty International, Eugenie Scott, Sister Prejean and Father Coyne, to name the few.
What are the chances of having David come here after his engagement in Henderson NC? We are only 3-4 hours drive from there. How much will it cost us? Who is the contact person that we can get in touch with to continue further discussions on this topic?.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Arvind Patil, Ph.D.
VP-Technology
Ricura Corporation
11515 Vanstory Dr., Suite 135
Huntersville, NC 28078
Ph-704-875-0366 X 102
arvind.patil@ricura.com
Hello David Korten,
My name is andrew lord. I wrote a song for the great turning, as well as a recorded a video message to you, explaining my story about the biomimetics of the great turning, a story I call the Science of Proactive Peace Production. I hope you can find the time to watch. You can find both the song and your message on youtube. The message is called dear david korten, and the song is called the great turning.
Have a beautiful day!
a-
Andrew: I took a look at the video. Have you recorded the song for the Great Turning? I didn't see any reference to it in the video.
David Korten
Thank you very much David! The song is called The Great Turning, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yknaoxWYIc. I also have many other songs on youtube about proactive social change at (andrewlutherlord) Thank you so much for taking the time to look at my work. My email is, proactivepeace@yahoo.com. Any pointers would be great. I am working on a short book, and now that I have actually contacted you, I better get my butt in gear and get at least a rough draft finished. My first real goal is to do everything i can go create a "human Identity system". I am very tired of being the property of the u.s.a., and know that it is my human right to be a global citizen, and not owned by the nation state. I am currently staying in malaysia, teaching scuba diving. I am trying to save enough money to be able to go to Den Haag, to the Peace Palace, to try to find someone at the international court of justice to help me with a legal case. I know that it is a violation of my human rights to be owned by nationalism, as I am a human, and therefore, I have equal ownership with others of nationalism, and therefore, denying my right to a human identity is mental and physical slavery, and the Dec. of Human Rights has made slavery illegal, at least in theory. I know i have legal and ethical grounds for a human identity, independent of nationalism, i just have not figured out who to talk to, and how to get it done. You are the only person I can find who speaks openly about the need to imporve this failing system. I just get the same old "utopia" devils advocate story from everyone I talk to. If you have any advise for me, I am in need of it. I would also like to send you my CV and letters of reference, so that you can better what kind of experience i have.
Have a super day, and again, thank you so much for taking the time to look at my work. I have read and watched as much of your work as I have been able to get during my travels, and know that, though my work is rough, I have to start somewhere, and your work keeps my confidence fueled. I know that the UN drew the lines over the world within one year, and put a bunch of people in charge. Change to a better system can happen just as fast, even this year. When we landed on the moon, fiction became reality in the minds of everyone on the planet in one day, and the reality of a new, higher quality social system can go from fiction to reality just as fast. It only takes one news report, from all of the top scientists in the world, to prove that nationalism is nothing more than a failed experiment, and that there is a new, better science, already created, for all of us to use.
The top scientists just have to get together, and say it. "Breaking news!! A new, better social system has been invented to replace nationalism! Once which works to create social equality for all. We all just need to begin using it! Everyone, wake up!! It is scientific fact, it has been proven that humans are actually a cooperative species!!! Healthy competition has been Disproven!!! Just as the world is not Flat, Humans are not competitive, we have just been using the wrong social system!! Breaking News!! Everyone wake up, holster your guns, go into the streets, stop fighting for nationalism, it is not real, it has been disproven!! Today we can change!!!
It is pure neglegence for social scientists to continue the argument about the possibility that humans are genetically bad. This line of thinking only makes genocide ok, because if there is a possibility humans are bad, then then only solution is to kill or imprison the bad ones. The top scientists just need to wake up, go to the news paper, print in the scientific journals, that it is now proven, since human cells are cooperative, then humans are obviously genetically cooperative, and are just choosing to use a competitive social system, one which is completely opposite of true human nature.
Anyway, have a great day!!
a-
Dear David
I work for the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz California, a local peace and justice center. We frequetly bring in speakers. Could you give me an estimate of your speaking fee. I notice you will be in the Bay Area from time to time and maybe 2009 would be a good time for you to visit. I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Barbara Hayes
barbara@greybird.com
Resource Center for Nonviolence
515 Broadway, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
831-423-1626
David K. - It was a true pleasure to have met you at the BALLE conference in Boston last month. I appreciate that we had a chance to talk for a bit and I have continued to wrestle with the ideas we discussed. From our discussion, I followed your suggestion that I read "The Great Turning." I am about half-way through and I have a question for you regarding the relationship between equity and sustainability.
In TGT, you write near the end of Chapter 3, ". . . equity becomes an essential condition of a healthy, sustainable society in a full world . . ." I agree intuitively (and on principle) to that statement. But I am hoping you can refer me to some materials that flesh out the logic that leads one to our shared conclusion. I am also interested in the extent to which that statement applies to one or both of the following: that equity is a condition needed to make the Great Turning itself, and/or if equity is a condition that, as an outcome, will inform us that Great Turning efforts are succeeding.
And finally, if we take equity to mean "economic equity," I am also curious to know your opinion on the extent to which the purpose of seeking equity is to ensure, as you write on the same page, that "all persons have an adequate and meaningful means of making a living for themselves and their families," and/or that through the achievement of equity (however measured/defined), there will simply be less of a chance for too much wealth to be under the control of too few.
Thanks in advance for your time and any documents you may send me in responding to my questions.
All the best to you,
-- Jonathan Kevles
Jonathan: Good question. I plan to do a Frequent Questions piece on it when I find the time. Beyond issues of justice, there are a number of reasons why equity is essential. Basically In a world in which we are already consuming well beyond what the planet will sustain, equity is essential to meeting everyone's needs. Extreme inequality without hope for redress results in social breakdown and violence --- exactly as we are experiencing. There is also a growing body of evidence that the societies that are highest on both health and happiness indicators are those that are most egalitarian. I just returned from a conference in Australia on this specific subject. I'll try to do something more on this with references in the near future as it is a fascinating subject that goes to the core of the necessary agenda for the turning.
David Korten
Michael Kinsley has posted a piece on the Huffington Post (6/26/08) asking for input and new ideas for new economic systems. Wanted to inform you in case you're interested. His article/blog provides details.
E
Dear David
I have long admired you and your work that relates so fundamentally to the Forum for Stable Currencies that I've been organising at the House of Lords in London.
Once upon a time, I even put one of your fundamental articles "The ABC of Financial Capitalism" on my old website www.monies.cc
http://www.monies.cc/forum/actions/submission/the_abc.htm
As I'm gathering blog speed, I've also learned to edit Wikipedia pages and am now in conversation with an editor of "Wikisource" who needs reassurance that any documents are free of copyright restrictions.
Can you possibly let me have an email to the effect that you're ok with my efforts to publicise our thinking and analysis?
With many thanks in advance,
yours in the spirit of citizen engagement,
Sabine
Organiser, Forum for Stable Currencies
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