Toward Restorative Change

Abstract

Before I offer some ideas that emerged from the preceding hypotheses and discussions, I want to get a few issues out of the way. Let us remember the fundamental hypothesis framed at the very beginning of this book. I proposed that as seen from inside the framework of our usual Western abstraction- and cognition-dominated dualistic worldview, from the one-sided and essentially still Cartesian mind-body, word-thing, inner-outer perspective, without realizing it we are severely constricted in the kinds of ‘solution’ that we can conceptualize. We cannot imagine, or even consider, the possibility that one could address our current disastrously dangerous situation in any but our received-views dominated ways — which means scientistically, hyper-rationally, in terms of normal science’s standard framework and presuppositions. Yes, there are some faint voices calling for ‘spiritual’ changes — humanity’s awakening, a shift to a semimystical new age position, a wholesale religious or economic upheaval, a return to some earlier golden age — but these are drowned out by the din of activities and proposals that continue to be rooted in the standard enframing, science/technology perspective, supplemented by strident defensive denials that insist that there are no real dangers, that global threats are nefariously motivated myths, that what we need and must concentrate on is producing more jobs, lowering taxes, strengthening our military, reducing government control and aid to the needy, and so on.