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My Elevator Speech / What Do I Write About?
In one sentence: The status quo is unsustainable and I write about solutions--the values, priorities and tools we need to navigate a rapidly evolving economy and society. Too long, make it shorter:: Understanding is wealth, too. The long version: (riding the elevator to the top floor): Our global economic system is unsustainably out of sync with human life and the planet's biosphere. To understand this fully, we must look at systemic dynamics that are either deep beneath the surface or not recognized because they are not measured by conventional metrics. We must recognize that we exist not just in a material universe, but in a moral universe in which greed and corruption, masked by the artifice of self-serving narratives, undermine the foundations of the social order: social mobility and cohesion and civic virtue (sharted purpose and sacrifice). This moral decay has fatal consequences for society. This system severs the foundational links of human life between our work, agency, family, community, the natural world and the moral universe, leaving us unmoored, ill, anxious and deranged. I explore these problems and solutions on four inter-connected levels: Problems (Costs and Consequences): The system: 1. depletes resources and mindlessly destroys the bioshere to expand a "waste is growth" / Landfill Economy. 2. distorts and disorders society (inequality, social defeat) 3. distorts and disorders individuals (burnout, alienation) Solutions (What we can learn/do): 4. We can restore these links by withdrawing from the system and pursuing self-reliance, agency, ownership of our work, integrity, authenticity and autonomy. These essays reflect my critique and my solutions: Our Mutually Reinforcing Crises I Have a Very Bad Feeling About This (why the system is unsustainable) Our Three Taboos (summary of my work) No, The Economy Is Not Wonderful (critiquing the status quo narrative) The Wealthy Are Not Like You and Me: Our Terminally Stratified Society I'm Not Really Enjoying the Show (authenticity replaced by Spectacle) The Child Within Is More Than "The Child Within" (human nature is optimized for what's been lost) podcast: Leafbox Interview: Charles Hugh Smith (73 minutes, full transcript)(October 2023) My Bio Chapter One of Self-Reliance in the 21st Century (PDF, free) Chapter One of Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal (PDF, free) Chapter One of Global Crisis, National Renewal (PDF, free) |
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Copyright 2023 Charles Hugh Smith all rights reserved in all media. No reproduction in any media in any format (text, audio, video/film, web) without written permission of the author. |
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