Silence
For more see:
The Revolution of Silence eBook: Stephen C. Rose: Kindle Store http://buff.ly/1OqYthK
Anyone who has given thought to drama knows that silence is as powerful as speech. Anyone who has imagined revolution has a soundtrack in mind. Hordes running, yelling, battle cries, confrontations, close-ups of fear. Silence is the key to a successful revolution in this century, silence from the hamlets of China to the hamlets of Maine. Silence from the precincts of Manhattan to the precincts of Moscow and New Delhi. Silence from the suburbs of Copenhagen to the suburbs of Cairo.
There are manifold reasons for the primacy of silence as a true and beautiful badge of the huge change we will be making in the years ahead. I shall come to them. But first what, pray tell, is the reason for all this?
Tell One: The coming end of oil and the oil-automobile-sprawl economy. Either due to the impossible expense of future extraction or a haywire market due to scarcity and greed or simply acceptance of our descent from peak oil.
Tell Two: Climate change will produce a series of weather emergencies that do not merely create havoc. Such events will turn the world away from a consumer, growth economy to scaled-down alternative. This collapse of the present order will be seen by many an apocalypse. The results will be chaotic.
Tell Three: The conflict between today’s established democracies and a fundamentalist wave that clings to an untenable past, will intensify conflict and delay a move to a peaceful and more responsible world.
If none of the above occur, we have little business discussing a revolution, even a peaceful one. We will move toward sustainability. We will achieve greater population densities which make for more vibrant economies. We create local democracies worldwide. We will choose communities based on values we honor. And so forth.
But I’m not counting on it and neither should you. We need a tenable vision on which to base actions. We need to hope heaven will help us. We need to know what heaven is and how to get there.
