Why Power Is Not a Dirty Word

Frances Moore Lappé looks at redefining power and taking it back.

 

Why are we as societies creating a world that we as individuals abhor? It’s a mind-bending question.

Who, after all, gets up in the morning pledging to starve children? Yet, each day over 24,000 young children die of hunger and poverty. Who, anywhere, sets out to heat the planet and rid the world of its species? Yet, every day roughly 100 more species are lost forever.

Do we simply lack the know-how to reverse these horrors? No. We humans already have proven solutions to everything from climate chaos to poverty.

Or is it human nature—underneath are we all just selfish little shoppers, so of course we’re doomed?

Every choice we make sends out ripples. This is not the rugged “loner” type of power glorified by our culture. It is power flowing from our interdependence.No, again. In recent decades, a revolution in our understanding of human nature has produced evidence from neuroscience to anthropology that we have all the social “wiring” needed to make the turn toward life. It turns out we’ve evolved to take pleasure in and to need cooperation, empathy, fairness, and efficacy.

Click here to read the full article at Yesmagazine.com

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