Four Theses Regarding Green Social Transformation 

1. A fundamental step toward Green social transformation is to recognize the profound ramifications of the turning point ten thousand years ago associated with the Neolithic Revolution. In a relatively short period of time, from the standpoint of natural history, there emerged among some human communities (and then spreading to all of humanity) a radically different alternative way of living:
. which entails manifold critical issues that have never been adequately addressed;
. which is inherently problematic in that it tends to promote social and ecological irresponsibility;
. which we have termed ‘civilization’;
. to which Edward Goldsmith, in his book The Way, counterposes the sane, healthy, sustainable aboriginal way of life.

2. The alternative, “modern,” Way is characterized by urbanism, statism, mass society, impersonal institutions, alienation, class division, imperialism, and hyper-exploitation. The transition to modernity initiated accelerating trendlines of growth of population, production, consumption, and pollution - culminating in the current, unsustainable condition of cascading environmental and social crises. Collapse threatens if the issues of civilization remain largely unaddressed.

3. The objective of the Green movement is to foster a new direction for humanity based on living more lightly, locally, sustainably, and peacefully. Key to this objective is the re-creation of real, stable community as a context for living. We need to live in a way that resembles village life more than it resembles the leviathan of industrial hypermodernity.

4. Our challenge is to translate this vision into appealing, comprehensible, self-evident “things to do” and “programs to vote for.” The Ten Key Values provide a good starting point. On this basis we want (and need) to see a broad, deep, and wholistic social movement take hold and flourish.

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