The Outrage

Connect with the problem through the recognition that we all sense that we are on the wrong path.

The Outrage

You know that we can’t continue down the path we are on. It doesn’t matter if you are conservative or liberal, religious or non-religious, rich or poor — you see it. It may be from a different perspective, and you might focus on various issues, but you feel it in your gut. If you don’t, then maybe this is not the book for you — pass it on to a friend.

The reality is you, or the people you love, are suffering. You see the social and environmental mess we have created. We are destroying the planet, our communities, families, and ourselves.

None of us are okay with it, but we don’t know what to do. We could try to vote another party into power, start a global protest movement, or completely drop out of society. None of these have made a real difference, and they are even less likely to in the future.

So what are we to do. For decades, the United Nations, national governments, multinational corporations, and universities have been trying to solve the global problems of environmental degradation and human suffering. It has not worked. We are making a mess of the world at an ever-increasing rate and creating more human suffering every day.

No matter how educated we are or how many institutions we throw at the problems, we can’t solve them this way. These problems were created by us collectively. We simply didn’t know any better.

Now we do. Our complex reality cannot be understood or fixed by our rational minds. Our bodies are what have guided our evolution for millions of years. And at some point, we stopped listening to ourselves and started listening to rational systems and experts.

That is the story we want to tell — how our bodies came with what we need to live the lives we all want to live.

That’s not the way the world currently works, of course. Over time we’ve created all kinds of systems to help society work. The problem is that our society was built on a lousy understanding of human nature. So, we made systems that force people to behave. Creating institutions, laws, rules, and many other ways of dominating people rather than recognizing us for who we are.

We are not motivated by rational thought. We are driven by universal needs that cause us to feel and act in the world. We all know this is true. None of us rationally chose who to love, what food we like, or how we will feel in an hour. Our bodies motivate and regulate much of our behavior.

That’s the thing, we know it, but our social systems left that out of the equations they’re based on. For the political, legal, and economic systems, people are rational actors without feelings. We are there to vote, pay taxes, and work as parts of a complicated machine we call society.

Our needs and the feelings they generate are real, and the systems we’ve created are poor attempts are controlling our society. That not only makes our communities not function well, but it also means that our society is hurting people, not intentionally, mind you, but it does. Every day millions of people are forced to do things they don’t want to do. Not because it’s necessary to make society work, but because those who designed the independent parts of our society screwed up our view of humanity.

Many of the social issues that choke our news channels are examples of our society failing us. Again, that was not the intent of those who created it, but it is the outcome of the flawed assumptions behind our systems of doing almost everything we do as a society.

There is a place for rational thought, but it is far from what drives our social behavior. And it is our social behavior that will make the changes we need in the world.

To solve the global problems, we need to collaborate, and if we have a wrong view of ourselves, we will fail. That’s why it’s up to everyday people. Politicians, investors, and leaders of corporations operate through domination. The solutions can’t come from them, not because of who they are as individuals, but because they only know how to work in their inherited society.