Every so often I record a conversation that feels absolutely vital for the stuckness of these times.
Full of insight, provocation, intelligence, trouble and beautiful fertiliser for what could be.
This is one of those episodes.
A conversation with Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy - both long term activists, political strategists and in their words ‘accidental philanthropy advisors’.
Alnoor and Lynn are two of the wisest souls I’ve hosted here.
Their ability to articulate with clarity, nuance, honesty and humility to the mess we are in as a species and how we got here, while gesturing towards beautiful ways through is remarkable, and is a true gift in my opinion.
They do not see themselves as ‘solutionists’, rather as weavers of ongoing evolutionary intelligence and contextual knowledge.
They draw on this knowledge through wisdom, experiences and learnings from a vast diverse web of life, traditions, cultures, professions and expertise past and present, and the extraordinary book they created is a synthesis of all of that.
Post Capitalist Philanthropy - Healing Wealth in the Time of Collapse
This Episode is a longer one.
However, we do offer you an intentional reflective pause half way through, a place to breathe and check in on yourself or take a break.
This conversation is deep, it sets out a dynamic perspective on ’the waters we are swimming in’ today and the ‘Age of Consequence’ we are now experiencing.
Consequence from the systems, structures, beliefs, stories, ways of perceiving and relating to the world, ourselves and each other that we have inherited from the imaginations, actions and contextual realities of those in power who came before us.
Consequences that we can witness playing out in extremely violent ways at this very moment in time.
We explore:
Navigating the polycrisis/metacrisis - how did we get here - understanding the systems through ‘structural, historical, constellational world views.’
The inevitability of financial collapse and currency devaluation as the model of debt-based, growth-based logic self-terminates.
The incompatibility between the Earth’s System and Neo-liberal late stage- capitalist modernity
Ontological shifts and returning to life force - somatics, dis-embodiedment, separation, identity, ancestry and death - ‘becoming contextually relevant beings’
What is Post-Capitalism - values and realities
Becoming ‘conscientious objectors’ of the dominant extractive culture
Shifting to solidarity with all life: the power of connection and dialogue with the living world and ancient wisdom in modern activism and regenerative change
Growing post-capitalist realities, cultures and infrastructure through community and practices - living beyond control and greed and the ‘atomised self’, being in service to life itself
Living and practicing new and ancient ways of being, knowing and relating
Creating post capitalist infrastructure: a call to philanthropy and wealth redistribution
Reflections on wealth, identity and the journey of collective liberation and transformation.
There is much in this conversation that may be challenging to some, especially if you’ve grown up like me as a ‘white person’ in a western society where:
You’ve experienced unquestioned access and rights that the majority on this planet haven’t
You still buy into the promise and logic of the story of ‘progress’ and human exceptionalism
You haven’t really contemplated the scientifically impossible illusion of infinite economic growth on a finite planet
You feel some entitlement towards all the perks and offerings of capitalist modernity
There is also real hope and possibility in this conversation.
What Alnoor and Lynn are gesturing towards is I feel a beautiful invitation, but it requires radical honesty, humility and reckoning, and a commitment to liberation and redemption work.
I hope this episode stimulates more open, honest dialogue and exploration around the contradictions, paradoxes and complexity of the mess we find ourselves in regardless of our identities, backgrounds and political persuasions.
I hope it might invite more humility, more not knowing and open up more conversations about what growing post-capitalist realities might mean without being shot down in our current binary culture of divisiveness.
How can we more easily imagine the end of the world than the end of ‘capitalism’ for an idea, a human construct - that is just a couple of hundred years old on a planet of 4.6 billion years ?
Are we willing to walk away from cultures of domination, control and violence ?
To recognise our smallness in the great mystery of life and begin to trust the life force within us and around us to guide us into creating and practicing new ways of being and new cultures that put life at the centre again.
I really hope you appreciate this Episode, please do comment, share and post far and wide if it brings things up for you, we’d love to hear from you.
Links
Becoming Crew Live Event Gatherings
Episode 84 - Alnoor Ladha & Lynn Murphy - The Age of Consequence, Healing Wealth, Growing Post Capitalist Realities