News from Zentropolis (c)

News from Zentropolis (c)


This column is reserved for a make believe, but yet real place. A place where all things are possible. And contrary to the movie Sin City, where everything bad happens, this is Zentropolis where everything good happens.

This city has its own free speech television network, and rather than Sin City's version of CNN, where all reports are focused on lying, cheating, fraud, embezzlement, killing , wars, environmental crimes, and man'­s inhumanity towards man, GNN has it'­s has it's own reports of truth, integrity, honesty, peace, harmony, compassion , nurturing , and caring for all on GNN (The Good News Network).

I make reference a lot in my book, Zentrepreneurism www.zentrepreneurism.com to the good citizens of Zentropolis, and their good deeds. Here are some of the stories we are covering this month in Zentropolis.

Ervin Laszlo in an article in Ode Magazine writes about what Zentropolis might look like;

Let me offer one example of how such a breakthrough might look: Faced with growing problems and shared threats, citizens across the planet pull together to form associations and networks to pursue their dreams of peace and environmental sustainability.Business leaders and entrepreneurs recognize the importance of these aspirations and respond with new goods and services that help make them a reality. Soon, global news and entertainment media commit themselves to chronicling emerging social and cultural innovations.

On the Internet and through other grassroots communication networks, people everywhere begin exploring new visions of the natural world, the global community and human existence itself.Out of all this comes a new culture of solidarity and social responsibility across the planet.

Public support mounts for government policies that institute social and ecological repairs. Money is diverted from the military and defence industries to the needs of people. New measures are implemented to develop sustainable energy, transportation, industrial, technological and agricultural systems. Huge numbers of people around the world get better access to food, jobs, and education.

As a result of these developments, international mistrust, ethnic conflict, racial oppression, economic inequity, and gender inequality give way to new traditions of mutual respect. Rather than breaking down in conflict and war, humanity breaks through to a sustainable world of self-reliant butco-operating communities, enterprises, countries and regions.At this point in our history, human beings have accumulated unprecedented power hence responsibility to decide our destiny. Although the prospect of global breakdown stares us in the face, it is by no means inevitable.


We also have the unprecedented option of choosing a brighter tomorrow. Nothing prevents us from shifting our evolutionary path toward a peaceful and sustainable civilization, nothing except our own patterns of thinking and action. The leaders now in power and the mainstream society they represent have not yet glimpsed a different future for our civilization. Yet many other people are inspired by visions of a global breakthrough that are already emerging at the creative frontiers of our society.

Societies are seldom culturally monolithic in their thinking. This is especially true in eras of innovation and ferment. Those periods spawn a large number of subcultures, or alternative cultures, that spring up alongside the prevailing power structure.This is what we see happening today, with some of these alternative cultures devoting themselves to imaginatively rethinking the priorities, values, and behaviours of society, giving particular attention to how we can improve environmental sustainability and human ethics.

This sort of fundamental reassessment of how we live, even if overlooked or ignored by those in power, can spark rapid and revolutionary change. While barely visible in the major media, a number of grassroots movements, from global justice to holistic health to spiritual exploration, are already blazing the trail away from the usual assumptions of mainstream culture. Even the people involved with these movements underestimate their own numbers, in part because most of them go about their business without trying to convert others and because they lack social and political cohesion. Yet the more serious and sincere of these alternative cultures show promise as catalysts of a social breakthrough. Unlike many subcultures and sects, these people do not relish taking antisocial stances or want to hide away from everyone else. Rather, they are quietly but profoundly engaged in the world, as they challenge accepted beliefs and pursue new avenues of personal and social commitment.

This then is Zentropolis, the title of my new book.