December 12th, 2007

On The Story of Stuff

A few days ago I received an email that read as follows:

“I try not to send too many mass emails about the subject of my work, but this one can’t be missed. A friend in Berkeley, Annie Leonard, produced this video with Free Range Films. I have been anxiously awaiting it, and boy is it good. It gets a little political perhaps where it shouldn’t, but it is the first time I’ve seen the truth and consequences of our consumerism put into understandable, comprehensive terms. Please watch it online—it’s pretty short (15 mins) and you will not regret spending the time. And please send it to everyone you know. Everyone in the world (literally) needs to see this.”

Watch the full-length version of the video HERE.

There’s only one thing I’d add to that urging: Our dominant paradigm for understanding the world is based almost exclusively on a linear cause-and-effect worldview. The difficulty with this paradigm is that it provides a very limited short-term perspective for understanding how things really work. What makes this video, which is called “The Story of Stuff,” so compelling is that it goes beyond the typical linear cause-and-effect paradigm by examining patterns of behavior and the interrelationship between things. It’s a whole systems view that enables a much deeper understanding of the way things operate; an understanding that creates the conditions to make lasting positive change within the system possible.

- ian

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 4:42 pm and is filed under Sustainability, Environmental Change, Positive Change, Compassionate Capitalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.