From Empire to Ecstacy

In the 1980s a lot of 30 and 40 something baby boomer libertarians, progressives and "hippies" were dreaming about and trying to create an alternative society, as so intensely envisioned since the late 1960s. Unfortunately, many of these dreams got lost in the go-go economic years of the 1990s and the terror-obsessed first decade of the 21st century. However, as baby boomer libertarians, progressives and hippies retire we find ourselves with more time on our hands, with lots of money -- or much less than we expected, and the prospect of another 20-30 years on an increasingly unstable planet. Perhaps enough of our generation will reject merely sucking younger generations dry through social security and medicare and will return to envisioning a new future. And even act on such a vision!
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Check out my article FROM EMPIRE TO ECSTACY, originally printed in the "green"-oriented publication IN CONTEXT. The article was written in response to a request for “new stories” that might replace the old, self-destructive ones humanity now tells, and reshape human consciousness as we enter the “Planetary Age”. "The New Story" (IC#12) Winter 1985/86 edition. (Also in CarolMoore.Net/Articles/) While it definitely needs some updating, reading it still gives me goose pimples. Just the brief introduction below.
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I envision two possible stories that future generations may tell about the transition from the Age of Empire to the Planetary Age. One is a sad story, a story of chaos, dissolution and destruction, of environmental and human exhaustion, followed by a long, labored rebirth of a new planetary culture. The other is an ecstatic story of a new planetary culture quickly coalescing in the first days of chaos, before dissolution and destruction exhausts the earth and the human spirit. Believing with hope and determination that we are not fated to suffer the sad story but that we will create an ecstatic story, it is such a story - looking back from our future - that I will tell.
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Article subsections include: The Age of Empire; the New Vision; Increasing Chaos; the Transition; The Planetary Age: the Age of Ecstasy.