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Thoughts on Paul Hawken and Blessed Unrest by Ben Brucato, September, 2009:

One Big Movement

In Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawken discusses the history of ideas and action of “a broad nonideological movement” that “has come into being that does not invoke the masses’ fantasized will but rather engages citizens’ localized needs” (18). This movement offers “thousands of practical and useful [ideas]” and “processes, concerns, and compassion” and is “eminently pragmatic” (ibid.).

The movement that Hawken is dealing with “has three basic roots: environmental activism, social justice initiatives, and indigenous cultures’ resistance to globalization, all of which have become intertwined” (12). He explores dozens, if not hundreds, of examples of environmental destruction, human rights abuses and the decimation of aboriginal culture, some with passing comments and others with great elaboration. However, we see few mentions of particular organizations or coalitions of organizations mobilizing against a particular offender or groups of offenders with a particular single-issue campaign or as part of a broad reform or revolutionary movement. The avoidance of particulars of the movement while being particular about what they oppose is deliberate. The more he veils the conglomeration of thousands of organizations and corporations comprised by hundreds of thousands of individuals, the easier it is for him to suggest they are part of one great whole. We should, as Hawken suggests, see that “the movement’s key contribution is the rejection of one big idea,” (18) but that this is one big movement.

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2 Responses to “Thoughts on Paul Hawken and Blessed Unrest”

  1. Chris Marsh

    Have you read Vaclav Smil’s review of ‘Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution’ by Hawken & the Lovins? (Population and Development Review, 26 (2000), 163-76.)? What do you think of Smil?

  2. John Garrett Jones

    which way are we heading? There has recently been a NATO summit meeting in Wales. Main items: how to react to the Islamic threat in Iraq and Syria and the Russian threat in Ukraine and the need for every NATO signatory to meet its commitment to pay 2% of GDP to NATO.
    It is our contention that these are matters for an empowered UN, not for one segment of the global population in opposition to other segments of the global population – which is simply tribalism writ large and a denial of our common humanity.
    It is not a human right to be able to wage war. In fact the war which began a century ago deprived 16 million human beings of their most basic right, the right to life. Another 21 million were wounded, many of them incapacitated for life. See http://www.garrettjones.talktalk.net and
    http://www.futureworthhaving.co.uk

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