\u201cRealistic Living\u201d is a revolutionary category, for most people, most of the time, are in dread flight from Reality.\u00a0 Obsolete and mistaken notions rule our living, but we nevertheless cling to what has become familiar.\u00a0 So realism can be dreadful.\u00a0 But Realistic Living is also a joyous category, for being our authentic being in our real situation is a happy journey into our true humanity.\u00a0 I nurture my realism from ancient religious sources, but I also nurture my being from those sources that best describe our contemporary world in vivid, unvarnished ways.<\/p>\n
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With regard to this last source of realism, I recommend these three books: (1) Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, (2)\u00a0 Henry A. Giroux, America\u2019s Education Deficit and the War on Youth, (3) Charlene Spretnak, Relational Reality: New Discoveries of Interrelatedness That Are Transforming the Modern World.<\/p>\n
The Klein book rips to shreds the old economic paradigms that still bounce around in our heads, and she tells us how deeply we must change our economic, political and cultural lives in order to respond to the climate challenges that threaten to narrow and perhaps extinguish human life on Earth.<\/p>\n
The Giroux book focuses on education and the next generation, but it is also a book about the political revolution and how it must be conducted in order to do anything about the climate, inequity, needless violence, foolish wars, religious foolishness, and anti-intellectual stupidity.<\/p>\n
The Spretank book deals with the underlying cultural revolution, the fundamental ideas and awarenesses that must replace the reigning mind of modernity in order for us to recover our humanity enough to enact the prophetic visions being penned by authors like Kline and Giroux.<\/p>\n
I find each of these books wonderful to read, but the insights are so intense that my mind is repeatedly blown.\u00a0 This intensity makes reading these book a project.\u00a0 No Saturday morning scan will do the job.\u00a0 You may have to read a bit, meditate a bit, perhaps write a bit, about almost every chapter.\u00a0 Fortunately, these three scholars are so dependable in their thoroughgoing mastery of their topics that you can trust them deeply and not mind living with them for many weeks.<\/p>\n
Obviously, there are many other good books to read, beginning with other good books by these same three authors.\u00a0 For example, Spetnak\u2019s States of Grace is easier to master and goes right to the heart of our need for profound interreligious dialogue and cooperation to undermine the dead-ends of modernity.\u00a0 I have chosen Relational Reality because its insights are so basic to the comprehensive cultural revolution.\u00a0 And some may wish to rank Klien\u2019s Shock Doctrine as more important than This Changes Everything, but I have chosen her focus on climate change because I believe it goes to the heart of our social revolution in a way that too many of us are ignoring.\u00a0 Similarly, Giroux has written a library of books that may each be as good as the above ripping work on education.\u00a0 I have not read them, so I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 What I do know is that education, especially of the neglected coming generation is of huge importance to me and to my vision of how we might get from our horrific ruts to an effective dealing with our basic challenges.<\/p>\n
If you want to read my own efforts on pulling together a vision of the comprehensive social revolution, I (with a lot of help from my coauthors Ben Ball, Marsha Buck, Ken Kreutziger, and Alan Richard) have pulled together\u00a0 The Road from Empire to Eco-Democracy.\u00a0 I would be delighted for you to consider our book as well, and I have a stack of them in my closet that a mere 20 dollars will start a copy your way.\u00a0 Gene Marshall; 3578 N. State Highway 78; Bonham, TX, 75418<\/p>\n