Dr. Tyson Yunkaporta discusses re-orienting toward growth of intimacy, depth, and diversity. Topics include disrupting patterns, balancing feedback loops, challenges of economic growth, illusions of progress, and navigating language in culture wars. He also explores depression as a superpower and hope for the planet's future.
Focus on growth of intimacy, complexity, and diversity over material growth for sustainability.
Maintain balance between disruptors and patterns to avoid destructive loops.
Shift focus from economic growth to genuine wealth in relationships and community for sustainability.
Deep dives
Indigenous Weddings and Sustainable Structures
Indigenous weddings are not about cultural stereotypes, but rather understanding the sustainability of systems and relationships. Building structures that are sustainable over time is key. It is important to look beyond academia and Western lenses to understand non-Western cultures through an Aboriginal lens. Complexity theory and systems thinking provide insights into knowledge employed and inhabited by Indigenous communities. Indigenous knowledge is enacted in ritual combat and ceremonies to limit damaging effects. Understanding the balance and complexity of systems can inform more sustainable structures for anything we want to create.
Imbalance, Disruption, and the Beauty of Patterns
Imbalance is inherent in creation and is necessary to ensure patterns do not stagnate. The disruptor serves a purpose in creating conflict or disruption that leads to change and variation in patterns. However, when the disruptor becomes the pattern itself, problems arise. The challenge is to maintain a balance and prevent the disruptor from taking over. Understanding the interplay between positive and negative feedback loops is crucial. Positive feedback loops can lead to destructive patterns, while negative feedback loops are essential for regulation and counteracting excesses.
The Illusion of Infinite Growth and the True Nature of Wealth
The obsession with infinite economic growth relies on extraction and destruction of resources and perpetuates structural inequalities. The wealthy understand the importance of closed loops and maintain a self-sustaining, interdependent ecosystem where wealth is accumulated. However, this wealth is inaccessible to most people. Genuine wealth lies in relationships, community, and the ability to support and sustain one another. The focus should be on increasing the complexity and beauty of relationships, rather than material and economic growth. Shifting the paradigm of wealth and progress is necessary for a more sustainable future.
Challenging Dominant Narratives and Language
Language is a powerful tool for communication and sense-making. However, it is also prone to being co-opted and weaponized. Dominant narratives often simplify complex issues into binaries and factions, perpetuating culture wars. Indigenous thinking acknowledges the limitations of language and seeks diversity in thought and ideology. Recognizing the need to align social organizing with the law of the land and diverse ecosystems can lead to more sustainable systems. Avoiding branding and packaging ideas can foster open dialogue and prevent the co-option and watering down of concepts.
Navigating Power Systems and Preparing for Change
Navigating centralized power systems requires acknowledging the need for decentralized organizing. Indigenous thinking, rooted in place and relationships, holds the potential to save the world. However, there is no monolithic approach. Emphasizing diversity and autonomy in different bioregions allows for emergent patterns of relation and governance. Centralized people's movements may be necessary to challenge existing power structures, but they must be mindful of replicating the same patterns. A distributed approach that values relationships to place can facilitate necessary change and dismantle congregated global powers.
If material, economic growth is merely an illusion within a closed-loop system, what does it mean to re-orient towards the growth of intimacy, depth, complexity, and diversity? What does "Indigenous thinking" mean, if not some monolithic, prescriptive way of seeing the world?
In this episode, we welcome Dr. Tyson Yunkaporta, an academic, an arts critic, and a researcher who is a member of the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland. He carves traditional tools and weapons and also works as a senior lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges at Deakin University in Melbourne.
Dr. Yunkaporta is the author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save The World.
The musical offering in this episode is Karma by Sarah Kinsley.
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Green Dreamer is a community-supported podcast and multimedia journal exploring our paths to collective healing, ecological regeneration, and true abundance and wellness for all. Find our show notes, transcripts, and newsletter at GreenDreamer.com.
*Our conversations are minimally edited. Please view them as open invitations to dive deeper into the topics, resources, and information shared.
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