Charles Eisenstein

Last updated

Charles Eisenstein
CharlesEisenstein.jpg
Born1967 (age 56–57)
OccupationAuthor, educator, public speaker
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Yale University
SubjectEnvironmentalism, economics, spirituality, philosophy
Notable worksThe Ascent of Humanity (2007), Transformational Weight Loss, Sacred Economics (2011), The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible (2013)
Website
charleseisenstein.org

Charles Eisenstein (born 1967) is an American public speaker and author. His books include The Ascent of Humanity, Sacred Economics, and The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible.

Contents

Eisenstein's work covers a wide range of topics, including the history of human civilization, economics, spirituality, and the ecology movement. Key themes explored include anti-consumerism, interdependence, and how myth and narrative influence culture. According to Eisenstein, global culture is immersed in a destructive "story of separation", and one of the main goals of his work is to present an alternative "story of interbeing". Much of his work draws on ideas from Eastern philosophy and the spiritual teachings of various indigenous peoples.

Eisenstein has been involved in the Occupy, New Economy, and permaculture movements. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he described himself as a dissident, expressed vaccine skepticism and questioned public health measures. He was a senior advisor for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s 2024 presidential campaign. [1]

Life and career

Born in 1967, Eisenstein graduated from Yale University in 1989 with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy. He lived in Taiwan for nine years, where he became fluent in Mandarin Chinese and worked as a translator. [2] He married there, had children, and later returned to the United States. He describes his late 20s through his mid 30s as "a long period of intensifying crisis". During this time, he held short-term positions as a construction worker, college instructor, and yoga teacher, but spent most of his time as a stay-at-home dad. He then spent four years writing The Ascent of Humanity, which was published in 2007 and became his first commercially successful book, launching his writing career. Eisenstein has four sons; one with his current wife, Stella, and three with his previous wife, Patsy. [3] He currently lives in Rhode Island, New England. [4]

Eisenstein has published op-ed pieces in The Guardian and The Huffington Post on topics including genetic modification, the patenting of seeds [5] [6] and debt. [7] [8] He is a contributing editor at the website Reality Sandwich. [9] He appeared on Oprah Winfrey's Super Soul Sunday on July 16, 2017. [10] He has periodically published essays on his website [11] and on Substack. [12]

On May 15, 2023, Eisenstein announced that he had taken an advisor's position in the campaign of then-Democratic Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. [13] In that capacity, he participated in a fundraising event, held June 27, 2023, bringing together several prominent activists, such as Mikki Willis, Sayer Ji, Del Bigtree, Sherri Tenpenny and Joe Mercola. [14] According to federal election filings, Eisenstein was paid as much as $21,000 per month for his services. [15]

Writings

The Ascent of Humanity

The Ascent of Humanity, published in 2007, draws together Eisenstein's thoughts about the history of human civilization. It explores the development of what he calls the "separate human realm", drawing distinctions between hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies. In Eisenstein's view, a greater sense of separation from nature began with the emergence of agriculture and has been accelerating to the present day.

Other themes include the role of various languages, mathematics, art, religions and other symbolic systems to structure subjective reality at the levels of the individual and of culture. He argues that these have a strong, largely unconscious effect on attitudes toward time and the natural world.

It was read on the Unwelcome Guests radio show and the reading was later released as an audiobook. [16] [17]

Sacred Economics

Eisenstein wrote his 2011 book Sacred Economics as part of the New Economy movement. [18] The book revolves around the theme of how the current monetary system based on interest and usury, along with the abandonment of the gift economy, led to social alienation, competition and need for an economic system predicated on continuous growth. [19] [20] It has been either fully or partially translated into at least nine languages. [21] [22] Accordingly, his primary goal is the reestablishment of some form of gift economy as a means of strengthening relationships in contrast to money economies which commodify our relationships and render people interchangeable. [23] [24] He asserts that money is created by the conversion of free human interactions into paid services. [25] [a] Eisenstein himself attempts to practice the gift economy in his own life. [26]

The book explores additional economic proposals including a negative-interest currency following Silvio Gesell, social dividends, economic degrowth, and a personal emphasis on right livelihood over financial motivation. [27] In other writings, he has also advocated for universal basic income. [28] He describes and rejects what he describes as the myth of scarcity which he claims fosters greed and anxiety. [27] [29]

The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible

The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible was published in November 2013. [30] It argues that many of the social, economic, political, and environmental problems covered in his earlier works can be traced to an underlying worldview that he calls the "Story of Separation"—that humans are separate from each other and from the rest of the natural world. A new story that is emerging, the "Story of Interbeing", is a "story of the world that we really care about". The book describes this as a time of transition between these stories: "Internally, it [the transition] is ... a transformation in the experience of being alive. Externally is it ... a transformation of humanity's role on planet Earth". He deconstructs the old story while describing the new. For example, the best way to interrupt the story of separation is to give someone an experience of non-separation. Publishers' Weekly described it as "a revolutionary and interactive book—in the sense that it inspires the reader to think out of the ordinary", adding that Eisenstein "will be noted in antiquity as one of the seminal and pioneering storytellers of this new world". [31]

Climate—A New Story

Climate—A New Story was published in 2018. It is described as 'flipping the script on climate change', and addresses the framing, tactics and goals of our approach to environmental issues. Eisenstein proposes that if we were to feel that the rivers, forests, and creatures of the natural and material world were sacred or at least valuable in their own right, then our response might be more wholesome and ultimately effective. He decries valuing the living world simply for its carbon credits or for preventing the extinction of one species or another. [32]

The Coronation

In the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, Eisenstein published a viral essay called "The Coronation" on his website. [33] In this essay, he argued that the nascent global pandemic presented an opportunity for collective spiritual transformation, if systems of political, medical, and informational control are resisted. Over the course of the pandemic, he wrote several more essays on his website and on Substack expressing vaccine skepticism, questioning public health measures such as masking, social distancing, lockdowns, vaccine passports and vaccine mandates. He also expressed ongoing concern that the pandemic was being used as an excuse for governments to act in an authoritarian manner, and drew on René Girard's mimetic theory to argue that those who chose not to be vaccinated were being scapegoated by society and government authorities. Eisenstein's positions on Covid-19 vaccines and public health measures led his publisher, North Atlantic Books, to part ways with him in 2021. Chelsea Green Publishing later published these essays in book form as The Coronation: Essays From the Covid Moment.

Reception

In 2013, journalist and author Rory Spowers described Eisenstein as a "refreshing new voice", saying that he is young, fresh, well-informed, humble but articulate, with a very spiritual perspective. He added that Eisenstein is too intelligent to be confrontational but that, through his works, especially The Ascent of Humanity and Sacred Economics, "he's really moved the whole thing along in a number of ways". [34] Eisenstein was influential in the Occupy Movement. [24] [35]

In March 2020, Eisenstein became a leading COVID dissident, beginning with the viral success of an essay called "Coronation." [36] In the essay, which was tweeted out [37] by Jack Dorsey, Eisenstein argued that the nascent global pandemic presented an opportunity for collective spiritual transformation, if systems of political, medical, and informational control are resisted. As the pandemic wore on, he questioned the rationality of public health measures like social distancing and vaccines, and suggested that conspiracy theories conceal truths that society is unprepared to accept. [38] In 2021, Eisenstein's publisher, North Atlantic Books publicly disavowed his Substack essay "Mob Morality and the Unvaxxed," in which he expressed his belief that those who chose not to be vaccinated for Covid-19 were being persecuted. The publisher committed to "donate all net earnings we make from the substantial sales of his books to three organizations committed to the rights and welfare of some of the very people his essay invisiblizes, condescends to, and exploits." [39]

Bibliography

Notes

  1. ↑ Cf. McKnight, John. The careless society.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bryan Caplan</span> American behavioral economist and author (born 1971)

Bryan Douglas Caplan is an American economist and author. He is a professor of economics at George Mason University, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and a former contributor to the Freakonomics blog and EconLog. He currently publishes his own blog, Bet on It. Caplan is a self-described "economic libertarian". The bulk of Caplan's academic work is in behavioral economics and public economics, especially public choice theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gregg Easterbrook</span> American writer (born 1953)

Gregg Edmund Easterbrook is an American writer and a contributing editor of both The New Republic and The Atlantic Monthly. He has authored ten books, and writes for op-ed pages, magazines, and journals.

Timothy James "Matthew " Fox is an American priest and theologian. Formerly a member of the Dominican Order within the Catholic Church, he became a priest in the Episcopal Church following his expulsion from the order in 1993.

Spiritual ecology is an emerging field in religion, conservation, and academia that proposes that there is a spiritual facet to all issues related to conservation, environmentalism, and earth stewardship. Proponents of spiritual ecology assert a need for contemporary nature conservation work to include spiritual elements and for contemporary religion and spirituality to include awareness of and engagement in ecological issues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human extinction</span> Hypothetical end of the human species

Human extinction or omnicide is the hypothetical end of the human species, either by population decline due to extraneous natural causes, such as an asteroid impact or large-scale volcanism, or via anthropogenic destruction (self-extinction), for example by sub-replacement fertility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John B. Cobb</span> American theologian, philosopher, and environmentalist (born 1925)

John Boswell Cobb Jr. is an American theologian, philosopher, and environmentalist. He is often regarded as the preeminent scholar in the field of process philosophy and process theology, the school of thought associated with the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Cobb is the author of more than fifty books. In 2014, Cobb was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Berry</span> Catholic priest and scholar (1914–2009)

Thomas Berry, CP was a Catholic priest, cultural historian, and scholar of the world's religions, especially Asian traditions. Later, as he studied Earth history and evolution, he called himself a "geologian".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Dowd</span> American author and advocate of ecotheology and post-doom (born 1958)

Michael Dowd was an American author, Christian minister, lecturer, and advocate of ecotheology and post-doom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Oster</span> American economist

Emily Fair Oster is an American economist who has served as the Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence at Brown University since 2019, where she has been a professor of economics since 2015. Her research interests span from development economics and health economics to research design and experimental methodology. Her research was brought to the attention of non-economists through the Wall Street Journal, the book SuperFreakonomics, and her 2007 TED Talk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timothy Snyder</span> American historian (born 1969)

Timothy David Snyder is an American historian specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Kremer</span> American economist and Nobel laureate (born 1964)

Michael Robert Kremer is an American development economist currently serving as University Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago and Director of the Development Innovation Lab at the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics. Kremer formerly served as the Gates Professor of Developing Societies at Harvard University, a role he held from 2003 to 2020. In 2019, Kremer was jointly awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, together with Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soviet montage theory</span> A theory of film that developed in Soviet Russia

Soviet montage theory is an approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing. It is the principal contribution of Soviet film theorists to global cinema, and brought formalism to bear on filmmaking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seth Abramson</span> American professor, attorney, author, and political columnist

Seth Abramson is an American professor, attorney, author, political columnist, and poet. He is the editor of the Best American Experimental Writing series and wrote a trilogy of nonfiction works detailing the foreign policy agenda and political scandals of former president Donald Trump.

North Atlantic Books is a non-profit, independent publisher based in Berkeley, California, United States. Distributed by Penguin Random House Publisher Services, North Atlantic Books is a mission-driven social justice-oriented publisher. Founded by authors Richard Grossinger and Lindy Hough in Vermont, North Atlantic Books was named partly for the North Atlantic region where it began in 1974, as well as Alan Van Newkirk's Geographic Foundation of the North Atlantic, an early (1970) ecological center founded in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, by radicals from Detroit. The publisher also cites Edward Dorn's 1960s poem, "North Atlantic Turbine: A Theory of Truth", which very early described the dangers of global commoditization by the Western World, as an inspiration in the company's name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Berenson</span> American writer (born 1973)

Alex Norman Berenson is an American writer who was a reporter for The New York Times, and has authored several thriller novels as well a book on corporate financial filings. His 2019 book Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence sparked controversy, earning denunciations from many in the scientific and medical communities.

Christian Wiman is an American poet, translator and editor.

<i>After Capitalism</i>

After Capitalism: Economic Democracy in Action is a 2012 book by United States author Dada Maheshvarananda, an activist, yoga monk and writer. The book argues that global capitalism is terminally ill because it suffers from four fatal flaws: growing inequity and concentration of wealth, addiction to speculation instead of production, rising unsustainable debt and its tendency to exploit the natural environment.

Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters. It allows writers to send digital newsletters directly to subscribers. Founded in 2017, Substack is headquartered in San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman Krznaric</span> Australian philosopher

Roman Krznaric is an Australian-born social philosopher, whose books focus on the power of ideas to create change. His international bestsellers, including The Good Ancestor and Empathy, have been published in more than 25 languages. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing at Linacre College, University of Oxford and the founder of the world's first Empathy Museum. His latest book, History for Tomorrow: Inspiration from the Past for the Future of Humanity, explores what we can learn from the last 1000 years of global history to tackle urgent issues ranging from the climate crisis to the risks of artificial intelligence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jesse Singal</span> American journalist

Jesse Singal is an American journalist. He has written for publications including New York magazine, The New York Times and The Atlantic. Singal also publishes a newsletter on Substack and hosts the podcast Blocked and Reported with journalist Katie Herzog.

References

  1. ↑ Bergengruen, Vera (August 23, 2024). "Inside the Last Weeks of RFK Jr.'s Campaign". Time Magazine. Retrieved December 6, 2024.
  2. ↑ Christopher Ryan (May 15, 2019). "377, Charles Eisenstein". Tangentially Speaking (Podcast). Retrieved May 7, 2020.
  3. ↑ "About Charles". September 28, 2021.
  4. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/@charleseisenstein/about [ bare URL ]
  5. ↑ Eisenstein, Charles (October 9, 2012). "Genetically modifying and patenting seeds isn't the answer". The Guardian. London. Retrieved June 26, 2013.
  6. ↑ Eisenstein, Charles (January 9, 2018). "Opposition To GMOs Is Neither Unscientific Nor Immoral". HuffPost. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
  7. ↑ Eisenstein, Charles (September 3, 2012). "We can't grow ourselves out of debt, no matter what the Federal Reserve does". The Guardian. London: guardian.co.uk. Retrieved June 26, 2013.
  8. ↑ Eisenstein, Charles (November 12, 2012). "Why Occupy's plan to cancel consumer debts is money well spent". The Guardian. London. Retrieved June 26, 2013.
  9. ↑ Eisenstein, Charles (November 8, 2013). "Charles Eisenstein". Reality Sandwich. Retrieved June 15, 2014.
  10. ↑ "Author Charles Eisenstein on Creating Deeper Connections in Just 60 Seconds".
  11. ↑ Eisenstein, Charles. "Essays". CharlesEisenstein.org. Retrieved May 7, 2020.
  12. ↑ Eisenstein, Charles. "Charles Eisenstein". Substack . Retrieved December 5, 2024.
  13. ↑ Goldberg, Michelle (June 30, 2023). "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Coalition of the Distrustful". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 5, 2023. Retrieved July 12, 2023.
  14. ↑ Merlan, Anna (June 28, 2023). "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Gives the Game Away". Vice News. Archived from the original on June 28, 2023. Retrieved July 12, 2023.
  15. ↑ Bergengruen, Vera (August 23, 2024). "Inside the Last Weeks of RFK Jr.'s Campaign". Time Magazine. Retrieved December 6, 2024.
  16. ↑ "Home". ascentofhumanity.com.
  17. ↑ "Ascent of Humanity – UnwelcomeGuests".
  18. ↑ Ginghină 2012, p. 60.
  19. ↑ Phillips, Jonathan Talat (October 8, 2012). "Waxing 'Sacred Economics' with Charles Eisenstein". The Blog – HuffPost. TheHuffingtonPost.com. Retrieved January 25, 2013.
  20. ↑ Ginghină, A. (2012). "Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition". Romanian Review of Social Sciences. 3: 60–63.
  21. ↑ "Sacred Economics Read Online" . Retrieved February 25, 2014.
  22. ↑ Eisenstein, Charles (2012). Kutsal Ekonomi: Geçiş çağında para, armağan ve toplum. Okuyan Us. ISBN   978-6054054916.
  23. ↑ Ginghină 2012, p. 62.
  24. 1 2 Hill 2012.
  25. ↑ Hill, Gregg (2012). "Sacred Economics Author Charles Eisenstein with Integral New York". Integral Leadership Review. 12 (2): 1–3.
  26. ↑ Ginghină 2012, p. 62f.
  27. 1 2 Ginghină 2012, p. 61.
  28. ↑ McLeod, Cameron (April 28, 2017). "Charles Eisenstein: basic income as "technology of reunion"". Basic Income Earth Network. Retrieved February 22, 2018.
  29. ↑ "Permaculture and the myth of scarcity". Resilience. September 3, 2013. Retrieved February 22, 2018.
  30. ↑ Eisenstein, Charles D. The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic, 2013. Print.
  31. ↑ "The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible". Reviews. PWxyz. November 5, 2013. Retrieved February 25, 2014. ... the underlying—and largely unexamined—"normal" worldview and story that programs human responses; he calls it the "Story of Separation." The good news is that simultaneously a new story is emerging, the Story of Interbeing, a "story of the world that we really care about." This book is a guide through this time of transition between stories: "Internally, it [the transition] is nothing less than a transformation in the experience of being alive. Externally is it nothing less than a transformation of humanity's role on planet Earth." Eisenstein brilliantly deconstructs the old story and simultaneously weaves an ambitious and empowering narrative of the new story, relating real life stories that demonstrate the best way to interrupt the story of separation: give someone an experience of non-separation. This is a revolutionary and interactive book—in the sense that it inspires the reader to think out of the ordinary. Eisenstein will be noted in antiquity as one of the seminal and pioneering storytellers of this new world.
  32. ↑ Climate—A New Story. North Atlantic Books. September 18, 2018. Retrieved October 16, 2018– via Amazon.
  33. ↑ "Charles Eisenstein | The Coronation". March 27, 2020. Retrieved June 15, 2023.
  34. ↑ Spowers, Rory (2013). "Green tea & man-eating tigers". The Advisor. Archived from the original on September 2, 2013. Retrieved August 31, 2013. Who else inspires you? The most refreshing new voice is a guy called Charles Eisenstein, who's very involved with the Occupy movement. His magnum opus is The Ascent Of Humanity and his most recent book is Sacred Economics. He's really moved the whole thing along in a number of ways. He's young and fresh and informed from a very spiritual perspective. Humble, but articulate; he's not banging a drum and he's not confrontational. He's too intelligent for that.
  35. ↑ Spowers 2013.
  36. ↑ "Charles Eisenstein | The Coronation". March 27, 2020. Retrieved June 15, 2023.
  37. ↑ "@jack". Twitter. Retrieved June 15, 2023.
  38. ↑ Beres, Derek; Remski, Matthew; Walker, Julian (2023). Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat. New York: PublicAffairs. pp. 169–178. ISBN   978-1541702981.
  39. ↑ McKee, Tim. "Disavowing Disinformation". North Atlantic Books. Retrieved December 6, 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.