Seeing Wetiko

“Wetiko is a cannibalizing force driven by insatiable greed, appetite without satisfaction, consumption as an end in itself, and war for its own sake, against other tribes, species, and nature, and even against the individual’s own humanity.” — Paul Levy, author of Wetiko: Healing the Mind-Virus That Plagues Our World

“Our individual psychological doom manifests collectively as a universal ecological calamity. Both are interwoven with one another. Both are symptoms of a fundamental misunderstanding of ourselves and of reality. In a world of ruined aliveness, it is impossible to be alive oneself. Both inner aliveness and the aliveness of the natural world are fac... See more

From indigenous cultures — who’ve tended to operate on a paradigm of cooperative collectivism that’s deeply entwined with their relationship to nature — to the African Ubuntu philosophy that emphasizes communal values, empathy, shared humanity, and the foundational belief that individuals exist in a web of relationships, there are countless cultura... See more