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DVD of IONS 2007 International
Conference Plenary with Riane Eisler
Monday, November 19,
2007 |
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Join us for a DVD viewing and discussion of Dr. Riane Eisler's Plenary Session at the IONS 2007 Conference. The title "The Real Wealth of Nations" encapsulates the theme of an economics of caring and elaborates on Dr. Eisler's most recently released book of the same name. “Neither capitalism nor socialism have been capable of solving our problems. On the contrary, they have really been complicit in creating them. And as Einstein said, We cannot solve problems within the same mindset…the same consciousness that created them. So what I have been proposing is that the real wealth of Nations is not financial…the real wealth of nations is not financial…that the real wealth of nations consists of the real contributions of people and nature. And that therefore we need economic systems that give value to the most essential human worth, to the work of caring for people starting in childhood and for our mother earth. Our systems do not do this.” --- Riane Eisler Riane Eisler begins her conference plenary to more than 1000 IONS Members by stating introducing her work as complimentary to IONS work of changing and expanding consciousness and putting it into action for personal and cultural transformation. She emphasizes “not only personal but what is essential in these critical times is cultural transformation world-wide.” At the core of her multi-disciplinary, historical, cross-cultural research, she finds underlying possibilities for partnership in restructuring global economics through negotiating and balancing two systems at cross purposes: the domination system and the partnership system: “Join me today in exploring a very important aspect of our lives, “the economic system, from the perspective of this tension between a partnership system and domination system, and more important, from the perspective of the urgency needed to shift from a system of beliefs and institutions…such as domination of top down ranking, be it man over woman, man over man, religion over religion, race over race, and yes, man over nature, which at this level of technological innovation threatens to take us to an evolutionary dead end to relations of mutual respect, mutual responsibility, mutual accountability, mutual benefit. These are relations where we can become aware of our integral interconnection…relations that honor our full humanity and also honor and support our Mother Earth.” Riane Eisler shares how she came to this work, having been a child who escaped the holocaust with her parents and growing up in the slums of Havana, with the knowledge that most of her relatives perished at the hands of the Nazis. She adds, “So very early on this had an impact on me and it left me with questions…questions about human possibilities…questions about whether all this violence, this cruelty, this insensitivity… whether that is as we are sometimes told, ‘Well it is just human nature’…or whether we have the possibility of moving to a more sane, more equitable, yes, more caring way of life.” She is now aware that, without realizing it at the time of writing her last three books, The Chalice and The Blade, Sacred Pleasure, and The Real Wealth of Nations she has created a trilogy around three levers of human motivation: powers, sex, money. She adds, “And yes they are constructed very, very differently in the context of a partner or domination system. She illustrates the weaknesses of a present economic systems founded on values of capitalism and socialism, but says that the real wealth of Nations is in how we care about each other and the Earth. This presentation is a great way to learn about how economics based on outdated systems are driving our societies to the brink of extinction and what is needed to shift away from a failing system to one that gives life and replenishes it. In addition, The Real Wealth of Nations is about restoring the lost values of interconnectedness. And it is great to hear Riane’s Eisler’s description of her most recognized book, “The Chalice and The Blade,” now translated into 23 languages, the last one being Arabic. The blade represents taking life, while the chalice is a symbol of giving and nurturing life. DESCRIPTION FROM IONS 2007 CONFERENCE BROCHURE Building better lives and a better world requires a new economics that gives value to the most essential human work—caring for people and nature. Riane Eisler is well known for her international bestseller The Chalice and the Blade and her award winning Sacred Pleasure, Tomorrow’s Children, as well as The Power of Partnership. Her newest book, The Real Wealth of Nations, is being hailed as a major contribution to human welfare. Dr. Eisler is president of the Center for Partnership Studies. BIOGRAPHY: Riane Eisler is best known for her international bestseller The Chalice and The Blade: Our History, Our Future (Harper & Row 1987), hailed by Princeton anthropologist Ashley Montagu as "the most important book since Darwin's Origin of Species" and by novelist Isabel Allende as “one of those magnificent key books that can transform us.‿ This was the first book reporting the results of Eisler’s study of human cultures spanning 30,000 years, and is in 22 languages, including most European languages and Chinese, Russian, Korean, Hebrew, and Japanese. Riane Eisler is president of the Center for Partnership Studies, a nonprofit organization founded to apply her findings to all spheres of life through research and education. She is a charismatic speaker who keynotes conferences worldwide, and a consultant to business and government. She was honored as the only woman among twenty great thinkers including Vico, Hegel, Spengler, Adam Smith, Marx, and Toynbee featured in Macrohistory and Macrohistorians, in recognition of her work’s lasting importance. Dr. Eisler was born in Vienna, fled from the Nazis with her parents to Cuba, and later emigrated to the United States. She obtained degrees in sociology and law from the University of California and received an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Case Western Reserve University in 2005. She taught pioneering classes on women and the law at UCLA, is a founding member of the General Evolution Research Group (GERG) and the Alliance for a Caring Economy (ACE), a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science and World Business Academy, and a commissioner of the World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality, along with the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and other spiritual leaders. Dr. Eisler's other books, Sacred Pleasure (Harper Collins 1995), Tomorrow’s Children (Westview Press 2000), The Power of Partnership (New World Library 2002), Dissolution (McGraw Hill 1977), and The Equal Rights Handbook (Avon 1978), have also received wide use and critical praise. Her 1995 Center for Partnership Studies study, Women, Men, and the Global Quality of Life, documents the strong correlation between the status of women and the general quality of a nation’s life based on statistical data from 89 nations. She has published over 200 articles for publications ranging from Behavioral Science, Futures, Political Psychology, and The UNESCO Courier to Brain and Mind, The International Journal of Women's Studies, the Human Rights Quarterly, and the World Encyclopedia of Peace. She is co-editor of Educating for a Culture of Peace (Heinemann, 2004). Based on her work as a cultural historian and evolutionary theorist over the last twenty years, she introduced the partnership model and the domination model as two underlying possibilities for structuring beliefs, institutions, and relations that transcend categories such as religious vs. secular, right vs. left, and technologically developed or undeveloped. Her pioneering work in human rights expanded the focus of international organizations to include the rights of women and children. Her research has impacted many fields, from history and sociology to economics and education; for example, it inspired the Montessori Foundation to start a Center for Partnership Education.
Dr. Eisler serves on many boards,
commissions, and advisory councils, including the Editorial Board of World
Futures, the Global Council of the International Museum of Women, and the
International Editorial Board of The Encyclopedia of Conflict, Violence,
and Peace. She co-founded the Spiritual Alliance to Stop Intimate Violence
(SAIV) with Nobel Peace Laureate Betty Williams (with Council members such
as Queen Noor of Jordan, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Harvard theologian
Harvey Cox, and global leaders such as Jane Goodall). |
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