When I speak to people about the need to move beyond the culture of contest — the need to foster a new social order based on mutualism and reciprocity — I am often dismissed as “naive” or “unrealistic”.  ”People are not capable of this,” I’m told. “It’s not in our nature,” the argument goes. “Get real”.

But how realistic is it to think that we can continue on our current path forever? How realistic is it to believe that almost seven billion people (and growing) can continue, indefinitely, to deny their increasing social and ecological interdependence? Is this not the naive and unrealistic view?

Our reproductive and technological success as a species has transformed the conditions of our existence. This new reality calls for a new realism.

Humanity is one. It is time to recognize our organic interdependence and begin the difficult process of learning how to translate this recognition into a new social order. This is the new realism.