Authoritarianism All The Way Down

By Darcia Narvaez

Do you think authoritarianism is new to the USA? Hardly. The society is imbued with authoritarianism.

Authoritarianism here refers to external idealistic power imposed on a living being. 

It starts in fetalhood when the expectant mother is stressed from little support and welcoming by the community. This impairs fetal brain development. (For some, we can point to the authoritarianism of rape-to-pregnancy.) The authoritarianism is barely started. It looms large with the medical profession deciding the ‘due date,’ instead of the baby deciding their birthday according to physiological readiness. Medical personnel disempower the birthing mother and baby in a myriad of ways. They push mother and baby out of their natural healthy rhythms for the sake of profit and convenience. Subsequently, the newborn is not treated as an agent, a being in the making but a product to be prodded and isolated, again for convenience.

From Panopticon to Kinship

By Four Arrows

Indigenous teachings warn against this loss of our inner authority. When people forget their relational responsibilities to ancestors, to future generations, to the more-than-human world and to one another, we become easier to control. Fear replaces conscience. Metrics replace meaning.



Returning to a Nature/Spirit based worldview is not about anti-technology, anti-wealth, or anti-innovation. They are anti-disconnection. At their core are principles that directly counter the billionaire panopticon:

AI Considers Joseph Chilton Pearce’s Work And Decides AI Is Not Living Intelligence, But An Intellectual Tool

Also, A Pearcean Guide To Using AI - By AI

By Lisa Reagan

What if we could ask AI to review Pearce’s seminal work, spanning a half-century, and decide for itself if it is intelligent or an intellectual tool? Does it possess the relational intelligence necessary to serve the wholeness of life and support healing potential, or is it an intellectual tool manipulated by the human intention and worldview using it? We can and I did.

Developmental Authoritarianism Fosters Chimpanzee – Not Human – Nature

By Darcia Narvaez

The authoritarianism that undergirds all kinds is developmental authoritarianism. It is so pervasive, many do not perceive it until they visit communities where it is absent (e.g., Maslow noted among the BlackFoot Nation that children were not coerced and could choose whom to live with; he also noted the lack of neuroticism/mental illness among the tribe [Brown, 2014], though he failed to notice that evolved nestednesswas a contributing factor).

Riane Eisler On Partnership Leadership Vs. Domination

By Scott Douglas Jacobson

Once you begin to see “reality”—including politics, mythology, and culture—through the whole-systems lens of the partnership-domination social scale or continuum, everything looks different. We see how our epics idealize and celebrate the hero as a killer. The Odyssey, the hero’s journey, and even modern entertainment are all variations of the same domination narrative. Today’s blockbusters are the digital descendants of the Roman circuses—spectacles of adrenaline and violence that distract rather than enlighten.

We’re living in an era when truth itself is under siege. Facts, such as those demonstrating climate change, are dismissed or distorted.

The Spirit Of Manaaki: An Exclusive Book Excerpt

Chapter 7: Whakaora: Restoring Health

By Stephanie Mines

Indeed, I have been powerfully and securely attached from the moment I took form. This is a matriversal understanding. It comes from the standpoint of being akin to the natural world. It is also the perspective of an embryologist who understands human development from the beginning of life.

I attribute this awakening, in part, to my time in Aotearoa with people like Rangatira Maata Wharehoka and her family. They did not impart the awareness directly. It grew as a by-product of my time with them and my capacity to track what was being aroused in me as a result of being in that environment and with the Māori people.

Breaking Up With The Patriarchy: Decolonizing Our Lives And Returning To Kinship Worldview

Chapter Three: The Return to Wholeness

By Susan Herrmann

When we begin to reclaim our spiritual nature, the world becomes more alive, more responsive, more meaningful. We discover that we aren’t isolated individuals in a dead Universe but participants in a living community. The anxiety that comes from feeling responsible for controlling everything eases as we recognize that we’re held within larger patterns and relationships.

The shift from patriarchal to kinship thinking doesn’t happen through force of will. You can’t “get there from here” simply by accepting these ideas on an intellectual level. It happens through practice, through direct engagement with the living world around us.

Honoring The Work Of Helena Norberg-Hodge: Happy 80th Birthday!

For a half century, Helena Norberg-Hodge has illuminated how globalized, industrial systems erode community, culture, and psychological wellbeing, while localized, community-rooted economies regenerate them.

Through Local Futures, the Ladakh Project, and “The Economics of Happiness,” she has shown that human-scale, relationship-rich ways of life are not nostalgic fantasies, but practical, regenerative paths forward.

“Helen has carried the wisdom of Earth for decades. Her generous sharing of that wisdom through Local Futures is contributing greatly to the forthcoming global transformation,” Darcia Narvaez, Kindred World president. Local Future is a nonprofit partner with Kindred World.