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  Forum for Holistic Transformation: Ending Patriarchy, and Creating a Quality of Life for Society and Nature Worldwide - An Educational Website

Possible solution

"To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right." Confucius, Chinese politician, teacher, and philosopher (551-479 BCE)

When we understand the yin yang imbalance of Patriarchy, we also know what the solution is to our global crises: we must add adequate feminine yin energy, allowing the yin to play the role it was meant to play: be a limiting force to the dominant yang force. Therefore, we must change our worldview from being an unbalanced, reductionist, and dualized masculine yang world into a balanced, holistic, and inclusive yin yang world. It is a world that can embrace society and nature, and all other feminine yin forces, giving them equal value to the economic, yang forces. Read more about this in the first core article that deals with our global crises and their solution.

The first thing that needs to be done is to redefine reductionist science. Science is a knowledge system, which has been defined purely by white, rich, European men. The main aim with masculine science is to gather knowledge about the world, useful to generate economic profit. Francis Bacon, who is often called Father of Experimental Science, found that "Knowledge is power." Hence, to reinforce their power, the patriarchal elite made their masculine science universal. In this way, science became a knowledge system based on how the white master perceives reality, while excluding the knowledge(s) accumulated over thousands of years by women, traditional peoples, and nature. We therefore need a new and holistic knowledge system that can include experiences and knowledges from diverse societies and nature. It must include concern for all non-quantifiable issues including cooperation, community, friendship, ethics, and democracy. Subordinating these highly precious human elements means that science has sown the seeds for domination, dictatorship, environmental destruction, war and violence, human rights violations, leading to inequality and poverty. Read more about the limitation of science and possible solution to reductionist science in the second core article.

We must also transform all scientific disciplines to become holistic. The most urgent change is economics, which must end its focus on individual profit-making based on dominating society and exploiting nature. This issue is discussed in the third core article, which is a critique of economics and a possible solution. In addition, the modern big, hard, and dirty technologies must be altered into clean technologies that for the most are small in scale and soft in their side effects to society and nature. This issue is covered in the fourth core article, which is a critique of modern technology and possible solutions.

In order to initiate these transformations, we must establish a new practice of democracy. Currently quantities of money determine who rules, which has nothing to do with democracy. Instead, we need to include society and nature into decision making. This can only be done by decentralization of political power, over time demolishing all central institutions and structures, and establishing new practices and methods that are all-inclusive and holistic. It needs to be a localized, participatory democracy, or face-to-face democracy, where local people, men as well as women, young as well as old, white as well as colored, resume responsibility for their own community and environment. Consequently, transforming Patriarchy is a major change, which must be done by creating a dynamic tension between yin and yang energies. In order to make sure that the end result will include a quality of life for society and nature worldwide, it must be founded on holistic values and ethics. One ethical perspective that is able to do that is an Ethics of Care.


"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world."
Buddha (563-483 BCE)

People also need transformation. We cannot change a person, because it is a biological, physically fixed entity. However, fortunately we also do not need to do that. What we need is to change our thoughts, energies, behaviors, and actions. The masculine yang force is not a fixed entity; it is energy, and energy can be altered. Everybody has yin and yang energies, women as well as men, old as well as young, colored as well as white. Thus, we need to shrink our yang energy by adding a healthy amount of yin energy. In this way, we can create a dynamic tension between our inner yang and yin energies. With added yin energy, we can start perceiving reality in a holistic way, including all parts and their inter-relations, and we can learn balanced behaviors leading to actions with harmonious outcomes.

"We first make our habits, and then our habits make us."
John Dryden, English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright (1631-1700)

People may say it is difficult. It probably is. Habits are not easily changed, but it is not impossible. Every time we must take a stand in a situation, we have choices: we can choose to compete or cooperate; exploit or conserve; benefit ourselves only or include concern for our community, etc. Since the consequences from our choices exist forever and eventually return to ourselves, we only want to choose positive outcomes. Good examples from trendsetters and role models will in the beginning help us to make the prudent and holistic choices. Over time, including concern for society and nature will become a habit, which then will be institutionalized.

"To straighten the crooked you must first do a harder thing: straighten yourself." Buddha

In the process of transformation, it is important not to criticize individual people as being bad; instead we need to criticize their thoughts and actions, which manifest as disharmony in society and nature, due to their unbalanced inner energy. When the energy is corrected, people become balanced, which is a natural state of being. A balanced person will embrace both quantity and quality, and therefore include concern for society and nature. When we change the way we think, creating a balance between our inner yin and yang forces, it will automatically manifest in our world as well. Thus, the real work is not to change the world, but to change the way in which we perceive the world. Hence, the transformation, which we need, starts inside of ourselves. We can only end our global crises when we start to think holistic, seeing the world as one integrated, living whole, of which we are a part, and act accordingly. Consequently, when we unite, as being equally valuable, the feminine yin and the masculine yang forces, we can end Patriarchy all together, and start perceiving, suggesting, defining, and creating new holistic realities. When we get the balance between yin and yang right, our global crises will dissolve, and we can end the horrible suffering of poverty, which kills 50,000 people every day.

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."
Dr. Seuss in the Lorax


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  • Home page
    • Intsangano
    • Navigation information
  • Problem
    • Introduction
    • Root cause
    • Patriarchal domination
    • Possible solution
  • About Intsangano
    • Purpose and goal
    • Suggestions for articles
    • Directions for submitting
    • Ethics
    • An Ethics of Care
    • Other values
    • Rules for linking
    • Copyright and plagiarism
    • Comments
    • Contact website administrator
  • Yin and yang
    • Taoism
    • Yin yang forces
    • Feminine yin; masculine yang
    • Yin yang manifestations
  • Patriarchy
  • Background info
    • Website initiator
    • The book: "Ecofeminism: ..."
    • Why build this website?
    • Acknowledgements
  • The four core articles
    • First core article: crises and their solution
    • Second core article: critique of science
    • Third core article: critique of economics
    • Fourth core article: critique of technology
  • Articles submitted
    • 1. Agriculture, food production
    • 2. Economics, production, trade
    • 3. Health, nutrition
    • 4. Knowledge, education, information, religion, technology
    • 5. Nature, climate, minerals
    • 6. Politics, government, justice
    • 7. Poverty, crises, Third World development
    • 8. Society, population, culture
    • 9. War, violence
    • 10. Worldview, perception
  • Intsangano blog