Local Futures Mitigate Top-Down Crazy
Helena Norberg-Hodge on the new Team Human

By Douglas Rushkoff. Published in Substack on 16 March 2025

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These have been crazy yet wonderful weeks. For every top-down decree aimed at repressing our social reality, I’m seeing ten examples of mutual aid, social connection, and rediscovery of the basic, circular practices in land stewardship, economics and neighborhood cohesiveness. Crazy times don’t have to make us crazy. They can inspire new levels of coherence, meaning, and purpose. There’s nothing like a rocky sea to make people find their best compass.

Helping us navigate the crazy even before it had a name, preparing us for this moment in our collective history for the past 50 years, has been one of my heroes, the author of the classic book celebrating the interplay of tradition and change Little Tibet, Ancient Futures, Helena Norberg-Hodge. Before World Music was a thing, Helena was singing the global melody, but from a very local, grounded place. Here she is in conversation with me on the new Team Human:

Team Human with Helena Norberg-Hodge

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