By David Lorimer, Programme Director, Scientific and Medical Network, Editor, Paradigm Explorer, published in Paradigm Explorer, 2018/3, issued March 2019, page 69
How to Get Rich and Famous
Tom Butler
Astraea Ltd 2018, 259 pp., no price given, p/b.
This is a personal book diagnosing the breakdown in our existing systems and ways in which we can all make an individual difference.
As readers discover, the author has a very different take on the real meaning of being rich and famous in the context of the big picture or story of our time – his approach is based on empathy, interconnectedness, collaboration and sharing rather than the control, manipulation and exploitation that characterises our current systems. Our own response begins with thinking in a new way, then choosing and acting accordingly. The author uses terms such as ‘must’ and ‘should’ liberally, but it is not always clear how these large systems in which we are embedded can or will be transformed.
An important element, naturally, is reform of the education system, which I discuss in my review of Ted Dintersmith below in terms of liberating human potential. The author talks more about meaning in life rather than of life, and I cannot agree with his assertion that there is no evidence for anything beyond, and that when your physical body dies, so does your soul (p. 210).
The last part proposes useful actions that readers can take in terms of choices and lifestyle – here it is clear that we need new steady state economy based on new indicators but this message has not yet got through to the mainstream. However, the appendix on systems failures past and present is an indication that we can change our behaviour and that there are indeed signs of this emerging.