44 http://www.earthislandjournal.org
With things like driverless cars, and artificial intel-
ligence, there’s an emerging critique that men are the
ones promoting such paths, not women.
Many of my young male colleagues are absolutely convinced
about blockchain, 3D printing, driverless cars, and so on,
whereas almost every woman I talk to does not share such
passion for these tools. I think part of the big shift that we
need is a better balance between masculine and feminine —
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that requires time.
A genuine appreciation of the other, a genuine apprecia-
tion of the plants, the animals, and the sun requires free time
we cannot get through the speed that these new technologies
are imposing on us. You might ask yourself: What happens
to us — as individuals, as communities — under the time
pressures that nearly all of us experience today?
What could men do, more concretely? Meditation?
More hiking? Or do you mean deeper initiation in
nature?
Certainly those, and also what they are doing already in
several microtrends, like getting more involved in childcare.
To see fathers carrying babies on their chest, that’s a wonderful
and important leap into the feminine. By the way, to this day,
many young boys growing up in pre-modern cultures carry
siblings on their backs. That kind of nurturing and care is
even linked to changes in their hormone structure, a deep
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Slower caregiving is necessary, and it is something hard
to deliver in a system that is so driven by speed. Take steps
right now as an individual to explore what it means to be a
balanced, nurturing person, but one of the steps that I hope
you’ll make is to get the word out about the broader picture
and help build up more collective power to change things.
How are we to find the courage to take the sort of
contrarian stances you are advocating?
I’m a woman saying this, but I think it’s really true of men
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least one or two. To be the contrarian alone is pretty daunt-
ing, and we can best do it if we’re part of a group.
A main reason our leaders are taking us faster and faster in
the wrong direction ... is the desire to belong. Belonging is one
of our deeper needs that was borne of the way we evolved for
99.9 percent of our time on this planet. And when alternative
voices are nowhere to be heard or seen — since the tools of
the master technologies are in the hands of deregulated capi-
tal and they continue to promote this isolating, competitive,
and speed-based path — then the leaders are desperate to be
in the herd. They’re told by peers: “If you don’t go along with
this, you’ll be left behind.” That’s been particularly true with
adopting technologies, which, as leaders blindly accept every
new multinational technology that comes along, ironically
takes those same leaders into an unwanted position where
they have ceded their own real power to corporations.
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then collectively start questioning the dominant assumptions.
Part of that is to listen to what really makes your heart sing.
Where were you and what were you doing when you experi-
enced moments of deep contentment and happiness? Listen
to the answer and use it as a guide.Increased confidence, then, provides the resilience to
speak truth to power?
Those with audacity to play the contrarian tend to be deeply
secure people, and that’s why I’m so keen to encourage
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feeling appreciated for who you really are. Deepening the
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take on mainstream assumptions. Everything that I’m saying
is part of a whole kaleidoscope of complementary aspects,
about being part of a systemic shift where there are various
interlocking changes.
That’s why our societal path has to be one that works with
the natural world, not one that continues to control it. Part of
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with our hands. There are so many beautiful projects. Just
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to do that little bit of building and cooking, that too inspires
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So I say: Start small and local. It’s a wonderful entry point
into a multipronged and mutually reinforcing path to health
and happiness.William Powers’ award-winning writing has appeared in many
publications, including The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The
Washington Post. He is author of five books, including Twelve by
Twelve: A One Room Cabin Off the Grid & Beyond the American Dream.
Find him at williampowersbooks.com.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.Conversation | Helena Norberg-Hodge