One of the most astonishing sights of our day is that of the fixers and answer-mongers who deal with the multiple crises facing the world by trying to generate solutions. It's like watching inmates repainting the bars of their cell without ever questioning why they are there.

In my own attempt to break through the premises that hold the collective consciousness hostage to the world-wrecking status quo, I've compiled a short list of assumptions that keep the dark machinery going. This list is preliminary rather than explanatory, and it comes with the suggestion to make your own.

Why do this? Because we cannot change unsustainable and violent cultural habits until we step back from and challenge the habits of thought that support them. We stand no chance of building a peaceful, life-serving civilization on the ruins of the old until we get clear about what doesn't work.

Here, then, are a few of the premises of cultures in decline:

• The laws of ecology do not apply to our species.
• Infinite expansion is good; being happy where we are is bad.
• Primitives must be civilized and their territory made “productive.”
• Epidemic violence and insanity must be excused as the price of civilization.
• Nature is there to be conquered and ruled.
• Animals have no needs or intrinsic worth.
• Destroying nature has no inner consequences.
• The best way to control something undesirable is to repress it.
• War, greed, and ecological destruction are “human nature.”
• Rejecting religious excuses for aggressive and irrational behavior is somehow intolerant.
• Buying techno-crap and eating processed food can soothe us.
• We should go on trusting the leaders and experts who are burning down the world around us.
• Paranoid war-mongers should continue to be allowed into positions of power.
• The best course during a calamitous time is to numb oneself and remain silent.
• Imagination, wisdom, love, and imagination cannot change the world.