WE HAVE ARRIVED AT ONE OF HISTORY’S GREAT WATERSHEDS. The Logos-based civilization of the modern age is not sustainable; it is destined to disappear. Persisting with its values and practices will create deepening rifts between rich and poor, young and old, informed and marginalized, and technological societies and their life-sustaining environment. If we are not to join the myriad species that once populated the Earth but became extinct, we must adapt to the conditions in which we now find ourselves.

107

We have evolved from Mythos to Theos, and from Theos to Logos. Today, technology or, more exactly, our failure to master technology’s side effects and consequences, is pushing us beyond Logos. Attempting to master these side effects with the rational mindset of the modern age is futile. To be sure, we could see further growth in human numbers, in human powers, and in the wealth of a power elite, but we would fail to provide for growth in the quality of life and even for the survival of all the people who inhabit this planet.

The next advance of humankind must be governed by a new rationality. The obsolete and increasingly counterproductive mechanistic rationality of Logos must be replaced by a new holistic rationality of a yet-to-be-born civilization. In the optimum case, this will be a civilization that merits the name Holos. Holos civilization is not here yet, but the kind of mindset that could create it is already evolving.

In this concluding section we first consider the kind of development that could shift today’s societies from the unsustainable and now strongly counterproductive path of Logos-directed evolution to the more sustainable and humane path of Holos-inspired evolution. Then we review the signs and indications that the consciousness that could empower this shift is here, growing silently but powerfully at the creative margins of society. And last but not least, we address the question that is most crucial of all. Can you evolve the new Holos consciousness? For if you can, you can do what few could do before you: You can change the world.