156: Turning Points, Summarized
Written August 26, 2025
Hi everyone. This week, we’re wrapping up the Intentional Alternatives theme for August: Turning Points. Today, I’ll summarize what we’ve explored and highlight a few fascinating ways these ideas are showing up in our culture.
Finding Our Hero
One of my favorite phrases of all time is, “Where you stand depends on where you sit.” It came from Rufus Edward Miles, Jr., a relatively unknown government administrator working for the U.S. Bureau of Budget in 1948. He noticed something obvious but profound: people’s perspectives are shaped by their experiences, circumstances, and roles. This means we can look at the exact same situation and see it completely differently
Today, if you sit in the CEO chair of a tech company, trade stocks at an investment firm, run a multibillion-dollar corporation, or occupy the Oval Office, you probably think things are going swimmingly. For the rest of us, the tale feels very different.
To create a turning point in any story, you first have to identify the cast. The protagonist is the main character. Unfortunately, today’s mainstream media often casts people in power as the protagonist. A handful of faces dominate the headlines, creating a distorted narrative. But in a true democracy, the leader is not the hero—we the people are.
What’s a Turning Point?
Getting the protagonist right is essential for any story. From there, the plot can take many paths. According to ChatGPT, a turning point is:
A pivotal moment that significantly alters the direction or outcome of the plot, often forcing the protagonist to make a critical decision or revealing crucial information that changes the course of events. It's a moment where the story shifts, and the protagonist's journey is irrevocably changed.
Turning points tend to unfold in three distinct phases: the inciting incident, growing conflict, and the climax trigger.
Inciting Incident: Normal life is disrupted in some way. Initially, the character struggles to accept the change, often going to great lengths to avoid the issue. However, the plot moves forward nonetheless, and the conflict begins to unfold.
Growing Conflict: In this middle phase, the character realizes “business as usual” is no longer possible, but they aren’t quite ready to act decisively. This is a time of tremendous internal growth: learning new skills, facing past traumas, gaining confidence, and seeing the world differently. It’s a preparation for the final battle.
Climax Trigger: The conflict reaches an all-time high, and the character realizes they must act to survive. Everything that came before leads to this moment. The fate of the story hinges on the hero’s choice. It is the defining moment that changes everything.
The Great Turning
Many scholars believe we are living through an epic turning point in history. Their views are summarized in a document called The Earth Charter.
The dominant patterns of production and consumption are causing environmental devastation, the depletion of resources, and a massive extinction of species. Communities are being undermined. The benefits of development are not shared equitably and the gap between rich and poor is widening. Injustice, poverty, ignorance, and violent conflict are widespread and the cause of great suffering. An unprecedented rise in human population has overburdened ecological and social systems. The foundations of global security are threatened. These trends are perilous—but not inevitable.
Author Joanna Macy calls this shift The Great Turning—a transition from an industrial growth society to a life-sustaining civilization. It’s seen as the third great revolution in human history, following the agricultural and industrial revolutions.
This change asks us to reimagine our values, our perceptions, and our relationship with the Earth. It moves us away from endless growth toward sustainability and collective well-being. As Macy writes in the book Active Hope:
Future generations will look back at the time we are living in now. The kind of future they look from and the story they tell about our period will be shaped by choices we make in our lifetimes. The most telling choices of all may well be the story we live from and see ourselves participating in. It sets the context of our lives in a way that influences all other decisions.
Manifestation Moments
Here are some examples of how these cultural attitudes have emerged in the last months:
The “Grass” Hero Story: The President of the United States often casts himself as the hero. But a recent remark highlights just how far this alternative narrative can go. During an interview and photo op with the National Guard in D.C., Donald Trump justified placing the city under direct federal control to reduce crime. Then, in a bizarre twist, the topic changed to parks where he claimed to be “very good at grass” because of his golf courses, saying, “I know more about grass than any human being, I think, anywhere in the world.” Tell that to Paul Peterson, the Smithsonian’s government expert and curator of grasses, who has published over 170 papers on the subject—a true American hero of botany.
The Movement Finance Forum: Last month, over 130 people gathered at the Movement Finance Forum, hosted by the New Economy Coalition and the Center for Economic Democracy. Their purpose was to connect social movement groups, non-extractive investors, funders, lawyers, technical experts, and other practitioners in building a Just Transition. As their founding documents explain:
“An economy based on extracting from a finite system faster than the capacity of the system to regenerate will eventually come to an end—either through collapse or through our intentional re-organization. Transition is inevitable. Justice is not.”
These are glimpses of how The Great Turning is already in motion.
The Intentional Alternatives
When I think about how to describe the times we’re living in now, one word keeps coming to mind: epic. Everything feels big. Our choices feel monumental. The consequences of what we do—or don’t do—seem to grow by the minute. It can be overwhelming. Sometimes, I just want to bury my head in the sand and hope it all goes away. Other times, I catch myself wishing for a savior to swoop in and rescue us.
But here’s the truth: we have reached a turning point. The world is changing fast. The real question is not, “What do we do?” The question is much simpler: “Who is this story about?”
Will we keep writing headlines that center people in power? Or will we the people reclaim our rightful role as the hero?
Choosing the latter requires radical reframing. It means remembering what it feels like to be a collective. It means examining where we place our trust and learning how to shift from me to we.
Next month, we’ll take a deeper look at one of the biggest cultural obstacles of our time. We’ll explore what needs to be in place to move the needle toward true collective action. I hope you’ll join me next week as we kick off September’s theme: Moving Beyond Individualism.
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