Charles Eisenstein

Charles Eisenstein (born 1967 ) is an American philosopher and author. In addition to his literary career, he worked as a lecturer and freelance lecturer. He is considered an important theorist of the Occupy movement.

Person

Eisenstein graduated in 1989 in mathematics and philosophy at Yale University. After spending several years in Taiwan, where he worked as a translator, he returned to the U.S. and was there as a teacher at Penn State University and at Goddard College in Plainfield (Vermont ) operate. Today Eisenstein is a freelance author and international lecturer with his second wife and his four sons in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Philosophy

For Eisenstein, the process of civilization of the experiment is driven to gain control over nature. This is done by developing a notion of the separation of man from his environment and the associated gradual objectification of all being. The apparent separation unfolds through various stages, which include the use of fire and tools, the development of language and mathematics, agriculture, the measurement of time and the use of machines. Of particular importance are the emergence and spread of the money economy, since attach through the ever more comprehensive expectant ways living things, objects, activities and relationships monetary value, the most powerful form of the objectification of the world and thus the separation of seemingly unrelated subject of the world means. According to Eisenstein, however, the project of separation is bound to fail because it is based on an illusion. Man is essentially a part of the cosmos and exists in and through his relationships. Man can subjugate nature no complete control, since he belonged to nature. The failure of the Company's separation is evident in the crises that emerge at present: the ecological crisis, the energy crisis, the crisis of the health system, the economic and financial crisis, the political crisis. Eisenstein sees as one of the main problems of dualism in its forms of separation of self and environment, on of sacred and profane, of good and bad. The way out of the crisis, however, he has not seen in about a return to the Paleolithic lifestyle. The separation is ultimately a part of evolution for him. Its meaning is to achieve a new level of consciousness. Respect, the reunification of the artificially separated from each other areas of life at a higher level of integration for him the only way to secure the survival of humanity and to gain real progress. Eisenstein calls for the abandonment of the control efforts and a shift to more ecological, more independent from the money and creative lifestyle.

Works

• The Open Secret, Bloomington (Indiana, USA): AuthorHouse 2001, ISBN 978-0-7596-5577-5
• The Yoga of Eating, Warsaw (Indiana, USA): New Trends Publishing 2003, ISBN 0-9670897-2-7
• The Ascent of Humanity, Harrisburg (USA): Panenthea Press 2007 ( Engl.: The renaissance of humanity. Munich: Scorpio Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3-942166-94-2 )
• Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition, Berkeley ( USA): Evolver Editions 2011, ISBN 978-1-58394-397-7 ( Dt. economy of solidarity. Munich: Scorpio Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978 - 3-943416-03-9 )