Overview of Making Global Sense

Global Sense emulates the structure and logic of Common Sense.

Part I. Our Global Awakening
Where Paine explained the nature of government and the law, I explain our lives our governed by how we make sense of life. A billion of us see our oneness, I report, and we’re building a global sense movement.

Part II. Kings and Other Masters
Where Paine blamed monarchy and hereditary succession for tyranny, I name ancient alpha male rule and authority addiction for the wealth and power abuses now menacing life and liberty on earth.

Part III. Thoughts on the State of World Affairs
Where Paine surveyed the scary state of American affairs, I survey the scary state of world affairs, the threats to democracy and the planet, the realistic dangers of tyranny in our lands and in our minds.

Part IV. Our Ability to Change the World
Where Paine told colonists how to win a revolutionary war and wrote the plan used to create the republic, I adapt his plan for evolving enlightened direct republics, so we build our world anew, while we can.

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again“

Thomas Paine

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Thomas Paine makes sense today

As we face massive climate change, humanity is at a global tipping point between autocracy or democracy. The ideas inCommon Sense offer grounded hope for our urgent evolution in these modern times that try our souls.

Thomas Paine’s pivotal 1776 essay, Common Sense, swung public opinion in favor of the the American Revolution, which likely would have failed without his writings. He used logic and reason to argue for freedom from kings in favor of a democratic republic.

In our troubled century, as climate change persists and tyrants insist, we again need an inspirational call for liberation from king and and all wannabe despots. We need sound reasons for evolving the maturity for responsible self-government, both in society and within ourselves. We need mindful self rule.

By applying insights from Thomas Paine and the 18th century Enlightenment to our modern world crises, Making Global Sense encourages our 21st century enlightenment. Awakening to awareness of our universal oneness can and does uplift what we think, say and do in our lives, families, jobs, communities, nations, and world.

Common Sense shifted the course of human events. The right book at the right time. the pamphlet voiced in plain terms the big ideas of The Enlightenment, a philosophical and political movement in Europe and America. Rejecting centuries of absolute despotism, Enlightenment writers like Locke and Rousseau and Paine mapped out the rational basis f0r freedom and democracy. Their views on natural rights and natural law inspired the American Revolution, French Revelation and most revolutions ever since around the world.

Common Sense was crucial in changing how we make sense of governing ourselves. Monarchy gave way to democracy. Centuries later, hard-won democracies are backsliding into autocracies. Since our ancient addiction to tyranny is cunning and powerful, how do we turn around popular opinion toward freedom?

For healing our planet and maturing into sensible liberty, we need hope, rooted in reason, giving us courage and faith for the inner and outer work of personal and global transformation. Unfounded hope is helpless. Seeing our global oneness and reach gives us the power we need, alone and together, to change our own lives while we change life on our planet.

More than one billion global thinkers live on earth, the book documents. As climate reality bites in the years ahead, it makes global sense for people with global minds to get better organized for creating a future that works. What happens next is up to us.

“Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.”

Thomas Paine

Why My Story

A book of ideas needs to balance head and heart. Framing my ideas within my life story, writing in present tense to stay real with you, I’m telling the tale behind the book, the forces within me and the world shaping my ideas. You may identify with my lessons and discover more about yourself.

My model for interweaving essay and narrative is Zen and the Art of Motor­cycle Maintenance by Robert M. Persig. His adept union of theory and memoir helped me rediscover my true self when I felt the most lost after fleeing a cult as a youth. And as a writer, I like what he did there. I’m emulating his approach and hoping you benefit by the blending.