BEYOND VENGEANCE, BEYOND DUALITY:

A CALL FOR A COMPASSIONATE REVOLUTION

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All experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

U.S. Declaration of Independence, 1776

We live in a time of monumental change. While many have written about the shift that is unfolding, in the end, what people yearn for is a way to make this new worldview concrete and tangible. How do we build our institutions to reflect the new reality? This is what Beyond Vengeance, Beyond Duality (Hampton Roads, May 2010) offers readers a blueprint for transformative change that begins with a central pillar of our culture, how we define justice.

Beyond Vengeance, Beyond Duality will stimulate debate, controversy and a vision for fundamental change among politicians and policy makers, lawyers and law students, religious leaders and theology majors, entrepreneurs and business majors, peace practitioners and peace studies students, as well as every activist who is ready to work for meaningful reform.

The unique way in which the pieces of the puzzle are assembled in Beyond Vengeance, Beyond Duality make it more difficult for those who defend the old order to make their case, and it will give legitimacy to those who are building the new forms. Through this frame, old approaches to law, government, business, religion, education and economics are seen in a fresh new way that leads to concrete answers. A new world is at hand and we need not wait!

“This compelling book offers us a new vision of not only our legal system and all its criminal and civil litigation black holes, but of our society--indeed, our world as a whole. In fact, that is the author's point--we need to see ourselves not as separate entities struggling for Darwinian-Newtonian dominance over and against each other, but rather as conjoined parts of a larger, more compassionate ‘oneness’ where the Golden Rule replaces ‘an eye-for-an-eye.’”

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD, author of Taking the Quantum Leap and Dr. Quantum’s Little Book of Big Ideas

Oneness versus duality as described in the book:

Oneness and duality are like two separate containers. The container of Oneness can hold certain human experiences, such as trust, transparency, generosity, reconciliation, forgiveness, healing, restoration, faith, hope, compassion, security, and peace. The container of duality holds different experiences--suspicion, secrecy, divisiveness, judgment, attack, revenge, retribution, greed, jealousy, insecurity, and war. Any aspect of life can be constrained within the small container of duality, or it can be transformed to reflect the all-inclusive container of Oneness.

“Sylvia Clute speaks with the authority of experience in this compelling call for a holistic approach to justice in all its dimensions. Her book explores important distinctions: oneness v. duality, duality v. polarity, discernment v. judgment, power v. control. Restorative justice advocates will find it a fresh approach to the basic foundations of their field.”

--Howard Zehr, Professor of Restorative Justice, Eastern Mennonite University