** DRAFT FOR REVIEW ** _________________________________________________ ESCAPING THE MATRIX - GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION: WHY WE NEED IT, AND HOW WE CAN ACHIEVE IT (C) 2004 Richard K. Moore •••@••.••• http://cyberjournal.org _________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 - THE MATRIX CHAPTER 2: We the People AND THE TRANSFORMATIONAL IMPERATIVE CHAPTER 3: THE HARMONIZATION IMPERATIVE CHAPTER 4: HARMONIZATION IN THE MICROCOSM CHAPTER 5: HARMONIZATION AS A CULTURAL MOVEMENT CHAPTER 6: HARMONIZATION AND GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION CHAPTER 7: A CHARTER FOR A DEMOCRATIC WORLD: HARMONIZATION AND LOCALISM CHAPTER 8: THE LIBERATION OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS _________________________________________________ CHAPTER 1 - THE MATRIX * Are you ready for the red pill? The defining dramatic moment in the film The Matrix occurs just after Morpheus invites Neo to choose between a red pill and a blue pill. The red pill promises "the truth, nothing more." Neo takes the red pill and awakes to reality -- something utterly different from anything Neo, or the audience, could have expected. What Neo had assumed to be reality turned out to be only a collective illusion, fabricated by the Matrix and fed to a population that is asleep, cocooned in grotesque embryonic pods. In Plato's famous parable about the shadows on the walls of the cave, true reality is at least reflected in perceived reality. In the Matrix world, true reality and perceived reality exist on entirely different planes. The story is intended as metaphor, and the parallels that drew my attention had to do with political reality. This article offers a particular perspective on what's going on in the world -- and how things got to be that way -- in this era of globalization. From that red-pill perspective, everyday media-consensus reality -- like the Matrix in the film -- is seen to be a fabricated collective illusion. Like Neo, I didn't know what I was looking for when my investigation began, but I knew that what I was being told didn't make sense. I read scores of histories and biographies of historical figures, observing connections between them, and began to develop my own theories about roots of various historical events. I found myself largely in agreement with writers like Noam Chomsky and Michael Parenti, but I also perceived important patterns that others seem to have missed. When I started tracing historical forces, and began to interpret present-day events from a historical perspective. I could see the same old dynamics at work and found a meaning in unfolding events far different from what official pronouncements proclaimed. Such pronouncements are, after all, public relations fare, given out by politicians who want to look good to the voters. Most of us expect rhetoric from politicians, and take what they say with a grain of salt. But as my own picture of present reality came into focus, "grain of salt" no longer worked as a metaphor. I began to see that consensus reality -- as generated by official rhetoric and amplified by mass media -- bears very little relationship to actual reality. "The matrix" was a metaphor I was ready for. * Imperialism and the matrix From the time of Columbus to 1945, world affairs were largely dominated by competition among Western nations seeking to stake out spheres of influence, control sea lanes, and exploit colonial empires. Each Western power became the core of an imperialist economy whose periphery was managed for the benefit of the core nation. Military might determined the scope of an empire; wars were initiated when a core nation felt it had sufficient power to expand its periphery at the expense of a competitor. Economies and societies in the periphery were kept backward -- to keep their populations under control, to provide cheap labor, and to guarantee markets for goods manufactured in the core. Imperialism robbed the periphery not only of wealth but also of its ability to develop its own societies, cultures, and economies in a natural way for local benefit. The driving force behind Western imperialism has always been the pursuit of economic gain, ever since Isabella commissioned Columbus on his first entrepreneurial voyage. The rhetoric of empire concerning wars, however, has typically been about other things -- the White Man's Burden, bringing true religion to the heathens, Manifest Destiny, defeating the Yellow Peril or the Hun, seeking lebensraum, or making the world safe for democracy. Any fabricated motivation for war or empire would do, as long as it appealed to the collective consciousness of the population at the time. The propaganda lies of yesterday were recorded and became consensus history -- the fabric of the matrix. While the costs of territorial empire (fleets, colonial administrations, etc.) were borne by Western taxpayers generally, the profits of imperialism were enjoyed primarily by private corporations and investors. Government and corporate elites were partners in the business of imperialism: empires gave government leaders power and prestige, and gave corporate leaders power and wealth. Corporations ran the real business of empire while government leaders fabricated noble excuses for the wars that were required to keep that business going. Matrix reality was about patriotism, national honor, and heroic causes; true reality was on another plane altogether: that of economics. Industrialization, beginning in the late 1700s, created a demand for new markets and increased raw materials; both demands spurred accelerated expansion of empire. Wealthy investors amassed fortunes by setting up large-scale industrial and trading operations, leading to the emergence of an influential capitalist elite. Like any other elite, capitalists used their wealth and influence to further their own interests however they could. And the interests of capitalism always come down to economic growth; investors must reap more than they sow or the whole system comes to a grinding halt. Thus capitalism, industrialization, nationalism, warfare, imperialism -- and the matrix -- coevolved. Industrialized weapon production provided the muscle of modern warfare, and capitalism provided the appetite to use that muscle. Government leaders pursued the policies necessary to expand empire while creating a rhetorical matrix, around nationalism, to justify those policies. Capitalist growth depended on empire, which in turn depended on a strong and stable core nation to defend it. National interests and capitalist interests were inextricably linked -- or so it seemed for more than two centuries. * World War II and Pax Americana 1945 will be remembered as the year World War II ended and the bond of the atomic nucleus was broken. But 1945 also marked another momentous fission -- breaking of the bond between national and capitalist interests. After every previous war, and in many cases after severe devastation, European nations had always picked themselves back up and resumed their competition over empire. But after World War II, a Pax Americana was established. The US began to manage all the Western peripheries on behalf of capitalism generally, while preventing the communist powers from interfering in the game. Capitalist powers no longer needed to fight over investment realms, and competitive imperialism was replaced by collective imperialism (see sidebar). Opportunities for capital growth were no longer linked to the military power of nations, apart from the power of America. In his "Killing Hope, U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II", William Blum chronicles hundreds of significant covert and overt interventions, showing exactly how the US carried out its imperial management role. * Sidebar Elite planning for postwar neo-imperialism... Recommendation P-B23 (July, 1941) stated that worldwide financial institutions were necessary for the purpose of "stabilizing currencies and facilitating programs of capital investment for constructive undertakings in backward and underdeveloped regions." During the last half of 1941 and in the first months of 1942, the Council developed this idea for the integration of the worldŠ. Isaiah Bowman first suggested a way to solve the problem of maintaining effective control over weaker territories while avoiding overt imperial conquest. At a Council meeting in May 1942, he stated that the United States had to exercise the strength needed to assure "security," and at the same time "avoid conventional forms of imperialism." The way to do this, he argued, was to make the exercise of that power international in character through a United Nations body. - Laurence Shoup & William Minter, in Holly Sklar's Trilateralism (see access, page XX), writing about strategic recommendations developed during World War II by the Council on Foreign Relations. In the postwar years matrix reality diverged ever further from actual reality. In the postwar matrix world, imperialism had been abandoned and the world was being "democratized"; in the real world, imperialism had become better organized and more efficient. In the matrix world the US "restored order," or "came to the assistance" of nations which were being "undermined by Soviet influence"; in the real world, the periphery was being systematically suppressed and exploited. In the matrix world, the benefit was going to the periphery in the form of countless aid programs; in the real world, immense wealth was being extracted from the periphery. Growing glitches in the matrix weren't noticed by most people in the West, because the postwar years brought unprecedented levels of Western prosperity and social progress. The rhetoric claimed progress would come to all, and Westerners could see it being realized in their own towns and cities. The West became the collective core of a global empire, and exploitative development led to prosperity for Western populations, while generating immense riches for corporations, banks, and wealthy capital investors. * Glitches in the matrix, popular rebellion, and neoliberalism The parallel agenda of Third-World exploitation and Western prosperity worked effectively for the first two postwar decades. But in the 1960s large numbers of Westerners, particularly the young and well educated, began to notice glitches in the matrix. In Vietnam imperialism was too naked to be successfully masked as something else. A major split in American public consciousness occurred, as millions of anti-war protestors and civil-rights activists punctured the fabricated consensus of the 1950s and declared the reality of exploitation and suppression both at home and abroad. The environmental movement arose, challenging even the exploitation of the natural world. In Europe, 1968 joined 1848 as a landmark year of popular protest. These developments disturbed elite planners. The postwar regime's stability was being challenged from within the core -- and the formula of Western prosperity no longer guaranteed public passivity. A report published in 1975, the "Report of the Trilateral Task Force on Governability of Democracies", provides a glimpse into the thinking of elite circles. Alan Wolfe discusses this report in Holly Sklar's eye-opening "Trilateralism". Wolfe focuses especially on the analysis Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington presented in a section of the report entitled "The Crisis of Democracy." Huntington is an articulate promoter of elite policy shifts, and contributes pivotal articles to publications such as the Council on Foreign Relations's "Foreign Affairs". Huntington tells us that democratic societies "cannot work" unless the citizenry is "passive." The "democratic surge of the 1960s" represented an "excess of democracy," which must be reduced if governments are to carry out their traditional domestic and foreign policies. Huntington's notion of "traditional policies" is expressed in a passage from the report: To the extent that the United States was governed by anyone during the decades after World War II, it was governed by the President acting with the support and cooperation of key individuals and groups in the executive office, the federal bureaucracy, Congress, and the more important businesses, banks, law firms, foundations, and media, which constitute the private sector's "Establishment." In these few words Huntington spells out the reality that electoral democracy has little to do with how America is run, and summarizes the kind of people who are included within the elite planning community. Who needs conspiracy theories when elite machinations are clearly described in public documents like these? Besides failing to deliver popular passivity, the policy of prosperity for Western populations had another downside, having to do with Japan's economic success. Under the Pax Americana umbrella, Japan had been able to industrialize and become an imperial player -- the prohibition on Japanese rearmament had become irrelevant. With Japan's then-lower living standards, Japanese producers could undercut prevailing prices and steal market share from Western producers. Western capital needed to find a way to become more competitive on world markets, and Western prosperity was standing in the way. Elite strategists, as Huntington showed, were fully capable of understanding these considerations, and the requirements of corporate growth created a strong motivation to make the needed adjustments -- in both reality and rhetoric. If popular prosperity could be sacrificed, there were many obvious ways Western capital could be made more competitive. Production could be moved overseas to low-wage areas, allowing domestic unemployment to rise. Unions could be attacked and wages forced down, and people could be pushed into temporary and part-time jobs without benefits. Regulations governing corporate behavior could be removed, corporate and capital-gains taxes could be reduced, and the revenue losses could be taken out of public-service budgets. Public infrastructures could be privatized, the services reduced to cut costs, and then they could be milked for easy profits while they deteriorated from neglect. These are the very policies and programs launched during the Reagan-Thatcher years in the US and Britain. They represent a systematic project of increasing corporate growth at the expense of popular prosperity and welfare. Such a real agenda would have been unpopular, and a corresponding matrix reality was fabricated for public consumption. The matrix reality used real terms like "deregulation," "reduced taxes," and "privatization," but around them was woven an economic mythology. The old, failed laissez-faire doctrine of the 1800s was reintroduced with the help of Milton Friedman's Chicago School of economics, and "less government" became the proud "modern" theme in America and Britain. Sensible regulations had restored financial stability after the Great Depression, and had broken up anti-competitive monopolies such as the Rockefeller trust and AT&T. But in the new matrix reality, all regulations were considered bureaucratic interference. Reagan and Thatcher preached the virtues of individualism, and promised to "get government off people's backs." The implication was that ordinary people were to get more money and freedom, but in reality the primary benefits would go to corporations and wealthy investors. The academic term for laissez-faire economics is "economic liberalism," and hence the Reagan-Thatcher revolution has come to be known as the "neoliberal revolution." It brought a radical change in actual reality by returning to the economic philosophy that led to sweatshops, corruption, and robber-baron monopolies in the nineteenth century. It brought an equally radical change in matrix reality -- a complete reversal in the attitude that was projected regarding government. Government policies had always been criticized in the media, but the institution of government had always been respected -- reflecting the traditional bond between capitalism and nationalism. With Reagan, we had a sitting president telling us that government itself was a bad thing. Many of us may have agreed with him, but such a sentiment had never before found official favor. Soon, British and American populations were beginning to applaud the destruction of the very democratic institutions that provided their only hope of participation in the political process. * Globalization and world government The essential bond between capitalism and nationalism was broken in 1945, but it took some time for elite planners to fully recognize this new condition and to begin bringing the world system into alignment with it. The strong Western nation state had been the bulwark of capitalism for centuries, and initial postwar policies were based on the assumption that this would continue indefinitely. The Bretton Woods financial system (the IMF, World Bank, and a system of fixed exchange rates among major currencies) was set up to stabilize national economies, and popular prosperity was encouraged to provide political stability. Neoliberalism in the US and Britain represented the first serious break with this policy framework -- and brought the first visible signs of the fission of the nation-capital bond. The neoliberal project was economically profitable for corporations in the US and Britain, and the public accepted the matrix economic mythology. Meanwhile, the integrated global economy gave rise to a new generation of transnational corporations, and corporate leaders began to realize that corporate growth was not dependent on strong core nation-states. Indeed, Western nations -- with their environmental laws, consumer-protection measures, and other forms of regulatory "interference" -- were a burden on corporate growth. Having been successfully field tested in the two oldest "democracies," the neoliberal project moved onto the global stage. The Bretton Woods system of fixed rates of currency exchange was weakened, and the international financial system became destabilizing, instead of stabilizing, for national economies. The radical free-trade project was launched, leading eventually in 1993 to the World Trade Organization. The fission that had begun in 1945 was finally manifesting as an explosive change in the world system. The objective of neoliberal free-trade treaties is to remove all political controls over domestic and international trade and commerce. Corporations have free rein to maximize profits, heedless of environmental consequences and safety risks. Instead of governments regulating corporations, the WTO now sets rules for governments, telling them what kind of beef they must import, whether or not they can ban asbestos, and what additives they must permit in petroleum products. So far, in every case where the WTO has been asked to review a health, safety, or environmental regulation, the regulation has been overturned. Most of the world has been turned into a periphery; the imperial core has been boiled down to the capitalist elite themselves, represented by their bureaucratic, unrepresentative, WTO world government. The burden of accelerated imperialism falls hardest outside the West, where loans are used as a lever by the IMF to compel debtor nations such as Rwanda and South Korea to accept suicidal "reform" packages. In the 1800s, genocide was employed to clear North America and Australia of their native populations, creating room for growth. Today, a similar program of genocide has apparently been unleashed against sub-Saharan Africa. The IMF destroys the economies, the CIA trains militias and stirs up tribal conflicts, and the West sells weapons to all sides. Famine and genocidal civil wars are the predictable and inevitable result. Meanwhile, AIDS runs rampant while the WTO and the US government use trade laws to prevent medicines from reaching the victims. In matrix reality, globalization is not a project but rather the "inevitable" result of beneficial market forces. Genocide in Africa is no fault of the West, but is due to ancient tribal rivalries. Every measure demanded by globalization is referred to as "reform," (the word is never used with irony). "Democracy" and "reform" are frequently used together, always leaving the subtle impression that one has something to do with the other. The illusion is presented that all economic boats are rising, and if yours isn't, it must be your own fault: you aren't "competitive" enough. Economic failures are explained away as "temporary adjustments," or else the victim is blamed for not being sufficiently neoliberal. "Investor confidence" is referred to with the same awe and reverence that earlier societies might have expressed toward the "will of the gods." Western quality of life continues to decline, while the WTO establishes legal precedents ensuring that its authority will not be challenged when its decisions become more draconian. Things will get much worse in the West; this was anticipated in elite circles when the neoliberal project was still on the drawing board, as is illustrated in Samuel Huntington's "The Crisis of Democracy" report discussed earlier. * The management of discontented societies The postwar years, especially in the United States, were characterized by consensus politics. Most people shared a common understanding of how society worked, and generally approved of how things were going. Prosperity was real and the matrix version of reality was reassuring. Most people believed in it. Those beliefs became a shared consensus, and the government could then carry out its plans as it intended, "responding" to the programmed public will. The "excess democracy" of the 1960s and 1970s attacked this shared consensus from below, and neoliberal planners decided from above that ongoing consensus wasn't worth paying for. They accepted that segments of society would persist in disbelieving various parts of the matrix. Activism and protest were to be expected. New means of social control would be needed to deal with activist movements and with growing discontent, as neoliberalism gradually tightened the economic screws. Such means of control were identified and have since been largely implemented, particularly in the United States. In many ways America sets the pace of globalization; innovations can often be observed there before they occur elsewhere. This is particularly true in the case of social-control techniques. The most obvious means of social control, in a discontented society, is a strong, semi-militarized police force. Most of the periphery has been managed by such means for centuries. Urban and suburban ghettos in America -- where the adverse consequences of neoliberalism are currently most concentrated -- have literally become occupied territories, where police beatings and unjustified shootings are commonplace. So that the beefed-up police force could maintain control in conditions of mass unrest, elite planners also realized that much of the Bill of Rights would need to be neutralized. This is not surprising, given that the Bill's authors had just lived through a revolution and were seeking to ensure that future generations would have the means to organize and overthrow any oppressive future government. In the matrix, the genre of the TV or movie police drama has served to create a reality in which "rights" are a joke, the accused are despicable sociopaths, and no criminal is ever brought to justice until some noble cop or prosecutor bends the rules a bit. Government officials bolstered the construct in the 1980s and 1990s by declaring "wars" on crime and drugs; the noble cops are fighting a war out there in the streets -- and you can't win a war without using your enemy's dirty tricks. The CIA plays its role by managing the international drug trade and making sure that ghetto drug dealers are well supplied. In this way, the American public was led down the garden path to accepting the means of its own suppression. The covert guiding of various social movements has proven to be one of the most effective means of programming factions and stirring them against one another. Fundamentalist religious movements have been particularly useful. They have been used not only within the US, but also to maximize divisiveness in the Middle East and for other purposes throughout the empire. The collective energy and dedication of "true believers" makes them a potent political weapon that movement leaders can readily aim where needed. In the US that weapon has been used to attack the women's movement, to support repressive legislation, and generally to bolster the ranks of what is called in the matrix the "right wing." In the matrix, the various factions believe that their competition with each other is the process that determines society's political agenda. Politicians want votes, and hence the biggest and best-organized factions should have the most influence, and their agendas should get the most political attention. In reality there is only one significant political agenda these days: the maximization of capital growth through the dismantling of society, the continuing implementation of neoliberalism, and the management of empire. During the Clinton era, his liberal rhetoric and his playing around with health care and gay rights were not the result of liberal pressure. They were rather the means by which Clinton was sold to liberal voters, so that he could proceed with real business: getting NAFTA through Congress, promoting the WTO, giving away the public airwaves, justifying military interventions, and so forth. Issues of genuine importance are never raised in campaign politics -- this is a major glitch in the matrix for those who have eyes to see it. * The New American Century The New American Century began on September 11, 2001. For anyone familiar with the history of American war-enabling "outrage incidents", the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were highly suspicious from the very beginning. Four planes were known to be hijacked for more than an hour, and yet no fighters were scrambled to intercept them -- not even after the first Tower had been hit. This is completely contrary to standard procedure. Typically, when any flight goes off course in the U.S., even if it's not a hijacking, interceptors are scrambled within minutes. The manner in which the Towers collapsed was also highly suspicious -- particularly the third tower, which was not even struck by a plane. All three collapsed in precisely the manner one would expect from a professional demolition, and numerous fire fighters and other eyewitnesses reported hearing explosions in the buildings -- after the fires had been brought mostly under control. Although the Administration expressed complete surprise at the attacks, it claimed to know the exact identities of all the hijackers within hours of the event. While the whole world was transfixed to TV screens, awed at the magnitude of the attacks, President Bush read stories to children and other top administration officials carried on with their normal schedules. The announcement of the War On Terrorism and the Patriot Act followed entirely too rapidly to have been the result of a surprise attack. As more information emerged in the following weeks and months, the official version of the 9/11 events became increasingly untenable. The administration had received dozens of warnings that Al Qaeda was planning to use hijacked aircraft as attack planes, contrary to White House claims of being caught completely by surprise. In fact, the Pentagon had carried out practice exercises in anticipation of precisely such an attack. Two weeks prior to the attacks, Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad, head of Pakistani Intelligence, transferred $100,000 to the account of Mohammed Atta, leader of the alleged hijackers. While the attacks were being carried out, Ahmad was having breakfast in the Senate lunch room with members of the Select Committee on Intelligence. The FBI identified Ahmad as the "moneybags of the hijacking", and yet he was allowed to leave the country and there has been no follow-up regarding his involvement. About the only thing supporting the Administration's official version of events is the inability of most people to imagine that the events of 9/11 could have been an inside job. For those familiar with America's history of "outrage incidents", not much imagination is required. We now know that Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and crew came into the White House with a detailed agenda up their sleeves, and it was an agenda that would have been very difficult to pursue without the dramatic events of 9/11. Indeed, such an agenda would have been incomplete if it did not include a plan for achieving domestic public acceptance and international acquiescence. And after 9/11, the pre-existing agenda was immediately launched into implementation. In terms of evaluating suspected perpetrators for 9/11, one must clearly attribute to top U.S. elites motive, opportunity, means, modus operandi, and lack of alibi. In addition there has been no evidence presented that is contrary to their culpability. The agenda of the new White House was written up as a report, "Rebuilding America's Defenses -- Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century", produced in September 2000 by The Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The report is an updated version of a classified "Defense Policy Guidance" document drafted in 1992 under the supervision of Paul Wolfowitz. Some of the founding members of PNAC include Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle. Here are some excerpts from their written agenda for the New American Century: "The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein". (p. 14) "Further, these constabulary missions are far more complex and likely to generate violence than traditional 'peacekeeping' missions. For one, they demand American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations, as the failure of the UN mission in the Balkans and the relative success of NATO operations there attests" (p. 11). "Despite the shifting focus of conflict in Europe, a requirement to station U.S. forces in northern and central Europe remains. The region is stable, but a continued American presence helps to assure the major European powers, especially Germany, that the United States retains its long-standing security interest in the continent. This is especially important in light of the nascent European moves toward an independent defense 'identity' and policy; it is important that NATO not be replaced by the European Union, leaving the United States without a voice in European security affairs" (p. 16). "Since today's peace is the unique product of American preeminence, a failure to preserve that preeminence allows others an opportunity to shape the world in ways antithetical to American interests and principles. The price of American preeminence is that, just as it was actively obtained, it must be actively maintained" (p. 73). "To preserve American military preeminence in the coming decades, the Department of Defense must move more aggressively to experiment with new technologies and operational concepts, and seek to exploit the emerging revolution in military affairs" (p. 50). "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor" (p. 51). Soon after the PNAC crew managed to gain control of the White House, they got their "new Pearl Harbor", they got their "substantial American force presence in the Gulf" under "American political leadership", and the revolution in military affairs is now moving "more aggressively". The "War on Terrorism", enabled by 9/11's "new Pearl Harbor", is the smoke screen behind which the agenda of the New American Century is being aggressively implemented. American "preeminence", apparently, is to be ensured into the future. No challenge to U.S. military or economic supremacy is to be tolerated. _________________________________________________ CHAPTER 2: We the People AND THE TRANSFORMATIONAL IMPERATIVE * Civilization in crisis Civilization, and humanity, are now facing the most severe crisis of survival that either has ever faced. The unbridled exploitation and waste of resources, required by capitalism's growth imperative, is destroying the bio-infrastructure upon which future human life depends. The pace of this devastation is ever increasing, as corporations must seek each quarter to achieve greater growth than the quarter before. In many ways, civilization has already passed the point of no return. So much carbon dioxide has already been released into the atmosphere, for example, that the effects of global warming will continue to worsen even if we were to somehow stop burning fossil fuels immediately and totally. Huge tracts of agricultural land have been irreversibly turned into barren desert, many fishing stocks are near extinction levels, and the global population is already so large that feeding everyone -- even under some ideal system of agriculture and distribution -- would be a major challenge. If we look at this situation from an objective point of view, as an outside observer, it makes no sense at all. Humanity as a species is behaving insanely, like lemmings jumping over a cliff. Given finite resources, the only sensible strategy for humanity is to carefully manage the resources that remain, to help the environment begin healing, and to transform our economies and cultures so that we are able to survive sustainably using renewable resources. And the sooner such a transformation begins, the better -- the longer we continue on our current path, the fewer resources will be left to manage and survive on. There is no natural law or dictate of the gods that requires us to continue on our ill-fated course. If the societal will existed, we could readily scale down our industrial operations and re-purpose them toward producing the the technologies and products which can be used to build sustainable societies. When the will exists, as we have often seen under the pressure of war, societies are capable of great creativity and resourcefulness. Some people believe that it is already too late to save most of humanity -- there are just too many of us. This may serve as a rationalization to acquiesce in the status quo, but it is largely a myth. India, for example, could end its own starvation problem if it simply diverted 5% of its food exports to feed its own hungry. Although population levels do present a significant problem, it is not population per se that accounts for widespread poverty and the rapid depletion of our resources. The causes of both are the wasteful and reckless manner in which resources are exploited, and the excessive consumption that characterizes the richest societies. The USA for example, with 5% of the world's population, uses 20% (?) of the world's energy. As long as there were new lands to conquer and plenty of room to grow, humanity could operate -- even if unwisely and unjustly -- under an economy based on the paradigm of growth and development. Such a paradigm was never sustainable, not in the long run, but the long run always seemed far away -- and the visible benefits of 'progress' were seductive. Unfortunately for those of us alive today, the long run has finally arrived and the visible benefits are declining as well. Either we somehow wake up as a species and deal with this crisis, or else civilization will continue down the slippery slope to mass die offs, perhaps the collapse of civil order, and in any case a very dismal future for our grandchildren and future generations. * We the People "If the world is saved, it will be saved by people with changed minds, people with a new vision. It will not be saved by people with the old vision but new programs." - Daniel Quinn, "The Story of B" If civilization is in dire crisis, and if only a radical transformation of our economic and governance systems can provide a lasting and favorable outcome to that crisis, then we must inquire into what means might be available to bring about that kind of radical transformation. Changes in society are usually initiated from the top, by elites acting through their various hierarchical institutions. In those cases where change has been initiated from the grassroots, by elements of 'We the People', that change has always come by the efforts of a social movement. 'Social movements' is a broad category, including everything from polite reform organizations to armed insurrections, from labor unions to anti-globalization protests. In general, a social movement is an attempt to give voice to popular sentiment, to provide a vehicle that enables the members of the movement to act as a whole, to be a collective 'actor' in society, to have a coherent effect on society. Quite clearly the kind of transformation we are seeking will not be initiated by the elite establishment. If such a transformation is to be achieved, the initiative will need to come from We the People in the form of a social movement that is suitable to that task. That social movement might be quite unlike previous movements, as its objectives are uniquely radical. But by examining various existing and historical movements, we can gain some insight as to the kind of movement that would be suitable for our needs. Let's first take a look at the anti-globalization movement, a movement whose sentiments are largely in harmony with the kind of transformation we have been discussing. The anti-globalization movement understands that unbridled capitalism is destroying the world, and the movement seeks a radical shift towards democracy, justice, and sustainability. The movement also has many thousands of committed supporters worldwide, who are willing to participate in movement events at considerable expense and risk to themselves. Is the anti-globalization movement an appropriate vehicle for achieving global transformation? Unfortunately, this movement has not proven to be particularly effective. It's heart is in the right place and it's supporters show commitment, but it has no clear vision of a transformed society, no strategy to bring about change, and no program to expand its constituency. It is in the amorphous mold of the protest movements of the 1960s, and those kinds of movements can no longer be effective in this post-neoliberal age. Neoliberalism brought the economic abandonment of the middle classes, and elites no longer see any need to maintain an illusion of popular consensus. In the 1960s governments were concerned when masses of people protested, and they responded with a Civil Rights Bill, a Freedom of Information Act, and an Environmental Protection Agency. Today's neoliberal elites respond to protests by suppressing them or ignoring them, and then simply carry on with business as usual. One of the things leaders are taught at globalist gatherings is to avoid being distracted by popular 'sentimentality'. About a century ago, just prior to 1900 in the U.S., there was a movement which provides a closer model for the kind of movement that might bring about transformation today. Its goals were not nearly as radical as what we are considering, but they were radical, and they did represent a challenge to the ascendency of monopoly capitalism. This movement did have a vision of a transformed system, a strategy for bringing about change, and an effective program for expanding its constituency. It began as the Farmers Alliance, was later known as the Populist Movement and the Peoples Party, and it became a very significant actor in society. In 1890, for example, Georgia and Texas elected Alliance Governors, and thirty-eight Alliance members were elected to the U.S. Congress. The Farmers Alliance began in 1877 as a self-help movement in Texas, organizing cooperatives for buying supplies and selling crops. The cooperatives improved the farmers' economic situation, and the movement began to spread throughout the Midwest and the South. By 1889, there were 400,000 members. This was a thinking movement as well as an action movement. Howard Zinn, in "A People's History of the United States", writes, "The Populist movement also also made a remarkable attempt to create a new and independent culture for the country's farmers. The Alliance Lecture Bureau reached all over the country; it had 35,000 lecturers. The Populists poured out books and pamphlets from their printing presses...". Zinn goes on to cite from another source, "One gathers from yellowed pamphlets that the agrarian ideologists undertook to re-educate their countrymen from the ground up. Dismissing 'history as taught in our schools' [ie., The Matrix] as 'practically valueless', they undertook to write it over -- formidable columns of it, from the Greek down. With no more compunction they turned all hands to the revision of economics, political theory, law, and government." And from another source, "...no other political movement -- not that of 1776, nor that of 1860-1861 -- ever altered Southern life so profoundly." There is much here that makes sense for a transformational democratic movement. Our current systems are supported by cultural mythologies, and "writing it over" is a good description of what needs to be done if the illusions of the old culture are to be exposed and the culture of a new society is to be developed. The emphasis on education of the membership shows a respect for popular intelligence, and it builds a shared cultural perspective that enables a movement to act with increasing unity and coherence. The emphasis on outreach and recruitment is necessary if a movement hopes to grow large enough to bring about significant changes. The Populist Movement arose due to economic problems that were being faced by farmers, and the movement set out to find practical ways to solve those problems. I suggest that such a problem-solving emphasis is appropriate to a democratic transformational movement. If a movement makes demands, then it is affirming that power resides elsewhere -- in that person or agency which is the target of the demands. If a movement creates solutions, then it is asserting its own empowerment, it is taking responsibility for its own welfare. Furthermore, problem solving ability in general is necessary for any movement which intends to achieve radical goals. Such a movement is bound to encounter all sorts of challenges and barriers along the way, and it will need to be able to respond creatively and effectively to them. The emphasis on economics in particular is also appropriate to a transformational movement. Economics is the basis of most social activity, and it is in the realm of economics that solutions can be found to our social and environmental malaise. The Populists, being largely farmers, were closely connected to place, and their movement was in part an expression of localism. The movement built up its constituency region by region, rather than by seeking isolated members spread throughout the society, as do modern reform organizations like the Sierra Club. To use a military metaphor, the movement 'captured territory' and then 'consolidated that territory' through education and by implementing its solutions in that 'territory' -- and by winning elections there and gaining some degree of official political power. Such a territorial emphasis is very appropriate to a transformational movement. Within a 'captured territory' -- a region in which people generally have become part of the movement -- the vision and culture of the movement has an opportunity to flower and to find expression in ordinary conversation among people. The culture has a place to take root and grow, and people's sense of empowerment is reinforced by being in the daily company of those who share an evolving vision, and who are in effect collaborators in a shared project. The Populist Movement was also an expression of localism in another way. At the core of the Populist political agenda was a set of economic reforms. Those reforms represented an attempt to stem the ascendency of centralized big-money capitalism -- and reassert the interests of locally-based farms and small businesses. The Populists were calling for fundamental reform of the financial system, the debt system, and currency policies. They wanted to give local communities and regions enough economic viability to be able to take responsibility for their own welfare. In their relationship to the political process, the Populists again had much to teach a transformational movement. They began as a grassroots organization oriented around self-help, not as a movement attempting to influence the political machine. They were successful at their self-help endeavors, and they expanded their focus to recruitment and territorial expansion. Only when they had achieved overwhelming success at the grassroots level did they turn their attention to the ballot box. In this way they were able to achieve some measure of political power without compromising their objectives in the horse-trading that characterizes competitive politics. They were able to integrate politics into their tactical portfolio and also retain their integrity as a grassroots movement. But ultimately the Populists faltered and collapsed, and we have as much to learn from that experience as from their earlier successes. They ran up against an unavoidable barrier, one that all radical movements must run up against eventually, and that is the limit on how much can be accomplished in the face of establishment opposition. In order to promote their economic reform agenda, and encouraged by their electoral successes, they decided to commit their movement wholeheartedly to the political process. They joined forces with the Democratic Party and backed William Jennings Bryan in the election of 1896. The Populists had then placed themselves in a no-win situation. If the Democrats lost, the movement would be defeated and shattered; if the Democrats won, the movement would be swallowed up in the horse-trading of Democratic politics. The reactionary capitalist establishment responded vigorously to this opportunity to put a final end to the upstart Populist movement. Corporations and the elite-owned media threw their support to the Republican candidate, William McKinley, in what Zinn calls "the first massive use of money in an an election campaign." Bryan was defeated, and the Populist movement fell apart. The establishment was taking no chances: even diluted within the Democratic party, the Populists represented too much of a threat from below, they were too successful at providing a voice for We the People. Democracy had raised its ugly head, and elites chopped it off at their earliest opportunity. Any transformational movement that wants to go the distance must be prepared to resist the seductive siren call of electoral politics -- a siren whose voice becomes even more appealing after the movement has made some significant progress. As the Populists' earlier experience showed, politics can be used successfully to consolidate gains made on the ground, particularly if the expansion program employs a territorial strategy. But when electoral politics is allowed to dominate movement strategy -- before the territory of the movement encompasses the entire electorate -- then the hope of ultimate success has been lost. Either the movement will be destroyed abruptly, or it will die a slow drowning death in the quicksand of factional politics. Any transformational movement must also eventually run up against the barrier of establishment opposition. Like the Populists, it makes good sense for a transformational movement to focus initially on what people can collectively do for themselves, without confrontation and within the constraints of the existing system. This is how the movement can be built, and how a culture can be fostered based on common-sense analysis, creative problem solving, self-reliance, and democratic empowerment. But the movement's self-help progress will eventually be frustrated by the economic and political constraints of the establishment's system, and that's when the movement needs to decide what it's really about. At that point the movement can either take the 'blue pill', and settle for temporary reformist gains within the elite's political circus, or it can take the 'red pill' and face the challenges of the real world -- of power and engagement. As much as we may be enamored of a win-win, love-your-enemy approach to the universe, we must face the fact that the currently entrenched regime is ruthless in its tactics, determined to stay in power, and resourceful in its application of its many means of suppression, subversion, and co-option. Though we may carry universal love in our hearts, the strategic thinking of the movement must at some point focus on the principles of effective engagement. The Populists have little to offer us here. A better model for this phase would be the non-violent grassroots movement against British rule in India, led and inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi is most renown for his non-violence and for his universal empathy for all people, including even the British oppressors. Those are wise principles for any transformational movement that must engage an armed establishment and that seeks to create a just and democratic society. But Gandhi should be equally renown for his strategic acumen, and we can learn much from that aspect of his work. Like a skillful Go player, he was able to set up situations where the British felt compelled to respond, yet any response they chose would undermine their position. They had to choose between yielding ground to the movement, or else engaging in suppressive measures which could only serve to build greater sympathy and support for the movement. The point is not necessarily that a movement should emulate Gandhi's tactics, but rather that flexible and creative strategic thinking is absolutely essential to successful engagement. Gandhi's movement did succeed in its immediate objective of ousting the British occupiers, but it failed to achieve Gandhi's deeper goals for a new kind of harmonious and democratic society. The leadership of the movement was concentrated too much in him personally and after his assassination his followers reverted to traditional political patterns. His movement was in the final analysis a hierarchical movement. A successful transformational movement -- which seeks to establish a democratic, non-hierarchical society -- would be best served by taking a non-hierarchical approach from the very beginning. Goals and strategy should be developed at the grassroots level, and the movement culture should facilitate the exchange of ideas and solutions, thus building a self-reliant and holographically led movement -- and a movement which is not vulnerable to death by leadership decapitation. The Populist Movement too had a hierarchical leadership structure, and this limited its transformational potential in several ways. In the long run hierarchy is the bane of democracy, so in that sense the Populists were from the beginning not pursuing a path toward a transformed democratic society. And by monopolizing strategic thinking, the wisdom of the movement was limited by the cultural perspective and prejudices of the relatively small leadership cadre. In particular the rural, farmer-based leadership limited the growth of the movement to what we might in some fairness call 'their own kind of people'. Although movement activists sympathized with urban industrial workers, and expressed support for their strikes and boycotts, the culture of the Populist leadership did not lead them to bring urban workers into their constituency, to make them part of the Populist family. From an objective strategic perspective, it is clear that this was a fatal error of omission. There was a natural alignment of interests, based on mutual exploitation by monopoly capitalism, and an effective joining of forces would have propelled the expanded movement onto a new and much higher plateau of political significance. Any movement which aims to create a transformed and democratic society needs to keep this in mind: when the new world is created, everyone will be in it -- not just the people we agree with or the people we normally associate with. Certainly any particular movement is likely to attract certain kinds of people before others, and that must inevitably give a certain flavor to the emerging movement -- but a movement must aim to be all inclusive if it seeks to create a democratic society that is all inclusive. Is there anyone you would leave behind, or relegate to second class citizenship? If not, then you should be willing to welcome to the movement anyone who shares the goal of creating that new world. * The transformational imperative We the People have found our identity and common purpose many times in the past: on the fields of Lexington and Concord, at the gates of the Czar's palace and the Bastille, and in movements like the Populists. We have a tradition to learn from, and there are many wrong turns we must avoid. Martin Luther King used a phrase that sums up one of the most important lessons we need to take to heart, "Keep your eyes on the prize." If we want a world which is democratic, and which is sustainable both economically and politically, then we must stay true to that vision. We must anticipate that the devil -- the elite regime -- is likely to offer us enticing distractions when we show up on their radar. But only a thorough and radical transformation can rid us of the dynamics of hierarchy, exploitation, and elite rule. There is no one out there, no actor on the stage of society, who can or will bring about the radical transformation required to save humanity and the world -- no one that is except We the People. Not we the electorate, nor we the public, but we who are members of the intelligent and aware human species. We who are capable of thinking for ourselves, and envisioning a better world, and working together with others in pursuit of our common visions. There is no one else who will do it for us, and it is a job that must be done. This is our transformational imperative. _________________________________________________ CHAPTER 3: THE HARMONIZATION IMPERATIVE * Adversarial systems and liberal democracy If We the People are to respond effectively to our Transformational Imperative, then we will need to do so by means of an appropriate social movement. In the preceding chapter I argued that a protest movement like the anti-globalization movement cannot be our transformational vehicle. I also suggested that electoral politics cannot be our vehicle either, and I offered the Populist Movement as an example of a promising popular movement that finally floundered on the shoals of the political system. In this chapter I'd like to take a deeper look at our 'democratic' system, as a prelude to investigating what kind of movement could serve our needs. Liberal democracy is an adversarial system. Candidates compete for party nominations, parties compete to get their candidates elected, and elected representatives compete to get their programs adopted in parliaments. In the U.S. Constitution, adversarial dynamics are enshrined in the form of a carefully worked out balance of powers among the executive, judiciary, and legislature. There is a naive democratic theory behind this system of governance. When advocates for side each present their case, there is some hope that all relevant information will emerge, enabling good decisions to be reached. When candidates and parties compete, there is some hope that their relative success will be related to the size of their following -- leading indirectly to a democratic result. In a competition among people, ideas, and programs -- the theory goes -- the best will rise to the top. But with any kind of system, theory is one thing and practice is another. Systems tend to have inherent dynamics -- and the way those dynamics play out is not always consistent with the theory or purposes under which the system is established. In the case of hierarchies, an inherent tendency toward centralization of power inevitably pushes against whatever mechanisms are set up to constrain the hierarchy. We can see this in the gradual consolidations of power by the Federal Government in the U.S. and by the Brussels bureaucracy in the EU. In the case of adversarial systems as well, there are inherent dynamics which we can observe wherever adversarial systems are employed. An adversarial process operates as a competitive game. The objective of the game is to win. If you want to be a successful player in the game, you need to be better at winning than the other players. In the case of politics, winning means getting elected. According to the naive theory of democracy, the election of a candidate should reflect general acceptance of the candidate's program. But in reality, victory in the political struggle depends on the ability to attract a constituency by whatever means prove to be effective -- and selling programs isn't the means that works best in practice. More important might be the charisma of the candidate, or the vulnerability of the opponent to a smear campaign, or the ability to focus public attention on superficial but dramatic issues, or countless other propaganda games we see played out in typical campaigns. When programs are talked about, a candidate usually does best by evading questions or by telling people the lies they want to hear. The dynamics of the competitive game lead to results that have little to do with the naive theories behind representative democracy. Electoral reforms can be attempted, and have frequently been implemented, but reforms are like sand castles set against the tide. The same political dynamics, and similar results, can be seen in every nation that uses competitive elections. Indeed, if we look back two thousand years to the Roman Republic we can see the same patterns of corruption, complete with costly campaigns, gerrymandering of districts, bought votes, etc. What we need to understand here is that 'corruption' is the wrong word for these phenomena. They are not distortions of the system, rather they are the normal behavior of such a system. It is the adversarial system itself that is a corruption -- of democratic principles. * Liberal democracy and elite hegemony Liberal democracy is an ideal system to facilitate rule by wealthy elites. In any adversarial game, the advantage goes to the strongest players. On the school yard, the game of 'King of the Mountain' is naturally dominated by the biggest and strongest kids. In politics, the game of elections is naturally dominated by those with the most campaign funds and the most media support. By such means wealth can be translated directly into political power and influence -- and by such means every so-called 'democracy' is in fact ruled by wealthy elites, either in office or from behind the scenes. There is an ironic truth behind the neoliberal myth that capitalism and 'democracy' are closely related. In the myth the two are related by a mutual respect for human freedom; in truth they are related by their mutual friendliness to elite domination. It is not by chance that we are governed by a system that facilitates elite rule, nor was the system established due to a mistaken belief in the naive theory of liberal democracy. The naive theory is for school text books; it is part of the establishment's supporting mythology. The elites who set up these political systems understood very well how they actually function. When the American revolution was over, the result was thirteen sovereign republics, collaborating under the Articles of Confederation. But there were problems. So much was new that unforeseen difficulties arose. There was no common agreement to protect sea lanes, for example, and piracy became rife. The States all agreed that the Articles required amendment. A more collaborative framework was needed. The legislatures agreed to sponsor a Constitutional Convention, empowered to amend the Articles and bring them back for unanimous approval of the States. The delegates were supposed to represent their States, and the Constitution was to be an agreement among the States, an amended version of the Articles. Such was the charter under which the Convention was empowered to operate. The legislatures, unfortunately, mostly appointed their delegates from among their local wealthy elites. The delegates then ensconced themselves in secret session and proceeded to betray the charter under which they had been assembled. They discarded the Articles, and began debating and drafting a wholly new document, one that transferred sovereignty to a relatively strong central government. The delegates reneged on the States that had sent them, and took it upon themselves to speak directly for "We the People" -- and thus begins the preamble to their Constitution. In effect they accomplished a coup d'etat. They managed to design a system that would enable existing elites to continue to run the affairs of the new nation, as they had before under the Crown -- under a Constitution that for all the world seems to embody sound democratic principles. At every level of the new Constitution there were safeguards against uprisings from below. The life-appointed Supreme Court Justices and the six-year Senators provided a kind of conservative flywheel against any kind of rapid change. The President was to be elected indirectly by State Legislatures, which provided a buffer from "mob" sentiments in each state. Most significantly, the strongest protections in the Constitution were granted to private property. The Constitutional sanctity of private property guaranteed that existing elites would be able to hold on to and continue developing their fortunes. Whereas in most European nations the financial system is controlled by a central government bank, in the new American republic the private sector was given a more influential role. This provides American elites with a way to influence economic affairs outside of political channels. This may seem like a cynical assessment of the legacy of America's "Founding Fathers". Have they not given us all those noble sayings?... "Give me liberty or give me death.", "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.", .etc. Were they not true democrats? Some were and some weren't. Even some of the best of them, like Thomas Jefferson, were slave owners. The worst of them, like Alexander Hamilton, would have preferred rule by an American royalty. In general the allegiance of colonial elites to democracy was tempered by their concern for their own self-interest, and their notion of how society should operate. They didn't want Royal interference in their affairs, but neither did they want interference by what many of them referred to as "mob rule". By the very way they carried out the secret Constitutional Convention they demonstrated how the new government was going to operate. They were delegates, chartered to represent their constituencies, and they were mostly from wealthy elite circles. When gathered in their own company they represented instead their own mutual interests -- yet they presented their work as the embodiment of their charter. And they succeeded politically in selling their product to the people and to the States. Such has been the story of American politics ever since. After the Convention completed its work, a debate raged throughout the colonies as to whether the new Constitution should be ratified. As part of this debate, a series of newspaper articles appeared that came to be known as the Federalist Papers. These papers reveal with considerable candor the elite reasoning behind the design of the new government. Zinn writes: In Federalist Paper #10, James Madison argued that representative government was needed to maintain peace in a society ridden by factional disputes... "Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society." The problem he said, was how to control the factional struggles that came from inequalities in wealth.Minority factions could be controlled, he said, by the principle that decisions would be by vote of the majority. So the real problem, according to Madison, was a majority faction, and there the solution was...to have an "extensive republic", that is, a large nation ranging over thirteen states, for then "it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other...The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States." The purpose of the new system, in other words, was to enable the colonial elite to retain their economic and political dominance by systematically preventing the ascendency of any kind of popular democratic movement. The rules of the adversarial game were carefully worked out so as to enable the successful management of factionalism by the elite establishment. The system was consciously designed to facilitate elite rule and that is how it has functioned ever since. * Divide and rule Directly after the ratification of the Constitution, two elite-led political parties were established. Madison, Jefferson, and Monroe joined the Democrat-Republicans, while Hamilton, Washington, and Adams joined the Federalists. This set the pattern for U.S. politics ever since: two mainstream parties, both controlled by wealthy elites, and providing the illusion of choice to voters. The two major parties had the funding to carry out major national campaigns, and then as now people were corralled into choosing between the lesser of two evils when they cast their ballots. From the beginning, the primary agenda of all mainstream parties has been to facilitate economic growth and the further enrichment of the wealthy elites who control both the economy and the government. I do not mean to imply that the elite were then, or are today, a monolith with a single consensus agenda. There have always been ideological divisions and different cliques competing for relative advantage. These differences play themselves out partly in political campaigns, and lead to rhetoric that attempts to attract voters to supporting one clique rather than the other. Each party tries to convince voters that the other party is to be feared, and that their own party will lead to popular prosperity. Voters have a choice, but it is always between two different elite agendas which differ only in the tactics by which growth is to be facilitated -- and by which the people are to be kept under control. As Madison anticipated, political stability in America has been achieved through the management of factionalism. At any given time, some sizable faction was always doing rather well under the elite-managed system of economic growth, and these more prosperous elements provided a solid base of support for government policies. But there was always a mass of unrest boiling up from the less advantaged segments of society. Particularly with industrialization and the increasing dominance of capitalist dynamics, wealth was very unequally distributed, workers, women, and minorities were exploited, and there were always movements of various kinds attempting to influence the elite agenda. These movements were contained either geographically, or else by means of pitting one faction against the other. The Populists probably came closer than any other movement to challenging elite hegemony, but they too finally fell prey to adversarial dynamics when they cast their lot in the electoral game. Today the grassroots U.S. population is divided into two primary factions, usually known as liberals and conservatives, or left and right. This split represents a rather sophisticated version of factional manipulation. It does not represent any real difference of interests. It is not the case that grassroots liberals and conservatives are from different economic strata, or have different self-interest agendas for fundamental national policies. The divisions, though deeply felt, are not over matters of state, but over issues such as abortion, gay rights, and the like. These kinds of issues, according to the Constitution, are not even the business of the Federal Government -- they are the kind that should be dealt with locally or at the state level. But divisiveness is so effective at controlling the population that the major parties are happy to promote such issues to the national level, where they can be exploited to generate fear and anxiety. Campaigns and rhetoric are focused on these peripheral issues, and fundamental issues of national policy never even come up for discussion. Campaigns have no more relevance to national policy than do high school debates, and as in high school debates the winner is decided more on the style of their presentations than on the validity of their positions. * The Harmonization Imperative It ain't left or right. It's up and down. Here we all are down here struggling while the Corporate Elite are all up there having a nice day!.. - Carolyn Chute, author of The Beans of Egypt Maine and anti-corporate activist For two tactical reasons, the pursuit of a 'progressive victory' via the electoral system is a no-win idea. The first reason is simply that such a project cannot succeed. The divisive power of the establishment media and political machines are too powerful. Elites have refined the management of factionalism into a science. We all know this intuitively, and that is why most progressives don't want to 'waste' their vote on a Nader-style candidacy. The second tactical reason is that a strong and aggressive progressive movement -- within the context of neoliberalism and adversarial politics -- would heighten the fears of the right, fan the flames of polarization, and help facilitate an overt fascist takeover. Indeed, if a progressive movement showed any signs of gaining power, the elite regime would be likely to play the fascist card in self-defense. This is why I'm writing this book instead of campaigning for Nader. There is also a more strategic reason why a 'progressive victory' is a no-win idea -- even if it were achievable. Such a victory would perpetuate hierarchy and the adversarial game. The progressives would be on top for a while, but society would remain divided. Progressive legislation would presumably be enacted, but it would be enacted and enforced by a centralized government. Those in opposition would rankle under what they perceived to be a 'leftist dictatorship'. The forces of reaction would exploit this divisiveness and there would always be a danger that the political pendulum would swing back to the right. This is in part how Reagan was able to come to power -- an eventuality that would have seemed inconceivable during the euphoric progressive resurgence that followed the resignation of Richard Nixon. If we want to transform society both economically and politically, then we must first transform our culture. If we want a non-dominator culture, we cannot achieve it by using dominator methods. Such a culture cannot be imposed by a centralized government, it must be grown from the grassroots. The Soviet experience demonstrates what can happen when a centralized government sets out to create a brave new world in the name of 'the people'. A dictatorship of the proletariat is just another kind of hierarchical rule by elites. In order to escape from the trap of factionalism, we need to find a way to get beyond the superficial issues that divide us. Underneath our political and religious beliefs we are all human beings who want a better and saner world for our families and our descendents. Instead of focusing on what divides us, and struggling to prevail over the 'other', we need to find a way to focus on what unites us -- and learn how to work together to achieve the kind of world we all want. We face a common crisis as neoliberal capitalism destroys our societies and threatens our life support systems. This crisis presents us with an unprecedented opportunity to find our common ground, as there is no sizable segment of the population that benefits from the direction the regime is taking us in. Factionalism no longer has any economic teeth -- the regime keeps us divided not by appealing to our self interest but by means of manufactured and sensationalized fears and anxieties. If We the People are to respond effectively to our Transformational Imperative -- to save the world and humanity from its crisis -- we need first to actualize our common identity as We the People. We need to learn to see one another as human beings rather than as 'us' and 'them'. We need to learn how to harmonize our deep common interests instead of accentuating our superficial differences. In order to respond to our Transformational Imperative, we must first respond to this Harmonization Imperative. Fortunately, there is a proven means by which we can move effectively toward cultural harmonization and overcome cultural factionalism. That means goes under the simple name of 'dialog', and the next chapter is devoted to examining the remarkable results that been achieved by appropriate kinds of dialog -- and exploring how dialog might be employed to awaken We the People and empower us together to respond to our Transformational Imperative. _________________________________________________ CHAPTER 4: HARMONIZATION IN THE MICROCOSM * A very promising gathering in Michigan In June, 2004, twenty four diverse "opinion leaders" were invited to a conference in Michigan which had the following stated purpose: The purpose of this gathering is to [initiate] a new kind of public conversation that moves us beyond polarization so we [can] effectively address the issues we care most about. . . . The participants were from all across the political spectrum, including a former FBI agent, the National Field Director of the Christian Coalition, a founding member of the National Congress of Black Women , a board member of the National Rifle Association, the president of a left-leaning legal-issues organization, former Weather Underground supporters, and former speakers at white racist gatherings. Is this gathering a joke? From such a radically diverse conference one might expect fist fights and shouting matches to emerge, rather than any kind of agreement or consensus. Tom Atlee, one of the participants, expressed his misgivings prior to the gathering this way: Using Google, I researched the people who were coming to the conversation. I read articles by the conservatives and listened to their radio talk shows -- and I got triggered by what they said. I reacted with anger, frustration and rejection of who they were. I thought silent counter arguments and felt the rise of adrenaline. Friends warned me to be careful -- or couldn't even imagine going to talk with such people. But somehow, at the conference in Michigan, the outcome transcended these negative expectations. It turned out to be a very productive meeting. Another of the participants, Mark Satin, wrote an article about the experience, and he sums up the results this way: Before leaving, we all signed our names to a document titled "We the People." Many of us signed with flourishes, as if we were signing something akin to the Declaration of Independence. Here are the key passages: "We respect our differences and recognize America needs every one of our viewpoints, ideas, and passions -- even those we don't agree with -- to keep our democracy vital and alive; "We recognize that meeting here and across our land for dialogues across differences builds trust, understanding, respect, and empowerment -- the conditions necessary for freedom and democracy to live in us and around us; "And, therefore, each still grounded in our own considered views (conscience and convictions), we commit ourselves and our communities of interest to foster dialogue across the many divides in America, in large and small groups, to build trust, insight, and inspired action toward the more perfect union we all desire". How were these people able to cut through their differences and arrive at a statement they could all sign their names to? Why did these people take the trouble to get together with their political 'enemies' in the first place? Why do they now feel it is important for them to keep working together? Was this a one-off event or is it something that could be repeated elsewhere? Could this be a microcosm of how factionalism might be overcome in our society generally -- could it be part of the response to our Harmonization Imperative? Could this be a way to give real meaning to the phrase, 'We the People'? * Meeting dynamics: collaborative & adversarial Consider for a moment the many kinds of meetings that occur in our society. In business, meetings are held regularly to make plans and coordinate people's activities. If parents feel that their children need a crossing guard on the way to school, then they organize a neighborhood meeting. When a country decides to go to war, that decision is made in some meeting among high-level officials. In government one wonders if they do anything but go to meetings, whether they be official government sessions, or meetings with staff, colleagues, lobbyists, backers, or constituents. If people want to start a political movement, they begin by organizing meetings. The American Revolution was born in New England pubs, where the rebellious minded held meetings and plotted against the King, inspired by the local brew. Although many of us have negative feelings about meetings, and about their effectiveness, the fact is that meetings are the place where people generally make joint plans and reach group decisions. Some of these meetings are collaborative, and some are adversarial. We are all familiar with both kinds. A typical example of a collaborative meeting would be the neighborhood gathering mentioned above, where the parents would like to see a crossing guard assigned to a dangerous local intersection. The people have a common goal, and they work together cooperatively to achieve it. People offer suggestions for actions which can be taken, the suggestions are discussed, and people volunteer to help with the actions that are agreed to. If the meeting is successful, everyone comes away better off -- the concept of winners and losers is irrelevant to a collaborative meeting. A typical example of an adversarial meeting would be a city council session where a controversial development project is being discussed. The developers and business community are showing slides of beautiful landscaped buildings and talking of new jobs, while neighborhood protestors are complaining about increased traffic and the loss of a children's playground. The typical outcome of such a meeting is that one side wins and the other loses. Either the development project goes ahead, and the neighborhood suffers, or else the project is rejected and the investors may suffer considerable losses. It is very unusual for anything creative to happen at an adversarial meeting. People, or factions, come in with agendas to promote -- agendas that were created somewhere else. If the meeting is unable to resolve an issue, it is typically deferred -- and people are expected to go off somewhere else and create revised proposals. The 'somewhere else' -- where the creative activity of planning occurs -- is generally a meeting of the collaborative variety. In our city council example, the developers and promoters have been meeting collaboratively for months preparing their project plans and their city-council presentation. Similarly, the neighborhood protestors have held collaborative meetings to assess their feelings and to decide how best to express their concerns to the city council. The adversarial meeting -- the official 'decision making' meeting -- is not a discussion session, but is rather a battle of strength between the two opposing sides: Which side can muster the most support among the city council members? Which side can spout the most convincing rhetoric, painting its own proposals in the colors of the common good? Parliamentary sessions in liberal 'democracies' are based on the adversarial meeting model. A chairman governs the proceedings, proposals can be introduced, time is allowed for debate, and a majority vote decides each question. The 'debate' is typically rhetorical, for public consumption, and seldom affects the outcome of the vote. This is not a system designed to solve problems nor to encourage useful discussion -- it is a system designed to efficiently measure the relative power of opposing factions, and to promptly assign the rewards to the strongest. Just as the floor of the stock market is designed to efficiently manage the investment transactions of the wealthy elite, so is the floor of the parliament designed to efficiently referee power transactions among elite factions. A collaborative meeting operates according to collaborative dynamics, and an adversarial meeting operates according to adversarial dynamics. Collaborative dynamics are about people seeking common ground, identifying common problems, and working creatively together to find mutually beneficial solutions. Within collaborative dynamics people have an incentive to listen to one another's perspectives, and in the problem-solving process the group typically converges toward a consensus perspective on the problems at hand. Adversarial dynamics are about people debating from their fixed perspectives in an attempt to prevail over the other side. There is little incentive to listen to the other side, apart from looking for weaknesses that can be exploited. Each side may attempt to shift the perspective of the other side, but neither side has any intention of shifting its own perspective. Whereas people learn useful things about their shared problems within collaborative dynamics, the only thing learned within adversarial dynamics is how to better combat the other side. Collaborative dynamics tend to resolve group factionalism when it arises, while adversarial dynamics tend to reinforce and encourage group factionalism. * A gap in our cultural repertoire These two meeting models are very common in our society, and indeed they are more or less the extent of our cultural repertoire. We know how to get together with our allies and make plans to promote our shared interests, and we know how to fight for our side in an adversarial gathering, according to whatever rules are in play. What we don't know much about, and don't have many cultural models for, is how to resolve differences within a group of people. We don't know how to engage in productive dialog within a group of people who express conflicting interests. In an adversarial meeting the differences are accepted as a given, as a fixed quantity, and the business of the meeting is to enable the different factions to battle it out until a winner can be chosen. There is no attempt to resolve the differences: people go away with their perspectives unchanged, and the same factions retire to prepare for their next engagement. When people come into a collaborative meeting, they come in with the knowledge that they are bound by common interests to the other participants. Indeed, the people come together in order to collaborate in advancing those common interests. In order to 'get on with it' and 'make progress', participants tend to avoid bringing up internal differences in such meetings. At such a meeting a 'good leader' will be skillful at defusing differences, articulating compromises, and keeping the meeting 'on track'. Minority factions within the group are encouraged to stifle their 'divisive' concerns, and join the majority in a 'consensus' that will advance the identified common interests of the group. And in the competition between different factions, success tends to go to those which are best able to submerge their internal differences, focus on their primary interests, and adopt decisive action plans. Under neither dynamics is there an attempt to engage in constructive dialog regarding the differences in the group. Under adversarial dynamics there is dialog over differences -- but it is the dialog of power, expressed in the language of influence and votes. Under collaborative dynamics, discussion of differences is avoided, so that the group can focus on their identified common interests and get on with their primary business. In the one case difference are expressed competitively and are reinforced, and in the other case differences are suppressed. In neither case are differences resolved. This gap in our cultural repertoire creates a problem for popular initiatives, particularly in a society which is already split by factionalism. Indeed, the gap can lead to difficulties whenever people attempt to work together. Here's an example I observed on a recent visit to the San Francisco Bay Area. The population there is relatively progressive, and there is widespread support for an increased focus on public transport. But instead of people getting together and coming up with a common proposal, people soon divided themselves into two camps. One camp wanted to expand the conventional rail network, while another wanted to expand the rapid-transit system. Most of the available activist energy was then devoted to a struggle between these two camps. As I read over the positions of the two camps, as an outside observer, it seemed obvious to me that the best of the ideas could be usefully combined into a cost-effective hybrid proposal. The real solution, it seemed, would be to make strategic interconnecting links, and coordinate upgrades, among available transport systems -- rather than promoting one kind of transport to the exclusion of another. Of course my own arm-chair proposal probably didn't take everything into account, but the main point remains: the two camps were fighting over their differences rather than trying to resolve them -- and missed any opportunity to find synergy in some creative middle ground. The collaborative meeting model could not serve the two camps, because neither side was willing to stifle its ideas -- so the activists adopted the only other available cultural model: adversarial engagement. As a consequence of this split in popular activism, the transport planning decisions will most likely be made by speculative developers and their politician cronies, and whatever they decide they will be able to claim their decision has 'public support'. Most of us consider public meetings to be a waste of time, particularly when they attempt to deal with issues that are complex or controversial. This is because we have prior experience with the dynamics that are likely to occur. First there will be an attempt to reach a rapid consensus, most likely proposed by those calling the meeting. Then someone in the back stands up and disagrees, voicing some objection. That sparks other suggestions and objections. The meeting threatens to 'get out of control' -- to revert to adversarial dynamics. The organizers attempt to bring the dynamics back into collaboration. If they succeed, then some of the participants go away feeling their interests have been betrayed; if they fail, then everyone goes away with the feeling that yet another meeting has been a waste of time. Because of these circumstances, anyone with a motivation to pursue political activism soon learns to flock with birds of the same feather. Environmentalists flock under a green banner, animal rights activists follow their drummer, other groups rally around their opposition to corporate power, or their stance in favor of or against abortion rights, etc. In order to get anything done, collaborative dynamics are required, and gathering together in interest groups seems to be the natural thing to do. Those gathering together already agree on what's important, and they are thus able -- depending on their organizational ability -- to get get on with a program, rather than 'wasting time' debating the priority of different issues. In this way the energy of popular initiatives gets sucked into the game of adversarial factionalism -- a game whose rules are set down by elites for their own advantage. Just as in Las Vegas or Wall Street, this is a game where the house always wins in the end. If we want to overcome factionalism at the macro level, at the level of society, we must first learn how to overcome differences at the micro level, down in the grassroots where people meet face to face. We need to extend our cultural repertoire to include gatherings of a third kind, where people neither compete to win or lose, nor submerge their differences in order to reach a shallow consensus. We need a third dynamics, a dynamics of harmonization, a dynamics that encourages us us to express our concerns fully, and which enables us to work creatively with that information to find ways forward that benefit everyone involved. If our cultural repertoire can be extended in this way, at the micro level, then we may find that there are new ways of working together on a larger scale as well -- ways that avoid the quicksand of adversarial politics. * The dynamics of harmonization Although harmonizing dynamics is not part of our mainstream culture, it is a well-developed part of certain sub-cultures. In particular, if we look at the management-consultant and meeting-facilitation communities, we find that harmonization (under various names) is a rapidly expanding domain of knowledge and practice. In the pursuit of greater efficiency and competitiveness, corporations want their internal teams to work more effectively together -- and this has spawned a whole industry of consultants and facilitators. As a consequence the state-of-the-art of facilitation has progressed along many lines, and some of those lines have produced very promising results as regards harmonization. Indeed, there are several proven facilitation methodologies that focus on overcoming group differences at a deep level, thereby unlocking creative synergy that was previously blocked by divisiveness or misunderstanding. Not all of these methodologies were developed in the industrial context, but corporate support has overall provided a boost to this field of practice -- and success in the domain of corporate teamwork provides hard evidence for the effectiveness and value of these techniques. These facilitation techniques have proven to be successful in socially-oriented contexts as well, as evidenced by the outcome of the Michigan gathering. An extensive listing of initiatives and methodologies relevant to harmonization dynamics (closely related to what Tom Atlee calls "co-intelligence") can be found on Tom's website: http://www.co-intelligence.org. These techniques are proven and reliable. They enable groups to transcend their differences, discover their underlying common ground, and come up with creative, breakthrough solutions to difficult problems and seemingly intractable conflicts. Furthermore, people who participate in one of these session generally report that they find the experience to be personally transforming. This kind of facilitation is not about a leader guiding the group through an agenda or a problem-solving system. The main job of the facilitator, in achieving harmonization, is to enable the participants to learn how to listen to one another. That turns out to be the key to harmonization -- really listening. Listening without thinking about a counter-argument at the same time. Listening without judging and dismissing. And beyond that, listening with the respect that every person deserves and that we ourselves would hope to receive when we speak. Our culture doesn't give us much experience with this kind of patient and respectful listening. Typically in social conversations we are thinking about what we're going to say next instead of really listening. In adversarial meetings we listen in order to retort, and in collaborative meetings we are only interested in hearing things that move the agenda forward. It never seems like a good use of our time to pause and really listen to what everyone has to say, even those we might consider to be divisive or uninformed. But such listening is possible, we can all do it if we have a bit of support, and when it occurs amazing things happen. The Michigan gathering was a particularly dramatic example, involving people who are deeply committed to radically opposing factions. At the end they created and signed a "We the People" declaration, and we will return to examine the substance of that declaration. Perhaps more significant than the specific document is the fact that this group could reach any agreement at all, and perhaps still more significant is the fact that the group expressed a sense of solidarity. The title itself, "We the People", indicates an amazing and surprising outcome from this particular group. My own introduction to harmonization dynamics came in a roundabout way. I had organized a gathering in Berkeley of about a dozen progressive activists and thinkers. My intention was to to explore with the group certain ideas that I had been developing. I had learned about consensus decision making and was convinced that the key to an effective movement could be found in consensus. If we could agree on a vision for a new kind of society, and if we could agree that radical change was necessary, then we could reach a consensus that might become the basis of a radical popular movement. Since we all shared progressive views, I figured we should be able to avoid divisiveness, and consensus would be achievable. I prepared a discussion agenda and my intention was to lead a discussion based on the agenda, the last item of which was to document whatever consensus we had reached. For a while the meeting seemed to be going 'on track'. We got through a good portion of the agenda and wrote down many points of agreement on several flip charts. And then someone spoke up and complained about the agenda. He had other things in mind he wanted to talk about. I considered this to be a divisive interruption of our process, and a threat to the 'progress' we were making in our 'limited time'. I tried to get the discussion back 'on track', but he persisted in his objections. At that point, feeling frustrated and 'threatened', I totally lost awareness and told the fellow he should go off and organize his own meeting(!) I'm sure you can imagine how my rude outburst affected the tone of the gathering. Any momentum we had achieved suddenly evaporated. There was a seemingly endless moment of embarrassing silence. I wished I were somewhere else, as I was expecting some measure of deserved ridicule from the group. But something else happened instead, something that transformed the gathering and created a space that I hadn't visited before -- the space of real dialog. A woman spoke up and asked if I'd mind if she tried a bit of facilitation. Relieved to see the focus of attention shift away from myself, I readily agreed to her offer, not knowing what 'facilitation' was or how it could help. What she did was very simple. She asked the other fellow what he was expecting from the meeting and then she asked me the same thing. His answer was basically a repetition of what he had said before, but somehow I could now hear it as a sensible concern rather than as a disruption. When it came my turn to answer I felt like I was making a public 'confession'. I was opening myself up to a kind of vulnerability I wasn't accustomed to -- the vulnerability of being really 'present' and 'exposed'. As other participants shared their thoughts about the session, that's when I realized that our exchange was now taking place in a different space than before. It was a space occupied by people, rather than by ideas, 'discussion', flip charts, and 'progress'. I had always thought of dialog as being primarily a logical interaction among ideas, as in the pages of a scientific journal. In this new space I realized that dialog has a more profound dimension. Dialog is the means by which people express who they are. It is the means by which they become 'present' in the group. By 'listening to people', rather than 'hearing ideas', we allow a shared space of openness and trust to emerge. As people express their concerns, in an atmosphere of respectful listening, the space expands and everyone's presence expands. The group becomes a 'We' rather than just a cluster of individuals. Not a manufactured, compromise We, where diversity is submerged, but an empowered, alive We, where diversity is embraced -- all of it adding to the collective experience and insight of the group. In this space, diversity brings synergy rather than conflict. Being in this space was a powerful experience. It wasn't a new-age "We are one with the cosmos" experience, and it wasn't a brainwashing "Merge with the group" experience. It was more like the experience of being part of an effective team: "We are all present and now we can do some good work." It became clear to me that until this kind of presence comes into being, dialog can only exist in the black & white space of abstract ideas. With presence, and with listening, I felt that We could tackle any problem and We would do so with technicolor synergy -- with a spirit of intelligent, creative, collective inquiry. Unfortunately, in the Berkeley gathering, we didn't have enough time left to do much with the experience -- other than for us first-timers to get a taste for what might be possible. Let's return to the Michigan gathering, which was better organized and able to go further. Mark describes the first evening's activities this way: On Friday night, we broke into three groups (of eight participants and one facilitator each) to discuss such questions as, What did you understand about being an American when you were 12 years old? How have you experienced political differences and how did that affect you personally? It was impossible to participate in that exercise without coming to see (and feel and know) that every participant, whatever their politics, was a complex and caring human being. This description is extremely brief, but we can see the same basic elements I experienced in Berkeley. People were invited to become present by expressing who they are, and what kind of experience they've been through. And as a consequence of this open sharing, in a space of facilitated listening, the focus was on the people, and their mutual respect, rather than on any specific issues. As the weekend progressed, the group moved on to examine questions like, "What is missing in conventional political discourse?". Conflict was expressed as well as agreement, but the group was able to do something creative with the conflict as well: Someone tried to classify participants' approaches as "left" or "right." Someone on the right took umbrage with that, feeling that the qualities cited as "right" were insulting stereotypes; and that pressed many people's buttons; and round and round and round we went, and the afternoon shadows grew longer. But the end result of that conversation is we all realized -- I mean, we all really "got" -- how misleading and even infantilizing the old political spectrum had become. In another exercise, the participants were asked to tell about each of the key decisions they'd made in their political lives: Everyone stared, some of us open-mouthed, as various "left"-wingers and "right-" wingers, former Weather Underground supporters and former speakers at white racist gatherings, shared the incidents that shaped their lives. And revealed without even trying that every caring person is a brother or sister under the skin. And that our values are at some deep level fundamentally the same. With these kinds of breakthroughs, we can understand how the group was able and willing to sign their "We the People" declaration. They also decided to co-sponsor a larger, follow-up conference -- and they agreed to pursue a few other collective projects as well. We'll return in the next chapter to explore the political potential of this thread of initiatives. For now, I'd like to focus on the dynamics of the gathering. Earlier, I drew a distinction between collaborative and adversarial dynamics, and suggested that our culture is lacking -- and needing -- a dynamics of harmonization. In that discussion I was talking about ideas and issues, and the problem of how to resolve differences. In this current section, we've seen that it is possible to enter a space where the dynamics of harmonization operate -- but the door to that space seems to be about people rather than about ideas and issues. And in going through that door, its seems that we may experience some kind of personal transformation. Mark reported a transformation in terms of his activism: ...for the first time in many years, I feel enthusiastic enough about an incipient political movement to want to put my shoulder to the wheel. In the Berkeley gathering, my transformation was about the realization that the people part of dialog is more fundamental than the issue part of dialog. Tom Atlee says, regarding the Michigan gathering: In the end I experienced a deep, gut-level transformation. I had a profound personal shift away from Left/Right framings that was comparable to my earlier shifts away from sexism and homophobia. It seems that there is no single flavor of transformation that occurs in this space of harmonization. Rather, we each tend to undergo whatever transformation is needed to remove those internal blocks that prevent us from being present with a particular group at a particular time. The dynamics of harmonization are quite different than adversarial and collaborative dynamics. Harmonization begins by expanding the space to include everyone's diverse concerns and interests. Adversarial and collaborative dynamics both begin by limiting the space to narrowly defined issues and interests. Participating in the space of harmonization involves being open and present as a complex human being. Participating in an adversarial or collaborative space involves only being an advocate or opponent of some issue or proposal. The experience of harmonization often leads to personal growth and transformation, while adversarial and collaborative experiences tend to reinforce pre-existing positions and attitudes. Harmonization breaks down barriers between people and enables them listen to one another and to find common ground at a deep level. Adversarial and collaborative dynamics reinforce factionalism and regard deeper issues as being irrelevant or divisive. Collaborative meetings provide a space in which factions can rally together and plan their strategies. Adversarial meetings provide a space in which factions can compete for dominance. Harmonization-based meetings provide a space which may enable us to do away with factional divisiveness altogether. In the microcosm of a facilitated gathering, we know it is possible for the empowered spirit of We the People to be kindled. We know that in that space of harmonization it is possible for this empowered microcosm to work together effectively and creatively as a group. At the level of the microcosm, assuming the availability of appropriate facilitation, we can see a way to overcome factionalism and bring We the People into being. This leads us to several useful questions: How can the practice and understanding of harmonization dynamics be brought into the mainstream culture? How can the availability of facilitators be expanded, or alternatively, how can the need for facilitators be reduced -- so that the dynamics of harmonization can be practiced more widely? How can progress in the microcosm be translated into progress in the macrocosm? That is to say, how can We the People come into coherent being at the level of a community, a region, a nation, or the whole globe? How can We the People become a 'player' in society and in global affairs? And if We achieve that, how can We dialog with, or engage with, the established regime so as to respond effectively to Our Transformational Imperative? How can We the People create a new society, and can we (you and me today) anticipate what that society might be like? These are the questions we will be investigating in the rest of this book. _________________________________________________ CHAPTER 5: HARMONIZATION AS A CULTURAL MOVEMENT * The prospects for a large-scale harmonization movement One of the remarkable outcomes of harmonization experiences is the enthusiasm that can be generated for sharing the experience more widely. In my case, soon after the Berkeley gathering, I was inspired to write and self-publish a pamphlet, "The Zen of Global Transformation" -- in order to share the principle of harmonization and to explore its potential. The Michigan gathering arose out of the enthusiasm generated by a previous harmonization event that occurred in Ashland, Oregon. The Ashland event, in turn, was inspired by a radio interview with Tom Atlee, whose enthusiasm for harmonization lit a flame under a few Ashland activists. The same kind of evangelistic enthusiasm arose again in the Michigan gathering, as evidenced by the "We the People" declaration and also by the plans the participants agreed to (quoting again from Mark): It was decided that we'd all join the advisory boards of the two co-sponsoring organizations (Let's Talk America and Democracy in America). Immediately those boards became the most politically diverse boards in America. It was decided that the two organizations would convene a follow-up conference for hundreds of participants some time this fall (with funding to come from three left-wing groups, three right-wing groups, and a "bridging" grant from Fetzer). It was decided that many of us would initiate political conversations in our professional or geographic communities, and invite participants to the follow-up conference. The fundamental reason why these sessions generate such enthusiasm is the sense of empowerment that arises when the space of We the People is entered. When you are in that space, you realize that We really can make a difference -- it really is possible for Us -- all of Us -- to get Our act together and change things. This realization is a transformative, uplifting experience. When you experience it in the microcosm, you know intuitively that it could -- somehow -- happen on a larger scale. It is an experience that awakens those who are apathetic, and offers new hope and direction to those who are already socially conscious. It is an experience that gives one a new faith in humanity -- no one really needs to be my enemy, we can all work together, and peace on all fronts is not contrary to human nature. In order to see that faith realized, one naturally would like to see others go through the same kind of experience. Whenever a certain experience inspires people to bring that experience to others, then we have the seed of a potential cultural movement. When people are inspired by an experience to go out and actively bring it to MANY others, then we may be looking at a cultural movement that has the potential to grow rapidly and widely. One shares with ten, ten share with a hundred, etc. Such a movement can spread throughout a whole society in a relatively short period of time. The propagation dynamics are like those of a funny story -- one day you haven't heard it and the next day it's all around you. A funny story propagates exponentially: the more it spreads the faster it spreads -- because the more it has spread, then the more people there are who are spreading it further. Unfortunately, spreading the harmonization experience is more difficult than spreading a story. It takes more than just one person telling a few others. An event needs to be organized and funded, people must be found who are motivated to participate, and adequate facilitation support must be available. These difficulties slow down the rate of propagation, but they do not change the exponential dynamics. Let's examine each of the difficulties in turn. The activist energy available for organizing and promoting harmonization events is likely to grow in proportion to the number of activists who have gone through the experience. This would help support an exponential rate of propagation. In addition, the receptivity of people generally (activists or otherwise) to respond to invitations can be expected to increase as word spreads about the nature of the experience. The Michigan gathering demonstrates that everyone -- across the spectrum of beliefs -- is potentially receptive to the experience. It is a movement for everyone, not just progressives, and not just activists. Funding is a different sort of difficulty. Funding sources, such as those tapped for the Michigan event, cannot be expected to multiply their contributions indefinitely. In order for an exponential rate of propagation to continue, new means of funding would need to be developed along the way. I do not believe this would turn out to be a limiting obstacle. I don't see any reason why such events would not become self-funding -- particularly as interest begins to develop in the mainstream culture. Besides, the costs of holding harmonization sessions are not exorbitant. If such a movement gains momentum, creative ways to deal with funding would be very likely to emerge and be adopted by subsequent organizers. In many cases, we might expect motivated activists to volunteer their time and skills, reducing or eliminating the need for funding. The most critical difficulty in achieving exponential growth would seem to be the availability of qualified facilitators. If the number of facilitators remains relatively fixed, then that places an upper bound on the rate of propagation. This would threaten to reduce the propagation to a linear rate, rather than exponential. But even this obstacle would probably be overcome. It only takes a few days to train a new group of facilitators, and just a bit more training enables a facilitator to train others. If the movement gains momentum, the dynamics of supply and demand should encourage more training sessions to be offered and more potential facilitators to attend those sessions. Every motivated activist is a potential facilitator, and there are hundreds of thousands of activists in each of our Western societies. Besides, as people become familiar with the dynamics of harmonization there would presumably be less need for special facilitation skills. After all, harmonization is simply about a group of people taking a 'time out' to listen to one another -- and it turns out that this is a very natural thing for people to do. Native Americans, with their their pow wows and peace pipes, were creating a space of listening and harmonization. When we lived in small bands, which is most of our time as humans, it was natural for us to learn how to maintain basic harmony in the group, and this was important for group survival. Under the domination of hierarchies, and divided either by class or factionalism, we have forgotten what was once natural. Remembering is a liberating experience. These considerations do not prove that a large-scale cultural movement will develop. But they do show that the potential is there. The We the People enthusiasm generated by harmonization provides the energy for propagation, and there is no inherent obstacle that would be likely to prevent exponential growth. Whether or not such a large-scale movement actually develops depends on whether actual individuals and groups follow up on their enthusiasm and do something to bring the experience to others. When we look at the chain of events from the Ashland session, to the diverse Michigan session with its "We the People" declaration, to the planned "follow-up conference for hundreds" -- we can see a momentum developing, and we are seeing the kind of initiatives that might be able to get a real flame going under this potentially wildfire movement. Although the scenario I've been developing here has been highly speculative, I nonetheless believe -- because of our current historical situation -- that this movement is very likely to grow and break into the mainstream. Everyone knows down deep that our societies are in trouble. Some blame the liberal elite and the liberal media, while others blame the right-wing elite and the corporate media. Some are concerned about moral decline, others are concerned about environmental degradation, and others are mainly concerned about feeding their families in a deteriorating economy. Everyone is concerned by the increasing levels of conflict and suffering on the world stage. Some think we need to return to traditional values, and some think we need to advance into a more progressive age. We all know down deep that something needs to be done, and most of us don't see anything very promising on the horizon. Many of us, perhaps most, have given up hope that things might get better or that there is anything we can do to make a difference. The most we hope for is that things don't get too bad too quickly, and that our own family and friends will be OK. If we still have enough hope to be activists, we mostly spend our energy trying to minimize suffering and slow down the process of decline. The reason that the We the People experience generates such deep and general enthusiasm -- at this particular time in history -- is because it offers real, deeply-felt hope that 'something can be done' about our situation. Most of us have had to submerge any such hope in order to get on with our lives. When that hope is allowed to awaken, and when it finds nourishment in community with others, that is transformative at a very deep psychological level -- the level of personal survival and species survival. If this were the relatively prosperous 1960s, the We the People experience might be just one more 'tribal trip', another 'group high' for that segment of society which was entranced by the vision new-age flower-power. But today, when the seemingly unstoppable deterioration of our societies can be perceived by everyone of all stripes, the We the People experience hits home for all of us, and at a more profound level. For those who have a strong social conscience, in this time of social crisis and hopelessness, the discovery of a 'path that offers real hope' creates an action imperative. If you care deeply about humanity and its future, and if you know there is a promising way forward, then you don't simply want to do something about it -- you MUST do something about it. Different people will experience this imperative more strongly than others, and people may have a variety of notions about where harmonization might lead us as a society -- but taken all together I believe this deep imperative will provide a formidable driving force that will push the movement forward with determination and persistence. Real hope, in an era that desperately needs hope, will turn out to be highly contagious. * We the People: the process of waking up We the People are like a sleeping giant, a giant that has been asleep for millennia. When a group of us find community in a harmonization session, that is a twitch -- a part of the giant's body beginning to wake up. When a harmonization movement leads to many of us finding community in that way, the giant begins to toss and turn. When the movement begins to be consciousness of itself as a potential actor in the affairs of society, then the giant sits up, rubs its eyes, and begins to wonder, "Where am I?". The giant's brain is muddled as dreams fade and confusing images begin to come in from the outside world. The dreams are all the hopes and fears that we as individuals have experienced under the oppression of hierarchies -- while the giant slept. The confusion of new images represents Our first fumbling attempts -- as We the People -- to achieve a coherent sense of the world around Us, and Our place in it. Before the giant can make plans or begin to act, it must first clear its head, stretch its body, take a look around, and gain an understanding of the unfamiliar situation it finds itself in. That is to say: before We the People can usefully think in terms of social goals and strategies, We must first finish waking up. We must learn how to achieve coherence as a movement, We must develop a realistic shared understanding of the political and economic challenges that face us, and -- unaccustomed as we are to giant-hood -- We must learn to appreciate our own strength and potential as an actor in society. Only then can our plans and actions -- as We the People -- reach their full potential. Unfortunately, as our giant begins to awake, it will not know that it is a giant. My apologies for mixing metaphors, but the waking giant will be like the ugly duckling who didn't know it was really a swan. The giant will not realize how much it has to learn, and it will have little understanding of its full potential. That is to say: most of the people who come to the harmonization experience will be mainstream citizens who do not yet think in radical terms. Most participants, when they encounter the We the People experience, will not be thinking in terms of a total transformation of society. They will see a 'path that offers real hope', but for most of them 'hope' will be defined in terms of democratic reforms to the current system. They will feel empowerment in community with others, but their vision of how far empowerment can go will be bounded by the current structures of society. They will be very likely to think in terms of plans and actions before the giant is fully awake. Consider for example these words from Mark Satin, referring to plans for the follow-up conference: It was strongly suggested that a "consensus statement of American goals and priorities" be prepared during or after the conference, by functional area -- "governance and law," "learning and education," etc. (None dared call it a political platform.) I think it is clear that any such consensus statement, at such an early stage of the movement, will be very timid. We might see calls for increased funding for education, a bigger role for public input to policy, curbs on corporate power, etc. We are unlikely to see any deep thinking about how a capitalist economy functions -- and why meaningful reforms cannot be delivered simply by waving the magic wand of policy priorities. We may see a call for environmental safeguards, but we are unlikely to see a fundamental commitment to sustainability, nor an understanding of what sustainability really implies in terms of social transformation. We are unlikely to see the emergence of a systems perspective, nor an understanding of how deep the problems go in our current societies. Our giant is still in the early stages of waking up and its mind is still muddled by dreams. The giant doesn't realize that it is not yet fully awake and that its attempts to begin taking action are premature and futile. This kind of premature attempt at action is both necessary and dangerous. It is necessary because We the People need to learn how to think and act coherently. It is dangerous because the all-important evolution of the cultural movement might be aborted by the premature development of a political movement. Suppose for example, at the follow-up conference, that the group of "hundreds" succeeds in adopting a seemingly strong consensus agenda of "American goals and priorities". Suppose then that the energy of the organizers and participants is shunted into an effort to build a political movement around that agenda. The harmonization process might then become only a means of advancing that limited agenda, and We the People might be prevented from fully awakening. Such a political movement might succeed in achieving some temporary reforms -- if it is lucky -- but the real potential of the cultural movement would not be realized. I doubt that this adverse scenario will actually develop. Such an unwise narrowing of perspective to short-term objectives is not typical of the outcomes of previous harmonization events. There seems to be an inherent wisdom in such gatherings (Tom Atlee's "co-intelligence") that tends to avoid such cul de sacs. Although the Michigan participants suggested that a future gathering might focus on a policy agenda, it is notable that they did not narrow their focus in that way themselves in their own gathering. They realized, even without articulating it explicitly, that any policy agenda of their own would have been premature. They knew that they were only a small group, and that more people would need to be brought in before policy discussions have any democratic legitimacy. The focus of their work, wisely, was to figure out how they could most effectively spread the harmonization experience to others. If the "conference for hundreds" works within the dynamics of harmonization, then I believe those dynamics will enable the group to come to the same implicit understanding. Even "hundreds" are not enough to speak for We the People generally. In the space of harmonization people come to respect one another -- and they also feel respect and responsibility toward those who are not present. The experience of We the People does not lead to an exclusive feeling that "We are a special, talented group who should point the way for others", but rather to a universal feeling that "Any group of people can experience this, and everyone should get the chance to do so". I suspect, and hope, that even while its brain is still beclouded by dreams, our We the People giant will have enough inherent good sense to avoid stumbling into premature pitfalls. From a strategic perspective, the primary mission of a harmonization movement -- in its early stages -- is to spread the We the People experience into the mainstream culture. I believe that the nature of the harmonization experience will prevent the early movement from straying too far from this all-important mission. If our giant can avoid early pitfalls -- while it is still rubbing the sleep out of its eyes -- then it will soon be able to develop a sense of itself and a basic understanding of its surroundings. In movement terms, this means that the movement is likely to soon achieve an essential critical mass -- as regards constituency, coherence, and awareness. In terms of constituency, critical mass will be achieved when the harmonization experience is spread widely enough so that the movement develops several independent 'centers', and several autonomous threads of initiatives. In terms of coherence, critical mass will be achieved when these parallel threads begin learning how to harmonize their thinking and activities without creating a hierarchical organization or a centralized leadership circle. In terms of awareness, critical mass will be achieved when people in the movement begin to get a sense for the immense potential of the movement -- and of the equally immense challenges that We the People must learn how to deal with. The giant will be nearly awake when people in the movement begin to realize that the problems of our society can only be addressed by a deep reexamination of the systems that govern our lives -- and that our political systems are a major part of the problem. The giant will be fully awake when people begin to understand the true nature of the crisis that humanity currently faces -- an understanding that I have tried to articulate in the form of a Transformational Imperative: There is no one out there, no actor on the stage of society, who can or will bring about the radical social transformation required to save humanity and the world -- no one that is except We the People. Not we the electorate, nor we the public, but We who are members of the intelligent and aware human species -- We who are capable of thinking for ourselves, envisioning a better world, and working together with others in pursuit of our common visions. There is no one else who will do it for Us, and it is a job that must be done. When the movement is fully awake, and a critical mass has been achieved, then it will be possible for the movement to begin thinking effectively in terms of plans and strategies. It will then make sense for Us to think in terms of a transformational movement -- a movement which is not primarily political, but which can transform the very meaning of politics. The movement is beginning as a cultural movement, and its main activity so far has been, and wisely so, to spread the experience of harmonization. In today's context, we might say that the movement is 'less than' a political movement -- in the sense that the movement is not explicitly challenging or engaging the existing regime. But as the movement evolves, more and more of us will realize that this kind of cultural movement is in fact 'much more than' a political movement. The promise -- and the inherent mission -- of this movement is to transform not only our political priorities, but to transform our entire global culture and the cultures of each of our societies and communities. The metaphor of the waking giant is about We the People awakening to our full heritage as an intelligent, self-aware species. Harmonization is merely the catalyst that enables us to listen to one another, find our common identity, and work together with synergy and coherence. We are capable of governing ourselves wisely, we have the power to bring that about, and we have both the right and the responsibility to do so. _________________________________________________ CHAPTER 6: HARMONIZATION AND GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION "May you live in interesting times." - An ancient Chinese curse * The crisis of civilization We are now in the midst of an extremely volatile and unstable moment in history. It is a chaotic instability, where a variety of likely events can each lead to unpredictable and far-reaching consequences. Nuclear war is a strong possibility, as the U.S. pursues its New American Century agenda and tensions continue between Israel & Iran, India & Pakistan, and China & Taiwan. Abrupt climate changes are likely to occur, as global warming threatens to melt the polar ice caps and disrupt the Gulf Stream. Global food supplies are being diminished by depletion of fishing stocks, water tables, and arable land. Declining oil supplies threaten to destabilize our entire energy-hungry civilization, while rising oil prices are already stressing the global economy. Even without the oil problem, the global economy is in serious trouble as it faces the ultimate limits to growth on a finite planet. And this is only a partial list of potentially disastrous disruptions. All major governments and political leaders, meanwhile, have no policy concept other than a stubborn insistence on 'more of the same'. Attempts at reform have become futile, as neoliberal economists tighten their budgets and governments militarize their police forces. In such a chaotic context, it may seem like a waste of time to pursue processes of social transformation. Perhaps it would make more sense to escape to high ground, find a cave, and stock it with provisions. A few may adopt such a survivalist strategy, but most of us cannot or will not. For the majority of us who stick with the Titanic, we might as well use our time in the best way we can. I believe that taking control of our own destinies is the most sensible thing we can devote our efforts to, no matter what the state of the world. If we can gain control of the ship before it sinks, we may be able to steer around the worst dangers. If instead we become survivors in a post-apocalyptic world, then the more we know about governing ourselves the better off we will be. If we are forced to build a new civilization, we would be well advised to take charge of that process -- and consciously avoid the mistakes of our predecessors. In other words: even in the midst of a chaotic situation, our Transformational Imperative remains in effect. Indeed, a time of chaos is the most fertile time for new possibilities. In more stable times, there would be no mass constituency for social transformation. In today's world, everyone knows that fundamental change is needed. But our societies are divided by factionalism, and this prevents us from working together to bring about change. Overcoming factionalism in society, by harmonizing our differences, is the only way that We the People can come together and become the desperately needed agent of transformation. We know how to overcome divisiveness in the microcosm, in a face-to-face gathering. There are proven techniques for achieving that, based on deep listening, and the outcomes of such gatherings are very promising. Not only do participants overcome their differences -- and reach a place where they can work creatively together -- but they come away with a sense of We the People, and an understanding that factionalism can be overcome in society generally. As a consequence, participants also come away with an enthusiasm for spreading the experience to others. They've seen the light of hope, and being caring human beings, they want to share it. My message to activists and concerned citizens everywhere, regardless of your political or religious orientation, is to take heed of this ray of hope. If you really want to make a difference, I can see no more promising direction for your energies at this time than to help spread a culture of mutual understanding and creative dialog. Massive worldwide protests against war and globalization have been ignored, but if We the People get our act together in the right way, there is no power that can stand against us. The following links provide useful information, contacts, and resources: Tree Bressen, "Dynamic Facilitation for Group Transformation": http://cyberjournal.org/cj/authors/tree/DynamicFacilitation.Group.html Jim Rough's Dynamic Facilitation workshops: http://www.ToBe.net Rogue Valley Wisdom Council: http://www.rvwc.org/ Tom Atlee's politics and democracy pages: http://www.co-intelligence.org/CIPol_Index.html http://www.democracyinnovations.org/ A Canadian experiment in citizen's councils: http://www.co-intelligence.org/S-Canadaadvrsariesdream.html National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation: http://thataway.org/index.html Report on popular democracy in Venezuela: http://www.cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?id='846'&lists='cj' * Achieving critical mass: the role of activists Despite the transformative experience of harmonization in the microcosm, and despite the many groups and initiatives aimed at spreading this experience (eg., the above links), there is not as yet any real momentum -- and no real harmonization movement. The Michigan gathering shows promise, in terms of systematically getting some momentum going. But in terms of a major movement that initiative is only a drop in the bucket. If the movement is to really get off the ground, we need a much wider variety of initiatives. If there is to be a harmonization movement, I believe there must first be an earlier movement, a movement to spread an understanding of harmonization -- and the importance of overcoming factionalism -- among activists. Throughout the West there are hundreds of thousands of activists. They are the stalwarts who regularly show up at anti-globalization and anti-war protests, and they are the ones who organize such events. They organize boycotts to fight against sweatshop practices, they create community currencies, they demonstrate against or in favor of abortion rights -- and there are hundreds of other such causes. Activists are people who have the motivation, and make the time, to roll up their sleeves, get involved, and do what they can to make a difference -- according to their own values and perspectives. If this kind of mass energy could be shifted to spreading harmonization, the movement could build momentum very quickly. In general, when people experience a harmonization session, they come away with an enthusiasm for spreading the experience. In the case of activists, that enthusiasm would likely be turned into action. Currently, most activists think in terms of adversarial engagement within the current political system. After experiencing the empowerment of We the People working together, activists would naturally want to share this experience with other activists and with people generally. They would have new visions of how social change can be brought about -- as did the participants in the Michigan gathering. The Michigan participants were activists of a sort, what we might call 'organizational' activists. From their experience of overcoming divisiveness, they naturally thought in terms of joining advisory boards, building bridges between their organizations, planning follow-up conferences, and creating policy agendas. These are very useful initiatives, and in their way they can do much do reduce factionalism in society. But at the same time these initiatives are basically hierarchical in their nature. They are, in their main thrust, aimed at coalition building -- within the context of adversarial politics. Rather than spreading harmonization as a cultural movement, these initiatives are, it seems, directed more at using harmonization as an organization-building tool. The great bulk of modern activists, on the other hand, tend to be 'grassroots' activists. They think in terms of face-to-face, locally-based affinity groups rather than at-large membership organizations. They participate in large-scale events -- but they see those as collective expressions of grassroots energy rather than the result of coalitions among hierarchical groups. Their demonstrations are marked by diversity, creativity, 'spirit', and spontaneity, rather than by agendas and centralized planning. Within the context of our adversarial political system, these grassroots activists can be criticized as regards their ultimate effectiveness. But in terms of deep social transformation, this kind of activism could be very effective indeed -- if empowered by an understanding and appreciation of harmonization and its potential. In closing the previous section I said, "If you really want to make a difference, I can see no more promising direction for your energies at this time than to help spread a culture of mutual understanding and creative dialog." To that I would now add that the most promising way to get the momentum going is by bringing in grassroots activists and giving them the opportunity to experience a harmonization session for themselves. The communication and organizational links among these activists tend to be horizontal and multi-branched -- based on networking rather than hierarchy. If a fire can be lit among grassroots activists, it would be likely to spread widely and quickly. * Achieving critical mass: the role of community If a harmonization movement develops momentum on a grassroots basis, then we could expect many different kinds of sessions to be organized. We could expect the same kind of imagination, variety, and energy to be expressed as we currently see in the many diverse forms of activism throughout the West. In this way an understanding of harmonization could spread throughout the culture. In this section, I'd like to discuss some of the kinds of sessions that we might expect to see, and consider how the movement might lead to an awakening of We the People -- as an agent of social transformation. One kind of session might be among activists themselves, as a means of reaching consensus on activist projects. In anti-globalization protests, for example, most of the protestors have been strictly non-violent while others, the 'anarchist' wing, insist on engaging in property destruction. Perhaps, by using harmonization, more coherent tactics could be adopted among all parties in such an event. This could increase the effectiveness of the event and perhaps reduce the likelihood of conflict with police. Another kind of session might be among different parties in a local dispute, as a means of reaching resolution. Perhaps some community is divided between people supporting a development project and others wanting to protect the environment. Harmonization might enable the community to come up with a consensus approach that everyone can support. For local environmental activists, organizing such a 'both-sides' session could be more fruitful than a traditional environmentalist protest event. Another kind of session, like the Michigan gathering, might be aimed at reducing divisiveness among competing organizations. Certainly many activists will think in traditional political terms, and there might be attempts to create a political movement or even a new party. And there are countless other possibilities, limited only by the imagination and creativity of diverse activist groups. And whenever a certain kind of harmonization session achieves a successful outcome, that would provide energy and inspiration for future similar events in other places. In this way the movement could spread non-linearly, along many lines of propagation, and a broader sense of 'harmonization movement' would emerge. Of all the various kinds of sessions that might arise, there is one in particular that I would like to focus on -- a session aimed at creating a collective sense of identity and empowerment within a local community. For a variety of reasons, I suggest that this kind of session offers the greatest potential for social transformation. In order to explore this notion further, let's examine the Ashland gathering -- the one that generated the enthusiasm for the Michigan event. Held in January, 2004, the Ashland event was billed as "The Rogue Valley Wisdom Council" (see URL above). A "Wisdom Council" is a concept developed by Jim Rough, the inventor of Dynamic Facilitation -- one of the most effective forms of facilitation for achieving harmonization in a diverse group of people. The Wisdom Council is Jim's proposal for how the We the People experience might be translated into the political domain. The basic idea behind a Wisdom Council is to bring together a group of randomly selected citizens, as a kind of 'representative microcosm' of a larger population -- a community, a region, or even a whole nation. Ideally, a Wisdom Council would be officially chartered in some way, so that the outcome of its harmonization process would have a claim to democratic legitimacy. The ideas and proposals generated in the Council session would be published to the larger population, and could presumably find their way eventually into public policy. The Ashland session was organized as an attempt to implement this Wisdom Council vision for the people of Rogue Valley, Oregon. Not every part of the Wisdom Council formula was followed, for example there was no official political chartering of the event. But overall the event was a very useful experiment and from it we can learn quite a bit about the potential of Wisdom Councils and of community-based sessions more generally. In order to achieve a reasonably random selection of participants, hundreds of names were picked randomly from the phone books for the Rogue Valley area. These people were contacted by phone, and eventually a small group agreed to participate in the event. Jim Rough personally facilitated the two-day session, and the group did indeed achieve a strong sense of We the People. The event was recorded on video, and one can readily see the transformation in the participants. At the beginning they were all rather shy and didn't feel they had much to say. By the end, they were overflowing with enthusiasm about the possibility of some more direct kind of participation in the democratic process. As a follow-up, a public meeting was held in the week following the session, and this was also recorded on video. The meeting started off with a report by the participants on their experience, and their highly articulate expressions were in stark contrast to their original shyness. The meeting then broke up into several roundtable discussions, each including one of the Council participants. There was no attempt to facilitate these discussions, and remarkably the enthusiasm of the Council participants turned out to be highly contagious. The people at the meeting were able to somehow pick up the We the People spirit without actually going through the harmonization experience themselves. Everyone came away from the public meeting with a great deal of enthusiasm, including the organizers. But along with the enthusiasm, there was also a kind of let-down. The potential of We the People had felt so real, so promising, and yet the next day the world goes on as usual. How can We the People be more than a transitory experience? How can it have a noticeable effect on society? Where do we go from here? What next? For these particular organizers, the answer to the 'What next?' question was the Michigan gathering. The strategy there is to piggy-back on existing activist organizations. Those organizations have some degree of political influence, and if that influence can be shifted away from divisiveness we can hope for beneficial political consequences. Jim Rough's strategy with Wisdom Councils is similar, only he seeks to piggy-back on official political institutions rather than activist organizations. Both strategies are promising and make good sense, but the sense they make is within the context of the existing hierarchical political system. They are not aimed at creating the kind of deep social transformation that is required to deal with the unprecedented crisis being faced by humanity and civilization. So let's return to the Ashland experience, and consider again the 'What next?' question -- from the perspective of transformation. How can We the People achieve democratic legitimacy -- not as an influencer within hierarchical politics, but rather as a primary actor in society? I suggest that the answer to this question can be found at the community level. I've been referring to face-to-face sessions as being examples of 'harmonization in the microcosm'. The community, I believe, is the natural next step. If a community as-a-whole can achieve harmonization, then that would be an example of harmonization in a very important larger microcosm, the microcosm of a community. If a whole community can 'wake up', then We the People would exist as a coherent entity in an identifiable territory. This would be a very important milestone in terms of social transformation, and we will return to this point shortly. What would it mean for a community to achieve harmonization -- for a community to 'wake up'? It would not necessarily mean that the whole community participates in face-to-face sessions, although that might be possible in a very small community. More likely 'waking up' would be a multi-stage process. In Ashland, a significant number of people came away with a considerable amount of enthusiasm, from both the session and the public meeting. It seems likely that a similar project could be carried out in any locality, with similar results. So let's take the Ashland scenario, and consider how that kind of momentum might develop into a community waking-up process. It seems to me that there would be two 'threads' in such a process. One thread has to do with organizing more sessions and spreading the experience among more members of the community. The other thread has to do with the content of what is discussed in the sessions -- and the publication of that to the community at large. The first thread serves to involve larger and larger segments of the community in the vision of We the People, and the second facilitates the evolution a 'sense of the community' -- the awakening consciousness of We the People. After several sessions, it seems likely that certain issues would rise to the top, as being of general community concern. There would begin to be a coherence in the awakening consciousness, as a harmonized perspective begins to emerge on those issues. Subsequent sessions would have a 'starting point'; they could move beyond simply discovering a sense of We the People, and go on to advance the ongoing community dialog. Each session would bring in new perspectives and concerns, leading to greater coherence in an evolving community consciousness. As harmonization became part of the local culture generally, it would become possible for larger gatherings, and shorter gatherings, to operate effectively within the context of harmonization. At some point the community as a whole would be awake -- it would have a sense of itself as a community, it would have evolved ways of maintaining community dialog, and it would have a shared understanding of its collective concerns and priorities. I've extrapolated quite a bit, in drawing out this scenario. But based on the experience of previous harmonization sessions, it seems to me that these kind of dynamics would be likely to develop if sufficient organizational energy were applied to pursing the two threads. In the case of Ashland, I believe enough energy was generated to enable a next step to be taken in this process -- a follow-on session, let's say, and some effective local publicity. Out of the enthusiasm generated in that next session, there would be new energy released to enable another step, and so on. Perhaps that will happen or is happening, but for the time being most of the energy seems to have been diverted instead to the Michigan event. What is needed for the community process to proceed is not more seed energy -- an Ashland-like event can provide that -- but rather an awareness, on the part of organizers, of the transformative potential of awakened communities. This is a point that I promised , a bit earlier, to return to. My claim here is that an awakened community has the potential to be an active and effective agent of social transformation. There are three basic reasons for this claim, and they have to do with political legitimacy, ability to act coherently, and ability to serve as a model for other communities. Let's examine each of these reasons in turn. The most basic principle of politics, since time immemorial, has been a mutual respect among societies as regards sovereignty and territorial integrity. Whenever this principle is violated we note that as an exceptional episode, and we give it a label like 'raid', 'invasion', 'conquest', 'war', or 'imperialism'. Most of us yearn for peace, and we define that in terms of societies not interfering, or threatening to interfere, in the affairs of other societies. In today's world sovereignty and territorial integrity are defined, for the most part, at the level of nations. In earlier eras, the level was kingdoms, chiefdoms, tribes, and hunter-gatherer bands. The principle that the 'people of a place' have a right to run their own affairs, according their own system of governance, goes all the way back to our origins, evolving out of the territorial behavior found throughout the animal kingdom, including in particular the primates. As the size of political entities has grown, through conquest and imperialism, peoples have often been forced together against their will. With the Kurds and Palestinians in the Middle East, the Basques in Spain, and the Tibetans in China, we see examples of peoples who see their primary identity in a smaller entity, and who yearn for their own sovereign territory. In the splitting up of the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, we see examples of such yearnings being allowed to play themselves out. In some cases we may sympathize with a demand for independence, and in other cases we may not, but we all recognize that any legitimate claim to independence must begin with a consensus among the 'people of a place' that they want to be independent. Thus international recognition of a new nation is frequently associated with some kind of plebiscite, verifying that the desire for independence is genuinely shared by most people throughout the identified territory. It is within the context of this primordial principle -- that the 'people of a place' have an inherent right to seek to run their own affairs -- that I speak of the political legitimacy of an awakened community. I'm not claiming that a community has the right to become a sovereign state, at least not at this point in our discussion. What I am claiming is that a community is the 'people of a place', and there is an inherent political legitimacy in the will of a community -- if that will is based on a genuine consensus of the members of that community. An awakened community has the ability to achieve such a consensus -- to evolve a community 'will' or 'agenda' -- and it has the ability to express that will with a coherent community voice. When 'We the People of Our Town' can speak with such a voice, then that voice has a legitimate claim to be taken seriously by surrounding communities and by relevant governmental agencies. Let's next examine the ability of an awakened community to 'act coherently'. When a community has achieved a sense of its collective will or agenda, then there are many ways in which the people of the community can act to move that agenda forward. For one thing, they can select a slate of candidates from among themselves, and elect them to all local offices with something near 100% of the vote. In this way We the People can also speak with the official voice, and exercise the authority, of the local governmental apparatus. The people of the community would be involved in ongoing policy formation, by means of appropriate harmonization processes that the people work out for themselves. The local government apparatus would serve as the operational arm of the people, rather than as a vehicle of power and wealth for local elites and politicians. And there are many things an awakened community can do outside the governmental context, such as organizing co-op industries to create employment and generate income for the community. Regardless of what local agendas might be pursued, We the People would be learning how to think, act, and respond as a whole community. This is an important phase of the waking up process. Porto Alegre is a medium-sized city in Brazil which operates under a bottom-up consensus process that has enabled the residents to achieve some degree of We the People consciousness. The budget of the city is determined by this process, in which everyone can participate, and the official government implements that budget -- spending the allocated amounts on the identified items. Porto Alegre is recognized internationally as being a well-managed, efficient, and livable city, and has won many civic prizes and awards. Within the constraints of higher-level government and funding, an awakened community can basically run its affairs according to its own preferences and priorities. Policies on open spaces, public services, traffic, zoning, and other matters can be developed creatively, with respect for the concerns and tastes of everyone in the community. We the People, at the level of community, can be the agent of transformation of its own civic environment. An awakened community, I suggest, would be a very appealing model to people in other communities. Every community today has conflicts between different factions or ethnic groups, gripes about the way the local government runs things, and recognized local problems that seem to never go away. Activists, concerned citizens -- and even elected officials -- in such a community would naturally have some interest in finding out how 'Our Town' was able to resolve its internal conflicts, and move forward toward achieving a civic renaissance. Perhaps nothing could be more effective in spreading a culture of harmonization than the inspiration provided by a growing number of awakened 'Our Towns'. * The waking of the giant So far in this chapter we've been looking at harmonization mostly as a cultural movement. We saw in the previous chapter that such a movement exists in an embryonic form, with a handful of initiatives seeking to generate momentum in one way or another, based on one strategy or another. In this chapter we've been exploring ways in which such a cultural movement might gain momentum. We've looked particularly at the potential role of grassroots activists, and focused on applying harmonization to the mission of enabling 'We the People' to wake up at the level of community. I suggested that this focus is important because the people in a community, if they find common purpose, can claim a kind of legitimacy (being the 'people of a place'), and because the community level can give We the People practice in thinking and acting together coherently, and because awakened communities could, by their example, be effective vehicles of movement propagation. If the movement were to develop in this way, and if several different communities began to achieve a sense of We the People, and if interest in these activities began to spring up in the society at large -- then we would probably be able to say that the movement had reached critical mass. In actual experience with harmonization processes, as in Ashland and Michigan, participants have come away with a great deal of enthusiasm. It seems to me that we would see that kind of enthusiasm magnified many times when the process is enabling communities to begin taking charge of their own affairs. With that kind of enthusiasm, and sufficient initial momentum, I anticipate that the movement would take off in a big way. In terms of our waking giant, this would bring us to the point where the giant is conscious and able to interact intelligently with its local environment. But social transformation cannot be brought about at the local level. We the People may begin to awaken locally, but our consciousness must become global if we are to save humanity from the crisis it faces. The giant is not fully awake until it understands its role in the wider world. Fortunately, it is very likely that awakened communities would soon discover the limitations of what can be accomplished locally. For example, they would find themselves encumbered by restrictions placed by higher-level government, they might find that outside landlords control much of the property in the community -- and that remote corporations have more say over the local economy than do the local government and the people combined. Eventually, people would begin to realize that further progress requires a deeper perspective than that of civic improvement. Communities are made up of real people, some of whom are experts in various areas, and some of whom are concerned about things like sustainability and globalization. There is no reason to assume that there would not be sessions early on in the waking up process that would be brave enough to venture into radical thinking of one sort or another. I've found that in face-to-face discussions people can entertain surprisingly radical ideas. It is only in public forums and the media that everyone seems to limit themselves to mainstream thinking. Here's one experiment I've carried out a couple times in airports. I'd find myself next to some 'very ordinary' middle class couple and I'd strike up a conversation. They'd ask what I did, I'd say I write, they'd ask what about, I'd say political stuff, and then I'd say, "For example, what do you think of capitalism?". That's a question that had never occurred to them, and amazingly, within about ten minutes of discussion they'd be saying something like, "I see what you mean, capitalism doesn't really make much sense, does it?". I'm not saying that people can be converted quickly away from capitalism, only that people are more open than we might presume to entertaining deep questions about the myths of society -- if the circumstances are right. Earlier, I introduced the concept of 'harmonization dynamics' -- within the context of a face-to-face meeting. In that context, those dynamics typically lead to remarkable results: people learn to respect one another as human beings, they learn to resolve their differences, they learn how to work creatively and effectively together, and they experience a sense of We the People. In that earlier discussion, I contrasted the dynamics of harmonizing meetings with those of 'adversarial' and 'collaborative' meetings -- in which differences are not resolved, but are instead either reinforced or submerged. Just as harmonization exhibits remarkable dynamics in the microcosm, I believe we can expect it to also exhibit remarkable dynamics in the macrocosm. I think we can assume, for example, that awakened communities would tend to stay in touch with one another on a networking basis. It would be only natural for them to want to compare experiences and share ideas amongst one another. And as people began to see the need to think more globally and more deeply, they would be likely to organize gatherings and conferences to bring in as many ideas and perspectives as possible -- and to seek to harmonize them. After such gatherings, people would go back to their communities and most likely there would be follow-up discussions, harmonizing community perspectives as regards whatever ideas or proposals came up at the wider gathering. Good ideas or resolutions-of-conflicts that come up in one community would tend to spread around and be considered by other communities. Breakthroughs in any microcosm would soon become breakthroughs for the macrocosm. In this way, a movement-wide consciousness would tend to develop -- and We the People would begin to have meaning on a society-wide scale. The macrocosm reflects the microcosm: communities would learn to respect one another as human communities, they would learn to resolve their differences, they would learn how to work creatively and effectively together, and they would experience a sense of We the People -- at the level of the macrocosm. If these kind of dynamics emerge and become a factor in the mainstream culture, then the giant will be fully awake and ready to become a player in society. We the People will be emerging from the anonymous masses, just like the figures emerging from the rock in Michelangelo's "The Prisoners". [picture here] * Cultural dynamics and cultural transformation What we would be seeing, with harmonization in the macrocosm, is the beginning of a fundamental cultural transformation -- from a hierarchical-adversarial culture to a networking-harmonizing culture. Under hierarchical-adversarial dynamics, people seek empowerment by joining forces with some faction or 'cause'. When we 'push' within such a system, opposition energy arises to push back, and the net transaction tends to reinforce divisiveness -- whether or not our pushing gets us anywhere. In such a culture, we have little motivation to think creatively about solving the problems that face us as a society because no one would listen to us, and besides our energies must go to supporting those candidates and causes which are, at best, _somewhat aligned with our own concerns. No one asks us for our ideas, they only ask us for our support. The creative thinking that sets the direction of our societies comes from the top down, and it reflects the interests of those near the top. Furthermore, this hierarchical planning results in a tendency toward uniformity in society -- cookie cutter towns with a Starbucks, a WalMart, look-alike motels and freeways -- and now occurring on a global scale. A networking-harmonizing culture begins in the community, and its creative thinking is aimed at dealing fairly with everyone's concerns. We can seek empowerment in such a culture by openly expressing our concerns and ideas, and by listening respectfully to those of others. If we 'push' a concern which is important to us, we will be listened to, and rather than opposition we would find cooperation in trying to find a way in which the concern can be dealt with, taking into account conflicting concerns as well. Regardless of what the concern is about, the net transaction tends to broaden community understanding and deepen harmonization. In such a culture, we have every motivation to think creatively about the problems that face us a society, and at the scale of community we will find that we are blessed with a considerable measure of collective wisdom. In a networking-harmonizing culture, creative problem solving goes on in parallel in every community, and indeed in every gathering or conference that is concerned with social issues. Whenever something is learned in one venue, or a new idea is generated, that becomes available for consideration everywhere else. In this kind of culture, we could expect the emergence of diversity, as different communities find their own way of dealing with their own unique problems and opportunities. Such a culture would be incredibly more creative in dealing with social and economic problems than is our current culture. Under hierarchy, fundamental policies are determined centrally, and then implemented everywhere more or less the same way. Apart from the fact that 'one size does not fit all', there is a more systemic problem: a central planning agency is a creative bottleneck. It's like having one central processor in society's computer instead of thousands of parallel PCs -- each of which can share its discoveries with the others. (In our current society, we see this kind of parallel creativity in the way the marketplace operates, but unfortunately all that creativity is constrained and channeled by the harmful dynamics of capitalism.) I suggest that a networking -harmonizing culture is precisely what we need to be aiming for, in terms of social transformation. The community as the primary autonomous unit, harmonization as the way of relating, and networking as the principle of organization. That is my formula for the enlightened society. I come to this not because I think it is ideal, nor because it suits my native sentiments -- although both or these are true -- but because from a systems perspective I see this as the only viable alternative to hierarchies and elite rule. But I get ahead of our story. So far, in our examination of where harmonizing dynamics might lead, we've gotten to the point where a culture based on networking and harmonization is growing up within the larger hierarchical society. The new culture is characterized, to use the rhetoric of revolution, by 'captured territory' -- ie., the network of awakened communities. This territorial aspect is very important. When people in their everyday lives participate with their neighbors in a new culture, that culture is reinforced and strengthened, and the culture begins to elaborate itself in the form of artistic and poetic expression. Awakened communities are in fact 'liberated zones', and in liberated zones we begin to see the potential of a transformed society. Without territory, there are only dispersed partisans. With territory, a new culture will begin to lay down roots. I daresay it would not be too long before people would began to ask, "Why can't we just run society this way? What are those jerks in Washington (or Dublin, or Paris, or wherever) doing for us anyway? What do we need them for?" This is when the giant begins to realize its own power. In terms of revolutionary dynamics, this situation is very similar to that of the American colonies under British rule. The American colonies were not really ruled by Britain, rather they were compelled to pay tribute to Britain in monetary terms, in the form of levies to the Crown or profits sent home to British-owned enterprises operating in the colonies. In terms of governance, the colonies had their own elected assemblies that managed their own local affairs. The American Revolution was not a social revolution -- as were the French and Russian -- it was simply the severing of ties with the Mother country. Whereas the French and Russian revolutions were followed by considerable conflict and strife, the aftermath of the American 'Revolution' was relatively orderly and civil. The new society had already been in place -- it only needed to be freed from outside domination. The Constitution was not intended to transform the colonies, but rather to legitimize the way they already were -- and to preserve the privilege of those who had come out on top under Crown rule. There was no breakdown of society, no chaos, when the British were defeated. The transition to the new regime was at least orderly, even if it didn't lead to a democratic society. Similarly, as the new networking-harmonizing culture begins to establish itself throughout society, people will begin to realize that their relationship to the hierarchy is a matter of paying tribute -- in taxes to government, in profits to corporations, in interest to banks, and in young people sacrificed to the military machine. As we gain experience in running our own affairs, we will understand that it is possible for us to sever our ties with oppression and exploitation. At this point, our giant is making the decision to claim its rightful ground. * Global transformation and the third world The third world persists in poverty for precisely one reason: because it has been systematically dominated, robbed, and looted by centuries of still-ongoing imperialism on the part of the industrialized nations. This has been a horrible fate, accompanied by much genocide, bloodshed, and suffering, and no right-thinking person would wish such an experience on those peoples. And yet, there is a benefit that accrues from that suffering: social transformation will be much easier for the third world than it will be for the West. The problem for the West is that we believe we already live in democracies. When a 'bad' official gets elected, we blame ourselves for not 'getting out the vote'. We get caught up in adversarial games, pursuing reform, and don't realize that all the paths of the maze leave us inside the same box. We are kept from liberation by what the Sufis call a 'veil of light', which is more dangerous than a 'veil of darkness'. A veil of darkness is a recognized obstacle, against which we know we should muster our resources. A veil of light is a seductive siren that seems to be what we want, but which imprisons us. Moving past our pseudo-democracy veil of light requires, if my investigation has been relevant, a wholesale cultural transformation. Only when we experience genuine democracy will we realize that what we had wasn't the real thing. The third world, on the other hand, sees the mainstream capitalist imperialist system as a 'veil of darkness'. People in the third world know that most of their rulers are corrupt puppets, and their socieities are being raped by globalization and corporations -- modern descendents of the missionaries and conquistadors. People in the third world don't need to awaken to the possibility of transformation, they need only the freedom to liberate themselves. If the West is able to transform itself to a culture based on networking and harmonization, and if it ends imperialism and extends the hand of friendship and support to the people of the third world, I suspect that social transformation will be global in a matter of weeks. But in fact the third world is not waiting for us in the West to lead the way. All over the third world people are struggling for local control, and they are building networks and learning to find their empowerment as We the People. They have been forced into bottom-up solidarity by the array of forces exploiting and dominating them. They have not been encumbered by illusions of living in democracies. Under the hyper-exploitation brought on by globalization, rejection of the imperialist system is spreading to all strata of many third world societies, not just the poorer segments. I mentioned earlier the example of Porto Alegre, a medium-sized city in Brazil, where the budget is determined by a bottom-up consensus process. This model has been replicated elsewhere in Brazil, and there there are many other democratic initiatives and innovations being pursued in Brazil, under the progressive stewardship of a strong labor party at the national level. There are more radical examples of third-world leadership on the path to social transformation, but before I mention them I'd like to review a few points. Consider for a moment the possibility of a whole society operating on the basis of harmonization and networking. Each community basically runs its own affairs, and wider scale issues are dealt with by harmonizing the concerns of all affected communities. There's a lot more to be said about how that could work in practice on a global scale, and we'll get into that in the next chapter. For the moment and for the sake of the argument, please imagine that such a society would be viable. What I'd like you to notice is that voting and political parties do not play a role in such a society. Parties are the embodiment of factionalism, and they make no sense in a culture of harmonization. If people have concerns that need to be addressed, harmonization is a more effective way of addressing those concerns than would be the formation of a faction dedicated to those concerns. As regards voting, there are two kinds to consider: voting on issues, and electing representatives. As regards issues, voting is a vastly inferior decision-making system in comparison with harmonization. If there are competing proposals on the table, it makes much more sense to creatively harmonize the underlying concerns than it does to simply choose among the proposals. Indeed, this is the core principle underlying the virtues of harmonization. As regards electing representatives, the issue is really one of hierarchy. In our current system, candidates compete to be given the power to rule over us. We choose among masters, live under a hierarchy, and call it democracy. While we live under this illusion, it is natural that we value 'open and fair elections'. That serves to maximize the meaning of our votes, for whatever that's worth -- or at least it helps us be comfortable in our illusion. But 'open and fair elections' are only of value within the context of hierarchy. In a society based on harmonization there are no rulers and no need to elect any. Instead we might select people, or solicit volunteers, to manage certain projects or to represent the community's concerns in some gathering or conference -- what the Native Americans called a 'pow wow'. Such representatives or managers are not 'given power', but are rather given the responsibility to carry forward the agenda that has been articulated by the community as a whole. If people compete for such roles, it is not on the basis that they will 'make better decisions', but rather on the basis that they are good managers or good communicators. And in many cases, it would probably be a team or slate that would be selected for such a role rather than an individual. Competitive elections of rulers, whether 'open and fair' or not, makes no sense in a society based on harmonization and networking. It is in the context of these observations that I dare to bring up the examples of Cuba and Venezuela. I'm not claiming that these are ideal societies, nor that they embody harmonization, but I do suggest that we can understand these societies better if we are able to see that competitive parties and elections are not the same thing as democracy. According to mainstream mythology, there are basically two kinds of governments: democratic and dictatorial. In this mythology, democracy equals fair & competitive elections, and everything else is dictatorship. And indeed, most of the governments in the world that don't have fair & competitive elections are indeed dictatorships. I suggest, however, that Cuba and Venezuela are examples that need to be examined on their own merits. In the case of Venezuela, we do have fair & competitive elections, as recently verified by international observers including ex-President Jimmy Carter. Nonetheless, based on the grassroots support for Chavez's radical programs, one suspects that a one-party-state scenario might develop. Based on eyewitness reports I've seen, by Venezuelan and foreign observers alike, Chavez is facilitating a cultural transformation in Venezuela. He is not launching massive state programs, but is instead encouraging local empowerment, and providing services and support for those programs which seem to be achieving results. Katherine Lahey, a community studies major at the University of California Santa Cruz, offers these comments in an article she wrote based on her observations in Venezuela: The stitching of the fabric of the revolution is unmatched in its strength and breadth of anything I have ever seen. Throughout the country, not just in the urban barrios, social programs called 'misiones' - a social development strategy borrowed from the Cuban revolution - are being implemented by the people with the support of government resources. What takes place behind the scenes of each mission is simply incredible and inspiring beyond words. These campaigns include education - from literacy to university level, health, employment, citizenship, support for indigenous groups and their reincorporation into society, economic justice and resistance to neoliberalism through development of grassroots and community cooperatives and businesses, to name a few. - Full article at: http://www.cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?id='846'&lists='cj' Chavez is genuinely trying to help the people of Venezuela mobilize their own creativity to solve their problems and develop their communities and society generally. He is not representing a privileged elite. If his efforts lead to a We the People kind of democracy in Venezuela, then competitive elections will not be relevant to the situation. It is likely that the people would choose to continue on that path -- there would be no rascals to vote out of office. Venezuela under their "Bolivarian" revolution needs to be judged on its own merits, not compared to a set of political standards that themselves do not deliver democracy. If Chavez starts suppressing or exploiting people then he's a dictator after all. If he continues to shepherd a cultural transformation toward local empowerment, then we should acknowledge him and the people of Venezuela as being bold pioneers on the path to global social transformation. So far, at least, that seem to be what is going on. In the third-world context, Venezuela is apparently evolving a credible response to our Transformational Imperative. And that is precisely why our elite rulers in Washington and Wall Street don't like Chavez and don't like the broad-based support of the Venezuelan people for the Bolivarian revolution. One can only hope that the Venezuelan military is loyal to the government, unlike the Chilean military in the time of Allende which was covertly linked with the CIA. I've saved Cuba to the last because it is the most controversial case. We never hear Castro's name mentioned in the news without it being accompanied by the label 'dictator'. And in mainstream entertainment propaganda, we see stories of 'daring refugees from tyranny', who never have anything good to say about the Cuban Revolution or Castro. And in the case of Americans, we are told by our government that Cuba is a communist dictatorship, and that loyal Americans shouldn't go there. And it goes deeper than that. With the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs, and the derision of Cuba in right-wing circles, Castro turn out to be rather deeply embedded in the general American psyche as a bad-guy commie dictator. I risk alienating my readers if I dare challenge that myth. Nonetheless, I must take that risk and offer the challenge. As an example, Cuba is too valuable to ignore, despite the shadow cast by decades of demonizing propaganda. As it turns out, the extent of Cuba's success in achieving a culture of community-based democratic harmonization can be estimated by measuring the hostility of Washington towards Cuba. Hostility from Washington is not a guarantee that democracy exists somewhere, but wherever a people stand up effectively for their rights against the imperialist system, you can be sure Washington's ire will soon follow. For Washington, Cuba is too important an example to allow it to be seen for what it is -- proof that there are viable models for development outside the capitalist paradigm. The success of Cuba stands as a contradiction to the dominant mainstream economic mythology. It is not at all surprising that Washington and the corporate media make every effort to demonize, destabilize, and harass Cuba in every way they can -- and every effort to make other third-world nations understand that Washington would look with strong disfavor on any nation that might seek to emulate Cuba, as we have seen in the case of Venezuela. Charles McKelvey, an American Professor of Sociology, has spent considerable time in Cuba as an observer. In 1998, he wrote a report on his studies for an Internet list, and here are two excerpts: The Cuban political system is based on a foundation of local elections. Each urban neighborhood and rural village and area is organized into a "circumscription," consisting generally of 1000 to 1500 voters. The circumscription meets regularly to discuss neighborhood or village problems. Each three years, the circumscription conducts elections, in which from two to eight candidates compete. The nominees are not nominated by the Communist Party or any other organizations. The nominations are made by anyone in attendance at the meetings, which generally have a participation rate of 85% to 95%. Those nominated are candidates for office without party affiliation. They do not conduct campaigns as such. A one page biography of all the candidates is widely-distributed. The nominees are generally known by the voters, since the circumscription is generally not larger than 1500 voters. If no candidate receives 50% of the votes, a run-off election is held. Those elected serve as delegates to the Popular Councils, which are intermediary structures between the circumscription and the Municipal Assembly. Those elected also serve simultaneously as delegates to the Municipal Assembly. The delegates serve in the Popular Councils and the Municipal Assemblies on a voluntary basis without pay, above and beyond their regular employment. ... So the Cuban revolutionary project has many gains, not only in the area of social and economic rights, but also in the area of political and civil rights. Because of these achievements, the system enjoys wide popular support, in spite of the hardships caused by U.S. opposition and by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Drawing upon the institutions that they have developed over the last forty years, they are responding to the present challenges and are surviving in a post-Cold War world. The strength and vitality of these institutions is worthy of our investigation, for Cuba may represent an important case as we seek to understand how peripheral and semi-peripheral states can overcome the legacy of underdevelopment. - Full article at: http://www.cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?id='0009'&lists='cj' I am not trying here to give a full, balanced report on Cuba or Venezuela. I imagine there are failures as well as successes in both places, as regards democracy and justice. My main point here is that the absence of competitive elections is not necessarily a sign of dictatorship, and may in some cases be a sign of a democratic process characterized by the dynamics of harmonization. Each case deserves to be evaluated on its own merits by looking at the results on the ground and at the reports of people who live there. And the fact that Castro is still around after all these years is not necessarily evidence that he is a tyrant. It could equally be an indicator that the people of Cuba continue to support their revolution, and that Castro continues to support the people in their project. If that is the case, as it seems to be, then one can only hope that the Cuban scenario does not depend too heavily on Castro's personal moral leadership, as he will not live forever. As regards the third world in general, I repeat my observation that social transformation will be easier to accomplish there than in the West -- once the West abandons its imperialist ways. In the meantime it seems that the third world is leading the way in transformational innovation and may provide models that we can learn from in our own pursuit of transformation. * Engagement with the regime In the West there are two primary obstacles to transformation. The first, which we have been discussing at length, is the current absence of an effective transformational movement. In the principle of harmonization at the level of community, I believe we can find one viable path to building such a movement. Perhaps there are other viable organizing principles and paths as well, although I haven't heard of any as yet. But whatever kind of transformational movement might arise in the West, it will sooner or later need to face the second obstacle: determined opposition by the ruling elite regime. In this section, I will try to anticipate the various kinds of opposition we could expect to encounter, based on the experiences of previous social movements and based on what we know about the tactics and attitudes of the current regime. I will present this material as a kind of Movement Guidebook -- "How to Overcome the Regime With the Least Confrontation". I am not competent to write a definitive version of such a guidebook, but this seems to be the most convenient way for me to convey observations and analysis which, hopefully, may be of some value to the movement. To begin with, I believe it is very important that we look to the game of Go for our models of engagement rather than the game of chess. Chess is about battle, and on the battle ground it is those who command tanks and attack helicopters who have the advantage, not the people. Besides, transformation is not about destroying anyone, but about taking everyone's concerns into account. When eventually they have no useful alternative, our elite brothers and sisters will be willing to talk to us, and their concerns will be listened to with the same respect afforded everyone else. Indeed, it will be much easier for us to transform our economies and infrastructures when we have the enthusiastic cooperation of those who currently run our governments, corporations, and banks. The game of Go is about gradually consolidating territory while artfully constraining the alternatives of your opponent -- so that eventually he has no available move that can improve his position. Among master players, it is seldom necessary to actually remove stones from the board -- both players know from the position what would be the outcome from that mundane exercise in mechanical capture, and so they don't bother with it. As I pointed out earlier, this kind of strategy characterized Gandhi's resistance movement against British occupation. Certainly his non-violent ethic provides a model we want to emulate, and I suggest his Go-like strategic approach also provides us with useful lessons. In our case, assuming that the movement develops along lines similar to those I have outlined, the first strategic objective should be to capture as much territory as possible -- while keeping a low a profile on elite radar. The initial task of the movement is not to confront any regime, but rather to spread and develop a culture of harmonization and networking. The more widely such a culture can spread and the more firmly established it can become, prior to encountering strong elite opposition, the better off we will be. We would be well advised to focus our initial We the People empowerment on local problems and issues, and on developing our We the People consciousness. We need to learn to walk before we can run, and during that learning process we should not tread too near to sleeping dogs. During this stage, we need to beware of the temptation to reach too high and too soon for the gold ring. The experience of harmonization generates a lot of hope and enthusiasm, and many of us might come away with the feeling that there is a magic short cut to transformation. We see this already in the agenda of the Michigan organizers and in Jim Rough's Wisdom Council strategy. These are intelligent people and their sentiments are beyond reproach, but the diversion of movement energy in those ways causes problems of two kinds. The first problem is that early attempts to influence the general society are premature: they can only have meaning within the arena of adversarial politics, and there has not as yet been an opportunity for We the People to evolve any kind of consciousness of who we are and what we're about. Any discussion of major issues at this point would be impoverished, and would be dominated by mainstream thinking -- discussion now could only remain 'inside the box'. The second problem, perhaps more harmful, is that premature efforts take up scarce energy that would be more usefully devoted to spreading a culture of harmonization more widely, particularly with a focus on grassroots activists and community empowerment. At this early, embryonic stage of the movement there are only a handful of activists who are politically oriented in their activism and who at the same time understand the value of harmonizing processes. Until some of their energy is guided by a more strategic transformational perspective, or until new activists get involved, the potential of the movement remains, unfortunately, only latent. Despite our best efforts to keep a low profile on elite radar, it is unlikely that we could postpone an elite response for very long. Public opinion and shifts in alignments are of great interest to the establishment, and they keep close tabs on trends. It's not that they want to be responsive to public sentiment, but rather that they want to maintain control with their system of divide-and-rule propaganda. If they begin to see a trend toward people listening to their own drummers, and dialoging across factional lines in their communities, the opinion managers will have the good sense to perceive that as a potentially serious threat to their system of control. They might initiate appropriate counter-measures earlier than would seem to be warranted by the actual progress of the movement on the ground. We must keep in mind that the current regime is characterized by preventive, preemptory action against those deemed to be a potential threat. Indeed, the Patriot Act amounts to a preemptory strike against popular movements in general. Let's consider some of the early counter-measures that they might deploy. Surveillance and infiltration by spies and provocateurs are very common tactics used against movements of all kinds throughout the West. But a harmonization movement is relatively secure against those tactics. The moment has nothing to hide as regards its activities, and the harmonization process is characterized by too much good sense to allow itself to be sabotaged by a provocateur pushing some counter-productive agenda. There may be infiltrators who intentionally try to thwart the progress of sessions, and we may need to develop some sensible counter-measures to that line of attack. More drastic measures, such as arresting organizers or banning discussions among citizens, are unlikely to be undertaken at any early stage. That would be a strategic error on the establishment's part, as it would only bring attention to the movement and generate support for it. There are other counter-measures that might be deployed, but the one I believe is most likely would be a demonization campaign launched over various media and propaganda channels. Religious conservatives would be warned, from pulpits and from radio pundits, that harmonization is a cult movement, and that it seeks its wisdom not exclusively from the Word of God -- good Christians should stay away. To the libertarian-minded would come the warning, from radio chat jocks and online bulletin boards, that harmonization is communistic and that it submerges the individual in the collective -- stay away and don't risk being brainwashed. Liberals would read in the Op-Ed pages that harmonization is undemocratic and that it would lead to one-party tyranny. They would learn that it's hip to dismiss harmonization, in the same way that it's hip to scoff at 'conspiracy theories'. It would a mistake to underestimate the potential effectiveness of such a campaign, particularly in the American context. If the general population adopts a variety of strong negative attitudes toward harmonization, that might stifle or even destroy the early movement. But if the movement can build sufficient momentum in the meantime, and establish sufficient roots, it should be able to hold its ground and respond effectively to such an attack. We can take some comfort from the fact that a demonization campaign would make no sense until after the movement has made noticeable progress. I believe that such early confrontation would lead to a major turning point in the development of the movement. The establishment would be pushing the movement to consider issues beyond the civic and the local -- perhaps earlier than if the movement had been left to develop at its own pace. In the struggle to respond, We the People would be forced to raise our political consciousness. Nothing can wake up a giant more quickly than a poke with a sharp stick. The establishment would be saying we are dangerous to society, and we would begin to realize that they are right. We would begin to understand that the latent destiny of the harmonization movement is nothing less than the transformation of society. The movement would be spreading a culture based on harmonization and networking, and it would be developing a vision of a society organized around those principles. As the movement deals with difficulties, innovates in the local arena, and finds ways to cooperate effectively on a networking basis, people would be creating the foundations of a transformed society. They would come to understand, based not on theory but on their own experience, that We the People are capable of running our own affairs, and that we can do a much better job of that than can any remote and corrupt central government. And yet, even with this raising of 'transformational consciousness', the movement could continue to co-exist comfortably within the current electoral system. In liberated zones, we would be able to incorporate local and regional governmental structures into the movement. Government there would be aligned with the will of the people, which is, after all, the proper role for constitutional government. The movement would have no incentive to cause any kind of trouble for the regime -- until the time came when such initiatives could be effective. Before that time the threat to the regime would exist only in potential, and conflict would be most likely to arise due to preemptive attacks from the establishment, not all of which can be anticipated in advance. We can only trust in the inherent wisdom of the harmonization process, and our own collective creativity, to deal with such challenges as they arise. Eventually, if we overcome the intermediate obstacles, most of our society will be part of the new culture, and we will have developed a coherent vision of a transformed society. Only then does it make sense to initiate decisive dialog with the regime. One form of dialog will be to elect our own people to all the national offices. But enforcing rules from the top is not the way of harmonization. We will also want to bring elite leaders into the dialog process -- but only when they realize their best option is to participate. When the time comes to consolidate the new society, we can expect everyone to be on board. _________________________________________________ CHAPTER 7: A CHARTER FOR A DEMOCRATIC WORLD: HARMONIZATION AND LOCALISM * Introduction Up until this point, this book has been addressed to readers in today's untransformed cultures, particularly those in the industrialized West. It has presented an historical analysis, focusing on the role of elites and the dynamics of hierarchy, imperialism, growth, and capitalism. Special attention was devoted to exposing the sham of liberal democracy, and showing how it functions, by design, as an effective mechanism of elite domination. The objective of this analysis has been to make it clear that our current societal systems are leading us inevitably to disaster, and that relief cannot be found by attempting to reform those inherently flawed systems. The central conclusion of this investigation was stated as a Transformational Imperative, identifying We the People as being the only conceivable agent of social transformation. That was followed by the development of a Harmonization Imperative: for We the People to come into existence, we must first find a way to overcome the factionalism that keeps us divided and facilitates rule by elites. The rest of the material has been an exploration of the potential of harmonization as a means of transforming our cultures and enabling We the People to wake up. I developed a scenario of how a harmonization movement might develop, based on awakened communities and networking, and the kinds of obstacles it would be likely to encounter. That scenario was not intended to be a detailed prediction or recommendation, but rather a rough map of what I see as a plausible route. We can compare the scenario to a satellite photo of mountainous terrain: from such a photo we can identify the main passes through the mountains, but we can't really know what the terrain is like until we get there -- "The map is not the territory." Again, this material has been addressed to readers in today's hierarchical societies, in the hope that some might be inspired to pursue what appears to be a promising route to social transformation. The rest of this book is intended for a moment in the future, that moment when the movement achieves victory. We the People have woken up all over the world, and we have just succeeded in bringing the world's elites into our harmonization circle. In accomplishing this victory, we have learned to make plans and take action together and to develop effective strategies. Now with everyone on board, We the People of the world are ready to take on the responsibility of transforming our societies and our global economy. At this special moment of victory everyone in the world is unified in a common spirit, as we have seen historically whenever tyrants have been overthrown. People celebrate and dance in the streets, and everyone is embraced as a brother or sister. Everyone, for the moment at least, is reading from the same page, is full of hope for the future, and has a spirit of trust toward humanity in general. We have been unified up to this point by our common struggle, but that's now over. Now begins a much more difficult task, with many trade-offs to be made, and we will need a new organizing principle. Presumably our first step will be to arrange a global council, to establish a basic system of world order. By using harmonization, with back-and-forth exchange between the global council and ad hoc local councils and networks -- and in our current spirit of cooperation -- we can expect to converge on a universally acceptable global charter. What elites accomplished at Bretton Woods, we too can accomplish. This rest of this chapter is my advance contribution to the dialog of this future global council. I will be developing, from a systems perspective, a proposal for a global charter for a democratic and sustainable global society. My starting point is to identify a minimal set of 'enabling qualities' for our new society: - genuinely democratic - peaceful - stable - economically efficient - sustainable - can deal effectively with issues at all levels up to the global If even one of these qualities is lacking in our new society, then I suggest we will have serious problems sooner or later. But if we can be sure our society will exhibit these qualities as it operates, then we will be enabled to carry on with the business of running and transforming our societies. We will be able to set our agendas at all levels democratically, pursue them efficiently in peace, and plan our futures with an expectation of stability. That's all we need from a charter; the rest will be up to us, We the People, as creative and responsible citizens working together. The list of qualities is not itself a charter. It makes little sense to proclaim, for example, "Thou shalt be stable". That states a desirable outcome, but it says nothing about how to achieve it, nor how compliance would be measured. What our charter needs to be about is a set of system constraints (charter provisions), which are well defined and achievable, and which can be expected to lead to system dynamics which exhibit the qualities we are seeking. In case this seems confusing, here's a simple example. You don't want your child to be injured in traffic: that's a 'quality' that you want to see realized. What you tell your child is: "Look both ways and cross with the light." That's a system constraint. If your child constrains its behavior in that way whenever it crosses the street (microcosm), then 'not being injured in traffic' is likely to characterize that child's life (macrocosm). But if you tell your child directly, "Don't get injured", that conveys little useful information. Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" presented an entirely analogous exercise in systems analysis. Smith identified a small number of constraints (eg., each buyer and seller is small compared to the market size), and then demonstrated, by examples and logic, that compliance with those constraints in the microcosm would cause everyone's economic self interest to lead toward the common good in the macrocosm. His model has proven to be accurate in those competitive sub-markets (eg., PC peripherals) where his constraints largely apply. His model has no relevance to a capitalist economy generally, which is designed to facilitate the concentration of wealth into a few hands. Similarly we seek a charter, with a small number of primary provisions, that will ensure that as people pursue their own self interest in their local microcosm, the global society will exhibit our minimal enabling qualities in the macrocosm. * A global charter: the primary provisions The first constraint I would like to introduce has to do with harmonization. If we can ensure that harmonization processes will be used to develop agendas and to resolve conflicts in our society, then that will go a long way toward facilitating our enabling qualities. Harmonization facilitates democracy by allowing every voice to be heard and taken into account. It facilitates peace by providing a way to resolve conflicts to everyone's benefit. It facilitates stability by inhibiting the emergence of factional strife. It facilitates "dealing effectively with issues" by providing a tool -- the harmonization session -- which is designed for that express purpose. What I offered in the previous paragraph was a rationale for considering harmonization as a system constraint. But the suitability of a constraint is not established by such a rationale, no matter how persuasive it might seem. The test of a constraint comes later, as we consider what its consequences are likely to be in conjunction with the other constraints. Before stating the first constraint in the language of a provision, I'd like to bring in the principle of localism, in the context of democracy. To begin with, let me suggest that genuine democracy can exist among a group of people only if every one of their individual voices is able to participate in the policy decisions of that group. I for one would not be at all happy if I don't get my two cents in. Who doesn't feel the same way? Who has nothing to contribute? Who has no unique concerns? Who doesn't care how their community is run? If every voice is to be heard, then there would seem to be a limit to how large a democratic group of people can be. How can every voice be heard, for example, in a city of ten million people? I don't know what this size limit is, but I'm sure we'll know by the time we're considering charter provisions. If I had to guess now, I'd say the limit is somewhere between 1,500 and 3,000 citizens. By a process of iteration, and participant rotation, such a group of people can converge via harmonization on a shared sense of We the People, in which everyone's concerns are represented. I suggest that if we want a democratic society, we would be well advised to build it on a foundation of political units, or 'communities', each of which is small enough to enable an inclusive, participatory, democratic process. A 'community' might be a neighborhood in a town or city, or it might be a rural village -- presumably it would be some existing, traditional unit of society. The boundaries of communities will presumably be determined by the people involved, and the sizes of different communities might vary considerably, both in area and population. The only requirement, from the perspective of democracy, is that a community be small enough that everyone can participate effectively in the community's affairs. Thus at the community level it is possible to achieve genuine participatory democracy -- a democracy without factions, without representation, and with no need for elected authorities. We the People of a community can think and speak for ourselves, with a sensible and coherent voice, and with every individual voice included in the process. If every individual voice needs to be heard, then we will have some challenges to face when it comes to dealing with global issues democratically and effectively. It turns out that those challenges become easier to deal with if we can assume our society is based on democratic communities as the lowest-level political entity. More about that in the next section. With these rationales as an introduction, permit me to offer my first three provisions: Provision 1 (Communities): Communities are to be established, in which every person will be included on the basis of their primary residence, and which are small enough to enable an inclusive democratic process. Provision 2 (Harmonization): Communities are to set their policies by a process of inclusive democratic harmonization, and by similar processes a harmonious relationship is to be maintained among communities as they interact and collaborate with one another. Provision 3 (Local sovereignty): Presuming it abides by all the provisions of this charter, each community has the sovereign right to manage its internal affairs, and its external relationships, as it sees fit -- without interference by the rest of society. However, if the actions or inactions of a community raise legitimate concerns in another community, those concerns are to be resolved as per Provision 2 (Harmonization). If these provisions are followed, then we could expect to have genuine democracy at the local level, and we could expect effective and peaceful collaboration among neighboring communities. Provision 3 (Local sovereignty) has an economic rationale in addition to the obvious democratic rationale. Not only does this provision ensure that the management of the community's resources will serve the needs of the people in the community, but it facilitates economic efficiency. The feedback loops are small at the local level, the consequences of policies are visible to everyone, and effective corrective measures can be taken promptly whenever they are needed. The people of such a sovereign community, when working in harmony, have both the motivation and the means to manage the community wisely and with a view to the long term. They can make better decisions about how to use and preserve their local commons than can some remote regulatory agency. In a society made up of such democratic communities we could expect a proliferation of creative initiatives and a renaissance of civic culture. In order for a community to be able to manage its own affairs, it will need to have dominion over its own local resources. If the land and resources in a community are controlled by absentee owners, for example, then the community won't have the resources it needs to pursue its own survival and prosperity, and its sovereignty would be meaningless. Furthermore, if people or entities are permitted to accumulate property on a wide-scale basis, then they could establish economic empires and democracy generally would be undermined. Due to these considerations, permit me to offer my fourth charter provision: Provision 4 (Local ownership): All real property in a community -- land, structures, and natural resources -- are to remain under the exclusive control and ownership of residents of that community, of associations of such residents, or of the community as a whole, subject to compliance with the other provisions of this charter. No mortgage or lien is valid or enforceable against any real property in a community by any non-resident person or entity. This provision gives communities a maximum degree of control over their own destinies. With the benefit of short feedback loops, and the ability to adjust policies when needed, we could expect the grassroots of our new society to operate with a reasonable degree of efficiency and effectiveness. It would be in each citizen's and community's self interest to make the most of what it has, to reuse and recycle on a systematic basis, to minimize waste, to make appropriate use of resources, and to generally follow sensible economic practices. Furthermore, it would be in each community's self interest to actively collaborate with its neighboring communities, and with networks of communities, in achieving the benefits of scale for large projects such as infrastructure development and regional resource management. A society cannot remain stable if its economic practices are unsustainable. Unsustainable practices on the part of any community would endanger that community's future and would be ultimately destabilizing for the surrounding society. Based on self-interest, we could expect sovereign communities to voluntarily employ sustainable practices. Nonetheless, we must acknowledge that some communities might unwisely choose to pursue short-term convenience by over-exploiting their own resources. Not out of paternalism to such a community, but in order to ensure the stability of society generally, such an unwise pursuit cannot be permitted. In this regard, permit me to suggest three related provisions: Provision 5 (Sustainability): While ownership of land and natural resources resides within each community, as per Provision 4 (Local ownership), the sustained productivity of those lands and resources is an asset held in trust by the community on behalf of society generally and future generations. All use, exploitation, or development of such land and resources must be carried out in such a way as to sustain and improve the overall productivity of that land and resources in perpetuity. Provision 6 (Non-renewable resource): Non-renewable resources, such as minerals and fossil fuels, are a special case and are considered to be jointly owned by the community in which they reside and by society generally. Policies regarding extraction and use of such resources must be determined in a context in which the overall best interest of society in the long term can be harmonized with the legitimate prerogatives of local ownership and autonomy. Provision 7 (Global commons): Resources which are not found within a community, such as those in wilderness areas or the high seas, are to be under the ownership and control of global society generally, and are to be managed according the sustainability constraints of Provision 5 and 6. These seven provisions define the fundamental operating constraints for our new society. Harmonization helps ensure that local affairs will be run democratically, that conflicts can be resolved satisfactorily, and that effective and creative policies can be developed within communities and among neighboring communities. Local sovereignty, together with the sustainability requirements, facilitates sound and efficient economic practices and inhibits the emergence of economic empires or hierarchical political structures. In addition, local sovereignty can be expected to encourage diversity and experimentation, as various communities around the world find creative ways to deal with their own unique problems and opportunities. Communities could be expected to learn from one another, and successful initiatives to be adapted for use elsewhere. In this way a culture of localism and harmonization can be expected to lead to a global cultural renaissance -- in the realms of art, economics, appropriate technologies, and even the human spirit itself. In order to deal with unusual emergencies, and in order to make amendments our global charter, we will need to have a formula for assembling future global councils. There are probably many different formulas that would do the job, and I'll offer one as an example. Basically, my proposal would be to assemble two intermediate levels of councils, local and regional, leading up to the global council. A local council would be made up of delegations from each of 60 local communities, and a regional council would be made up delegations from each of 60 local councils. Each community would first reach consensus on the issues of the day, and then select a delegation of three people to represent that consensus at its local council. Each local council would then reach consensus on the issues and select a 3-person delegation to represent that consensus at its regional council. Regional councils would repeat the same process, and send a 3-person delegation to the global council. If significant issues come up at any level that have not been discussed at lower levels, or if the lower-level perspectives are in conflict and cannot be harmonized, then those issues would be kicked back down to the next lower level councils for further discussion. This process would iterate until a harmonized consensus can be reached at the global level. If we assume that our average community population is about three thousand, and that the global population is about six billion, then we would have about two million communities worldwide. There would be about 33,000 local councils, and about 550 regional councils, each involving 180 delegates. The global council itself would include about 1,600 delegates from the regional councils. Each council would break down into smaller groups, and would employ a process of iteration and participant rotation in order to reach an eventual harmonized consensus. Such a multi-level, iterative process would take some time to converge on a global consensus, perhaps several weeks or perhaps a month or two. In case that might seem cumbersome, we need to remember that a global council is not like a world government, rather it is more like an international treaty conference. The council process is not employed to legislate every-day issues, but rather to consider amendments to the global charter and to deal with unusual problems or conflicts that might arise and which defy resolution by the normal process of voluntary harmonization among communities. Permit me to put these ideas in the form of a charter provision: Provision 8 (Councils): If problems or conflicts arise which cannot be otherwise resolved by the provisions of this charter, then any community can call for a global council to be assembled. Each community will send three delegates to a council of sixty local communities; each local council will send three delegates to a council of sixty localities in the region; and each regional council will send three delegates to a global council. Council sessions at all levels will employ democratic harmonization processes, as per Provision 2 (Harmonization). Delegates from each level will be selected after a harmonized consensus has been reached at that level, and they will be selected by a process of nomination and majority vote. No delegation will include more than one representative from the same lower level constituency. Delegations are empowered only to represent the consensus which has been reached in the council that selected them. Issues which cannot be harmonized by any council will be referred back to lower-level councils for further consideration. The global council will continue until the problematic issues have been resolved Delegates at all levels would be ordinary citizens, taking time off from their normal occupations. There would be no role in our new society for any kind of professional politicians. A global council would be an exciting affair for citizens to participate in. Those who were selected to attend at the global level would be, for the duration, living in a temporary community of fellow citizens from around the world, all acting as equals as they discuss the issues of the day. Delegates at lower level councils would be likely to return home after their initial session, only to reassemble if issues were referred back down for further consideration. Each day reports of sessions at all levels would be sent out to their constituencies so that everyone can track the proceedings. We could expect a great deal of inherent system stability in a culture based on harmonization. 'Running smoothly' can be expected to be the norm. This is true because harmonization tends to nip potential conflicts in the bud. When problems first arise, they can be addressed right away, in whatever context or level they arise. Once harmonization is established, that serves as a kind of stabilizing flywheel -- the atmosphere of collaboration and mutual trust makes it easier to deal with problems when they do arise. If problems are not allowed to fester and grow, then there is little reason for initiatives to arise which threaten social stability. Thus the need for global councils would not be expected to arise very often. I have been giving rationales for these provisions, but we will need to look more deeply into their likely consequences before we can have confidence that they would lead to a society with the desirable enabling qualities outlined in the opening section of this chapter. In order to take that deeper look, we will want to consider a number of scenarios. We will want to look at how large scale problems can be dealt with, how the global commons can be managed, and how potential aggressors can be brought under control without creating a centralized military force -- which itself could become a vehicle for the seizure of power by some ambitious individual or clique. * The maintenance of peace and harmony In a world in which everyone's concerns are taken into account, and where societies everywhere cooperate and trade with one another for mutual benefit, there would seem to be little motivation for any group or society to pursue a path of aggression. But there are pessimistic scenarios which deserve consideration, such as that of some charismatic leader (eg., a Genghis Khan) who convinces his followers to go on the warpath. We cannot be sure that harmonization provides a secure defense against all such anomalies. We need a Plan B in case something goes wrong. At this point, I must reiterate that global transformation can only be possible when a culture of harmonization has spread to the whole globe. We can't begin transforming the world if some nation like China or the USA, for example, stays outside the process and retains its elite leadership and its nuclear weapons. In any scenario of transformation or transition, we must assume that everyone everywhere will be cooperating from the outset and will be participating in the harmonization process. Before we can talk about maintaining peace, we must assume that an initial state of global peace and cooperation characterizes the transitional period. With that proviso, we can assume that all weapons of mass destruction, and all major weapons systems generally, will be dismantled or recycled during the transitional period, along with the related manufacturing facilities. A peaceful and democratic world has no need of such weapons, and their continued existence would pose an extreme potential danger to social stability and safety. The first step toward global peace would be universal disarmament. As part of this arrangement, all facilities in all societies would always be open to inspection by any visitors who cared to investigate them. A democratic and peaceful society has nothing to hide. But, considering again our need for a Plan B, I suggest that disarmament should not be total. If there were no weapons nor any kind of militias, for example, then it would be possible for a rogue society to secretly produce a small arsenal and begin a path of conquest against its defenseless neighbors. We should be able to ensure, by inspections, that no big weapons systems are secretly developed, but at the very low end of weaponry (rifles, grenades, hand-held rockets, etc.) inspections might not always be effective. We can't expect to regularly search everyone's basement, nor would that be compatible with a democratic society. Rather than no weapons at all, I think a more stable arrangement would be to designate a certain level of low-scale military technology, and then encourage every society to maintain that level of deterrent capability. As in the Swiss system, it might be desirable for most able-bodied people to go through a military training program, so they'd know how to handle weapons and operate effectively in a militia unit. The idea would be to have ready-reserve militia units, that exercise regularly, and which can mobilize if a deterrent capability is ever required. The designated level of military technology would emphasize defense over offense. Perhaps there would be anti-tank rockets, but no tanks; ground-to-air missiles, but no military aircraft, torpedo boats but no destroyers, etc. The objective would be to make it difficult for a rogue to obtain an effective offensive capability, while ensuring that societies will have an adequate defensive capability if a rogue somehow succeeds in assembling a secret arsenal. Any attempt to build a military in excess of the designated levels would be considered an act of aggression against neighboring societal units, and an early response by them would minimize violence and enable the underlying conflicts to be resolved before they get out of hand. In keeping with a society based on harmonization and localism, militia units would be community-based and under the democratic control of each community. Just as there are no centralized political governments, there would be no centralized military commands. The dynamics of defense in such a system would be similar to the dynamics of the human immune system. If a rogue emerges, then surrounding militias can voluntarily and coherently combine forces to surround the rogue with overwhelming numbers -- minimizing combat and ensuring a quick resolution. This would be much like antibodies swarming to overwhelm and isolate an invading organism. When the rogue has been disarmed, the militias can go back home to their regular jobs, and a process of reconciliation and harmonization can begin in order to resolve the source of aggression, and restore peace and stability. Permit me to put these ideas in the form of charter provision: Provision 9 (Militias): Each community shall maintain a well-trained, ready-reserve militia unit for the purpose of maintaining the peace. The level of armaments available to this militia shall be strictly limited to that specified in this charter. If any community, or group of communities, attempts to acquire armaments which exceed those specifications, or initiates actual aggression against other communities, then surrounding communities are authorized and encouraged to mobilize their militias and collaborate voluntarily to contain and disarm the aggressing forces. Simultaneously, regional councils shall be assembled in the vicinity of the disturbance with the purpose of investigating and resolving the source of the aggression. When the conflict has been resolved, militia units shall return to their communities and resume their reserve status. A common view, particularly in liberal circles, is that the best way to achieve world peace is to establish a strong and benign world government. Everything I've been saying in this book can be interpreted as an attempt to refute that perspective. Centralization and hierarchy have their own inherent dynamics, and such structures will never stay benign in the long run. If positions of power exist, someone will exploit them sooner or later. Power corrupts, it's that simple. If there is a world government with a military force, then a coup is always a possibility -- and a formidable danger to global stability. In the previous section, I argued that centralized government is not necessary or desirable from the perspective of day-to-day governance. In this section, I've been attempting to show that peace can be maintained without any centralized military command. Defensive forces can form themselves when needed, on whatever scale is needed, and they can go back home when the emergency is dealt with. With no central military command at any level, the danger posed by military coups is minimized. In a culture of harmonization, it seems unlikely that aggression would occur or that militias would need to be mobilized. In order to reduce this likelihood still further, let us consider what kind of circumstances might lead to the emergence of an aggressor. Clearly we would prefer to nip such any such development in the bud before it led to actual aggression. It seems to me that a scenario of potential aggressiveness could only occur if some locality or region begins to engage is some kind of secret activity, including perhaps the development of armaments in excess of the prescribed levels. In order to prevent the emergence of secret activity, and to keep our societies as open as possible, we would be well advised to address the issue of secrecy directly. In a democratic society there should be no need for secrecy, apart from the right of citizens to privacy in their personal lives. Permit me to propose one feasible way to address this issue. This proposal is based on the idea of a guest exchange program. Suppose that each year each community sends off three citizens to live as guests elsewhere for the year, and in turn accepts three guests. Actually, a 'guest' might not be a single citizen, but might be a couple or a family. The three selected guest contingents would go to three different randomly selected locations throughout the world, with provision made for location preferences. Guests would participate as equals in the host community's harmonization process, and they would be able to observe everything going on in their host community, as can any citizen. If the guests are able to function in consensus effectively in that community, then we can assume the community is pretty much in line with acceptable global norms. By such a mechanism, secret programs would be inhibited and any kind of brewing dissatisfaction would come to the attention of the rest of society. In addition to this negative function -- preventing conflicts from arising -- such a guest program would serve many positive functions as well. It would facilitate mutual understanding among societies, and encourage the cross-pollenization of ideas and skills. Guests would be provided with employment, or with educational opportunities, depending on their age, skills, and interests. They would be expected to contribute to their host communities, and be responsible citizens, just as they would in their own home communities. I've suggested that three guests be included in this program in order to ensure that sufficient cross-pollenization occurs among societies. But in fact, such a program might be very popular, and communities might choose both to send off and to accept a larger number of guest contingents on a voluntary basis. Permit me to put these ideas in the form of a charter provision: Provision 10 (Cultural exchanges): In order to encourage cross-cultural exchange among communities, and to maintain open societies, a guest-exchange program shall be organized worldwide each year. Each community shall select at least three guest contingents to contribute to this program, and in turn will accept at least three guest contingents. A contingent will consist of an individual, a couple, or a family. Each contingent will reside in its host community for one year, and the destination of contingents will be determined partly randomly, and partly by preference of the members of the contingent. Guests shall enjoy the same status, and assume similar responsibilities, as permanent local residents. * The management of large-scale projects and operations The avoidance of centralized and hierarchical structures is of fundamental importance if democracy is to be maintained in our new society. In the preceding sections I have attempted to show how governance and peace-keeping can be achieved without centralized governments or centralized military commands. The avoidance of centralized economic entities is equally important to the maintenance of democracy. If any person or clique is able to accumulate excessive wealth, or to control a very large economic operation, they could very easily leverage that economic power into political power. Abundant evidence for this fact can be found throughout history and particularly since the advent of monopoly capitalism. And yet, we cannot escape the realities of the industrial revolution. We cannot afford to ignore the advantages of mass-production, the economies of scale, and the benefits of technology -- if we want to survive and prosper. We do not want to throw the baby-of-efficiency out with the corporate-bath-water. We need, however to apply these tools toward the benefit of our families and our communities, rather than devote them to the accumulation of wealth by a few. In a democratic society we can expect to use the tools in that way. And we need to use these tools within the constraints of economic sustainability, and with due respect for the environment which provides us with sustenance. In a society where resources are controlled locally and democratically, we will have every motivation to use those resources wisely and with an eye toward improving the quality of life in our communities in the long run. We also need to use these tools in such a way that they do not end up controlling us. We do not want to create production systems which, like corporations, take on a life of their own and end up dominating society. Industrialism without hierarchy is the nut that needs to be cracked. I do not mean to over-emphasize the importance of industrial methods. There is also much room for returning to small-scale ways of doing things, which in many situations can be more efficient than mass-scale approaches. Local production for local consumption, and low-technology agriculture, are in many contexts exactly the 'appropriate technologies'. Yet even in those contexts, things like high-efficiency turbine generators, solar cells, personal computer systems, and satellite communications can offer much complementary benefit. At least in the large, modern societies, industrial methods -- used appropriately -- certainly have a role to play. We need benefits of scale, but how much scale do we need? I suggest that the largest operating entity we really need is a single-site facility -- on the scale of a single factory, a regional airport, or a seaport. We might be talking about a massive factory or other facility, employing thousands of workers, and covering many acres. But it can be locally owned, controlled democratically, and it can be autonomous from other economic entities. Larger, multi-site entities -- such as the modern large corporation -- do not add significantly more real economic efficiency. They do however facilitate centralized control and the building of monopolies. An autonomous factory can seek the best vendors on a competitive basis, and choose its markets and distribution channels according to free-market principles. No single factory, even if massive, is going to dominate its sector of the larger economy. By limiting scale in this way, Adam Smith's constraints can be maintained, and his "invisible hand" can be expected to lead to overall economic benefit in the macrocosm. Our Provision 4 (Local ownership)requires that ownership of real property remain within its local community. In the case of privately owned enterprises, I suggest that this provision must be rigorously adhered to. If any private, presumably for-profit entity, is permitted to grow beyond strict limits, we may encourage the emergence another J.D. Rockefeller or J.P. Morgan who will be clever enough to leverage his success formula into an economic empire. Human nature, if anything, is infinitely creative in the pursuit of goals, whether beneficial or not. For our large endeavors, such as a regional factory or seaport, we need a more democratic and inherently socially responsible kind of enterprise. There are probably many entity structures that would suit our purposes here, and as usual I'll offer one common-sense proposal just to demonstrate feasibility. I suggest that a larger-than-community enterprise be organized as a joint- venture partnership among a group of communities, who mutually agree to assume specified obligations in regard to funding, providing land and access, and otherwise contributing to the enterprise. These same collaborating communities would receive specified rewards (eg., a specified share of profits, or a guarantee of employment availability) from the operation of the enterprise. The group of participating communities should include any communities whose residents are intending to be workers in the factory, as the workers and their communities are also stakeholders in the enterprise. The enterprise would be overseen by a board of directors, including representation from all partner communities, and other communities and groups which have a stakeholder interest. The board would not be a fixed body (beware power cliques) but would be constituted by rotating representatives from the stakeholder communities.The primary mission of the board would be to maintain harmony between the interests of the stakeholders (including the workers) and the operational requirements of the enterprise, within the provisions of our global charter. The actions of the board would be fully transparent, indeed videos of board meetings could be made available to stakeholders. The existence of such a joint-venture entity would not be destabilizing to the local political environment because all affected communities would be represented on the board and included fully in the policy-setting process. Furthermore, any such single facility -- even a very large one -- would be only one small player in the wider marketplace. If we allow enterprises to be larger than a community -- but limit such enterprises to a single site of operations -- then we can expect continued political stability, along with the continued guidance of Smith's invisible hand, and we would be able to achieve the scale of operation necessary to support a complex economy -- on a site by site basis. There would be no 'personhood' or 'limited liability' associated with such a joint-venture enterprise. The communities involved in the enterprise would need to assume collective responsibility for the consequences of the enterprise, foreseen or unforeseen, according to an agreed formula -- just as if the communities had caused those consequences in the absence of any enterprise. The enterprise is a mechanism to enable effective collaboration, not a means of escaping responsibility for actions and decisions. An enterprise, once established, has no inherent right to continue existing. At any time the stakeholder communities can agree, through their board, to disband the operation, reconstitute its management, or convert the facility to some other purpose -- always within the provisions of our global charter. I cannot attempt here to comprehensively consider the full range of economic empire-building strategies, and seek a way to prevent each. When the time comes, better minds than mine will be working on the problem. Our main safeguards are the democratic process and local sovereignty. If some operator becomes a problem, people can respond to the actual situation and take remedial action at the grassroots level, or councils can be organized at higher levels. Within the scope of the limited examples we have considered, permit me to suggest an appropriate charter provision: Provision 11 (Collective entities): Enterprises or agencies which exceed the scope or territory of a single community are to be undertaken as joint-venture partnerships involving all affected stakeholder communities. Equity ownership in, and liens and mortgages against such entities are limited to residents of the stakeholder communities and the communities themselves. Stakeholder communities shall include at a minimum all communities whose territory is affected, over whose territory access will be required, who will be contributing resources or manpower, or who might be environmentally or economically affected by the entity's operations. Any liabilities or debts incurred by such an entity, if they cannot be covered out of its operating budget, become liabilities and debts of the stakeholders, according to an agreed formula. Policy in such enterprises is to be set by a rotating board, including representation from all stakeholders, and by means of harmonization processes. As Noam Chomsky and others have pointed out, the American Constitution over-emphasizes property rights in comparison to personal rights and social justice. Whereas the Bill of Rights merely promises 'no harm' as regards civil liberties, the Constitution overall includes much more active provisions when it comes to guaranteeing the rights of property. In a society which has does not restrict its cultural values to greed and wealth accumulation, we can expect that property rights might in some cases need to compromise with other considerations. In particular, the enforceability of contracts may need to be limited in certain circumstances. To be more specific, we cannot let contracts among business entities undermine local sovereignty. To some extent our latest provision addresses this issue with the phrase, "liens and mortgages against such enterprises are limited to residents of the stakeholder communities and the communities themselves". As regards contracts, suppose that our local factory fails to deliver on a contract, and a significant economic penalty has been agreed to. If the factory enterprise cannot afford to cover the penalty, then I suggest the stakeholders need to have the freedom to either meet the obligation or defer it. This can be seen as a kind of bankruptcy protection, but one generous to the debtor. Admittedly, the hypothetical purchaser under the contract may suffer unfair economic hardship, particularly if advance payments have been made -- but strict enforcement might compromise local sovereignty and economic viability. If a community is forced to devote a fraction of its productivity to repaying an external debt, that is tantamount to a mortgage on the community, and would be contrary to Provision 4 (Local ownership). This situation is not really as troublesome as it might at first appear. It does not mean that business relationships would be unstable and unpredictable. What it does mean is that reliability and reputation would be a strong element in business relationships. Relationships among vendors and buyers would tend to be oriented around trust bonds, and in the long run this would be more stabilizing than a punitive system of contract enforcement. And if an enterprise did stumble, it would be in everyone's best long-term interest to allow that entity to reorganize itself and become again a contributor to the regional economy and an employer. Or if the enterprise is not worth continuing, then the communities' sovereignty over their real property should not be compromised. They should have the right to recycle the facilities and equipment to the benefit of the stakeholders. In light of these considerations, permit me to amend Provision 4 as follows: Provision 4 (Local ownership, amended): All real property in a community -- land, structures, and natural resources -- are to remain under the exclusive control and ownership of residents of that community, of associations of such residents, or of the community as a whole, subject to compliance with the other provisions of this charter. No mortgage or lien is valid or enforceable against any real property in a community by any non-resident person or entity. The repayment of debts and other obligations, owed by a community or resident to an external person or entity, cannot be enforced without the agreement of the debtor community, as per Provision 2 (Harmonization) and Provision 3 (Local sovereignty). * The management of the global commons In this final section of the current chapter, I will dispense with proposing further charter provisions. I've probably gone overboard as it is with my amateur legalese, but that seemed like the clearest way to summarize and refer to the desired system constraints. What I'll try to do here is explore how we might democratically handle our global-scale problems, efficiently and effectively. As an example, let's consider the management of the high seas. To begin with, there is the question of territorial waters, which presumably would require language in Provision 1 (Communities). Local stewardship of coastal waters, within some kind of specified boundaries, makes economic and ecological sense by the same arguments offered earlier regarding local sovereignty generally. Coastal communities would be motivated by self-interest to wisely manage their fishing stocks and other marine resources, and they would be bound by our sustainability provisions. Coastal communities would have primary responsibility for ensuring adequate safety facilities (foghorns, rescue craft, or whatever) in support of coastal shipping, just as they would need to provide safe passage for land traffic and visitors. Neighboring coastal communities, and economically-involved non-coastal communities would naturally collaborate in establishing entities, as per Provision 11 (Collective entities), to provide things like ports and warehousing, harbor-master services, rescue helicopters, patrol craft, etc. Local control of territorial waters can be expected to work out satisfactorily, with considerable variety in local usage patterns. For the high seas we need a more systematic approach. We need to set sensible global policies in order to help restore fishing stocks to acceptable levels of viability and productivity. We need to have sound policies which seek to maximize overall marine productivity, within the constraints of sustainability and ecological integrity. If we harvest too much, we reduce net productivity. If we harvest too little, we are contributing unnecessarily to world hunger and adding stress to land-based food production. I don't believe this kind of policy-making would be particularly problematic. At the level of basic policy guidelines, and the specification of goals and objectives, this would be the responsibility of a global council devoted to that purpose, as per Provision 8 (Councils). A team could be assembled by such a council, with appropriate scientific and citizen representation, to draw up more detailed policies, for review, modification, and eventual amendment and endorsement by a subsequent global council. As regards compliance-monitoring, policing, satellite tracking of shipping traffic, rescue services, and other such operational issues, I suggest that we would want to establish various co-operating but separate agencies to deal with various tasks, as per Provision 11 (Collective entities). These agencies would be special in that their "stakeholder communities" would include the whole global society. Clearly, every stakeholder could not be directly represented on the board of such an agency. Care would need to be taken to ensure that every class of stakeholder is represented, and that rotation be used to diversify participation over time. And it goes without saying, under our charter, that the performance of such agencies remains always under the scrutiny of all affected communities and enterprises. If an agency's performance is inadequate, or if the agency starts getting carried away with its own importance, councils can be assembled at whatever level is appropriate, and the problems can be addressed. Presumably our local-militia concept can be extended to maintaining order and preventing piracy or aggression on the high seas. Earlier I estimated there would be about 550 regional councils. Perhaps each region could be responsible for providing and supporting one armed vessel, with an emphasis on defensive armaments, to participate in a co-operative global navy. Under normal circumstances, the assignments of these vessels would be coordinated by one of our high-seas agencies, something like a 'high seas safety agency'. The vessels would carry out routine patrols, be available to deal with rescues or emergencies, and participate in the monitoring processes, such as measuring fish stocks or inspecting cargoes. If any kind of aggressor scenario arises, either on the high seas or in a coastal area where our vessels might be needed for support, then I suggest that we stick with the principles of Provision 9 (Militias). Our 'high seas safety agency' would be available as a collective resource, and a communication switchboard, but it would not become the Lord Admiralty of a Global Naval Force. When it comes to anything like a combat scenario, each vessel remains under the democratic control of the region which provided the ship and the crew. Collaboration in the face of aggression would be determined by each crew and its home region, based on their interpretation of the alleged aggressive events. But there is no reason to expect that the vessels in the region of a genuine rogue would fail to respond when needed. They would expect the same support from their naval colleagues if their own home port or their own shipping were under some kind of attack. By maintaining the autonomy of individual vessels, we guard against a 'high seas safety agency' which might seek unilaterally to mask an aggressive invasion under the rhetoric of 'restoring order'. Once again, we want to avoid centralized military commands and the possibility of coups by power-seeking individuals or cliques. * System review In the Introduction to this chapter I put forward these 'enabling qualities' for our new society: - genuinely democratic - peaceful - stable - economically efficient - sustainable - can deal effectively with issues at all levels up to the global Throughout the chapter I have indicated how the each of the proposed charter provisions can be expected to contribute to the realization of these qualities. We've looked at a few representative scenarios dealing with issues that might arise at each level, from local to the global, and we've found, I hope you will agree, plausible approaches to dealing with those issues -- approaches which are viable within the context of the identified provisions, and which are supportive of our enabling qualities. As in the previous chapter, I am not attempting to offer a comprehensive final recipe. Just as that chapter endeavored to show a satellite photo of a promising pass through the mountains, so this chapter has endeavored to show a satellite map of a plausible democratic global system. Again, the map is not the territory, and the real terrain will surely bring surprises. My hope in preparing this early set of proposals is to encourage us to take a broad view of the solutions available to us, and to encourage us to keep always in mind the whole-system dynamics we would set in motion by our adopted global charter. Harmonization in the microcosm shows us that there is inherent wisdom latent within every group of people. We the People as an awakened macrocosm can be expected to exhibit a level of collective wisdom that will raise the human species to the next level of self-aware evolution. In our final chapter we will explore some of the cultural implications of a truly democartic society. At the outset, I believe we will have the wisdom to adopt a sensible global charter, one much better I'm sure than my own amateur proposals. _________________________________________________ CHAPTER 8: THE LIBERATION OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS * Cultures and conditioning Animals are born with most of their behavior patterns already hard-wired in. Humans on the other hand learn their behavior patterns and beliefs -- their culture -- from their society. We are born with a programmable culture-unit rather than a pre-programmed behavior-unit. Psychologists recognize a measurable programmability-factor in humans which is most pronounced in infancy, declines gradually, and which falls off sharply after about age 13. This is why we have the phrase 'impressionable youth'. If a child is taught that Apollo carries the sun across the sky each day in a chariot, that will be accepted as unquestioned, literal truth -- as would be the tenets of any other religion. The adult can't say why he believes these myths, he simply 'knows they are true'. The unquestioned faith of the adult is the frozen programming of the child. The conversion of a pre-wired behavior-unit into a programmable culture-unit was one of our most important and unique evolutionary developments. It facilitated the emergence of early humans from the forest to pursue a wide variety of available niches. The rate of our cultural evolution could be measured in centuries or even generations -- rather than millennia. We soon left the other species behind like so many frozen statues in a pastoral tableau. Lions are still doing exactly what they were doing before humans came along. Meanwhile, we've gone on to build civilizations and create cultures appropriate to them. In our early days as Homo sapiens, each band or tribe gradually evolved its own culture, adopting a world view that supported the perceived requirements of its economic milieu. The culture grew out of the relationship of the tribe with its natural environment. These cultures were holistic, in that economics, skills, stories, songs, maturation rites, male and female roles, beliefs, cosmology, morals -- all of these things and more -- were of a whole fabric. Cultures were typically unique to each tribal group and remarkably stable over time, often including a mechanism for reliably passing on historical tradition orally. The stability of early cultures was largely due to the fact that children are programmable and that adults tend to rigidly retain the programming. People learn their cultures, and the meaning of the world, as youth -- and then as adults they simply see what they were told as being 'truth'. As a consequence, they pass on the same 'truth' to their children in turn. If children were more critical of what they were told, or if adults were more open to learning new truths, then cultures would be less stable over time. This combination of youthful programmability and adult rigidity was perhaps necessary for our early survival. But after civilization came along these traits became a primary means of subjugating populations. They became the basis of hierarchical religion and of social conditioning. Anthropologists tell us that the first hierarchical societies were chiefdoms. These early chiefs claimed to be gods -- and were treated as such by their subjects. The children of the tribe were taught that the chief was a god, they took it as 'truth', and as adults their obedience was assured. Chiefs could use force to command allegiance, but their need to use force was greatly reduced by their status as divinities. To disobey or oppose the chief was not only a crime punishable by death, but a sacrilege as well. As long as each new generation was conditioned to this system of myths, then the chief and his heirs were able to maintain their ruling positions with minimum need for force. Thus from the very beginning of hierarchical societies, myths and conditioning have been used as tools of subjugation. As civilization has evolved, the means of conditioning the masses have become gradually more sophisticated. The basic challenge for regimes is to instill a fundamental world view that supports the continuance of the ruling regime. Once the world view is successfully installed, then the context of subjugation has been established. For most of the past 2,000 years, strong religious institutions, and strong social conditioning about faith and belief, have served as the primary means of inculcating a world view that would accept hierarchy, suffering, and political impotence as normal states of being. "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's...", and so forth. This has been a rather stable conditioning system over these two thousand years, with occasional readjustments in response to political and economic developments, such as the Protestant Revolution which facilitated the emergence of nationalism. * Liberalism: today's mythology The Enlightenment (c. 1800) brought what was perhaps the greatest transformation in mythology since the first hierarchical societies. Discoveries in science were challenging the traditional religious mythologies, and the rising merchant class felt stifled by the hierarchies of aristocracy and the church. The result was a gradual transformation of Western societies from kingdoms to republics, beginning with the American and French Revolutions. Although religious doctrines have continued to play an important role, republicanism introduced a new dominant mythology: liberalism. From my American Heritage dictionary: liberal. 2. Having, expressing, or following views or policies that favor the freedom of individuals to act or express themselves in a manner of their own choosing. In this original sense of the word, liberalism included everyone who was opposed to absolute monarchy. While in current American usage 'liberal' refers to someone on the left half of the political spectrum, in its original sense 'liberal' would include nearly everyone in the modern world. We can see the vestige of this sense of the word in the term 'neoliberal', which is a right-wing agenda. There are two primary liberal myths. The first myth is that the individual is the sovereign unit in society, and the second myth is that the will of the sovereign individual can find expression through electoral representation. Neither of these myths makes any more sense, nor has any more evidence to support it, than the belief that Apollo carries the sun across the sky in a chariot. The myth of individual sovereignty is very appealing because we as individuals like the idea of being autonomous and sovereign. The myth appeals particularly to the juvenile urge that arises in the youth of all societies to rebel against the established order. Children have always messed about a bit, working out their selfish, not-yet-socialized urges. In large measure, the liberal cult of individualism is a case of cultural neoteny -- the retention of a juvenile tendency in the adults of our society. We are encouraged to compete as selfish individuals, to make our individual way in the world, to struggle one against another. This, we are taught, is 'freedom'. Appealing as the idea of individual sovereignty might superficially appear to be, it suffers from the fact that it does not and could never exist in reality. Except for the rare isolated hermit, people have always lived, and always will live, within ordered societies. Societies have always had rules which must be followed, and punishments for rule breakers. Individuals have always had to conform to those rules, whether they be 'god given' or passed by legislatures. Most people don't even question the rules, but conform readily to them so as to make their lives go more smoothly. In fact, sovereignty is about making the rules, not following them. In the early days of civilization it was the kings that made the rules, and they were known as 'sovereigns'. Today it is legislatures that make the rules -- remote bureaucracies made up of corrupt power seekers, party hacks, and corporate proxies. Setting aside globalization and the WTO for the moment, the nation state is the unit of sovereignty in our modern world -- not the individual. The individual is compelled to obey the laws, to seek his or her fortune within the constraints laid down by elites, and can typically be coerced into going off and risking his or her life in imperialist wars. This is not sovereignty, this is slavery. We won't be sovereign, as individuals or in any other way, until we make the rules ourselves. This brings us to the second myth of liberalism: that democracy is achievable by means of competitive politics and elected representatives. The fact that history shows us no example of this myth being realized should raise doubt in the liberal, in the same way that the fossil record should raise doubt in those who believe literally in the biblical creation myth. In neither case, however, do the facts seem to dispel the myth that was implanted during the programmable years. No less should doubt be raised in the liberal by the actual performance of today's so-called democracies. In no way could anyone characterize the policies of our modern societies as being an expression of democratic will. Indeed, those who support the governments most loyally seem to have the least understanding of what those governments are actually up to. Accurate information is not made available to the masses, and their opinion is not requested when policies are being made... how could they possibly, through representation or not, be the source of actual social policy? How can an X in a box possibly convey the complex will of an allegedly sovereign human being? The idea is preposterous, as preposterous as any primitive superstition. * There is hope for the liberal Fortunately, there is hope for those who have been programmed into the cult of liberalism. There are effective deprogramming tools available. The harmonization process is one such tool. In the experience of a facilitated face-to-face gathering of diverse people, the recovering liberal can learn two liberating lessons at the same time. The first lesson has to do with the relationship of the individual to the group. When people learn to let down the defensive shell of personal prejudices, and allow themselves to enter a shared mental space, an exciting synergy emerges -- a collective wisdom that is much greater than the sum of the individual wisdoms. The individual is not submerged by this process, rather the individual is awakened and empowered by being really listened to. The experience is one of heightened personal power, enabled by ceasing to view power as a matter of dominance, but seeing it instead as a measure of our ability to achieve our goals -- an ability that is enhanced profoundly by seeking solutions in open and trusting cooperation with others. The recovering liberal learns from this lesson that the solitary individual is under-qualified to act as a sovereign social unit. We need the synergy of a larger group, or community, in order to have a context in which our own will can find expression and effective realization. In short: the group empowers the individual; the solitary individual is politically impotent and, relatively speaking, creatively impoverished. The second lesson has to do with the relationship of the individual to governance. The heart of this lesson is that ordinary people are competent to govern themselves. Our societies generally, and hence our socialization processes, give us only the models of collaborative and adversarial dynamics (as described in "Harmonization and the microcosm") for use in our interactions. As solitary individuals using these deficient processes we 'learn' that ordinary people aren't very effective in solving difficult problems together, or on reaching agreement on divisive issues. This conditioned learning reinforces the myth that we can only find effective political expression through representation, and by trusting in the professional hierarchy. In a harmonization session, the recovering liberal learns that ordinary people can work profoundly well together -- when they learn to engage in dynamics that enable their collective wisdom to emerge. The full meaning of this second lesson is not necessarily taken in all at once. At first it may be only a glimmer of a realization, in the context of a small group. But after even a single session, the programmed belief in the necessity of hierarchy can no longer be entirely sacrosanct. The wedge of liberation from hierarchy has been put in place. Further experience with harmonization can only drive the wedge forward, leading eventually to the realization that genuine grassroots participatory democracy is possible. In the end, the recovered liberal finds that his programmed beliefs were a subtle distortion of a larger truth. Yes the individual is the primary source of sovereign will in a democracy -- but that will can only find effective expression in a larger, cooperative political unit. And yes, political sovereignty should begin down at the grassroots of a democracy -- but the solitary individual is not quite viable as a foundation for that sovereignty. From the perspective of this larger truth, the natural synergy between localism and democracy begins to become apparent. It is in the local community that the sovereign individual can effectively participate, and it is the local community which is viable as the sovereign political unit at the grassroots of a democratic society. Thus the spreading of a culture of harmonization has two aspects. On the one hand it is a deprogramming campaign, aimed at the liberation of liberals of the left and right (victims our dominant subjugating mythology). On the other hand it is a positive movement aimed at establishing a culture suitable to a democratic society. Unlike every other culture which has characterized civilization, a culture of harmonization is not supportive of hierarchy. In that sense, it is the most revolutionary cultural development to come along since civilization itself. But there is even more to it than that. * Cultural evolution in a democracy Earlier I suggested that the emergence of a programmable culture-unit was a major step forward for humanity's cultural evolution. With that genetic innovation, Homo sapiens was able to evolve its cultures in drastically shorter time frames than can be accomplished by biological evolution. Our consequent ability to expand into new niches soon outstripped that of our competitor species. And yet, as I also pointed out, early cultural evolution was strongly limited by the automatic passing down of cultures from generation to generation, with change minimized. This stabilizing aspect of early cultural evolution was suitable to early societies, where changes in basic circumstances occurred relatively rarely. Early societies were strongly conservative, and rightly so. Our modern societies, particularly when undergoing a process of radical transformation, are much more dynamic affairs than those of early Homo sapiens. An even more rapid means of cultural evolution would be suitable for us. Locally-based democracy provides a suitable vehicle for that more rapid evolution. A democratic community can transform its culture simply by dialoging and adopting changes. Our programmable culture-unit moved the scale of cultural evolution from the realm of genetic changes into the realm of behavioral adaptation. Democracy accelerates the scale of cultural evolution further on into the realm of conscious cognition. As I've mentioned before, we can surely expect a global cultural renaissance. Early societies needed myths as an effective means of passing on successful cultural adaptations. Hierarchical societies needed myths in order to subjugate the people. A democratic society has no need of myths. People can believe in myths if they want to, that's their sovereign right, but the maintenance of a democratic society does not depend on everyone subscribing to any particular myth. This lack of enabling mythology is in fact the most revolutionary aspect of this particular cultural transformation. Not only are we going back to before civilization began (by abandoning hierarchy), but we are abandoning something that primates have always had: a rigid, inherited culture. Early Homo sapiens inherited his culture through conditioning, rather than genes, but it was inherited nonetheless, and it was typically rigid and only very slowly changing. For the first time ever, humanity will be free to define its own destiny, unencumbered by systematically conditioned false beliefs and superstitions. This 'defining our own destiny rationally' was part of the original Enlightenment vision, but it was in that case betrayed. To the elites who ran republican societies, keeping the people under control was the most important priority. Desirable cultural evolution under elites has been systematically minimized, being forced only by effective grassroots activism, or occurring fortuitously as a result of elite agendas. Meanwhile undesirable cultural evolution, as we've seen under neoliberalism, has been initiated whenever such has been required to enable further capitalist growth. As we launch into transforming our societies, free at last from elites and conditioned myths, we will most likely experience an initial, explosive 'speciation' of new cultures. This does not mean, however, that our democratic cultures will be plastic affairs, changing with every season and fashion. What it does mean is that our cultures will be free to co-evolve along with the economic, infrastructure, life-style, and other decisions we make as we transform our societies. In fact, we can expect our cultures to tend to stabilize over time due to the constraints of sustainability. Sustainability and stability go hand in hand. Sustainable agriculture, for example, tends to involve rotating through those crops which are most suitable for the local soil and climate. Hence one might expect regular cycles of agricultural activity to develop. Sustainable businesses would want to have markets and suppliers whose demands and productivity are relatively stable over time. Hence we might see a stabilization of business enterprises, perhaps somewhat akin to the medieval guild system, but guided by democratic principles. We also have reason to expect that our cultures will become more holistic, as were early human cultures. When our cultures are free to evolve, instead of being constrained by relatively rigid myths, the various aspects of our cultures are likely to converge toward some kind of mutual consistency. As we universally adopt sustainable practices, for example, we are likely to regain respect for nature at a spiritual level, as was characteristic of early human cultures. And as we become accustomed to using harmonization in our political affairs, we are likely to develop a more cooperative and loving ethic toward our fellow humans generally. As regards respect for nature in early cultures, it is true that exceptions can be found when tribes migrated to new territories. They often opportunistically exterminated vulnerable food species. But eventually equilibrium would be reached and respect for nature would become part of the culture. We can view industrialization as such a 'new territory', leading to the opportunistic decimation of nature. When we leave those exploitive practices behind us, as did early societies when the vulnerable species disappeared, we too can expect our world view to come into alignment with our new economic practices. * Democracy and personal liberation While liberalism promises personal liberty, it is under genuine democracy that we will experience personal liberty for the first time. Actually participating in the conditions that affect our lives will be not only politically liberating, but psychologically liberating as well. We have been in a dark prison for millennia, and emerging into the daylight of freedom will liberate our spirits in more ways than we can imagine. Like the lion in "Born Free", we will be able to discover our true natures as free beings. One of the things we will discover, in a society that is governed for the benefit of the people, is that we have been working entirely too hard. It is not our needs that force us to work ten hours a day or more, but rather the needs of capitalism. The scarcity that we experience in our lives is an artificial scarcity, required so that elites can extract astronomical profits from our labor. Indeed, a major problem for capitalism has been the 'excess production' enabled by industrial methods. If applied sensibly, modern technology can produce whatever artifacts we need with a small fraction of the effort currently devoted to 'work'. In a democratic society based on local sovereignty and ownership, we will find that we have lots of free time on our hands. Free time plus a liberated spirit is a formula for unleashing creativity. Not only will we experience a renaissance of creativity at the level of our societies, but art, poetry, music, science and all manner of personal creativity will be enabled as well. In our societies today, it is very difficult to be an artist. You must have a special talent and dedication in order to make a living by art in a society which does not assign much economic value to art. And if you want to pursue scientific inquiry, your are restricted to what will be funded by establishment institutions. When we don't need to spend most of our waking hours working to support elite's mega-wealth, then we will find there are artists and poets all around us. Indeed, some indigenous societies today do not have a special word for 'artist' or 'musician'. They understood that everyone has such talents. And when scientific inquiry can be pursued free of elite agendas, who knows what breakthroughs might be possible? Instead of being constrained by the needs of corporate profit making, our only scientific constraints will be those imposed by our democratic will. Rather than most of our research going toward developing weaponry and frivolous consumer products, our research can be guided by the needs of society and the pursuit of understanding. Many social visionaries today believe that 'personal transformation' on a massive scale is necessary before social transformation can be achieved. I suggest that this is a disempowering myth, a means of subjugation just like our other myths. It inhibits us from pursuing social transformation and it blames us, the victims, for a society that has in fact been fashioned by elites for their own benefit. This 'necessity of personal transformation' myth can be seen as a vestige of the myth of 'original sin'. The myth fails to recognize that the deficiencies in our current level of personal consciousness are due not to our inherent natures, but are largely the result of systematic conditioning. If the conditioning is removed, the path to personal transformation will be a far easier one. The conditioning can be removed by appropriate social transformation. If we put the cart before the horse (personal before social transformation), we are prevented from moving forward. The teachings of Buddha and Christ have been known for thousands of years, and yet massive personal transformation has not yet occurred. But as with all myths, this kind of obvious evidence seems to go unnoticed by those who subscribe to the myth. * Education in a democratic society In our current societies, the primary role of 'education' is to fill the youth with disempowering myths and condition them to the practical requirements of a regimented society. Indeed, general public 'education' was not established until industrialism came along, requiring a literate work force who could understand and obey complex instructions. Before that, illiteracy had served as one more mechanism to subjugate the masses. In a democratic society, we can restore 'education' to the original meaning of the word. The word comes from 'educe', which means to "bring out or develop something latent or potential" (New Oxford Dictionary of English). Instead of force-feeding children myths and 'useful facts', we can seek to 'bring out' their innate wisdom and allow their learning to be guided by their innate curiosity. There have been educational pioneers who have applied such educational methods in today's societies, and the results have been remarkable. When children are programmed with myths, then as adults they are constrained by those myths. To the extent children are liberated from myths, they as adults will be that much closer to personal and psychological liberation. The full flowering of our new democratic societies will be realized by future generations, who have been freed in this way during their formative years of learning. We will envy them and, as I suggested earlier, we can only dimly imagine the personal and cultural renaissance that is likely to occur. At the same time, we must respect the right of families to raise their children according to their own family values, even if some of us consider those values to be based on unfortunate myths. For us to instill in children atheistic beliefs, for example, would be manipulative programming -- just as much as if we instill in them religious mythology. My own bias against religion has been clear from this material, but I would not impose that bias on others. I have faith that in a liberated, democratic society, a balance will be reached between those with religious convictions and those who lack or even scorn them. This too was part of the original Enlightenment vision, and this too was betrayed by elites who found that in secular 'democracies' religion could be exploited as a tool to divide and subjugate the masses. We can take hope from the experience of the Michigan gathering (in "Harmonization in the microcosm"), where by the process of harmonization, religious fundamentalists and outspoken liberals (in the leftist sense) were able to find common ground. ________________________________________________________ -- ============================================================ If you find this material useful, you might want to check out our website (http://cyberjournal.org) or try out our low-traffic, moderated email list by sending a message to: •••@••.••• You are encouraged to forward any material from the lists or the website, provided it is for non-commercial use and you include the source and this disclaimer. Richard Moore (rkm) Wexford, Ireland "Global Transformation: Whey We Need It And How We Can Achieve It", current draft: http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/rkmGlblTrans.html _____________________________ "...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the suspension of the Weimar constitution followed the Reichstag fire." - Srdja Trifkovic There is not a problem with the system. The system is the problem. Faith in ourselves - not gods, ideologies, leaders, or programs. _____________________________ "Zen of Global Transformation" home page: http://www.QuayLargo.com/Transformation/ QuayLargo discussion forum: http://www.QuayLargo.com/Transformation/ShowChat/?ScreenName=ShowThreads cj list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=cj newslog list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=newslog _____________________________ Informative links: http://www.indymedia.org/ http://www.globalresearch.ca/ http://www.MiddleEast.org http://www.rachel.org http://www.truthout.org http://www.williambowles.info/monthly_index/ http://www.zmag.org http://www.co-intelligence.org ============================================================