Friends, My off-list discussions have been continuing with several folks on the topic of social transformation. Most of these people seem to agree that the key to social transformation is a change in paradigms / world views. I've pressed people to explain how they imagine a change in paradigm would actually lead to a change in society. Out of these exchanges, I've noticed a common vision, a kind of emerging consensus, a shared scenario of social change. I'll take a stab at trying to articulate that scenario, synthesized from the various discussions... The Gaian Transformation Scenario ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ _________________________________________ Our society operates the way it does because most of us have been conditioned to believe in the "dominator paradigm". That belief is what keeps society going down its current path. If people generally were to discard this paradigm, and adopt a cooperative paradigm, then society would transform, more or less automatically. The paradigm that the world needs now is centered around nature and cooperation. Some call it "Partnership Society", others call it "Gaian Consciousness", and there are other names. If this particular paradigm is embraced by the masses, then we will move into an enlightened new age. Eisler's "Chalice and the Blade" is one excellent expression of this paradigm. As people begin to change consciousness, they will naturally begin to join with others in various ways to seek ways to realize their vision. A civil society will develop... "...a civil governance of networks of local associations, communities of correspondence, clubs, and other communities. Anyone could be a member of many and have many lines of communication to their representatives." (B. Ellis) When the numbers get big enough, the political apparatus will be forced to respond. That will only encourage the emerging civil society all the more. As it grows stronger and its vision begins to take form, it will become the de facto policy setting mechanism. Government would become what it was always supposed to be -- an agency that implements the popular will. People, acting from their new consciousness, will holographically transform society even while our institutional forms remain more or less what we have today. Those institutions, transformed from within, will then function to our benefit instead of our detriment. They will become bottom-up responsive rather than top-down controlling. It is not necessary for us to design new institutional systems because consciousness is the important thing, not form. Besides, no one can predict how systems will behave. Adam Smith thought free markets would benefit society, and look what capitalism has done to us! The Constitution charted out a plan for democracy, and yet we end up with a corporate-dominated society. What's the point in designing new systems? Chaos undermines them all. Put our faith in consciousness! _________________________________________ I find this very interesting. It charts the whole course -- from where we are now, through a process of social transformation, leading to a rough description of how things will operate in the new world. I think it's very empowering to envision such a scenario. If you're heading out on a trek, you always want to know that the trail does lead all the way to the next village. You don't want to get stranded in some forlorn wasteland. When you've got a destination, and a clear idea of how to get there, then the journey can begin in earnest. Furthermore, I think it is fair to say that the Gain paradigm is an idea whose time has come. It's a shame it has taken us so long to realize this. Now that the Earth is on the brink of extinction, we can't put it off any longer. Either we learn to live in harmony with nature -- and quickly -- or we die as a civilized species. Society must be transformed, and transformation begins when people start envisioning the new society, when they begin changing their paradigm. I think the scenario has got many of the pieces right, as well as having the virtue of completeness. Nonetheless, I think there are fundamental problems with the scenario. I'd like to offer a critique ... not in an effort to prove the scenario "wrong", but in order to help refine it. I hope the various champions of that vision will take these comments as a constructive contribution. Systems & chaos ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The first point I would like to make is that systems do matter. Systems have inherent dynamics, and those dynamics drive events in certain directions. I believe the Gaian scenario (as I've characterized it) underestimates the role of social systems, as realized in institutional structures, and it misunderstands the relationship between chaos and system dynamics. This may sound abstract and theoretical, but it turns out to be important -- and I hope I'll be able to make clear what I'm talking about. Let's take the case of Adam Smith, free markets, and capitalism. It is easy to assume, as in the scenario, that capitalism proves that Smith was wrong. He had a system on paper, and in the real world it didn't work out. In the real world, chaos dominates systems theory and you can never predict what's going to happen. It's easy to assume these things, but only if you don't understand what Smith was talking about. In fact, Smith's model of market economics has stood the test of time. Wherever you have open markets, with small buyers and sellers who cannot individually control the market price, then we find productive economic exchange as Smith argued. Smith's "invisible hand" represents an insight about how chaos works within a system. All the little butterflies (buyers and sellers), each pursuing their own self interest, are guided by the system dynamics of the market so as to achieve mutual benefit. Chaos does not contradict system dynamics, it is part of its functioning. The failures of capitalism serve to underscore the validity of Smith's analysis. Smith argued that constraints were necessary if the market were to benefit society. Capitalism abandons all those constraints, and that's why it is not socially beneficial. Capitalism is not a case of Smith's system being perturbed by chaos. It is a case of adopting Smith's rhetoric while abandoning his system. Next, let's consider the case of the US Constitution. Again, it is easy to assume that the Constitution failed. It was the best that people could do at the time to design a democratic system, but in the real world chaos (ie. corruption) took over and the system didn't work out as planned. But again, such assumptions arise from a misunderstanding of what the Constitutional system is about. In fact, the Constitution has achieved precisely the results intended by its authors. The authors -- a self-appointed elite clique who wrote in secret sessions -- intended for the Constitution to enable elite rule, while superficially appearing to describe a democratic process. Their design has fulfilled its purposes for over two centuries despite all chaotic perturbations (ie. attempts from below to achieve actual democracy). Systems do matter, and there is much we can learn by understanding the dynamics of the systems around us. If we don't take these lessons on board, we put at risk any kind of transformation we might be able to achieve. As they say, if you don't pay attention to history you may be destined to repeat it. The dynamics of interest-group politics ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "...a civil governance of networks of local associations, communities of correspondence, clubs, and other communities. Anyone could be a member of many and have many lines of communication to their representatives." (Bill Ellis) This is an appealing vision, showing an earnest effort to imagine something better than our current un-representative party system. I offer encouragement to anyone who makes the effort to think these kind of ideas through. I see problems with this vision as it is formulated above, but I think it can be refined slightly into something that is equally appealing -- but which has more appropriate system dynamics. I hope Bill and others will find some value in this analysis. The problem with the stated vision, as I see it, is that it amounts to precisely the same system we already have. De Toqueville wrote about it. America, not uniquely, has always been characterized by associations and special-interest groups all seeking to influence public policy. Politicians do indeed take their inputs from this 'civil society network'. In the case of environmental reform, the Sierra Club et al were civil-society elements that played a role. But not all special-interest groups have the same amount of influence. In fact, one particular special- interest group, the corporate elite, dominates the influence of all others. A civil-society network can be in effect without democracy being the result. There might be many explanations for this state of affairs in our current society. Perhaps the civil-society network would become democratic if everyone switched to the Gaian paradigm. But I doubt it. Let's examine the inherent dynamics of interest-group politics. I believe this characterization has some validity --it can be seen in every case of a "democratic society" that I know of... Those special interest groups with the best lobbying skills tend to gain more from the political process. As one constituency gains from the political process, other constituencies band together to better lobby for their interests. The inherent dynamics lead to competing factions, coalitions, and political parties. Soon power brokers arise who are skilled at manipulating one constituency against another. Political and economic elites are then able to manage the power brokers and we end up back in a society dominated by elites who are pursuing their own narrow self-interests. The civil society process might start out just fine when everyone is all fired up with the same spirit of Gaian cooperation. But over time, the "lobbying reward" would tend to push society back into the competitive, dominator paradigm. Perhaps this could be avoided, but I think it's important to recognize that the dynamics of interest-group politics are not in alignment with a cooperative social paradigm. Can we do better? I think we can... The dynamics of locality-based politics ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ If we want a society that functions according to the principles of sustainability and democratic cooperation, then we need to create political systems that do not reward factional competition and thus lead to the centralization of power. Instead we need political systems that are in harmony with our social and ecological paradigms. Many of those who have been studying these kinds of problems from the perspective of sustainability have come to the conclusion that sustainable economics needs to be based on the local -- beginning with the community, then extending to the bioregion and so on. I believe this focus on the local also makes sense for politics. If democratic cooperation can be achieved at the local level, then we may be able to extend that holographically to the whole society, and even the globe. If economics and politics are both based locally, then the locality has both the means and the power to manage itself as a sustainable, democratic, evolving system. Different communities might have quite different systems, depending on what natural resources are available and the preferences of the inhabitants. Some communities might strive for self-sufficiency, others might specialize and survive from trade, and most would probably employ a mixed strategy. A global marketplace based on trade among localities could be expected to be guided by Adam Smith's invisible hand, with self-interest of the localities leading to global economic benefit. That is a quite different kind of global marketplace than one dominated by gigantic transnational corporations and their elite boards of directors. Locally-based politics has very different dynamics than does interest-group politics. Interest-group politics, for example, presumes there is a centralized authority that needs to be influenced. Already power has been removed from the locality before the game even begins. And then, as I argued above, the dynamics of influence-seeking pushes us back toward a dominator-based society. In locally-based politics, the dynamics begin with the achievement of local consensus about how to manage the community's affairs. Different constituencies in the community will naturally argue for their own interests, and the job of consensus is to resolve those differences and come up with an agenda for the community that all residents support. There are a number of specific processes, Dynamic Facilitation being one, which are able to achieve that kind of consensus with a reasonable degree of reliability. We have enough experience with consensus to have some confidence that productive consensus would be achievable in a community that controlled its own resources and economy. Porto Allegre, Brazil is a city-sized real-world example. Consensus works --and comes up with practical solutions -- when the participants have the power to implement the solutions they come up with and when those solutions are important to their lives. It doesn't necessarily work when the debates are about abstractions or when the participants have no power to change anything. The next stage of locally-based dynamics comes in the interaction between the communities in the next size societal unit, presumably something along the lines of a bioregion or watershed. The communities in such a region have a special bond that holds them together -- they depend on the same rivers, forests, and other resources in the region. They share a common interest in seeing that those resources are managed sustainably and shared equitably. They can do a better job at that management than can some distant government planner or corporate executive. They are closer to the problems and they more motivated to find solutions that preserve the resources and which benefit the local people (ie. themselves). As we trace the dynamics of locally-based politics outward to wider areas, the paradigms of sustainability and cooperation are nourished at every stage. Individual citizens find their best interest served by a coherent community agenda determined through a consensus process that listens to them and addresses their concerns. Communities find it in their self-interest to cooperate with the other communities in their region to achieve a wider consensus about shared regional concerns. Similarly, neighboring regions would find it in their best interests to cooperate in the same way on still wider-scale issues such as transport and communications networks. And so on to the global level, where democratic and sustainable nations would see their self-interest served by reaching consensus on global issues such as high seas commerce, fishing, and the management of scarce global resources. Putting this in context ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I hope these ideas are taken as a contribution to the Gain consciousness thinking. They are certainly offered in that way. Indeed, if we think it is a good idea to borrow models from evolution and biology, then I suggest local control is a very appropriate model to borrow. Biological systems are all locality-based. Species adapt to specific kinds of environments. A synergy co-evolves between an environment and its inhabitants. All the feedback loops are present in the one place and adaptation tends toward optimal and sustainable productivity. These are the system dynamics nature employs throughout the world, in all kinds kinds of environments and involving all sorts of species. best regards to all, rkm -- ============================================================ "...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. 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