---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 16:07:57 -0400 Subject: Re: dialog re/ Transformation From: Robert R. Holt <•••@••.•••> To: "Richard K. Moore" <•••@••.•••> Dear Richard, Thanks for your reply. It is clearer now where we differ. I agree on your goal of transforming society as a most worthy long-term goal. I also am, like you, a pragmatist, more interested in what works than in any theoretical purity. But we part company at your flat statement, "I dismiss the political-power route... because it is a strategy which has never worked and which cannot work." Of course it is trivially true that it has never "worked" if by that you mean that it has not brought about an ideal society; but can you deny that it has not worked in more modest pragmatic terms: improving the lot of many people for meaningful periods of time? ---<snip>--- ----------------------------------------- Dear Robert, Thanks for for your response. The topic is a deep one, and I certainly didn't present in that message any kind of complete argument. I'll share a few thought on what I consider some pivotal points, in the hope that might be useful to you. Reforms are always temporary ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ In Normal Times, people are relatively apathetic. Elites run the media and the major parties, and they select which candidates the people can choose between -- and which issues will be debated in the phony campaign. In such times, we live basically in an elite-run society. Our political system is designed to encourage this: your primary official duty as a citizen is limited to voting. Every once in a while, however, people get roused up, and strong reform movements arise. If the movement is strong enough, it succeeds in persuading / compelling legislative reforms in response to its demands. Such reforms are always a compromise. In some cases they don't even improve things at all, and in other cases they do -- temporarily. And there's the rub. When the reforms are granted, one thing the elite never compromise on is the structure of power relationships. People can get more pay, or medical care, or whatever, but they don't get their hands on any reins of power. When reforms occur, they are always GRANTED by the elite. GRANTING is prerogative of power. What happens then is that the movement fades away -- it got its reforms, or a reasonable facsimile. Normal Times return, and the reforms are gradually eroded away. We see this in spades with Bush. Not only are the gains of the sixties and seventies being undone, or rendered mute, but even the Consitution itself is being undone. As long as the basic mechanisms of power remain unchanged (the elite-managed political system), we can gain only temporary FAVORS. The White Knight Variation ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ In extreme cases, with very strong movements, they throw us a pseudo hero, a white knight. Perhaps the most familiar example is FDR. Such white knights are selected for their prestige, and they can easily sweep aside the genuine movement candidates. We saw this when RFK cynically entered the '68 primaries after McCarthy (more genuine in my opinion) had demonstrated the strength of the anti-war vote. Such white knights can talk the talk, and they can deliver reforms, but they will never alter the power structure. FDR boasted late in his career that his greatest single accomplishment was "saving capitalism". And we thought he was working for us! The political system fosters divisiveness ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Consider Hartmann's proposal: Hartmann > Marching in the streets is important work, but wouldn't we have greater success if we also took control of the United States government?... He is suggesting that one faction -- the progressives -- turn their movement into a voting block, become a majority, and run the country their way. Just like the conservatives did when they got Reagan and the Bushes in. This is exactly how the political system is designed to work -- it is an adversarial system. I consider this a fatal structural defect for two reasons. First, it leads to a divided society. There are those getting their way, and those who perceive they are getting screwed, and the groups change roles from time to time. People are thereby divided into enemy camps according to their values & perceived interests - left vs right, minorities vs. whites, farmers vs. city folk, etc. I don't think we can afford that kind of divisiveness any longer. We need to learn how to work together cooperatively and synergistically. Our political system is not compatible with that. The second defect has to do with the dynamics of competing power groups. When you have various pressure groups vying for influence, then power brokers always arise. People who are skilled at putting together deals, and trading favors. The kind of deals that get made are, "I'll vote for your measure if you'll vote for mine", or "I'll support your candidate if you'll agree to vote against such and such a proposal.". The deals are not about how to resolve difference on issues, but rather about trading influence and power. Instead of wise decisions, which reflect the interests of the various parties, we get one-sided decisions -- from the faction that got its way in exchange for some unrelated tradeoff. I don't believe a society can be run effectively with that kind of lawmaking apparatus. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 21:21:45 -0400 Subject: Re: the political-power route From: Robert R. Holt <•••@••.•••> To: "Richard K. Moore" <•••@••.•••> Dear Richard, OK, excellent! Now we are really talking. I'm with you up to, but not quite all the way to, the end. The final critical question is: How do we find the critical point of entry into the big problem of changing the nature of the system? From what you write, I get the impression--correct me if I'm wrong--that you have in mind the need to wait for a breakdown of the existing system so profound that there is an opportunity for truly fundamental restructuring. I guess that is good systems theory: to change the most basic social system, in which seemingly basic systems like our constitution are embedded, requires a really profound destabilization. ---<snip>--- I guess I have been assuming a more hopeful scenario: that, by working within the imperfect (even malign) hierarchical system we have and making use of the bit of democratic leeway provided us, by going Thom's route a new Roosevelt might be able to make a decisive move, steering the self-repairing process in a direction that will lead ultimately to real, good, reorganization. I'm writing this just after Tom Atlee's most recent posting, pushing Jim Rough's Dynamic Facilitation training. Have you read Jim's book, "Society's Breakthrough!" As I wrote him, I dislike the hype implied in that exclamation point. I also sent him a lot of pointed criticism about various aspects of that book, and got a very heartening response--non-defensive, thoughtful, open: he seems to be a rather wise man. So I am tempted to go to Washington and learn his technique; trouble is, I'm too old and not in great shape to be undertaking anything so grandiose. But maybe you should! Jim feels that the social invention he has stumbled on, about which Tom is so enthusiastic, has the potential for restructuring institutions of all kinds in precisely the way you and I want. His book tells about ways he has actually done it in relatively small systems. Dee Hock seems to have made a somewhat similar social invention in his chaordic approach ("Birth of the Chaordic Age"). At least, he succeeded in building one huge international organization of a nonhierarchical type (VISA ) which embodies a lot of the values we are striving for. I keep using the vague term 'we'; let me comment on it. Right here, I meant you and me, and sort of implying a larger group of like-minded folks. But above, when I am fantasying about supplying critical input to bring about fundamental systemic change, the referent is really vague. I seem to be hoping that a larger, inchoate mass of us who read you, and Tom Atlee, and Thom Hartmann, and Dee Hock, et al., may coalesce into enough of a social force to be able to do something meaningful. That raises the next question: how do all these good people assemble ourselves into a growing nucleus that embodies the very principles we want the larger society to adopt or evolve into? Do we need a charismatic leader? In a way, I hope not. What came to mind then was the leader of a failed effort at such a new society in Norman Rush's "Mating." Yet it is a real dilemma; I don't know of any successful social movement that managed to do without such a leader. Do you have thoughts about that? Mostly, what I am trying to nudge out of you is your specific ideas about how to proceed. Your web site and listserv seem to be part of a plan to build a movement; OK so far. What else? And what about the big question of what to do when the critical moment seems to have arrived? It's always stimulating to exchange ideas with you. Thanks! Bob ---------------------------------------- Dear Bob, I am pleased that you see us as "really talking". I know exactly what you mean. It doesn't mean agreement so much as it means finding someone you can 'get to the quick' with, a 'fellow traveller' perhaps. I will get back to the 'point of entry' question. > From what you write, I get the impression--correct me if I'm wrong--that you have in mind the need to wait for a breakdown of the existing system so profound that there is an opportunity for truly fundamental restructuring. I can see why you would suspect that, but that is not my thinking. First of all, I do not believe a breakdown is at all likely or even plausible. There might be depressions, famines, and all kinds of societal breakdown, but not a breakdown of command-and-control. Even if everyone else starves, the military will eat and have transport & communications. Such an environment would be repressive -- not conducive to promising new beginnings. And then if somehow there really were a chaotic breakdown, then I think that would be almost the worst possible environment in which to try to build a sensible new world. Mass starvation, disease, warlords, whatever. Hard to imagine, difficult to predict -- not something for which I'd want to wait and see how it turns out. No, I am very much in favor of doing what we can RIGHT NOW. Our opportunity-space is diminishing rapidly under Bush. > I guess I have been assuming a more hopeful scenario: that, by working within the imperfect (even malign) hierarchical system we have and making use of the bit of democratic leeway provided us, by going Thom's route a new Roosevelt might be able to make a decisive move, steering the self-repairing process in a direction that will lead ultimately to real, good, reorganization. Earlier I said, approximately: For the movement, the relevant question is not, "Can we work through the political system?", but rather, "Is the political system one of the things that needs to be fundamentally changed?" To that I would add this, as regards the Thom route: Before we know whether a good reorganization could provide what we want, we need to have some idea of what it is we want. My own investigations in this regard have been like peeling an onion. I keep finding more layers of what-we-have that need to be undone. Undone NOT in pursuit of a perfect society, but undone in order to have a livable society AT ALL. I suppose the first layer to go was CAPITALISM. It took me a while to understand what capitalism is really about, at its core. When I finally understood, it became clear that there can be no compromise with capitalism. It must be replaced totally by other arrangements. It is one of the absolute taboos, like slavery. One must understand of course that this does not necessarily imply socialism, as Korten makes clear with his 'market economy' discussion. Along with capitalism went GROWTH, its close companion. The idea of pursuing perpetual growth on a finite planet is pure insanity. It's like burning your furniture, and the walls of your house, in order to keep warm. Chossudovsky and others spell out the stupidity of today's ultra-growth, but we need only common sense to see that growth isn't any way to structure an ongoing economy -- if human beings matter to you. At this point a 'positive' became clear to me: SUSTAINABILITY is a necessity for a livable society. If we aren't sustainable, then we're merely postponing disaster onto our children's shoulders. It's not that Green Is Good, but that non-sustainable is simply another phrase for short-sighted & foolish. Once you accept sustainability as an imperative, then concepts like respect for ecosystems, energy-use reduction, and eliminating pollution become obvious necessities. Over time I came to discover another imperative: DECENTRALIZATION. One of the turning points for me was Leopold Kohr's, "The Breakdown of Nations". He focuses on the question of SCALE. Often overlooked. We tend to assume that if something works, then a bigger version would work even better. Kohr argues persuasively that scale itself changes the character of things in fundamental ways, and often larger is worse -- after a certain optimal point has been passed. This and insights from other sources have convinced me that we need to pursue an emphasis on the LOCAL, the COMMUNITY level, as the primary forum for societal problem solving and decision making. That's the only place where each of us can be heard, where we can each participate in solving our problems and setting priorities for our society. The other side of this coin is the fact that every large state always gives first priority to its own perpetuation. That is, after all, how it got to be a big state in the first place. I need to mention one more layer, and that is the COMPETITIVE PARADIGM. The over-simplified Darwinian idea of 'survival of the fittest'. I've come to see this as something that's been forced down our throats by conditioning from birth. It isn't the dominant feature of human nature at all. It's just one feature, one potential, that our society happens to nurture and extoll above all others. Early societies, and all of nature, abound in various modes of cooperation. Human nature is a more balanced thing than what we might infer from our rat-race societies. After looking at this from many perspectives, I've come to characterize the positive version of 'not competition-centered' in a certain way. I emphasize the word COLLABORATION. We don't need to agree, and we don't need to think the same way, but we do need to work together. This has nothing to do with communism. They who trade and barter are in fact collaborating in the efficient distribution of goods and services. It may look like competition on the small scale, but it need not be competition in the sense of the winner-take-all paradigm that haunts society today. (ref: Korten's 'market economy') --- This brings us back to the 'point of entry' question. We obviously need some kind of popular movement if society is going to be fundamentally restructured. It would be contrary to the nature of our governments and their leaders and all established elites for any of them to help with any of this. In their minds we are talking about Anarchy, Chaos, the Breakdown of Society -- and perhaps more important the loss of their privileged prerogatives as individuals and as institutions. The next question then becomes, "What kind of popular movement?". If our goal is to achieve a locally-based, decentralized society, which is sustainable, collaborative, and democratic, then I suggest the movement needs to have all those same qualities. I say this for both negative and positive reasons. Consider first a negative or two. If the movement has a centralized leadership, and it succeeds in gaining power, then we are left with a new hierarchy in charge. And if the movement is not democratic, then we find ourselves in a Bolshevik scenario. My hopes for a benign Lenin are dim. On the positive side, a movement which is decentralized and locally based -- and yet is able to oust the current regime -- must discover ways to achieve large-scale collaboration without sacrificing local autonomy. And if that movement is democratic, then it has found ways to resolve important issues at the community level. The very success of such a movement generates the insights and experiences we will need if we hope to build that kind of society. This can be summarized many ways, each capturing an aspect: "The movement needs to be a model of the society it hopes to create." "The means become the ends." "Become the truth you want to create." "Learn by doing." "The path is the journey." Another way to look at this is to think of the movement as BEING the new society in formation. I think this turns out to be a necessary characteristic of a relevant movement -- if we are seeking a total restructuring of society, and we can expect no help from existing institutions, and if the existing system provides scant useful models for us to build on. If the movement sees itself as the evolving new society, then it is focused not on overcoming the regime, but on something beyond that -- creating and operating the new world. This is a sound posture from a martial arts perspective, from the perspective of the warrior. The karate master does not aim at the bricks he will smash, but at a point below them. The bricks automatically get out of the way as the well-centered hand moves toward the imaginary point below. Similarly, we need to focus not on overcoming the regime, but on building the society to replace it. Indeed, it doesn't make sense for the regime to go away until there is something to replace it. --- If the movement is to be the new society, then it must be an inclusive movement. If it is a movement of the like-minded, of a clique, then it is a case of one faction seeking to dominate the rest, and such would be the foundation of the new society. That is the problem with the concept of 'progressive movements', or of movements which seek to overcome what they call the 'right wing'. Similarly, from the other side, exclusivity is a problem with 'militia' and 'patriot' movements, as it is with the Fundamentalist Christian movement, which currently perceives itself as holding sway. If we want a new society that includes everyone -- which is what democratic means -- then the movement must somehow include everyone. Which bring us to your next point... > I'm writing this just after Tom Atlee's most recent posting, pushing Jim Rough's Dynamic Facilitation training. Have you read Jim's book, "Society's Breakthrough!"... Jim feels that the social invention he has stumbled on, about which Tom is so enthusiastic, has the potential for restructuring institutions of all kinds in precisely the way you and I want. His book tells about ways he has actually done it in relatively small systems. I've been looking at dynamic facilitation for some time. I've had long face-to-face sessions with Tom in Eugene, and I've had face-to-face discussions with a woman who teaches DF and is an enthusiast (Rosa Zubizarreta). I've read quite a bit and have corresponded with various people in the field. And I've been through sessions in which I experienced many of the processes and got a taste (the painful way) of what kind of breakthroughs are possible. I am convinced that the DF process is a very powerful technology, with incredible potential. At the same time, it is a very old technology, the same one used in what we call 'primitive' societies, with their 'councils' and 'pow wows', 'sweat houses' and 'peace pipes'. It is simply the skill of helping a group listen to itself and find its own synergistic consensus. The skill of helping the group learn to work together -- to collaborate despite the inevitable differences. The potential of the technology depends on how it is applied. If it is applied only to limited problems, then it will achieve only limited results. When I say the technology has incredible potential, I am thinking of it in a certain context. I am thinking of it in the context of building the kind of movement we need, and the kind of society we need, according to what I have said above. We have already seen the widespread use of consensus and decentralization in what has been called the anti-globalization movement. We've also seen some degree of inclusiveness, at least during the actual protest events, where we have seen red-blooded union hard-hats marching beside gay feminist tree-huggers. But we haven't seen inclusiveness as a primary focus of the movement. Inclusiveness for its own sake, if you will. We still tend to gather together in like-minded cliques, like birds of a feather. It seems so natural. DF has the potential of bringing people into a sense of community, even when they perceive themselves as adversaries at the outset. And under the right circumstances, the technology seems to have a reasonable success rate. I can imagine several ways the technology could be usefully applied. It could be used to build greater coherence in the movement, as it currently exists, and to bring different branches more into collaboration. It could be used to expand the movement to new include new constituencies. It could facilitate consciousness- raising at the community level, and help develop a sense of community where there now seems to be no such thing. It could help us all see that we're all in this together. --- For me, the search for a 'point of entry' has become rather focused. From my perspective the question becomes, "How can we encourage the development of DF-style sessions/gatherings in useful/strategic settings?" Which brings us to your next point... > I keep using the vague term 'we'; let me comment on it. Right here, I meant you and me, and sort of implying a larger group of like-minded folks. But above, when I am fantasying about supplying critical input to bring about fundamental systemic change, the referent is really vague. I seem to be hoping that a larger, inchoate mass of us who read you, and Tom Atlee, and Thom Hartmann, and Dee Hock, et al., may coalesce into enough of a social force to be able to do something meaningful. I would re-frame this. I would say that those of us who have some insight into the situation need to find some way to turn that insight into effectiveness. In that regard I have a particular proposal, one that I have been developing in parallel with others. I propose that 'we' organize a conference/gathering focused on your very question, of "how to proceed". Using the DF process or an equivalent. I hope we can talk about that. > That raises the next question: how do all these good people assemble ourselves into a growing nucleus that embodies the very principles we want the larger society to adopt or evolve into? Do we need a charismatic leader? In a way, I hope not. What came to mind then was the leader of a failed effort at such a new society in Norman Rush's "Mating." Yet it is a real dilemma; I don't know of any successful social movement that managed to do without such a leader. Do you have thoughts about that? It becomes apparent how much our ideas are converging, when you talk about a "growing nucleus that embodies the very principles we want the larger society to adopt or evolve into". That is of course the very point I was making earlier. As for charismatic leaders -- no, we don't want them. And there are precedents. Unlike the 60s anti-war movement, there have been in the anti-globalization movement no Mario Savios, Abbie Hoffmans, or Timothy Learys. There has evolved in the meantime a much greater understanding of affinity groups and consensus, and a grass-roots faith in itself. We are no longer the naive children of the fifties, which is what those earlier leaders had to work with. There are people who try to interpret and guide the movement, such as Naomi Klein and Starhawk, but no one who entrances crowds and tries to tell them what to do and what to think. In particular, there is no single movement-wide person who stands out in that regard. This is a good thing. The idea of a Main Leader is bad theoretically for several reasons. For starters, such a person can be easily assassinated, as was MLK, JFK, RFK, and eventually Ghandi. There are other reasons, but the main thing is that the dominance of a single point of leadership (whether an individual or a party) does not foster the qualities that we want in the movement or in the new society. What we need is to learn how to run things ourselves. We are capable of doing it, what we lack is practice. We already know how to follow leaders, laws, and other people's agendas. That has gotten us to our current sorry state. bye for now, rkm -- ============================================================================ For the movement, the relevant question is not, "Can we work through the political system?", but rather, "Is the political system one of the things that needs to be fundamentally changed?" cyberjournal home page: http://cyberjournal.org "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 subscribe addresses for cj list: •••@••.••• •••@••.••• ============================================================================