Friends, There's a beautiful, meditative spot in County Wicklow called 'The Meeting of the Waters', where four rivers all merge together. I think of that spot as a symbol for what has been happening over the past three weeks, since I posted "A Harmonization Movement?". That attracted attention from like-minded people, and a lot has been happening. In particular, I was fortunate enough to find myself in dialog with John Bunzil, and joined the 'simpol' email list. ISPO, the Simultaneous Policy organization (http://simpol.org), has a very compelling vision. It is at the same time simple and profound. What they're offering the world is basically a goal: "Let's all agree to agree on what we want, and let's all agree to implement it (whatever it is) at the same time everywhere when we've got enough people on board." In some sense, it's like offerering a group 'stone soup': you put a stone in a pot of boiling water, and announce that everyone is invited to partake of a wonderful soup. Then you quietly go around and suggest to people that they donate a few vegees, some sausages, or whatever - to 'spice up the soup'. In some sense it's a con game - you end up contributing nothing but the pot, the fire, and the stone. But in another sense you've contributed the most valuable ingredient: a focus for productive collaboration. I think of ISPO's initiative as "The Stone Soup Revolution". As much as the concept appealed to me, I felt there were some fatal flaws in the strategy by which the intiative was being pursued. For one thing, there was no systematic process underway to define the 'it' (agenda) that was to be 'implemented simultaneously' when the end of the rainbow is reached. For several reasons, I felt this was a strategic error, although I could understand why others might not see it that way. For another thing, there was no strong link between what ISPO was up to, and the activist movement community. Both are seeking to change the system, but there was no effective synergy between them. So I started dialoging with John (who is a cj subscriber) and the 'simpol' list. I was 'being harmony', as best I could, but I nonetheless expected the usual pointless debates to emerge when I began to raise fundamental strategic issues. To my pleasant surprise, John, and others on the list, responded entirely constructively, and were in substantial agreement with the suggestions. A 'simpolicies' list was set up, and John asked me to help get it launched. That list is still in early days, with only a few people, but I think it's getting off to a promising start. I'll be forwarding highlights over to the the cj or rn lists, when it seems suitable. My suggestions about a link to the movement went like this. The SP strategy depends on 'mobilizing public opinion' around the SP agenda. When ovewhelming public opinion is in favor, then presumably 'our' candidates can be elected, and the SP agenda implemented. What I suggested was that 'mobilizing public opinion' is not easily done, especially in the face of political and media opposition, and especially if the agenda is a radical one. Under such circumstances, it takes a grass-roots movements to get out there and find ways to mobilize public opinion. In some sense, that's what movements are all about, raising public awareness and building a constituency for change. In other words: in order to mobilize public _opinon, it is necessary to mobilize the public itself, as some kind of movement. This seemd like a dangerous suggestion to make to the simpol group. I figured it would be too much of a change for them to consider, and I was afraid I'd be seen as divisive for even bringing it up. Again they surprised me, and 'how to link up with activist movements' is now an 'on topic' item for further discussion. At that point I had to stop and catch my breath. For about the first time I can remember, I was working with a group of people on the net who had an agreed strategy, and where I was in harmony with that strategy. It was liberating. I felt I could now roll up my sleeves and contribute actual work to that effort. --- Another set of tributaries coming together at this time relate to the technology of harmonization. I came into contact with Ted Lumley, whose article about coresonance I posted recently. He's delved into harmonization as a science, from a physics / biolgoy perspective, and I look forward to his ongoing insights as things progress. I also came across Ken Lebensold, who has developed a philosphy of harmonization as a basis for morality in society. And Tom Atlee has joined in some of these discussions, from the perspective of the various processes he's studied as part of his work at the Co-Intelligence Institute. That's a lot of perspectives coming to bear on the same issues, and the remarkable thing is how similar all of our conclusions turn out to be. Here we had harmonization of another kind. Let me say a few words about this 'technology of harmonization'. What Scott Peck calls this is 'community building', and we've been using Peck's terminology in some of our discussions. He describes community formation as going through four stages, from 'pseudocommunity', to 'chaos', to 'emptiness', and finally to 'community'. 'Psuedocommunity' is when people are simply together, politely, presuming that they have community. 'Chaos' is when people get all their differences out on the table, which often feels very frustrating at the time, and may seem to be getting nowhere. But eventually, everyone says everything, and their mutual attempts to convince fail. Things die down, and enter 'emptiness' - a kind of void out of which new things can arise. At that point real discussion can begin, and a sense of 'genuine community' begins to develop. Two things are happening together here. On the one hand a community bond is being formed, and on the other hand issues are being thrashed out and harmonized. The two happen together, progress in each reinforcing the other. It's a postive feedback loop - greater community leads to more harmonious deliberations, leads to more agreement and progress, leads to stronger community, and so on. Peck's four stages, however, are not experienced by every group that gets together. The stages are always there, always available, but it takes certain circumstances in order for the community formation process to be carried through. That's where facilitation, and process comes in. Certainly you have to start with groups where potential synergy exists, and where sufficient commitment exists to seek to work together. But after that, what is needed are the right processes, and facilitation, to guide the group through the stages and not get stuck in 'chaos', or depart when 'emptiness' is reached. Fortunately, there are effective processes, and facilitation methods, which can be used for these purposes. I learned about some of them from their use by activist organizers preparing for Seattle, and earlier campaigns dating back to the Abalone Alliance. It traces back from there to roots in Quaker tradition. The 'technology' of this kind of process has been evolving over the years, much of it in a 'corporate team-effectiveness' setting. Tom Atlee's site (http://www.co-intelligence.org) presents an excellent overview of some of the more successful current methods. The idea then, is to approach the problem of movement building from the perspective of community building. As different groups come together, seeking to form strategic alliances, or plan joint actions, they go through the 'community formation' process, and they don't 'get down to business' until they have gone past 'emptiness', and they can communicate honestly and openly as a community, with respect for other's interests. When the two groups go their separate ways they have more than a temporary agreement, they have a deep understanding of one another, and a sense of trust and common purpose. And they have probably 'moved' each others positions closer to one another. It's a 'deep' coming together, rather than 'least common denominator' agreement-seeking. As existing groups begin to work together in this way, internally and externally, we could expect a more general harmonization to occur. An overall sense of movement community would begin to develop, and a general harmonization of agendas - beginning from many centers, holographically. It's a bit like how the Internet works, where good 'memes' get passed all around, and new links are made all the time. There is no central organization, and no unique leaders whose arrest could stop the movement. --- There are now two experiments which I am eager to see undertaken. The first would be an attempt to bring SimPol delegates together with leaders of some significant activist group, and see what happens when we apply these community-building methods. At worst it would be learning experience; at best it could launch SimPol into a whole new opportunity space. Perhaps we'd need to go through this same excercise a few more times, and refine the methods. But soon I'd want to get on to the second experiment: a larger conference organized around community building. Here, we'd invite several groups, and then break out in randomized groups, each small enough to go through these proceses effectively. Then we'd all get back together and share results and have discussion. Then more break-out sessions, with new randomization, seeking to move further with the results - and a final plenary attempt to reach overall consensus. This is only a first sketch, and I'm not the right person to design such a thing anyway. But something like this would be, I suggest, a very valuable thing to do. If we can 'prove the concept' by such experiments, and use those as 'case study' prototypes, we'd have something solid to build on. We'd have more than theory, we'd have successes to point to, and we could move forward into 'organizing for effect'. And everytime some new group enters the process, assuming it 'takes' with them, that group becomes a new 'carrier' of the harmonization approach, likely to seek to employ the techniques - due to their effectiveness - in their ongoing networking. that's all the news from isle woebegone, rkm