GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION: WHY WE NEED IT AND HOW WE CAN ACHIEVE IT ________________________________________________________ Chapter 3: ENVISIONING A TRANSFORMATIONAL MOVEMENT Some necessary characteristics of a transformational movement ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I think it is self evident that radical transformation can only be accomplished by some kind of mass movement. The current regime is both unwilling and psychologically unable to change its destructive course, and such powerful and entrenched regimes have never in history been displaced from within except by overwhelming and organized opposition from the mass of the population. What kind of mass movement would be appropriate to achieve the kind of transformed world envisioned in the previous chapter? In this regard it is important to keep in mind that if the movement succeeds in dislodging the regime, then at the moment of collapse the movement will be running things. That is to say, the movement's leadership structure becomes the default leadership structure of the new society - regardless of what the rhetoric of the movement might have been. If the Bolsheviks are in charge when the Kremlin falls, then you end up with a Bolshevik-run society. Or if the leadership structure of a non-Bolshevik movement is weak, then the Bolsheviks dominate the aftermath. That's been the story of every revolution. This observation suggests that the movement needs to model itself on the society it intends to create. If the society is to be democratic and decentralized, then the movement had better be democratic and decentralized to start with. And if the society is to be based on localism and all-inclusive participation, then the movement would be well advised to seek a similar basis. The more the movement resembles the new society, the more the activities of the movement will serve to prepare the people - and to develop the functioning infrastructures and communication links - for the new society. If we seek a world where ordinary people run things democratically, then we can think of the transformation as our first collective project. It gives us a chance to learn how to collaborate effectively together without resorting to hierarchy. Interestingly, the anti-globalization movement does to a certain extent follow this paradigm. Typically there are affinity groups which come in with their own consensus about what kind of protest events they want to get involved in, how they will respond to police provocation, etc. And then at the event all the participants get together and use a consensus process to set the ground rules for the overall protest. The movement's process is consensus based, decentralized, and based on voluntary collaboration. But the anti-globalization movement is not the kind of movement that could bring about the transformation of society. It thinks in terms of protest only - it has no strategy for changing society. It doesn't have a comprehensive vision of anything to replace the current system. It doesn't even have a mechanism for deliberating as a movement and making strategic decisions. It is a justified expression of anger and frustration, but it has no real direction or coherence as an agent of social change. Perhaps even more important, the anti-globalization movement is not a mass movement. It brings together those who already share certain values and attitudes, but it doesn't address itself effectively to the problem of mass recruitment. It is a movement of activists. It can mobilize tens or hundreds of thousands, not tens or hundreds of millions. The kinds of actions that can bring down a regime include things like general strikes - where everything shuts down for a month nationwide or globally. It includes things like strategic sabotage by collaborating insiders, not just monkey-wrench stuff, but bureaucratic shenanigans, like Pentagon commands that never get delivered, and corporate accounts that strangely go to zero. It includes things like military units going on self-declared stand down. Actions on this kind of decisive scale are not feasible until the sentiments of the movement have become the sentiments of the people generally. The anti-globalization movement is recurring improvisational street theater performed by the usual noble suspect suspects - who in effect vanish to the four winds between performances . Any transformational movement needs to be an on-going, evolving project. It needs to develop a sense of identity and coherence, an understanding of where it's going, and a strategy for getting there. And that strategy needs to include an effective propagation program if the movement is to achieve mass proportions. Some of the challenges facing such a movement ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Each of the characteristics mentioned above presents serious challenges. Let's look first at the requirement that the movement "include an effective propagation program if the movement is to achieve mass proportions". How can the movement and it's recruitment program reach the masses - how can it be all-inclusive? Should it tell different stories to different constituencies, the way today's politicians do? Certainly not, because that would be counter-democratic and would hardly be a way to build an enlightened society. But then, what outreach message can appeal to all audiences? What would be the "identity" of a movement that can appeal to everyone? What would be it's stated agenda? I suggest that the agenda of such a movement needs to be absolutely minimal - the bare fundamental principles only. In our case, based on the ideas I've been developing, those bare principles could be summarized more or less as "Democracy, peace, and sustainability". Of course this would need to be restated in more poetic language - as in "Liberty, equality, fraternity", or "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". There are two reasons that lead me to this principle of minimum agenda. The first arises from facing the same problem that politicians face: every time you commit yourself to something, you are likely to alienate more people than you please. Let's take pacifism and disarmament for example. There are lots of people who would be turned away if adherence to those principles were a pre-requisite for supporting the movement. Many believe that peace comes from military strength. Many would also be turned away if the agenda included, "Automobiles and jet planes are unsustainable and must be replaced by appropriate technology systems." We may think such people are misinformed or short-sighted, but be that as it may such people probably make up a majority of the population. The second reason for minimality of agenda has to do with democracy. If we seek a democratic society and a democratic movement, then who has the right to impose at the outset any programmatic agenda? If the movement is to model itself on the society it wants to create, then the movement's agenda needs to arise from the grassroots of the movement itself. If a world without weapons of mass destruction really does make sense, then won't the movement figure that out for itself? And won't the obvious finiteness of resources inevitably lead to a critical re-examination of society's energy uses? This kind of movement has a quite different character than an ideologically-based movement, such as a socialist or anarchist movement. Those kind of movements seek to mobilize a discontented society by offering a program that is "good enough for us all to rally around". The main task of the movement is one of mobilization, not agenda building. You might say these are freeze-dried movements - just add organizers. A movement based on democracy is rather a self-creating affair. It expresses itself as a creative, evolving process of self-invention - rather than as a "rally around" process. A democratic movement also has a different kind of leadership than most existing or historical movements. Movements typically consider it to be a good thing if they have a strong, charismatic, and articulate leadership cadre. People like a JFK, a Gandhi, or perhaps a Ralph Nader or a John Dean, depending on your tastes and beliefs. Such leaders take responsibility for much of the thinking for the movement, and their personal courage and perseverance play an important role in keeping the momentum going and the inspiration alive. All of these things, though convenient tactically, are counter-productive or even dangerous for any movement that wants to develop democratic processes and which is likely eventually to be pursuing a radical, counter-establishment (ie, transformational) agenda. Democracy is about people learning to claim their own empowerment. It is about people awakening to the realization that they can and must take responsibility for creating their own destinies. For that reason centralized leadership and pre-packaged ideologies are each democratically disempowering. Democracy is about creating a society in which leadership exists holographically throughout the society, unleashing the immense productivity of parallel invention. Such a society is not a society of followers or believers, it is society of thinkers and doers. Any kind of centralized leadership, besides being counter-democratic, is also highly dangerous for any movement that seeks radical change. If any such radical movement develops to the point where the regime begins to feel threatened, then it is all too easy for the leadership to be harassed, arrested, imprisoned, or even killed - with devastating consequences for the movement that has allowed itself to become dependent on that leadership. Martin Luther King is a clear example of a leadership assassination that brought an end, or serious curtailment, to the further evolution of a mass-based movement . King was about to pursue strong links between the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements, and because of his death that potential opportunity to move on to the next level of movement scale, inclusiveness, and synergy never happened. If he had gotten that bigger ball rolling, it might have been able to continue without depending on him personally. There is no way our movement could avoid being perceived, at some point in its development, as a threat to the established regime. Otherwise the movement would not be making progress toward transformation. The holographic leadership model is not only consistent with democratic principles, but it is well-suited to protect the the movement from regime reaction. The movement should offer no strategic points of vulnerability. It should defend no Maginot Line and it should follow no Great Leader. Stifle any part of a holographic movement, and the same thing bubbles up somewhere else with new energy. A bit like Agent Smith in The Matrix. I closed the previous section with this summary identified necessary characteristics of our movement: "Any transformational movement needs to be an on-going, evolving project. It needs to develop a sense of identity and coherence, an understanding of where it's going, and a strategy for getting there. And that strategy needs to include an effective propagation program if the movement is to achieve mass proportions." So far in this section I've tried to develop three principles, in response to these requirements. Those principles are agenda minimization, creative self-invention, and holographic leadership.These principles do not directly tell us how the necessary characteristics can be achieved, but I suggest they give us a foundation and a language which can now enable us to address those issues more directly. Let me begin by expanding on the notion of holographic leadership. I'm not trying to invent something here. I'm simply exploring the consequences of two rather reasonable assumptions: (1) the movement is based on local consensus, and (2) efforts are made within the movement to achieve wider consensus by means of conferences, Internet, exchange visits, shared projects, publications, etc. If we can make such assumptions, then we could expect there to develop a gradually harmonizing global consensus which is at the same time owned locally and shared globally. It cannot be stifled because it takes root everywhere and joins up with its neighbors whenever feasible. Holographic leadership is like kudzu, and only a cutting is needed to start a new plantation. And what would this consensus be about? What questions? That's in fact obvious: the movement needs to figure out what it's about: "Who are we? Where are we going? How are we going to get there? How are we going to get everyone else on board?" In other words, it seems that the early movement will be largely about dialog - about facing these big questions together with a shared intention to get through to the other side, and about building networks and sharing ideas. Eventually, when a consensus has begun to emerge and the constituency is large enough, the movement can begin moving from the dialog of words to the dialog of collective, holographically-led actions. Let's focus again on the problem of propagation. In other movements, propagation might mean things like getting out flyers, setting up a website, establishing an organizing committee and a volunteer list, obtaining a grant and a list of endorsers, scheduling a demonstration, etc. With a democratic movement, we need to think in terms of organic models, not organizational ones. We are not selling on a mass basis, we are approaching on a face-to-face basis. With plants, propagation is about a seed, nurturing, and new seeds in turn which are spread around. That is how a democratic movement can grow and propagate, without introducing centralization and hierarchy. To pursue this organic model, we need to understand what is the seed and how does it spread, as regards our movement. The experience of democratic empowerment ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Many things propagate by means of a transformative experience. Christian fundamentalists, for example, often describe a "born again" experience that inspires them to follow a new more dedicated path. In religions generally, one typically sees "conversion" experiences of some form or another. In terms of spreading new ideas or paradigms, there is typically an "ah ha!" experience that occurs when the full meaning of the idea clicks into consciousness. My working hypothesis is that the propagation vehicle for our transformative movement will be a transformative experience - an experience of collective and individual empowerment. There is an image in my mind that symbolizes for me this experience. It was a moment in a film within a segment showing the cheering crowds at Salvador Allende's inauguration as President of Chile. The moment shows a woman crying and cheering with exuberant joy and hope on her face. Somehow I couldn't look at that clip without identifying with that woman and feeling what she seemed to be feeling, and shedding a tear or two of my own. It is a feeling that was both contagious and precious: the moment of realizing that things are going to get better, we are in charge finally, and we don't have to be afraid anymore. Those are the kind of faces I expect to see on the day the regime awakes from its denial and waves the white flag. My hypothesis is basically that the moment of transformative comes with the realization, "We can make a difference. We all of us can find common ground. It is our responsibility to do what needs to be done. No one else will do it for us." Such a realization does not come from reading or talking - not in any deep visceral sense. It comes instead from going trough a certain kind of group experience. The kind of experience I have in mind is one that has occurred many times with actual groups and it is characterized by certain phases of dialog that seem to occur naturally, out of the dynamics of human communication. Let me say something first about the kind of group I have in mind and the reason for them coming together in the first place. Imagine a group of ordinary people from a community, say about twelve, who come from diverse backgrounds, and have diverse interests and beliefs. In other words, the group is in some sense a microcosm of community. And indeed, this characterization applies to many of the actual groups who have gone through this empowerment experience. As for the reason for such a group to come together, there have been many. As a general characterization, such a group typically gets together because each of the participants thinks it is worth their time and effort to try to find an answer to some common question or questions. And regardless of what the questions might be, the predictable phases of dialog seem to always occur. In the first phase, people quite naturally articulate their own personal answers to the question, or introduce new concerns, reflecting their interests and beliefs. Being a diverse group, the various contributions to the discussion usually seem to be at odds with one another, and there can be a tendency for the group to descend into debate and repetition without a great deal of listening going on. The discussion can tend to jump all over the place, with everyone talking at cross purposes. With appropriate facilitation, it is possible to redirect the energy during this phase, turning the experience into one of creativity by enabling people to actually hear one another. During this initial phase, the focus of attention is on the ideas and views, with the people playing the supporting role of advocates for their ideas. What begins to happen next, even if facilitation fails to keep the process entirely smooth, is that people begin to shift their focus of attention away from the ideas being discussed and toward the people they are dialoging with. The realization begins to set in that even if you disagree with someone, you can still understand that they have their own sincere reasons for their views, and that their needs and aspirations as people deserve to be respected just as much as do your own. With this realization comes a deeper, more respectful kind of listening, and a new level of mutual trust. A measure of time and patience is required to reach this phase. But once this phase is reached, that then enables a whole next phase of group creativity, where attention is balanced between people and ideas. Once people are listening with respect, then they begin to think of the bigger picture - not what do I want but what do We want. They begin to say things like, "What if we took part of your idea and part of my idea, couldn't we both get what we need?". Whereas before each mind was pursuing the advocacy of its own situation, now those same minds are collaborating in their examination of a common problem. This harmonization of attention liberates incredible creative power. In twelve diverse life experiences there can always be found much wisdom and understanding. We've all learned a thing or two in life's journey, and each of us has gaps in their understanding. When the group begins working collaboratively together, then each can contribute when their own experience enables them to make a positive contribution to the creative process. Perhaps only one person is able to come up with some critical insight, but that then becomes an insight of the whole group, and the whole group gets the benefit. When this kind of synergy occurs amazing creative breakthroughs are frequently the outcome. Within such a space of collaborative synergy, the group mind turns out to be wiser and more creative than the individual mind. When people go through this kind of experience, there are two important outcomes that typically occur. The first is the progress made in addressing the problems under discussion. In many cases, as I have suggested, this progress can be substantial. This is a "small transformation" - in the people's understanding of those problems and their possible solutions. There is also a "big transformation" that occurs, and that is the one that I believe will be the seed of our transformative movement. The big transformation arises out of the social experience of the group's time together. Here was a group that began at odds with itself, went through a community bonding process, and then found itself empowered to deal effectively with questions which may at first have seemed unsolvable. Regardless of what the problem was about, it is an amazing paradigm shift to realize that ordinary people can be wise and creative, and don't need to depend on experts and organizations to solve their problems. Even more significant is the experience of finding common ground. The realization that abstract beliefs and values are irrelevant to our real needs. We can happily build a barn together, even if we don't agree on philosophy or religion. The things that divide us into interest groups and factions are phantoms - scarecrows that lead us to assume that dialog is futile. When you realize that we are all in this together, that we need to find solutions that are good for everyone, and that we are capable of being wise and intelligent in pursuing those solutions - then you have experienced democratic empowerment. In chapter 8, "Overcoming factionalism: the power of dialog", I'll present a case study of one particular group experience that occurred recently in Ashland, Oregon. And I'll say more about facilitation and many other aspects of these kinds of gatherings. For now, I would like to explore the potential implications of this kind of transformative experience for our movement. A movement based on harmonization ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The kind of group dialog sessions described above offer incredible potential value to our movement. Let me once again quote the identified necessary requirements: "Any transformational movement needs to be an on-going, evolving project. It needs to develop a sense of identity and coherence, an understanding of where it's going, and a strategy for getting there. And that strategy needs to include an effective propagation program if the movement is to achieve mass proportions." I'd like to offer you a hypothetical scenario - a sequence of events that could reasonably be expected to follow from one another, assuming that sufficient motivation could be developed at each stage. You might think of this scenario as a "feasibility sketch" or a "straw man proposal" for how our transformative movement might develop. The scenario begins with some initiative by some group of people who are motivated to get together, accept the fact that our global society is going downhill fast, and address the question of what can realistically be done about it. The group brings in an appropriate facilitator, and takes a few days time off to see what they can come up with. They experience the various phases of dialog I've described, and they emerge with some productive ideas and a transformed sense of democratic empowerment. In our scenario, this event is the primordial birth of the movement and the people that emerge are the movement's first seeds. The next scene calls for some motivated agency to follow up on this initial experience. Perhaps the initial group, based on their sense of empowerment and responsibility, and guided perhaps by the outcome of their group thinking, might take it upon themselves to organize follow-up sessions as a way to to share their experience and to spread the word of empowerment - a word which means much the same thing as liberation. By this or other means, let's assume for the sake of the scenario that other such sessions begin to occur, bringing in new participants mixed in with participants from previous sessions. Ordinary people asking big questions, discovering their own power and wisdom in the process, realizing that we are all in this together, and understanding that we have a responsibility do something about our situation. My hypothesis is that this propagation scenario is both feasible and appropriate for a democratic movement seeking to achieve a transformed world. Although the people involved are motivated by various values and concerns, the movement itself approaches new people with no agenda at all, not even the principles of democracy or sustainability. The approach is simply an invitation to participate in a certain kind of group exploration, one that others have found to be an exciting and transformative experience. Indeed the word "democracy" really has no meaning until you've been through the transformative experience. Once you've done it you don't need to talk about it, you just want to do it. Democracy isn't the agenda of the movement, rather the movement itself is the expression of democracy. My hypothesis in this regard also sees these dialog sessions as being the way the movement develops "a sense of identity and coherence, an understanding of where it's going, and a strategy for getting there". Those are the questions which are essential to the movement, and those are the questions that it's empowered group wisdom would naturally turn its attention to. If such a movement were to begin and spread, then it would bring with it a wave of social harmonization. Imagine for example a community which has traditionally been characterized by strife between two different immigrant groups. Perhaps there has been fear, and suspicion, and mutual distrust. If people from throughout such a community were to begin participating in these dialog sessions, breaking through the fear and suspicion and finding common ground and mutual respect, then that would have a transformative effect on the community. Particularly if enough sessions were held to involve some reasonable percentage of the population. Enough that everyone would know someone personally who has been through the experience. People who come out of these kind of sessions are usually enthusiastic about the experience, and they would naturally be sharing what they experienced with their family and friends. We could expect the spirit of the community to shift, for the different groups to stop perceiving certain people the "other" but instead as another member of "us". The harmonization and empowerment that occurs within sessions can be expected to spill over to the community more generally. And this has been experienced, on a limited scale, in real communities, as we shall revisit in chapter 8. If the movement develops to the point where these kinds of things are happening, then it would presumably catch the attention of activist and community groups around the world. Divisiveness in communities is a major social problem, for reformers as well as administrators. One might expect seeds from an initial successfully harmonized garden to spread far and wide, due to a variety of motivations. But motivation for participation turns out to be rather irrelevant to the outcome of dialog sessions. The sessions, by their inherent nature, can become seeds of a democratic movement, regardless of who organizes them or for what reasons. Supposing the movement becomes geographically widespread, then another level of harmonization becomes possible. In particular, I'm thinking of dialog sessions that bring in people from different places where the movement has experienced success, or faced challenges. Ideas can be exchanged, new creative ideas can be generated that take into account different concerns that were identified in different places. This is the kind of dialog that can lead to harmonization of the movement as a whole. It's not that some representative group makes decisions for the movement - rather such dialog identifies large scale consensus when it exists, and it generates new ideas and insights to be taken back home. This is how holographic leadership can be achieved. Such a movement would by this time have seriously raised eyebrows around regime radar screens. Divisiveness in our societies is systematically encouraged. It's today's version of the ages-old dictum of divide and rule. That's why people like Clinton make it a point to alienate conservative voters, and why people like Bush rub it in the face of liberals. Liberals are meant to see conservatives as being the problem with society, and conservatives are meant to see liberals as the source of societal decline and loss of values. When the regime begins to see that control formula being systematically undermined by some propagating activity, they will be rightfully concerned. To them, harmonization represents destabilization - of their control mechanisms. I cannot suggest a way the movement might respond to the emergence of some unforeseeable elite reaction. That must be the business of the movement itself. Presumably the participation of prominent citizens in the dialog process would afford the movement some degree of protection from suppression. The one thing we can be sure of is that the movement will at some point face very challenging situations and provocations and will need to become capable of responding to them effectively and coherently. ________________________________________________________ -- ============================================================ 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 _____________________________ "...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.globalresearch.ca/ http://www.MiddleEast.org http://www.rachel.org http://www.truthout.org http://www.zmag.org http://www.co-intelligence.org ============================================================
