Bcc: misc. recipients ___________________________________________________________ GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION : WHY WE NEED IT AND HOW WE CAN ACHIEVE IT (C) 2004 Richard K. Moore GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION ________________________________________________________ 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. [See: http://www.democracycampaign.org/ ] 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, 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, 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. 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. ________________________________________________________ -- ============================================================ 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 ============================================================