-------------------------------------------------------- From: "SHRIKUMAR" To: <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: draft : Ch 1 : The Matrix Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 08:11:45 -0400 Dear Mr. Moore: Permit me to introduce myself to you. I am part of an international network called THE NEW GLOBAL FREEDOM MOVEMENT. If you send me a reply with your postal address, I will send you our literature. We will be happy to collaborate with your efforts. I have been distributing your information to my friends for over one year now. With warm regards, Shrikumar Poddar, for New Global Freedom Movement -------------------- Dear Shrikumar, Thanks for your message. I look forward to reviewing your literature. Could you please say more regarding what kind of collaboration you have in mind, and which kinds of information you have found most useful? I couldn't find your organization described on the web, but I must say I like the name you've chosen: global freedom is certainly the right idea! best regards, rkm Moore Quay Largo Selskar Street Wexford, Ireland -------------------------------------------------------- I received a message from Larry Victor in response to the announcement of Jim Bell's book, "Creating a Sustainable Economy and Future On Our Planet". Larry's comments, along with information about his "NU" project, are available on newslog: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?id=808&lists=newslog I wrote back to Larry, and some useful dialog has followed. In particular, he read through my Chapter 7: "Envisioning a liberated global society", and raised some very pertinent questions. I'd like to share excerpts from our most recent exchange... LV: Your proposal is one of many alternatives of "people participatory" systems beyond the "community". Although we have long inherited propensities to organize in communities, the study of even isolated communities shows that success is only statistical. Dear Larry, There are two equally important parts to my governance model. Community is one, and Harmonization is the other. The chapter you read assumed that harmonization had already been explained. I started a blog a while back, and haven't maintained it, but it gives a concise summary of 'Community + Harmonization', better than my book chapters for our purposes. You might give it a look. The postings are in reverse chron order, so it might be best to scroll to the bottom: http://harmonization.blogspot.com/ re/harmonization - I spent a few weeks visiting some very interesting facilitation people on the west coast last year, after reading books and articles they had published, and learned a lot about what groups of people can accomplish, under the right circumstances, and with the right kind of facilitation. It's pretty amazing stuff, and it really does work. The process goes more or less like this, with variations: you take a group of people, say around a dozen, and they devote a weekend, or better four days, in facilitated 'sessions'. The facilitator's job is only to help people 'hear' one another, and to make sure people know they are being 'heard'; the group goes wherever it wants to go in its dialog. What happens in such sessions is that the group tends to go through a predictable sequence of phases. The process can jump around, but it's easiest to explain in sequential order. At first people might be shy, or argumentative, or fixed in their positions, or divided into factions, etc. People may have a hard time listening, and they may feel perhaps 'attacked' by what other people are saying. We all know how this kind of thing can lead to a total waste of time. But by making sure each person really is 'heard', and knows they were heard, a breakthrough happens. Knowing you've been heard takes the urgency out of your expression, and makes you more open to hearing what others have to say. A shift of perspective occurs: instead of seeing 'others' who have 'wrong positions', you begin to see 'some of us' who have 'different concerns'. You begin to accept the other participants as being equally valid, caring people, but with their own viewpoints and concerns, just like yourself. Once people accept one another, as being equally valid, then they begin to see their dialog, and their 'problem', in a different light. Rather than 'debating' competing ideas and proposals, people begin to see their 'problem' as follows: "How can we come up with solutions that satisfy all of our concerns?" When the sessions reach this phase, that is what I call the 'space of harmonization'. Not only are people working together, cooperatively, but a great deal of energy, synergy, and creativity is released. Former adversaries begin to say: "Hey, if we took this part of my idea, and that part of your idea, we could get the best of both worlds." In the end, the typical outcomes are: solutions, or at least mutual understandings, that were unanticipated, and which all the participants are enthusiastic about. Tom Atlee uses the phrase 'co-intelligence' to describe the quality of the group outcomes that can be expected; Jim Rough talks about 'choice creating', I prefer to emphasize 'collective wisdom'. We can debate whether these conclusions might be excessive, if you like, but for now I'll proceed on the assumption that 'harmonization' refers to a range of facilitation & group scenarios that have the kind of outcomes I've described, and which are practically achievable. More about this at the end. LV: In your model, it is representative in terms of councils and I personally doubt whether it would work. If the representatives to councils are truly representative with the allegiance to their community, the kind of harmonization needed WITHIN the council is not possible, as that would require a dual allegiance, with the council as community - if only temporarily. Council members are not free to adapt and learn, without always consulting back to the community. You point out a very central problem in the domain of 'representation'; I concur that it must be considered carefully. I believe you are being unnecessarily pessimistic, however, in your assessment of how a council would be likely to operate, using the kind of harmonization processes I have described. First of all, I do not think there would be any question of competing 'allegiances'. Let's step through the scenario: Each delegation would be 'in touch' with the depth and breadth of sentiment, and concerns, of their constituency, and they would be in agreement with the 'harmonized' perspectives that had emerged. They would then express these perspectives in council, and 'hear' the perspectives of the other delegations. At first, as with any group, we might see conflict and factionalism, but as the process proceeds, we'd get to the point where the participants were collaborating: seeking 'solutions' that satisfy the concerns of all the constituencies. In many cases, they might succeed. But even then, the outcomes would be passed back 'down the line', and ratified all the way down to each community. In other cases, the council might find that irreconcilable perspectives had emerged in different constituencies. But in the process of discovering this, a great many concerns would have been put on the table. Those concerns would be passed back 'down the line', and 'lower level' holons (?) would have that broader information to take into account. Some iteration might be required, but given the qualities of harmonization, I believe that we would be looking at a rapidly converging iterative process. In the end, we'd have system-wide consensus on 'best approach' solutions - not just 'the greatest good for the greatest number', but approaches that respect each and every community equally. LV: You are also entrapping persons in their space based community, whereas we can live in multiple communities, some space based and some virtual. Indeed, the local space community may well become only one of a variety of "communities" a person could be a member of. This is a deep issue. I anticipate some back and forth. Personally, I think there is something sacred about 'place'. It is in our genes. Indigenous societies are very much intermeshed with 'place'. Upon retirement, I moved to a small town in Ireland, and I've come to love the sense of 'place' and 'history' and 'uniqueness', and 'belonging', and word-of-mouth instead of newspapers, what city people imagine as 'gossip'. I knew something was missing in my suburban California life, and this town is what it was. From a political perspective, and considering how harmonization works, the face-to-face issue is central. Harmonization seems to require face-to-face sessions. You point out that face-to-face brings in more dimensions of the participants, and you raise the concern that this can lead to various kinds of manipulation. I know just what you mean, as regards meetings where strong, assertive personalities can dominate the agenda. But in a space of harmonization, that 'extra presence' becomes a source of convergence and synergy. In a community it is possible to have regular face-to-face sessions, of ordinary citizens, publicized, and achieve, over time, and maintain, a community consensus regarding local governance, and perspectives on wider issues. This is reinforced by the face-to-face nature of the community itself. The informal word-of-mouth possible in a physical community, in its various dimensions of mutual relationship and understanding, becomes an important part of the consensus process. Particularly significant are the cross-faction communications that become possible as people begin to see other citizens as being 'equally valid', despite having differing beliefs and concerns. In addition, there is the issue of 'shared concerns'. People who share a physical community share certain very important concerns in common. Since they live there, they all would benefit from a good 'quality of life', generally speaking - good places for the kids to play, good schools, safe streets, attractive surroundings, reliable services, sound fiscal management, etc. We see this being realized in places like Brazil and Venezuela, not to mention Cuba. Furthermore, there is the concept of 'localism', which makes sense in ecological and economic terms, as we hear from the 'new biologists', and the counter-globalization, sustainability-minded, economic thinkers. Finally, there is the issue of 'evolutionary heritage', which you pointed out: the individual-tribe co-evolution. It is 'natural' for us to live in a mutually-supportive, cooperative community, where we feel 'we belong', and we are 'equal participants'. For all these reasons, I see the physical community as the appropriate focus for essential political sovereignty and identity. This in no way inhibits networking, as between, for example, scientists investigating the same domain, or citizens sharing certain concerns. These kinds of things go on all the time today, and then we go home and vote in our own local and national elections. There's no contradiction here. But in fact there's a danger in over-emphasizing non-physical communities, as objects of primary loyalty or political weight. Particularly when you get into mass communications, including the Internet: you lose the ability to participate simply because of the mass-ness of the medium. The more 'popular' the channel, the less chance your personal contributions will be given voice there. If you begin to vest 'governance inputs' to 'virtual communities', you open the door to faction manipulation by means of mass-media techniques. You get cults, basically, as you can tell if you sign up for a random sampling of email lists, or browse popular websites. The face-to-face nature of physical communities - in a context where bonds of mutual respect, trust, and reliance are encouraged by the harmonization culture - is much more resistant to manipulation, whether from inside or outside, than are other kinds of 'communities'. LV: I don't have a clear substitute, and if we could have council representatives selected by means vastly different from current methods - to filter out power seekers - your model may work for councils where members are of closely related cultures. Certainly better than the system of today. Power-seekers are bred in a culture which has positions of power. Our cultures today are cluttered with power positions, everything being hierarchically managed. If you have any motivation toward 'career', which is not entirely a bad thing in life, then seeking promotion becomes a kind of power seeking, and only a fool would ignore the inevitable sociological aspects and opportunities (e.g., old-boyism, mentorism, nepotism, and deal-making). In a culture focused more on collaboration, and exchange for mutual benefit, and without authoritative structures, the energy of 'power seeker' personalities would find its outlet in more productive avenues of expression and contribution. As regards selecting delegates, I imagine most of us would prefer people who were level-headed, reliable, reasonably articulate, and who had a good understanding of the community perspective. As regards different cultures, that is grist for the mill of harmonization processes. In fact, the greater the divergence incoming, the greater the potential for synergistic breakthrough outcomes. There can be emotional releases, tears even. I'll never forget an AFSC conference I went to, back in the 70s, where there was a mixed panel of Jewish Israelis and Palestinians. I couldn't believe how positive the dialog was. There was one of these kinds of sessions (the 'Maclean event') where the 'big breakthrough' occurred between a native-American woman, and a Quebec woman, and that then spread to the rest of the group. LV: Richard, the model you propose is one for serious consideration. The issue of creating such systems in the midst of our contemporary system raises many issues. My work to create NU is to experiment with better models NOW, but not in any attempt to reform or fix the larger system. That comes later when we are competent to succeed, and for me it would be by replacement not transformation. I appreciate the respect you are giving to 'my' ideas (very few of them, if any, being individually original!). I fully support your and any other initiatives that actually get out there an experiment and learn. My own belief is that small-scale successes, in the realm of self-governance, will naturally spread, meme-like, and become transformative - regardless of their initial objectives or visions. Democracy is its own source of inspiration. I'm not sure what you intend by the distinction between replacement and transformation. If you mean to emphasize that the change-of-system must be total - a complete redesign - then I agree, and that's what I mean by transformation. I use this term partly because we need to face the challenges of transition: we can't close down society for repairs. We need to emulate a crysalis, and keep life going while the new is created, transforming the old into the new. LV: Finally, I feel that the process you call "harmonization" (but I have not read all the earlier chapters) has yet to be discovered in sufficient complexity to make it viable given the vast diversity of human cognitive competencies. A few years ago, I would have either agreed with you, or at least would have had no useful response. But since then I've been exposed to certain personal experiences and certain reliable reports, from people I've 'bonded' with face-to-face, enough to know what is real in what they say. In a scientific debate, empirical observation always trumps theoretical models, although you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell that from the refereed literature, which is often like the bishop who refused to look through Galileo's telescope. The empirical fact is that this harmonization process is very much within the 'state of the art'. Indeed, it is the rediscovery of a primordial way of relating, tracing its recent roots to the Quakers. Indigenous cultures typically work on a consensus basis, and often have a ritualized harmonization process,where an elder takes the role of facilitator, and rules of dialog have evolved that enable everyone to be 'heard'. In the Hawaiian culture,the process is called 'h'o pono pono', and there the elder simply listens, to each in turn, until eventually the 'right answer' emerges, seen clearly by all present. One particular process, 'Dynamic Facilitation' (DF), is particularly well-suited to the situations we've been discussing. It was invented by Jim Rough, and it has a growing following, although not nearly as wide as I would like to see. Rosa Zubizarreta uses it in her facilitation practice and is perhaps the biggest proponent of its potential, after Jim himself. She calls it the 'come as you are process'. No need to have a 'cooperative attitude', no need to be 'sensitive' or a 'good listener', no need to sign up for any dialog ground rules. In DF, the facilitator 'goes where the energy is'. Instead of 'taking turns', as a primary mechanism, the floor is generally given to the one who has the most urgent need to speak: they are given a chance to 'be heard'. A DF session often seems chaotic, compared to other techniques, but that chaos tends to converge to a deep level of harmonization, in a comparatively short period of time. The "vast diversity of human cognitive competencies" turns out to be a source of creativity and synergy. over to you, richard -- -------------------------------------------------------- http://cyberjournal.org "Apocalypse Now and the Brave New World" http://www.cyberjournal.org/cj/rkm/Apocalypse_and_NWO.html Posting archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?date=01Jan2006&batch=25&lists=newslog Subscribe to low-traffic list: •••@••.•••