Bcc: FYI
rkm website: http://cyberjournal.org
___________________________________
Greetings,
Just before leaving Wexford, I wrote about why I was going to Switzerland, and how that represented a shift in my mission…
I summarized what I had learned about the state of the world, leading to these primary conclusions:
The economic and political systems that have been established are beyond repair and past their sell-by date; society needs to be totally transformed, in how it is organized, and how decisions are made.There is no way the needed transformation can be approached within the established political paradigm.
Next, I summarized what I had learned about pursuing transformation:
The real problem in envisioning a new society – the elephant in the room that most visionaries seem to ignore – is the problem of governance. It’s not so much which decisions that we need to be concerned about, rather it is how decisions are to be made. Indeed the question of how to decide already comes in if we seek to outline solutions to the technical problems.
…I came to the conclusion that the key to governance, as well as the key to envisioning a new world, comes down to the question of how decisions can be made by people generally, without delegating that power to designated decision makers. Either we find an answer to that question, I am convinced, or we are destined to be governed by one elite clique or another.
Finally, I described my shift in mission:
To go further with my inquiries, I need to leave generalism behind, and move into the domain of practice. Generalist research is about gathering and digesting what is known; research practice is about participating in the advancement of understanding.
What ‘practice’ amounts to, for me at the moment, is working with my host, Chris Zumbrunn, to arrange various kinds of conversations, experimenting with lightweight approaches to facilitation, and leading up to some Wisdom Council and similar events in communities.
Also, we’re networking with various organizations, whose missions are related in some way to ‘expanding democracy’, and we’re thinking about ways we can build synergy among these organizations, presumably involving DF sessions at some point.
From my perspective, we will be getting experience in working with communities, we will we be building a network of potential collaborators, and this will hopefully get us into a position where we can begin pursuing The Transformation Project.
bye for now,
rkm
PS> there is some time available for writing, but I feel like I’ve already said everything I can say. If there’s something you think’s worth exploring, let me know.
Share: