______________________________________________________________ Empowering the movement: unity through harmonization rkm - http://cyberjournal.org "...if the world is saved, it will be saved by people with changed minds. Not by programs. By people with changed minds." - Story of B, p. 73. "We don't have to change HUMANKIND in order to survive. We only have to change a single culture." - Story of B, p. 255. When the Takers decided that the world was theirs to conquer, a 10,000-year process was unleashed which first created civilization, and then brought that civilization to the brink of collapse. We got as far as the Industrial Revolution, and beyond, without recognizing that we were going down a cul-de-sac. Thomas Malthus raised the alarm in 1798 when he pointed out that geometric population growth cannot be sustained. But it is only in the past fifty years that we have fully understood the implications of the irresistible force (human growth) colliding with the immovable object (the finiteness of the Earth). Until very recently we were like the slow-boiling frog, lulled into ignorance of our impending doom. In some sense we can be thankful to industrial capitalism for bringing things near the boiling point, and for neoliberal globalization - which has turned the heat up all the way. The goal of neoliberalism is to maximize growth, which pushes us toward our apocalyptic collision at the fastest possible speed. Thus the frog has been wakened from his slumber, and we see the beginnings of a global counter-movement. Currently, the movement expresses itself as thousands of separate sub-movements, each responding to one symptom or another of our civilizational crisis - and each with its own ideas of how to bring about change. Some of these movements are beginning to find common ground, as we saw in Seattle between labor activists and environmentalists. 'Anti-globalization' and 'sustainability' are serving to some extent as unifying rallying cries. Nonetheless, the movement is for the most part fragmented. The potential energy is there, but there is little sign that the movement is moving toward any kind of effective coalescence. At the end of each big protest, everyone goes back to their own group and continues as before. How can we help the movement move toward coherence? The first thing we need to be clear about is that only a total and global transformation of society is capable of dealing with the problems that confront us. Election reform, Tobin taxes, international courts of justice, restraints on corporations and the IMF, monetary reform - all of these amount to little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We need a full change of crew and a complete change in course - not a few minor adjustments. If our movement does not have such transformation as a central goal, then whether it succeeds or fails is of little consequence to the fate of humanity. If we truly seek a sustainable society, then we seek to harmonize humanity with nature - and nothing could be more radical. Such an agenda amounts to a rejection of capitalism, our current political regimes, and Tak mythology - and it leads us away from our 10,000-year cul-de-sac. The second thing we need to realize is that our political and economic institutions can be of no help in achieving social transformation. The upper levels of our business and political leadership are deeply committed to capitalism and to the pursuit of growth. Those at the top will be the last people to abandon the Taker myth. As conditions worsen, millions of us are realizing that further growth is not the answer. But our leaders can think only in terms of 'still more market forces' - as a medieval doctor might have prescribed 'still more leeches'. In the endgame, when the movement is very powerful, then it will be possible to work with these people to arrange for an orderly transition. But in the meantime, lobbying for changes from the top is both futile and dangerous. The most that can be achieved are offers of co-optive reforms or pseudo-progressive candidates - the very shoals upon which many a previous movement has gone aground. We must always beware of elites bearing gifts - and the closer we get to victory, the more enchanting will be the refrains of their siren song. Third, we must recognize that this movement has an entirely different kind of mission than previous social movements. We are not seeking to change the policies of the current regime, nor are we seeking to replace the leadership of the regime. Our goal is to abolish centralized regimes altogether and to establish a new kind of global society - locally based, harmonized internally and with the world, and organized around sustainability and stability instead of growth and change. Overcoming the current regime is actually the easier part of our task - more difficult by far will be the establishment of our new society. If the regime were to announce tomorrow that they were handing over the keys of power to 'us', 'we' wouldn't know where to begin! Indeed the word 'we' would have no meaning. _Who would accept the keys of power on our behalf? _Who is ready with a suitable program and implementation plan? _Who has been granted 'our' authorization to establish a new society - and _who has shown us the blueprint for that society? _We, I suggest, are far from ready to seek victory. _We have a bit of homework to do - and therein lies the key to bringing the movement into coherence. The establishment of a new society is in fact a _project. There are a variety of problems to be solved, and tasks to be carried out, in order to complete that project successfully. And surprisingly enough, the current regime has an important role to play in the project! The role of the movement, I suggest, is to build the political infrastructure of the new society. The role of the current regime is to keep the world going until we have that new infrastructure in place. The role of that new political regime will be to build the new society. There's not much we can do to influence the current regime's actions in any case, so we might as well let them get on with their business while we get on with ours. And we can't decide how to build the new society until an appropriate societal decision-making structure is in place. Hence building that structure is where we can most productively invest our efforts as a movement. I have suggested that the political regime of our new society will need to be locally based and to operate by harmonization. In order to build the infrastructure of that new regime, the movement itself must learn to operate by harmonization and it must strive to become locally based. In that way, the movement _becomes the new political infrastructure! The first task of the movement, I suggest, is to begin a process of internal harmonization. As the movement begins to achieve harmony with itself, it can then extend that harmonization process outward to the rest of society, and it can develop its roots in local neighborhoods and communities. When the whole global society is in harmony in this way then 'we' will be ready to dispense with the current regime, and no one will be motivated to defend it. There will be no final battle, just as there was none in Eastern Europe when the people unanimously decided they would no longer tolerate the Soviet-era regimes. With that kind of unanimity in opposition, no regime can stand. In order to pursue internal harmonization, the different sub-movements of the emerging movement need to begin meeting with one another, developing a sense of a larger movement community - and working out how they can collaborate toward social transformation. Harmonization is a holographic process - it can proceed wherever movement people meet, and it spreads like a web, with no center and no hierarchy. Productive ideas spread as memes, just as they do today on the Internet. There is no need for a centralized movement structure, and such a structure would in fact work against the establishment of a locally based society. And there is no need for any agreed ideology - not even an ideology based around sustainability or the rejection of the Taker myth. THE PROCESS OF HARMONIZATION IS ITSELF WHAT THE REVOLUTION IS REALLY ABOUT. Of course we will choose sustainability, once we start taking our problems into our own hands - how could any reasonable person choose otherwise? Who wants a society that cannot be sustained, leaving a bigger problem for our grandchildren to deal with? Environmental awareness now permeates our culture, and that is sufficient assurance that that as we chart our new course, we will be steering out of the Tak cul-de-sac. The key to successful harmonization is the use of appropriate process in movement sessions and councils. We need to learn how to work together effectively to solve problems - so that the movement can succeed, and later so that the new society can operate effectively. Such processes are not rocket science, but most of us are not familiar with them. We will need the help of experienced facilitators to get started, and then through practice the knowledge of how to achieve harmonization will become part of the movement culture - as it has always been part of every non-Tak culture. A good starting point - for those who wish to find out more about process techniques and the growing network of facilitators - is Tom Atlee's Co-Intelligence website: http://www.co-intelligence.org. _____________________________________________ Recommended reading Daniel Quinn, 'The Story of B', Bantam Books, London, 1996. Jared Diamond, 'Guns, Germs, and Steel', W.W. Norton, London, 1997. Maria Sandoz, 'Crazy Horse: Strange Man of the Oglalas', 50th Anniversary Edition, University of Nebraska Press, 1992. R. Buckminster Fuller, 'Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth', Simon & Schuster, 1970. John Ralston Saul, 'The Unconscious Civilization', House of Anansi Press, Ontario, Canada, 1995. Michel Chossudovsky, 'The Globalization of Poverty - Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reform's, The Third World Network, Penang, Malaysia, 1997. Jerry Mander and Edward Goldsmith, eds., 'The Case Against the Global Economy and for a Turn Toward The Local', Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1996. David C. Korten, 'The Post-Corporate World - Life After Capitalism', Kumerian Press, West Hartford, Connecticut, 1999. Frances Moore Lappé, Joseph Collins, Peter Rosset, 'World Hunger, Twelve Myths', Grove Press, New York, 1986. Richard Douthwaite, 'The Growth Illusion', Lilliput Press, Dublin, 1992. Hans-Peter Martin & Harald Schumann, 'The Global Trap, Globalization & the Assault on Democracy & Prosperity', St. Martin's Press, New York, 1997. Jerry Fresia, 'Toward an American Revolution - Exposing the Constitution & other Illusions', South End Press, Boston, 1988. Holly Sklar ed., 'Trilateralism - the Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management', South End Press, Boston, 1980. Howard Zinn, 'A People's History of the United States', HarperCollins, New York, 1995. ______________________________________________________________
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