Extracts from some postings from the Social Developers’ Network
…The current Independent members of parliament provide examples of how ‘unexpected’ people frequently turn out to be key leaders in the attempt to lead a vital paradigm shift.
Many citizens are unrealistic and want the world to stay as it has been including of course the global ‘big end’ imperialists – but more seriously in democracies there are many members of the general public who are insecure and are totally influenced by the ‘bread and circuses’ emphasis of the commercial media and the ‘big end’ advertising there. There is also a decline of serious-level literacy going on which means that the public are no longer developing any coherent intellectual understanding about the world: it’s all fragmented into media ‘sound/visual bites’. Fewer and fewer people are reading anything at length.
In my view a major aspect of the needed cultural change requires a difficult shift into ‘participatory/ecosystemic operations’: this simply means recognising that in all healthy living systems there is no centre of hierarchical control: it is a whole bunch of self-governing units (cells species etc) negotiating and co-operating among themselves to achieve the best outcome for their collective life overall again within the wider eco-systemic environment which runs also in that same way.. This implies that if humanity wants to know how to maintain the living systems on this planet we need to understand it deeply by learning also how to operate our own societal ecosystem. This means becoming a participatory democracy just as we were in our original small tribes.
…I agree with the idea that transition con-fusion is unavoidable. Our old ideas and many new realities have to be melted together and that process is always con-fusing. In my understanding of the complexity of eco-systems we’ll need a range of interconnected ‘hubs’ via which to establish and maintain cohesion and direction – ‘leaderful’ groups communities and networks as you say; and an ecosystem of facilitators.
I agree that all major paradigm shifts are characterised by both progressive movement and bitter rearguard backlashes. Corruption to serve selfish interests will become more brazen.
Yes areas dominated by cynicism lack of faith and selfish competition will descend into system failure while others who use good intentions their best intelligence and a willingness to risk seeking a humanising way forward by trial and error – correcting as we go – will more frequently succeed. As you say there will still be ‘fossil fools’ around while others make the best alternative renewable energy network arrangements they can.
I agree too that making sure we keep on seeing the whole picture – both the depressing and the hopeful – will help us avoid giving up trying on the one hand or hiving off into hopeful unrealism on the other.
Well I see a lot of work needing to be done to help folk who can’t see anything to sustain their hope. They need to understand the possible and evolving scenarios and their trajectory.
The main problem is the motivational one as I see it. How help people shift out of panic and then depression over their sense of powerlessness?
Most human advances occur as a result of the work done by a very few folk who start somewhere and then proceed to find their way through what is a constantly evolving social and political reality. They do this by following general principles that flow into ‘seat-of-the-pants’ methods which they invent as they go. Networking is obviously essential in such processes.
It’s all about motivation. Are we governed for example by fear which causes us to withdraw; or causes us to deny and evade; or causes us to blame our own inadequacy dependence and seeming powerlessness; — or is it fear that causes us to blame and attack everybody else than ourselves? As I see it these are the patterns of failure that we must learn to overcome.