Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Anna Harris on December 23, 2011 at 2:23pm

Thank you David, I agree that the collective effort is to acknowledge our interdependence, and restore it in practice. But you also seem to be saying there may not be time for it to succeed. And that may be pointing to the possibility that all our efforts may not be enough to ensure the continuation of human life on this planet.

I would like to think that the period of building the cathedral will be experienced as continuous improvement. If I understand you right then that is the joy, creativity and excitement I feel in this present situation, in spite of the doom laden prophecies from economists etc. This moment is full of such potential, it feels to me it is ready to burst. After a long tme of feeling isolated it delights in meeting others of like mind

I want to quote here something which I feel is relevant to the way we connect in this discussion, as an aspect of our collective interdependence:

'Collective thought is fundamentally opposed to the current system which is managed by the individualist thought. For this, we need time, it is a long-term process. It is usually common that, when considering a decision, two people with contrary ideas will tend to bring themselves into conflict and they will defend their ideas fiercely, with the single objective of convincing, winning or, at the most, reaching middle ground.

The main objective of collective thought is constructing. This meaning, two people with different ideas combining their energy in order to build something. Then, it is not about my idea or yours. It will be the two ideas together that produce a new outcome that we did not know about in the first place. This is why active listening in which we are not just preparing for our next intervention is so necessary. Collective thought is born once we understand that every opinion, ours and those different to ours, all of them, are needed in order to generate the idea of consensus; an idea which, after being indirectly constructed, will transform us.'

http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/2011/06/the-dynamisation-of-popula...

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Permalink Reply by David Eggleton on December 23, 2011 at 8:24pm

"you also seem to be saying there may not be time for it to succeed"

If I did, it was somewhat inadvertent.  It's getting together first for which I cannot see sufficient time.

Here's a quote from Donella Meadows that addresses rate of change:

You could say paradigms are harder to change than anything else about a system, and therefore this item should be lowest on the list*, not second-to-highest.  But there's nothing physical or expensive or even slow in the process of paradigm change.  In a single individual it can happen in a millisecond.  All it takes is a click in the mind, a falling of scales from the eyes, a new way of seeing.  Whole societies are another matter -- they resist challenges to their paradigms harder than they resist anything else.

I appreciate our new connection and this exchange, Anna.  I like that quote, too, which echoes experiences with some groups in which I participate.

* of places to intervene in a system

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Permalink Reply by David Eggleton on December 22, 2011 at 10:26am

Urging a very broad definition of voice, my declaration of possibility is here.

Occupied selves will replace the unnecessary stuff that complicates (and more) our lives and relationships with lives.

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Permalink Reply by Susan Livingston on January 2, 2012 at 6:01pm

Here is a trailer to a collectively-built movie about "gift economy" that's meant to be released later this year:

The Revolution is Love

Some of the Transition Towns are experimenting with community-based economic systems and finding that they have the potential to render the entire notion of exchange obsolete.  Mostly this happens because people are sharing their gifts with their communities rather than "working for the man every night and day."  It's not about this economic model or that economic model - it's more about decentralizing our economy by acknowledging, supporting, making visible, or replicating local initiatives that are already in place (like clumps of imaginal butterfly cells scattered throughout the muck of what used to be the caterpillar) such as farmers markets, flea markets, community gardens, alternative currencies, buyers cooperatives, and "maker" and service collectives of all sorts.  The acceptance of a unified economy was sold to the sheeple based on the convenience of a single currency for "all debts public and private" and the efficiency of debt-driven competition and growth.  If we want to reclaim our birthright of community-level interdependence and trust, let's throw off the shackles of our wage slavery and enjoy the GIFT of life instead of "earning a living" and devaluing the gift into a right or entitlement.  That's the world I want to live in!

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Permalink Reply by David Eggleton on January 5, 2012 at 6:36pm

OCCUPY THE ECONOMY : Andrew Faust - Permaculture - OWS from TerraVisus on Vimeo.

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Permalink Reply by Mark E. Smith on January 5, 2012 at 9:42pm

The. Best. Video. I've. Ever. Seen. Thank you, David. As we recognize that the dominant system is not meeting our basic needs, we can withdraw our energies from it and put our energy into producing what we need. We can't do both as a "spectrum of activities." Our energies are not infinite. We can put our energy into working within the current system or we can put our energy into creating a better system, but if we try to do both simultaneously, half of our energy will be devoted to defeating the other half so we'll just stagnate. There is a new Occupy Garden experiment in permaculture near where I live and it is attracting some very hard-working and creative people. Movements, like armies, travel on their bellies, so in order to grow a movement, we have to grow food. It isn't really as difficult as it may seem, as most of the work is done by nature, and we just have to find spaces for it and defend it. I'm going to play this video over and over until I memorize it--living in a city apartment myself, I feel like I've just found the owner's manual.

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Permalink Reply by Anna Harris on January 6, 2012 at 3:36am

It's really clear that we need to switch, as you say we can't do both. One defeats the other.

The same applies to when one half of society is working within the system, and the other half trying to build the alternative. It is self defeating. This is the message of preparing for the MAY Global Strike now.  Using that terminology to call in activists and workers, but encouraging them to put energy into building the alternative rather than the traditional protest to put pressure on employers or government. As long as we maintain the system by our dependency on it, it will continue to function, exploiting us and damaging the planet.

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Permalink Reply by Susan Livingston on January 5, 2012 at 11:31pm

Yeah, David!  Like that!  (See The Revolution Is Love, above.)

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