Part 2
The Implication of the Gaian Paradigm
to Social Institutions
The new Paradigm is a scientific hypothesis which explains many phenomena
in cosmic evolution. But it is more than that. It suggest a new worldview or
mindset by which humans can examine current phenomena with respect to their
long range future. Futurists are no longer dependent on examining history and
technological trends. In fact, puncture evolution and self-organizing criticality
suggests that new social, as well as physical and biological, phenomena arrive, like
an avalanche unpredictably. We may not be able to foretell them with accuracy, but
we can examine groups of related social phenomena that are close to chaos. And
we can foresee possible future happenings of social importance. This is not unlike
the mountaineer's warnings of avalanches, the meteorologist's prediction of
weather, or the geologist's foresight of earthquakes. The mathematical accuracy of
physics, the model science of the past, applies only to a very limited range of
phenomena. Even those, as quantum theory says, are only very highly probable.
Nature is nonlinear and unpredictable.
Punctuated equilibrium applies equally well to social and cultural evolution as
as it does to biologicalevolution. As long as a society is adapted competently to the
values and needs of the people it serves, it will tend to preserve those values and
practices that have sustained it, and will resist change. But again, when things
detriorate (economic downturns, street violence, family disintegration, warfare,
religious uncertainty, famine, ecological collapse, or whatever) deeply rooted
cultural premises are quickly abandoned. A pweriod of uncertainty and chaos sets
in. If new knowledge reveals a profoundly different view of the world, a new cultural
and social strucure replaces the old. Society today is in it most profound period of
chaos and change.
In the coming years it is most probable that every social institutions that has
been developing for the past 2000 years will be deeply, fundamentally, and radically
reexamined in the light of the New Scientific/Social Paradigm. The new mindset
gives humanity a new powerful tool to foresee and prepare for the uncertain future.
There could be a flood of self-organizing social phenomena rplacing the old. In the
following we look at three. The burgeoning Civil Society and the possibility that it
could emerge into a new mode of global governance. The growth of homeschooling
which could be the forerunner of a radically different, community based learning
system. And the convergence of science and religion which portends a unified
knowledge system.
A GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY GOVERNANCE SYSTEM
In 1982, in a European journal on communications I wrote an article on
"Transnational Networks and World Order" John Briggs and F. David Peat in one of
the early books popularizing "the new science of chaos" quoted it as an example of
the application of the new science to social and political structure. It was pretty
primitive thinking, but may perhaps suggest the direction that more thought
should be applied as we move further under the new Gain paradigm. The quote
suggested that:
"A future world government can be pictured as a multidimensional network of
networks which provide each individual with many optional paths through which s/
he can provide for his or her own well-being and can particpate in controlling world
affaire. ... [it will be] composed of links between nodes. [It] will have no center.
Each member of the network [will be] autonomous. Unlike in a hierarchy no part or
member will be controlled by any other. Various members may draw together for
special projects or on differint issue, but there [will be] no bureaucarcy demanding
action or conformity."5 This was not meant to be the prediction of a classical
anachistic state, but rather to fruition of the participatory democracy made possible
by new concepts, new technologies, and new worldviews.
That the current social/economic/political system is on the edge of chaos is
made too obvious by daily newspaper headlines to require much confirmation here.
Random killing of tourists in Florida and Egypt, depletion of the ozone layer, teen
suicides, world hunger, global warming, Washington gridlock, the failure of global
governance in Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Ceylon, and the Middle East, the widening rich-
poor gap, the inability to solve, or even confront global pollution problems, child
labor, street crime, and sweatshops, racism and the glass ceiling, the wanton waste
of natural resources, downsizing of industries, the break down of the family, are
mere symptoms. The basic characteristics of civil society is lost in the current
market/government orientation, which fosters competition, free trade, self-
centeredness, profit-over-people, globalism, and widespread alienation. Deep
systemic problems give a clear picture of a civilization on the edge of chaos. An
alternative system is self-organizing.
In the past two decades there has been a rapid rise of citizen organized
GrassRoots Organizaions (GROs, often called Nongovernmental Organizations or
NGOs) in Asia, Africa and Latin America. It has been initiated by the failure and near
chaos brought on by the Industrial Countries' intrusion into culture they did not
understand. This subverion of other cultures to the Western way started with
Columbus who, with the strength of the sword (technology), the flag (national
organization), and the cross (religion) started the subjugation of all non-European
cultures. The subjugation of people around the world during the periods of
'discovery' and colonizing that followed, are well known. It is enough, here, to say
that indigenous cultures have been overwhelmed by the dominant and domineering
EuroAmerican Industrial Culture.
Springing from the land, uninvited and often resisted by outside developers,
and even their own governments, people are now recreating their own communities
with new and indigenous technologies, and taking over where governments and
industries have failed. Often stimulated by a special unique local need, these local
Grassroots Organizations (GROs) grow to become more broadly socially and
politically active, linking up with other GROs to form networks for participatory
democracy and mutual aid. Outside aid to GROs is provided by Grassroots Support
Organizations (GRSOs) formed most often by middle class professionals and
technicians who recognize the inequities engendered by the current economic-
political system. GRSOs reach out to give in-kind assistance and to legitimize the
actions of the peasants and disenfranchised in their bids for empowerment and
local self-reliance.6 Techniques, technologies, information, and service from the
industrial countries are supplied through links created by International non-
governmental organizations (INGOs)
Non-governmental organizations are also becoming a greater force and better
recognize in the Industrial countries. The problems facing humankind cannot be
solved by governments or markets alone. Nor can governments or corporations
create a people center democracy. But we-the-people are solving our problems
world wide by the third leg of governance, Civil Society. That is, by citizen
participation on a local community scale. New citizen initiated social innovations
are sweeping North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and to a lesser extent
Japan. These social innovations are being borrowed and exchanged among nearly
every country around the world.
From England came the cooperative movement, started in Rochdale England in
1844 by some disenfranchised weavers. It spread to the U.S. with producer co-ops
during World War I, and with a plethora of consumer co-op during the 1960s. The
Mondragon network of co-ops, in the Basque area of Spain, added the concept of
crating secondary co-ops to serve the primary co-ops. Banks, Insurance
Companies, Management Services, and other businesses owned by the primary co-
op serve the member co-ops . The Seikatsu Club of some 10,000 Japanese
housewives organized by "hans," local co-ops, create their own businesses when the
market does not meet their social, ecological , or economic demands.
From Bangladesh came the Grameen Banks that introduced a new credit
technique by lending money through groups of borrowers who guaranteed one
another's loans. From Canada came Local Exchange and Trading Systems (LETS), a
local citizen owned computerize exchange system. Local scrips, such as Ithaca
Hours, help local businesses and individuals create local jobs and exchange goods
and services regardless of the inflow of federal dollars. "Time Dollars," systems
promote baby sitting pools, senior citizen services, and other forms of local service
based on hours worked not dollars spent.
From Denmark has come co-Housing, in which families build their own homes
but with common ground and common space including child care facilities and
community dining rooms bringing a new sense of community solidarity. This, of
course, adds to the array of communes, community land trusts, intentional
communities, and ecovillages in which citizen provide the planning and
development so lacking in government and corporate housing developments.
From Switzerland comes Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) bringing
farmers and citizens together to produce local food with local resources. The
consumers sometimes own the land, share the produce, and participate in the work,
paying a professional gardener to manage the growing. Other innovations in the
food and agriculture area include farmers' markets, homesteading, and the rapidly
growing development of home gardening.
From India came the concept of Community Land Trusts (CLTs) and the
Ghandian nonviolence that has already transformed social protest and citizen
action.
Many other social innovations such as citizen patrols, homeschooling,
community learning centers, community loan funds, peace brigades, homesteading,
and community bulletin boards are building community solidarity, empowering
citizens at the grassroots and promoting local community self-reliance without
relying on governments or "the market."
It is all there. A living body of networking organizations has emerged to fill
the niche produced by dysfunctional post-colonial governments. A plethora of
unique interdependent social cells have developed organs assuming specialized
functions that serve the whole. They have almost magically become the social/
political body that promises better life for the people in developing countries, and
the whole Earth. The natural laws of self-organizing criticality and autocatalysis are
working on the social level.
Through the revelations of science, an understanding of the cosmic process is
slowly emerging. Perhaps with this new understanding, humanity can participate in
the co-creation of a sustainable and lasting civilization based on citizen
participation in local community organizations -- a Gaian global governance.
(1008 words)
The First Phase of Democracy
Like any step in cosmic evolution this would be a unique happening. But like
any step in cosmic evolution it would be subject to the natural evolutionary laws. It
was 250 years ago that the first phase of democratic governance was a unique
happening introduced on the planet. The times then, like the times now were
chaotic. The ruling powers, and the ruling system, had outlived its usefulness.
Masses of people recognized that they were missing out on many to the benefits
that their toil had created. "It was the best of times, and the worst of times." The
American and the French revolutions happened.
The first phase of demcracy was a foolish idea to the leaders of the day.
Monarchs held their power by the "divine right of kings." Neither the churches nor
the governments were friendly to the idea that the people could rule themselves,
nor even participate in government. The ideas of voting, representation, legislating,
human rights, politics, constitutions, or social contracts were little more than hazy
academic notions played with by abstruse philosphers. The Magna Charter had
fiven large land owners a degree of power over their lands and its serfs, but these
posers were subject to the Kings will. It took the Voltaires, the Frnaklinss, the
Paines, and the Jeffersons to bring the ideas of everyman's rights to the public. And
it took the Boston Tea Party, the Bread Riots, and the revolutionary wars, to bring
down the old regimes and make possible the self-organization of the new.
Self-organization is the right word. The avalanche of change hit an unprepared
society. No one had predicted the rise of national democracy. There were no plans,
no designs, or instruction books for the first phase of democracy. There were few
constitutions, no concept of checks and balances, no rules for voting, no loyal
opposition, no political parties, no civil society, no GROs.
The American colonies had assumed a degree of self-control under the British
Crown. Direct democracy was practiced in the forerunners of the New England town
meeting and in some colonies. Voting rights were usually denied women, blacks,
Catholics and Jews. Suffrage was extended to only landholders of some substance
often as much as 50£ (a goodly sum in those days). Probably no more than 1/3 of
the adult free men could vote. Office holding was even more restricted. Often to
hold elected office a man had to own at least 500 acres and 10 slaves, or thousands
of pounds sterling in other property. Like with today's GROs, ideas and actions
were separate and disparate. 7 No associations were ready to exercise political
control of society. The task was daunting. But it did happen. In spite of the later
failure in France and earlier failures in Athens and Rome, the first phase of
democracy was born to last in America.8
I have used "the first phase of democracy" to describe the political innovation
of 1776 because, as we know today, it was only partially successful. It was only
partially successful for many reasons. Primarily because it arrived on the world
stage without preparation. The technology of the times made participatory
democracy impossible beyond the town meeting. Communication was measured in
days or weeks, not as today in nanoseconds. Because of that, we-the-people could
only be "represented" in the halls of power. Franklin and Jefferson, followng the
Native Americvan model, advocated that all decision be made by consensus at the
local level, and that represenatives be limited to arguing the case for their
communities. But Madison and others, following the concept of British
parliamentarian, Edmond Burke, argued that represntatives should be empowered
to make decision in the name of the people. Burkian representation was accepted
by most colonies and the Constituional Assembly. This has made the government
dominant and limited the voice of the people.
In spite of extending suffrage, the voice of the people has been steadily
erroded as government has grown in size and power. People's control of
corporations was taken away in 1844 in the Supreme Court's decision that
corporations had the same rights as flesh and blood citizens. Earlier, communties
or states could revoke corporate charters if a corporation was deemed to not be in
the public interest. The rise of corporate power over the people increased with the
opening of Free Trade with no restrictions on the outflow of capital or jobs, and no
global standards for safety, health, or protecting in environment. The high cost of
getting elected and the free flow of money into politics from the wealthy elite,
banks, and businesses, has made even the first phase of democracy far less a
people's government than was envisioned by America's Founding Fathers.
Emergence of the Second Phase of Democracy
The rise of Civil Society, modern technology, and the new scientific
understanding of how evolution works has made possible the emergence of a
second phase for democracy. We-the-people now have a voice in our civil society,
we have the technology to communicate around the globe, and we have the new
understanding of social evolution .
Complexity theory shows that ordered complexity is the natural state of the
universe. Biological evolution is the most obvious example of the tendency toward
the ordering of simple entities into more complex systems. Every step of cosmic
evolution since the Big Bang has been a step toward increasing ordered complexity.
Creation occurs on the borderline between rigid order and random chaos, "at the
edge of chaos." If an entity is too rigidly ordered it can not change to meet the
contingencies of a change in its environment. Flexibility is one of the cardinal
biological principles of evolution. Without flexibility a life form is not sustainable, it
cannot change to meet new conditions. Without flexibility progress is impossible.
But governments, like corporations, have been organized on the concept that
good management means rigid order directed from the top. In the first phase of
democracy the people elected their governmental repsentatives, but all power
resided in the government. Humans have been locked into the worldview in which
rigid order was highly respected. Rigid order was the goal of organization. Humans
are taught to be afraid of chaos, and to avoid complexity. Yet, the new science/
social paradigm show us that the edge of chaos is where progress happens with the
self-organizing of complexity. If society is to meet the challenges that face it, it
needs to live closer to the edge of chaos. It must welcome a degree of disorder.
Democracy since its modern inception has suffered from its self-guilt of being
inefficient. Critics and supporters alike have held that democracy is too chaotic.
They have searched for ways to move democracy toward more controlled
management without surrendering the human rights they saw as the great
strenghth of this form of government. The Gaian Paradigm sees democracy in a
very different light. The seeming weaknesses of democracy are its strength. The
theories of Gaia, Chaos and Complexity suggest that self-organizing on the edge of
chaos is natural law. It requires the messy flexibility inherent in democracy, and
absent in more efficient forms of government. Peope are only beginning to realize
that no form of government, except democracy, provides the freedom and potential
of complex ordering to meet the changing demands of modern times.
The rise of civil society, the burgeoning of GROs, the growth of social
innovation, community involvement in meeting their own needs, are all parts of the
progressive agenda provided by nature. We may not see clearly today the final
organization which will emerge if we continue to build the decentralized
autonomous communities linked together in worldwide mutual aid. But, that is the
way of cosmic evolution as it is seen from the new worldview. It purports the
emergence of a second phase of democracy. One in which people in community at
the grassroots have a direct input to all decisions which affect their lives. A new
form of global governance.
see part 1
No comments:
Post a Comment