The will to create an authentic, participatory democracy is encouraged by the trust that, as an active, involved and empowered people, we will decide to create the social and economic conditions needed to support our collective well-being and protect also the complex biodiversity of Earth.
Imagining what an enriching experience of democracy might look like connects us with our willingness to make it happen, and once we've awakened to the possibility of creating an enlivening form of democracy, the steps ahead become more clear.
If voting, as we do now, to elect politicians to make decisions on our behalf, is an unsatisfactory and superficial way to do democracy—one that leaves all but a few of us alienated from important decision-making, and perhaps unconsciously believing that we are powerless to create positive change—then what might politics look like if we were to be involved in a meaningful and empowering way?
Let's imagine our democracy transformed.
Our current electoral ridings—where various candidates contend in elections with the expectation of entering the oppositional world of partisan politics—are really communities waiting to be fully born through the shared realization of our common needs and values. As we share our place on the Earth in community, it is in our geographically situated communities where we might come together and transform the oppositional character of the political culture into one that is actually supporting, hopeful and sustainable.
It's in community where we could periodically explore our understanding of our shared needs and values, and this process could flow into an evolving, collective Constitution that expresses who we are and what we want as a people. At this time of exploring our common needs, a number of individuals could step forward with the intention of participating in local government. Although individuals are chosen by the community, they wouldn't represent that community, but rather they would work to allow people to participate fully in informed and considered decision-making.
So instead of our electing politicians to make decisions for us, we would choose people who we believe could best facilitate our involvement in decision-making, people whose role could be to explore the possibilities surrounding all aspects of the decisions that we might all participate in making.
But our participation would be voluntary, and various in its many ways. There could be opportunities for us to contribute to the development of policy and proposals for action, as well as frequent opportunities to indicate our choices of preference and priority. Meetings would occur at places of local government, and be accessible via the internet, and the entire process of government could be open to public observation and contribution. And what happens at the local level would inform what takes place at a greater, collective level.
From those we've selected to facilitate our local self-governance we could send one (or perhaps more) to participate at the next higher level of government, where the local process would be mirrored on the larger collective level. At this higher level, perhaps separate ministries or departments would form, emerging from the principle areas of mutual need, so that different people might pursue areas of greater personal interest: like health, environment, agriculture, industry, culture, etc. At the highest level of government, maybe we'd want to have a council of elected decision-makers, prepared to make decisions—based on our common values and needs, as expressed in the Constitution—in urgent and unusual circumstances.
Predominantly, our mutual desire to meet common needs would motivate our collective purpose in self-governance. Is there any other way that the will of the people could be more clearly manifest?
As empowered citizens, we can decide both the form and the content of the democracy we want to have, so that we may more easily create the world we want to have. But if we are to do politics in a way that fosters our collective well-being, I believe that it's important that democracy not be a game of winners and losers, but rather an inclusive process where everyone's contribution is valued and honoured.
It's my intention to leave this here as a simple sketch, because I'm very curious to know how you imagine democracy.
Through imagining, we deepen our will to create.
Through love,
John
Monday, October 25, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Envisioning Transformation
The act of envisioning, seeing or imagining something allows us to get in touch with what's alive in us, so that we may know more deeply what we need, and what we'd like to create. Can we imagine what political transformation might look like?
How might we transform the way we do politics now into an effective, participatory democracy, where the decision-making process truly reflects our shared needs and values?
When you hear the word transformation, how do you feel? Are you apprehensive, nervous, afraid? Are you curious and excited, or do you feel hesitant and uneasy? Maybe you experience a range of feelings.
Transformation is about changing the form of something—like how, as children, we agree to change the way we play a game. Transforming democracy is our agreeing to change the form of how democracy is done, and because democracy is an arranged social construction, and not naturally occurring, we may decide to change it for our mutual benefit—if we collectively discover the will to do so.
In our disempowerment, much of our willingness has gone to sleep, however, and our needs to participate and to be empowered, for instance, we have either lost touch with, or these needs have been channeled into activities without a lot of relevance to the whole.
In order that we might carry out political transformation, it would appear necessary that some inner transformation first occur—some kind of remembering of who we are. When transformation occurs within us, what changes form is our beliefs, and beliefs are the containers of energy. When we bring attention to our beliefs and feelings, and they open up, then the energy that has stayed stuck underneath our disregarded beliefs, and embedded in our neglected feelings, starts to flow again.
Overcoming disempowerment on the personal level involves the awakening of desire, the shifting of perspective and feeling, the meeting of resistance, and the liberation of energy and will. Empowerment and the liberation of energy on the collective level involves our forming some kind of social movement as a vehicle of our willingness to catalyze change, to help bring us collectively where we want to go.
To create new forms of political engagement would perhaps require a significant investment of energy—as it is the investment of energy that changes form. But we already have that energy right now: it is just tied up in the condition of our disempowerment. That willing energy, trapped within us and often difficult to access, may yet be liberated for our greater well-being.
When I imagine political transformation, I see a gathering of individuals who experience some awakening to the possibility of change, a gathering which eventually flows into a larger movement with a clear purpose, a movement which increases in energy and form until our mutual goals are realized.
Outer transformation may first flow from inner, but we might also imagine how outer transformation will help us catalyze inner change. A social movement with the intent to transform how we do politics would have an enormous, transforming effect on us, and it might show us how the promise of such a movement—perhaps, the enlivening connection and sense of hope, trust and well-being that we'd experience together—would be fulfilled by formal, political transformation.
Inner and outer transformation are involved in the ongoing dance of co-creation, but it is up to us, and our willingness, to create the kind of world we want to see. So, let's imagine what an ideal democracy might look like.
When we imagine, we also call upon the will to create.
How might we transform the way we do politics now into an effective, participatory democracy, where the decision-making process truly reflects our shared needs and values?
When you hear the word transformation, how do you feel? Are you apprehensive, nervous, afraid? Are you curious and excited, or do you feel hesitant and uneasy? Maybe you experience a range of feelings.
Transformation is about changing the form of something—like how, as children, we agree to change the way we play a game. Transforming democracy is our agreeing to change the form of how democracy is done, and because democracy is an arranged social construction, and not naturally occurring, we may decide to change it for our mutual benefit—if we collectively discover the will to do so.
In our disempowerment, much of our willingness has gone to sleep, however, and our needs to participate and to be empowered, for instance, we have either lost touch with, or these needs have been channeled into activities without a lot of relevance to the whole.
In order that we might carry out political transformation, it would appear necessary that some inner transformation first occur—some kind of remembering of who we are. When transformation occurs within us, what changes form is our beliefs, and beliefs are the containers of energy. When we bring attention to our beliefs and feelings, and they open up, then the energy that has stayed stuck underneath our disregarded beliefs, and embedded in our neglected feelings, starts to flow again.
Overcoming disempowerment on the personal level involves the awakening of desire, the shifting of perspective and feeling, the meeting of resistance, and the liberation of energy and will. Empowerment and the liberation of energy on the collective level involves our forming some kind of social movement as a vehicle of our willingness to catalyze change, to help bring us collectively where we want to go.
To create new forms of political engagement would perhaps require a significant investment of energy—as it is the investment of energy that changes form. But we already have that energy right now: it is just tied up in the condition of our disempowerment. That willing energy, trapped within us and often difficult to access, may yet be liberated for our greater well-being.
When I imagine political transformation, I see a gathering of individuals who experience some awakening to the possibility of change, a gathering which eventually flows into a larger movement with a clear purpose, a movement which increases in energy and form until our mutual goals are realized.
Outer transformation may first flow from inner, but we might also imagine how outer transformation will help us catalyze inner change. A social movement with the intent to transform how we do politics would have an enormous, transforming effect on us, and it might show us how the promise of such a movement—perhaps, the enlivening connection and sense of hope, trust and well-being that we'd experience together—would be fulfilled by formal, political transformation.
Inner and outer transformation are involved in the ongoing dance of co-creation, but it is up to us, and our willingness, to create the kind of world we want to see. So, let's imagine what an ideal democracy might look like.
When we imagine, we also call upon the will to create.
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