Do you know about - The Gaian Paradigm Part 2
Farmers Insurance Group! Again, for I know. Ready to share new things that are useful. You and your friends.Part 2
The Implication of the Gaian Paradigm
to group Institutions
How is The Gaian Paradigm Part 2
The new Paradigm is a scientific hypothesis which explains many phenomena
in cosmic evolution. But it is more than that. It propose 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 corporal and biological, phenomena arrive, like
an avalanche unpredictably. We may not be able to foretell them with accuracy, but
we can examine groups of connected group phenomena that are close to chaos. And
we can foresee inherent time to come happenings of group 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 minute range of
phenomena. Even those, as portion theory says, are only very very probable.
Nature is nonlinear and unpredictable.
Punctuated balance applies equally well to group and cultural evolution as
as it does to biologicalevolution. As long as a community is adapted competently to the
values and needs of the population it serves, it will tend to keep those values and
practices that have sustained it, and will resist change. But again, when things
detriorate (economic downturns, road violence, house 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 dissimilar view of the world, a new cultural
and group strucure replaces the old. community today is in it most profound duration of
chaos and change.
In the advent years it is most probable that every group 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 grand tool to foresee and prepare for the uncertain future.
There could be a flood of self-organizing group phenomena rplacing the old. In the
following we look at three. The burgeoning Civil community and the possibility that it
could emerge into a new mode of global governance. The increase 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 community Governance System
In 1982, in a European journal on communications I wrote an report 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 group and political structure. It was pretty
primitive thinking, but may possibly propose the direction that more view
should be applied as we move added under the new Gain paradigm. The quote
suggested that:
"A time to come world government can be pictured as a multidimensional network of
networks which supply each personel with many optional paths straight through which s/
he can supply 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. Discrete 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 inherent
by new concepts, new technologies, and new worldviews.
That the current social/economic/political theory is on the edge of chaos is
made too obvious by daily newspaper headlines to need 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, road 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 community is lost in the current
market/government orientation, which fosters competition, free trade, self-
centeredness, profit-over-people, globalism, and allembracing alienation. Deep
systemic problems give a clear photo of a civilization on the edge of chaos. An
alternative theory is self-organizing.
In the past two decades there has been a rapid rise of population 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 commercial Countries' intrusion into culture they did not
understand. This subverion of other cultures to the Western way started with
Columbus who, with the drive of the sword (technology), the flag (national
organization), and the cross (religion) started the subjugation of all non-European
cultures. The subjugation of population nearby the world while 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 commercial Culture.
Springing from the land, uninvited and often resisted by surface developers,
and even their own governments, population are now recreating their own communities
with new and indigenous technologies, and taking over where governments and
industries have failed. Often stimulated by a extra unique local need, these local
Grassroots Organizations (Gros) grow to come to be more broadly socially and
politically active, linking up with other Gros to form networks for participatory
democracy and mutual aid. surface aid to Gros is in case,granted by Grassroots keep
Organizations (Grsos) formed most often by middle class professionals and
technicians who identify 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 straight through links created by International non-
governmental organizations (Ingos)
Non-governmental organizations are also becoming a greater force and great
recognize in the commercial countries. The problems facing humankind cannot be
solved by governments or markets alone. Nor can governments or corporations
create a population town democracy. But we-the-people are solving our problems
world wide by the third leg of governance, Civil Society. That is, by population
participation on a local community scale. New population initiated group innovations
are sweeping North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and to a lesser extent
Japan. These group innovations are being borrowed and exchanged among nearly
every country nearby 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 while the 1960s. The
Mondragon network of co-ops, in the Basque area of Spain, added the view of
crating secondary co-ops to serve the primary co-ops. Banks, assurance
Companies, administration 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, originate 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 prestige
technique by lending money straight through groups of borrowers who guaranteed one
another's loans. From Canada came Local exchange and Trading Systems (Lets), a
local population owned computerize exchange system. Local scrips, such as Ithaca
Hours, help local businesses and individuals originate local jobs and exchange goods
and services regardless of the inflow of federal dollars. "Time Dollars," systems
promote baby sitting pools, senior population 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 along with 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 population supply 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 partake in the work,
paying a professional gardener to conduct the growing. Other innovations in the
food and agriculture area contain farmers' markets, homesteading, and the rapidly
growing development of home gardening.
From India came the view of community Land Trusts (Clts) and the
Ghandian nonviolence that has already transformed group protest and population
action.
Many other group innovations such as population 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 group cells have advanced organs assuming specialized
functions that serve the whole. They have approximately magically come to be the social/
political body that promises great life for the population in developing countries, and
the whole Earth. The natural laws of self-organizing criticality and autocatalysis are
working on the group level.
Through the revelations of science, an insight of the cosmic process is
slowly emerging. possibly with this new understanding, humanity can partake in
the co-creation of a sustainable and lasting civilization based on population
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 population 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 kindly to the idea that the population could rule themselves,
nor even partake in government. The ideas of voting, representation, legislating,
human rights, politics, constitutions, or group contracts were minute more than hazy
academic notions played with by abstruse philosphers. The Magna lease 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 ownership 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 inherent the self-organization of the new.
Self-organization is the right word. The avalanche of change hit an unprepared
society. No one had thinkable, the rise of national democracy. There were no plans,
no designs, or study books for the first phase of democracy. There were few
constitutions, no view 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 ownership were ordinarily 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 isolate and disparate. 7 No associations were ready to practice 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 spin 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. transportation 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 minute to arguing the case for their
communities. But Madison and others, following the view of British
parliamentarian, Edmond Burke, argued that represntatives should be empowered
to make decision in the name of the people. Burkian representation was approved
by most colonies and the Constituional Assembly. This has made the government
dominant and minute the voice of the people.
In spite of extending suffrage, the voice of the population has been steadily
erroded as government has grown in size and power. People's control of
corporations was taken away in 1844 in the consummate Court's decision that
corporations had the same ownership as flesh and blood citizens. Earlier, communties
or states could revoke corporate charters if a corporation was deemed to not be in
the group interest. The rise of corporate power over the population 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 inherent the emergence of a
second phase for democracy. We-the-people now have a voice in our civil society,
we have the technology to spin nearby the globe, and we have the new
understanding of group 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 uncomplicated entities into more involved systems. Every step of cosmic
evolution since the Big Bang has been a step toward expanding 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 theory of evolution. Without flexibility a life form is not sustainable, it
cannot change to meet new conditions. Without flexibility expand is impossible.
But governments, like corporations, have been organized on the view that
good administration means rigid order directed from the top. In the first phase of
democracy the population elected their governmental repsentatives, but all power
resided in the government. Humans have been locked into the worldview in which
rigid order was very 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 expand happens with the
self-organizing of complexity. If community 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 ownership they saw as the great
strenghth of this form of government. The Gaian Paradigm sees democracy in a
very dissimilar light. The seeming weaknesses of democracy are its strength. The
theories of Gaia, Chaos and Complexity propose that self-organizing on the edge of
chaos is natural law. It requires the messy flexibility inherent in democracy, and
absent in more productive forms of government. Peope are only starting to perceive
that no form of government, except democracy, provides the leisure and inherent
of involved ordering to meet the changing demands of modern times.
The rise of civil society, the burgeoning of Gros, the increase of group
innovation, community involvement in meeting their own needs, are all parts of the
progressive schedule in case,granted by nature. We may not see clearly today the final
organization which will emerge if we continue to build the decentralized
autonomous communities connected 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 population in community at
the grassroots have a direct input to all decisions which influence their lives. A new
form of global governance.
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