In
recent years there have been some interesting experiments in citizen
'advocacy' using the Internet to organize 'meetups', petitions,
programs and campaigns. Most of them, however, seem designed to
confront the existing political system: mobilize protests, lobby, or
support less corrupt politicians. Perhaps it's time to see whether the Internet and 'grassroots democracy' could be harnessed for direct action, solving some of the problems we face ourselves
instead of tilting against the political establishment in the
perpetually uphill and futile struggle to get them to act on our behalf.
How might we do this? I wrote before about Malcolm Gladwell's tracking
of Rick Warren's 'Cellular Church', a religious and now social action
network based on 'cells', political units even smaller than
communities, handfuls of people with shared values and ideals working,
each in their own way, on self-organized actions inspired but not directed
by Warren's 'anti-hierarchy'. The power in the cellular church is all
on the front lines. Warren is substantially just a facilitator,
suggesting principles to guide the cells in deciding what to do, but
not directing or coordinating those actions. He eschews the 'power' of
hierarchy not out of altruism or humility, but because he knows that
people will act more passionately, more persistently, more
substantially, if the ideas are theirs than if they are 'instructions from above'. Warren writes:
If
I go to church with 500 members, in a magnificent cathedral, why should
I volunteer or donate any substantial share of my money? What kind of
peer pressure is there in a congregation that large? If the barriers to
entry become too low -- and the ties among members increasingly tenuous
-- then the church as it grows bigger becomes weaker. One solution to
the problem is simply not to grow, and, historically, churches have
sacrificed size for community. But there is another approach: to create
a church out of a lot of little church cells. The small group as an
instrument of community is initially how Communism spread, and in the
post-war years AA and its 12-step progeny perfected the small-group
technique. Members sat in a circle. The focus was on interaction -- not
one person teaching [or preaching] and the others listening -- and the
remarkable thing about these groups is their power.
[Churches and others soon found] the small group was an extraordinary
vehicle of commitment. It was personal and flexible. It cost nothing.
It was convenient, and every [member] was able to find a small group
that precisely matched his or her interests.
Suppose
we were to try to create a complete, new social and political 'system',
all over the planet, based entirely on personal responsibility and
action at the cellular, microcommunity level, assuming the existing
social and political systems can and will do nothing for us and have
outlived their usefulness.
That
movement would need a name, and it would need some kind of critical
mass to launch it (we want Oprah to invite us to explain it, but if the
legacy media aren't interested, that's just fine). It would also need
four other things:
- Principles:
A set of principles that reflect broad human values and ideals,
especially those that are not reflected in the actions of the existing
political and other systems. Those principles would guide, but not
dictate, what the cells of the movement would focus their attention and
actions on. They might include leaving a socially, ecologically and
financial healthy world for our children and future generations. They
might include self-learning and educating each other
in the critical life skills we need to appreciate others and to be part
of nature and to make a joyful, stress-free living doing things we are
good at and love doing and which are needed. They might including
preventing and self-treating diseases and illnesses and looking after
each other when they are unable to look after themselves. They might
include living a radically simple, indigenous life, taking from the
Earth and from others no more than we need and no more than we give
back. These principles would not be about standards or rights or things
we should expect or demand of others. They would instead about personal
responsibilities, what we hope for our future and expect of ourselves
to pave the way to realizing those hopes. They would guide us to
appreciate the world as it is now and could be and to take things into
our own hands to make it better.
- Practices:
A suggested egalitarian methodology for (a) surfacing relevant
information about problems and issues that the cell is concerned about,
(b) achieving a collective understanding of these issues and some
promising approaches to deal with them, (c) deciding what to do,
individually and collectively, and (d) when deemed appropriate by the
cell, linking up with other cells interested in the same issues so they
can collaborate on larger-scale activities. I think my complex system 'convergence' methodology, perhaps bringing in elements of the 'U' presencing methodology
as well, might work: It's scalable, egalitarian, proven to work in
addressing the most complex issues, and not hard to learn and teach
(and the more you practice it, the better you become at it).
- Network Facilitation: A very lean, simple set of tools that enable cells to self-organize and to network and collaborate with other cells.
- Attention, Guidance and Encouragement:
At least initially, in order to kindle the movement, the founding group
will need to offer attention, guidance and encouragement to all the
movement's cells. I would suggest that they do this through what I call
The Magazine (that's simply
what I would name it -- the word means 'storehouse' and it would be a
storehouse of information, ideas and enthusiasm for the movement). I've
described the idea for this in an earlier article: Weekly looseleaf pages (suitable for those on both sides of the digital divide) that contain stories
(no theory, no analysis, just real, detailed stories of what's
happening and what people are doing about it) that illustrate aspects
of a critical issue, or possible approaches to it, that can be filed
and archived in binders by subject, and which have a few ideas for
possible action and space for each individual and each cell to note
what actions they would propose to take.
Note that this does not
require a large coordinating group, or a major media outlet to connect
and communicate with the cells, or a large budget of time or money to
'coordinate'. It is deliberately anti-hierarchical, not centrally organized, unfunded, and leaderless. The model is purely organic.
It will take on a life of its own and go where it will go. The
principles and practices will be amended by collective consensus. The
founding group will establish the initial set of principles and
practices, launch The Magazine, teach the practices to others, and then
get out of the way -- once the movement is launched, they become
largely irrelevant to its evolution. Those with personal ambitions for
fame and power need not apply.
How might such a grassroots
political 'system' work to solve a problem like, say, global warming?
It would probably start with self-education actions, then progress to
conservation actions, energy self-sufficiency (using renewable,
community-based sources), boycotting of major users and wasters of
non-renewable energy and polluters, pledges to buy local, re-learning
to make and do things for ourselves, and cooperative programs to
achieve radically simple lifestyles. As the cells and communities that
do these things start to be recognized as 'model' communities they will
be emulated by others. Companies that make housing, automobiles, and
other major contributors to global warming will be replaced by those
that are more responsible and responsive to the new market. As the
companies that now depend on huge government handouts and subsidies
lose market share and become unprofitable, they will no longer be able
to buy politicians, and those subsidies will end, removing many of the
distortions in the current economy and accelerating the shift to more
environmentally responsible, zero-waste, cradle-to-cradle production.
Conservation all by itself could have a huge impact. So would a major
grassroots move to buy local -- wiping out the Wal-Marts of the world
and creating astonishing new markets for locally-produced products,
while eliminating the need for long-haul transportation -- a major
contributor to global warming. As we re-learn how to make things and do
things for ourselves, we will re-discover the wondrous value of
community, of self-sufficiency, of taking time for simple pleasures,
and abandon the malls for the much greater (and less destructive)
pleasures of the back porches of those we love.
None of these
changes assess blame for or directly confront the major perpetrators of
global warming. The political system exists to protect the wealthy and
powerful and perpetuate and increase their wealth and power. The
politicians and lawyers are paid to block political solutions to global
warming. What this grassroots approach does is ignore the existing
political system and create a new one, which we the people control, that renders the existing political system obsolete. I think the power to stop global warming is on our hands, not
through the ballot box or the street demonstration, but by educating
ourselves what we can do as individual citizens and consumers to stop
feeding it, and to choke off its source of political and economic
support through personal, responsible behaviours.
In an
upcoming article, I'll take a stab at a first set of principles for
such a movement. Suggestions for principles, and for a name for the
movement, more than welcome.
Thanks to Jon Husband for his provocative e-mail that prompted this article. |
MADE IN CANADA
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