A few things I believe (ok, this has become a kind of a rant—but what the hey—here it is):
1. The “movement” of progressive values and progressive, open-minded people matters, and in fact constitutes a second superpower. We see evidence of this every where across the “soft side” of our society: In the continuing progress—albeit tragically not fast enough—of human and minority and women’s rights. In the themes that recur in films: liberation of the individual, triumph of the courageous underdog, the in-breaking into daily life of values and the spirit. In the mass emergence of “people’s movements”—whether the current Howard Dean campaign, global demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq, the “Million Mom March” of a few years ago, and—longer ago—the bloom of Yahoo, Digital Cities, and other early Internet centers that—while they later became “establishment”—were originally fed by a spirit of fierce independence and individuality, joining together to make a movement. And of course, we see the second superpower in the rise of “civil society” and non-governmental organizations. These agencies became powers, ironically, by becoming conduits for funds of “first superpower” agencies like USAID and England’s DFID—but they have now developed into their own sector of value, capabilities, and influence.
2. Some of the limitations on the movement are largely structural—in the sense that our ways of linking together, of deliberating, of dealing with bad behavior among our ranks, of acting in the world, of influencing first superpower institutions, and of learning from our experiments and highlighting success, are all quite rudimentary. A major bloom like the Million Mom March gets little follow up. MoveOn is interesting because it took a bloom—driven first by opposition to the Clinton impeachment process, and years later to the Iraq war—and turned this bloom into sustaining, growing structure and a living movement. The most creative responses to these structural challenges are being made with Internet-centered innovations, and this is why blogging, texing, telepresence and so forth are so very important.
3. Other limitations are those of consciousness. We live with too much fear, and the unhealed legacy of too much trauma. This makes it difficult for us to listen to our own inner wisdom, and it makes us susceptible to “hooks” thrown up by false leadership.
To paraphrase the country song, we need “a little more Buddha and a lot more rock and roll.”
I know this is cryptic, but hey, everybody says this stuff is beyond words, anyhow : )
4. And we have limitations in our economic system and in the ideology that we use to guide us.
Most important, we live with a view of capitalism that leaves out “externalities” that include the global climate.
We live with a view of capitalism that ignores the “commons.” E.g. the myth of silicon valley is often defined by a libertarians who celebrate their own entrepreneurial spirit. They tend to forget the role of “commons” in their success: that the knowledge they have profited from was funded by the government and private philanthropy in the form of universities and non-profit research centers, and that their own higher education was supported by student loans, Federally-funded graduate fellowships, and so forth. Those from India were educated within a national technology movement for which the entire Indian nation sacrificed. And that the very center of technology they thrive within was made possible by Leland Stanford’s establishment of a university in honor of his deceased son—and by his will that insisted that the property under the university never be sold. So creative types decided to lease the land to companies created by local professors—and a region was born.
And meanwhile we subsidize tobacco, sugar, and billions of dollars worth of feed corn—creating an agricultural system that depletes our land, poisons our farm families, and enriches vast agribusiness distribution companies such as Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland. We allow special interest subsidies of this nature for all sorts of short-sighted activities.
5. We falsely address the problems of the developing nations, the poor nations, as problems of “development”—as if this was a “special field.” This special field is led by professionals who have “learned” to tolerate and deal with corrupt leaders, exploitative businesses, and bribes disguised as aid. What does not happen is that we treat all of the 6.3 billion people on the planet as equally capable, as equally human and spiritually-centered, and as co-participants, co-creators of the next global society. And that we insist that leaders of the developing world be held to the same standards as we apply to ourselves. Witness the current fawning over Paul Kagame, “elected” this week as president of Rwanda. This is a person who, according to Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch is personally responsible for the deaths of at least 38000 people. He was “elected” by a 95% majority, in a nation where his minority group is only 10% of the population. The UN observers of the election said it “did not meet standards of free and fair” and noted ballot stuffing, intimidation by the military, etc. The campaign period was only 30 days long, and on the first day of the campaign one of the major opposition leaders was arrested. And yet the US, the EU, and the South African government have all accepted and hailed his success as indication that democracy is coming to Rwanda. And by the way, this is a tiny country of only 8 million people—so one cannot make the case that the situation is intractable—as, for example, is argued for Nigeria with its more than 200 million people. If the first superpowers had truly cared about democracy and democratic organizations in Rwanda, we would have had them.
6. We have big problems, but we discourage people from thinking big. And we don’t apply our big thinking to the whole world. For example, Moshe Safdie has written an excellent book, The City After the Automobile. We need to apply this to the whole world. I’d love to see a serious study entitled “China After the Automobile.”
