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It’s happening

Afbeelding

A lot is happening that is being seen as a crisis. But a crisis is simply a strong need and desire for renewal which is being blocked by something. The pressure builds up until it bursts into chaos. Freedom appears that allows finally for the renewal to take place. A lot of people refer to the problems as being economic. This is not so. They are very human. In fact the pressure is building up for the human being to stand up and break through. We tend to reason too much top down while freedom and renewal is found bottom up (see drawing above). The change in thinking is on its way. It’s happening.

Freedom?
When I interacted with people like Ervin Laszlo (Club of Budapest) and other influential people in the field of global visioning we talked about the Global Shift (Ervin)  and Quantum Leap (me). In fact, what we both refer to the need for the human being to get back onto its evolutionary tracks.

Ever since the human being broke through the first time in its self awareness a few million years ago and “became human” as opposed to “animal” we have been struggling to deal with it. We have tried to throw off our animal origins by behaving in a dominant way over our surroundings. Our surroundings were so big that the effects were hardly noticed. Meanwhile we became also dominant over our own species. Every individual has animal roots in which we thrive for growth and competition yet we also have self awareness and reflection that gradually introduced ethics, morality and responsibilities. System thinking became dominant, evolutionary thinking disappeared.

Societies became so big, and structures of control and power so dominant that for many millennia the human being was very much preoccupied suppressing its own species through all kinds of dogmatic systems such as territorial ownership, heritage of properties, systems of law, religions, financial and other systems of debt, etc. We were forced (and accepted) to live under the influences of such systems without having a choice. We weren’t even massively aware of the choice as survival prevailed over understanding. Education was reserved for the elite. Those who became too wise to support the system had to fear for their lives leaving behind just samples of their written legacies or lock themselves away from daily reality in confinement of a religious order.

Education is key
Only around the 1900’s the first public education was introduced and generalized for the entire population. This was perceived as necessary to support the growing financial system around industrial processes that needed craftsmanship in great diversity. Educating people became a public service for the system support, rather than a master – pupil relationship. As public knowledge grew also auto-determination and self awareness grew. People became more involved in their securities and well being and less fearful to the mighty, visible and invisible.

In the 50’s of last century governments started to loose territorial power due to open borders, migration of cultures and globalization of financial interests. The only dominance that was still possible was through the evolution of local services, taxation of consumer patterns and a certain degree of regulation. The governments could not cope anymore with the complexity of society and started to introduce degrees of civilian involvement in the decision making processes.

The civilians became more and more aware and knowledgeable even though the involvement was still very much being influenced and manipulated by the systems of power and debt imposed by financial systems, hierarchies and churches. Meanwhile all kinds of people started to become aware of their natural spiritual origins and universal freedom. They became aware what it is to be a human being in the full, with absolute freedom and not simply a puppet in the system. They also became aware that this freedom comes with responsibilities too. This human being does not accept debt anymore nor systems of control and imposition. This human being understands that values need to be created through taking responsibility together.

Internet
The appearance of the internet in the early ’90’s helped make information available to everyone with the freedom of interpretation of the many “truths” that circulate. The pollution of our environment is growing, we see global warming, climate changes, multicultural migrations and clashes, the unethics of systems of debt to control people, etc. We live longer due to the exponentially growing medical and scientific knowledge with access to abundance presented by the artificial systems that surround us. We also become gradually aware of the destructive forces of these systems on our own health, social stability and natural resources.

People become spiritually aware that their natural human freedom is demanding to take responsibility and let go of the dominance that surrounds us. Many people feel this surge of inner freedom but often falsely interpret it as disturbing and fearful against their perceived systems dependence. They are neglecting their own natural feelings out fear for the unknown and their sense of security to reason from the system’s reality. Also the system’s professionals have difficulties with the demanding population that does not simply accept policies but demands explanations and often also take a different standpoint, willing to stand up against systems lack of morality.

In reality our true biological and spiritual human nature seeks ways to freedom and purpose to regain our evolutionary tracks. We realize deep inside that we have deviated too much, have created a self destructive dependency and now look for a new balance that challenges the system’s rational.

“Hi, I am human”
When I take the stand and talk to people I say “hi, I am a human!” They look at me surprised as they tend to reason first from their own hierarchical position and profession, then their citizenship and hardly reach out to consider their condition of “human being” and true freedom. It has been neglected and suppressed. 

By inviting them to reason with me as a human being things change. We are a biological self aware creature of flesh and blood, that depends on its educated relationship with its environment, according to universal laws of health, safety and self determination. When people open up to that a new world appears to them. Then the Global Shift, the Quantum Leap happens inside them. They suddenly realize and become willing to deal with citizenship and professionalism from the human perspective (bottom up) rather than the system’s perspective (top down).

Experimenting with the new democracy, Sustainocracy, we even structure a new society around this human perspective, respecting the old one partially, as we need certain systems from specialized functions they carry for us to use as instruments. We cause a transformation of society from the dominant blocking to one that is transparent cooperative. 

It does not happen all at once. It occurs with small steps, sometimes large boosts, all together, involving people who understand in all kinds of positions in society. When I started with this 15 years ago it was not yet possible and I stood alone. Now I can create real Sustainocratic ventures with top executives from government, science and business, involving people all over. I invite them as human beings first and than ask them to use their professional authority. In any case we see the process speeding up fast. The key steps for our liberation from our own selves were:

1750’s – industrialization

1900’s – education for all

1950’s – participation in policies

1990’s – un-manipulated self awareness through internet

2010’s – first sustainocratic ventures placing the human being at the center. Taking responsibility.

Conclusion: The human being is finally becoming aware what it is to be human in freedom.

It’s happening…….!

Transformation of States

With a certain frequency I am being asked to revise PhD studies as a totally independent and more or less unbiased provider of critical feedback. When I started to experiment with new ways of viewing society, human behavior and sustainable progress I came to defining Sustainocracy. This I did at first within the scope of transforming the old society into a new one. However, when I got into more profound analysis of the secrets of life and evolutionary patterns in nature, I could see it all coming back in economies and the development of states too. Sustainocracy became not just a transformative practicality but also a holistic approach to ever changing realities in which growth, competition, adaptation and harmony are logical components that surround us all the time but also occur to us all the time.

A recent study of a friend determined that “the democratic State” is capable of self reflection but incapable of transforming itself. The theory of an effective state has been described by many, starting with Plato in ancient Greek development of the early Democracy. The practical reality shows however how ineffectively the concept of “State” evolves by reacting just to circumstances without challenging its own self. “We don’t want vision” our Dutch prime minister reflected recently in an interview “Vision is costly and risky”. The lack of transformative capabilities of a State, that a business does show to have if equipped with the right leadership and need, has to do with the democracy itself, the ancient perceived territorial power, the organization of the state as sole producers and keepers of local laws (Rights? Justice?) and the way people behave when in power. The consequence today is that “the state” becomes impossible to manage, full of contradictions and subcultures, bureaucracy and exponentially expensive. The only way governance and the state seem to be able to react to the need of transformative change is when demolished by chaos and war, interestingly enough caused by this incapacity of change of the State itself.

The modern issue we find is that we are in the process of redefining the meaning of “State”. In the globalization of economic interests no state has full governance over its own territory or population anymore. Natural resources, human migrations, finances, climate changes, transactions, productivity, logistics, interests, etc are all mingled into a patchwork of stressful relationships. These cause many local consequences that need to be addresses by the local communities (global issues, local solutions) but can hardly be influenced or transformed by the local governmental reality. Meetings of G20, G7 and whatever G only show differences and the only commonality being their own individual lack of government stability. It is all a show case of territorial power without content or remains of a foundation. They can try to determine economic growth processes but they cannot divert local crises that occur as a consequence. Stress is building up in the world due to the incapability of the concept of government to transform itself, just like my friend’s paper suggested. The world does not need to change, governance needs to transform. And it is.

I am a happy outsider. I see those governments still act as if they were each Julius Caesar sitting over a territory, playing with the boundaries and determining the rules within their confinements interacting with their own senates that carry “knifes under their robes”. They act as if they are monopolistic leaders over a community when interacting with others while at home they live in chaos and crumbling authority. Their state is no state anymore, it is a legal authority that governs open boundaries and local taxes, reacting to problems rather than facilitating progress and calling out for economic growths to be able to finance their deficits. A new reality is becoming active while the old falls apart. This new reality has has little to do with States, or their governance, accept maybe the blockage of progress it currently exerts over the new reality to which it is locally blind and deaf.

The “new state” is a cooperative, not a local monopoly. The purpose of the territorial cooperation is to create wellness for its residents, not through transaction driven interaction with other countries. To do so responsibility has to be taken together. A “State” 3.0 is a territorial confinement in which 4 key specialized parties interact based on equality, authority and trust and with sustainable human wellness and progress as common purpose. Issues like health, safety, self sufficiency, wellness, food, water, etc are a common responsibility, not a commercial infrastructure accessible to the one that can afford it. It is all accessible to the ones that make it happen, together. Involved in this cooperative are these 4: local government from a common resources and basic territorial regulations perspective, entrepreneurship in terms of creativity and innovation, science for knowledge development, application and education and the local population for the local productivity, cohesion and culture.

This new state than develops a territorial identity of progress and combined content power. It is not about the  soil but the human productivity and interaction. In essence this already evolves this way but still is being blocked by the old structures of dominant power, financial dependencies on global economies and lacking true authority due to lack of connecting or commitment to progress, just to power. It is not just government that needs to let go, the other three pillars need to learn how to take responsibility too, rather than avoiding it. We see then a historically huge process of transformation going on where inability of government to change is compensated by the modern and growing ability of the surroundings to gradually demand space and a new relationship. We have a long way to go still and a lot of stress. Meanwhile many people in power in each of the four fragments that shape the “State of Tomorrow” learn that they gain in authority when they let go of power and connect to others to establish a purpose driven regional cooperative. They learn how to behave both in the specialized executive fragment and the transformative cooperative. The more they dare to let go the stronger the community gets.

Precedents here in Holland (and specifically Eindhoven) have a name (AiREAS, GroZ, VE2RS, STIR, etc) as they address specific issues. They are considered by all participants  as experiments into a new reality. The entire new way of addressing local responsibilities and growth in a territorial cooperative I have called Sustainocracy as it also redefines democracies. Through all the difficulties around the world we are not just witnessing the “Transformation of States”, we are making it happen together!

Various different economies

There are various types of economy as you may have gathered when you are a regular visitor to my blogs. We have the economies of:

  • Consumption (what we use)   – eg.  products
  • Speculation (what is difficult to get)  –  eg. a house
  • Crisis (what we fear to loose)  – eg. insurrance
  • Consequences (what we have lost)  –  eg. healthcare
  • Debt (what others expect from us)  – eg. banks
  • Fiscal (what is demanded from us) -eg. taxes

All these economies are related to each other and fight a battle to sustain themselves in a financial world. They all have a product to sell and populate the left hand side of the picture below (financial leadership). They all have one thing in common: they want you! They want your attention, your money, your dependence and your votes.

Most of the world is active on the financial leadership side.

Most of the world is active on the financial leadership side but depends of the side of sustainable leadership.

The other side of the picture is the transformation economy, the economy of change. This is a very special type of economy. It does not want to control you nor does it compete. It just wants health, harmony and sustainable development. It is automatically activated when things go wrong on the left hand side. It requires awareness, vision and a new sense of reality.

The left hand site just wants growth. A typical tendency is that growth shows health but also sickness through the appearance of intoxicating “antivalues”. These antivalues can be detected easily as we have learned by analysing human history and the history of societies. They have to do with greed, lust, power,etc. The antivalues are normally in the hands of powerful people and institutions who take benefit at the expense of others (deadly parasites) subtracting values from society rather than adding (hence the word “antivalue”) until a crisis puts them out of business and power.

Antivalues make the world sick and in crisis.

New values can cure us from the right hand side, which is always present and active yet not always noticeable. Those values need to grow in strength through applied change. This takes time but also needs space, strength and opportunity.

We only tend to want to cure ourselves only when we are really sick. Before that we behave as if illnesses do not exist. Prevention is not a democratic strength nor recognition of the signes of sickness. For many there are powerful reasons on the left hand side to ignore, neglect and even openly dispute antivalues out of self interest, opposing change with everything they can.

We are living in unique times. Antivalues in the past only seemed to affect our human communities. Now we realise that they also destroy our environment and human health. The transformation economy emerges with all kinds of corrective causes some of which are unique to the era we live in.

We call this the era of the Global Shift (Ervin Laszlo) or Quantum Leap (Jean-Paul Close). The changes that are demanded are of a more universal nature affecting human nature everywhere. It is only becoming visible now (unique antivalues such climate change and pollution) demanding the most intense changes ever.

The transformation economy emerges everywhere through a new type of leadership, Sustainable Leadership. It becomes not only visible (such as Sustainocracy), it provides also a new field of healthy interaction where institutions and societies of the left find their new growth inspiration and renewed strength. The changes that we can anticipate will be referred to in history as one of the most significant era in human evolution. As the left gets sicker the right grows stronger until it breaks through. Then a new economic health period emerges that cleans up the left for a new era of growth. Then it starts all over again.