Archive for the ‘sustainable democracy’ Category
Monday, February 18th, 2008 |
This is one of 3 articles to help introduce and explain the basic ideas and tenets of Sustainable Democracy. The Pillars follow a progression from smallest to largest. From the individual, to the community, to the society. This article will focus on the role of society and some very basic ideas about how small scale models might be used in society. Availability of resources is also based on that of an industrialized nation, the lack or absence of basic needs in developing or third world nations is also an important topic which will be considered.
Both the individual and the community have been considered. The individual can be adapted to work in a more creative and inventive role to push innovation rather than simply production. The community should be reinvigorated, and people and their social networks must be brought back together in their local surroundings to lift the spirit of the individual.
In the long run the society should be much like the community model on the macro scale. Rather than connecting individuals the society should work to integrate communities and develop the networks and support structures to integrate these local communities. This is especially important considering the incredible infrastructure for industry, communications, and transportation that must be supported. In many ways, a number of modern societies are doing quite well at what they are meant to accomplish.
As I see it, the actual changes to society as a whole would be small and made over longer periods of time. Also little radical change would be required in many democratic society simply because, as people and communities change, the people representing them in government also change to cater more closely to those constituents. The biggest change, though, would be moving away from profit and power based models to more cooperative systems. Here is where community model play a bigger role.
While there are a growing number of nations that could easily manage the changes required to reinvent sustainable democratic systems, many more cannot serve even the basic needs of their population. Much in the same way local communities help each other, much broader support networks must be developed. These networks must be aimed at pushing sustainable development rather than merely creating rapid industrial growth. The support of massive industrialization in other countries has already met with many disastrous results, and these could easily have been predicted.
Looking at our own metro areas, the problem of rapid development for profit without regard to community building can be seen. The areas of urban blight did not develop because people hate living in good places, they developed because we wrecked the structures that allowed them to care and foster those social networks. It is by this idea that different types of aid need to be given. Along with food and necessities a greater focus needs to be made on exporting education and developing technologies. We still tend to view Third World Nations as places that are full of ignorant, backward people who cannot learn new things beyond the workings of a sweatshop. This is patently false. Only by believing in the great ability of all individuals to learn and want to become better will we realize that high order systems can be directly moved into developing areas. It will take more resources to teach and adapt these industries or services to their specific needs, but extra support for much greater ling term development should always be preferable to short tern gain with easily predictable long-term loss.
What do you think of these ideas? What problems or stumbling points are apparent?
Let me know and any ideas will be discussed in latter articles!
Posted in Changing Society, sustainable democracy | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 |
This is one of 3 articles to help introduce and explain the basic ideas and tenets of Sustainable Democracy. The Pillars follow a progression from smallest to largest. From the individual, to the community, to the society. This article will focus on the role of the community and small scale models that might be applicable to society. Availability of resources is also based on that of an industrialized nation, the lack or absence of basic needs in developing or third world nations will be discussed in the article on society.
The Community in Sustainable Democracy
How we build communities is extremely important. Whereas an individual can easily change and adapt over time, communities of all but the smallest sizes quickly become very rigid. It is this inflexibility that may be the greatest cause of problems and social breakdown in our modern world.
Unfortunately we evolve much slower than our social context has. The basis of large cities has been at the behest of industrial and commercial interests that occurred during times when moguls couldn’t have cared less for the effect on workers. This is the reason for surges in urban renewal projects. The cities we have built are not the sorts of places that build any measure of community. They isolate people.. A sustainable democratic community needs to be one that invites the individual and integrates that person fluidly. They are open communities that encourage interpersonal connections.
Think of it this way. You probably have a homeowners association, perhaps a neighborhood watch, there may be a local church or activity group you are a part of. However, none of these groups are connected, nor to they work with each other in many cases. New community structures need to take care of all of these functions and more.
A true community is made of connections between individuals. The fact that you are in close proximity to others means almost nothing if you never connect with them, a neighborhood of strangers is exactly that, and no labels, gates and walls, or promotional pamphlets will make it a community.
It is an odd but understandable fact that online communities are doing much better than local communities at this time. As was stated in the first pillar on the individual; people should be working to invent and create rather then needlessly toil. Communities should be building connections, and integrating individuals to enhance and build the local environment to be better.
Consider: Some of the most productive and innovative companies work in environments that are clean, streamlined, and open to encourage team members to continually interact. The people who work there are happy, they work harder, they are often more innovative, and they actually still spend less time pretending to be busy working and more time actually socializing.
What would happen if your local area were modified like this?
Do you see any problems with a community like this?
All ideas here and insights from comments will be discussed in much more detail focused articles.
Posted in Community Development, sustainable democracy | 7 Comments »
Sunday, January 20th, 2008 |
This is one of 3 articles to help introduce and explain the basic ideas and tenets of Sustainable Democracy. The Pillars follow a progression from smallest to largest. From the individual, to the community, to the society. This article will focus on the most basic part of society, the individual. Availability of resources is also based on that of an industrialized nation, the lack or absence of basic needs in developing or third world nations will be discussed in the article on society.
The Individual in Sustainable Democracy
We often think of the individual either as the rugged individual or as one unit of a more collective society. Very few nations (perhaps none) actually fall at these extremes; however, our thinking is generally controlled by these competing philosophies. Sustainable Democracy does not provide any radical alternative to these systems; it instead creates a radical synthesis of them.
No individual is a slave to society. We are not ants that need to be driven to provide and create so that the colony may survive and grow. At the same time we are not isolated islands or mountains that must hoard resources or seek power over everything around us in order to succeed. The outer edges of each extreme viewpoint can be cut off entirely. So now we know what the concept of the individual is not.
The new individual is a community member driven by his or her own passion to create. This individual is also largely free of the need to produce in order to meet the basic needs of survival. Consider:
There is likely no time in your life where the necessities for survival were absent. Food, water, shelter, and clothing are all in abundant supply. We have, however created a situation where unless the individual produces something that can be readily consumed, they may still lack access to these resources. While our ability to provide has been exponentially increased we have never changed the thought that individuals are in a zero-sum game for very scarce resources. The extreme energy put out to produce and consume as much as possible is counter to the ability to survive where competition over basic goods in entirely unnecessary.
In this way there needs to be a fundamental shift in what an individual produces. Rather than expending maximum effort to produce endless variations of consumer goods in order to shut competitors down, the focus must be on advancing community. Essentially, every individual should be in a competition of research.
Our ability to produce is well testified to. If we were to eliminate as many people from the act of production as possible and re-task them to improving and creating better operations or products we could perhaps enhance our ability to advance through technology tenfold. It should not be the effort of any society to produce more. It should be the focused effort of every individual to innovate in their area of expertise to produce the least quantity needed at the minimal effort required to produce the best results. Every individual should refine themselves in the same way. Why create more work if you can produce fewer, higher quality good or ideas in substantially less time.
Therefore the individual is striving to advance the community through the focused effort of their individual creativity and passion. This is an individual who is actively working to create their own optimum life and working toward fulfillment and self-actualization.
Please, tell me what you think. What problem do you see with this description? Do you think this is a functional view of the individual or not (and why)?
I will address any concerns and further elaborate these ideas in many more articles.
Posted in Individual Development, sustainable democracy | 7 Comments »
Friday, November 9th, 2007 |
The idea of sustainable democracy is to renew our nation. With the rapid democratization of other nations a great deal of focus has been taken away from managing our own nation and systems. So much so that over the past few years there have been two disturbing trends.
- The onset of widespread apathy in many voting populations.
- The transformation of apathy into reactionary anger in some groups.
There is a reason for these trends. When I became aware of sustainable democracy as an idea I began to research it. I also began looking for either local or national groups dedicated to the idea. What I found were movements and organizations for places like Lebanon, Iraq, and South Africa. There existed no group in America.
In fact, this website is the number one listing on both Yahoo and Google for Sustainable Democracy. This lack of any solid group has lead many people to first not caring, then as things steadily crumble it has lead to violent and panicked outbursts.
It has become my mission to create a solid body of change and reform for America. This website is the first pillar of that mission, providing a place where writers can analyze our nation and what it will take to bring it back to greatness.
If you have been angry, if you have wanted change, you have come to the right place. here you can leave your anger at the door and actually work to make things better. This digital space will be the tip of the iceberg.
Stay tuned.
Posted in sustainable democracy | No Comments »
Saturday, March 10th, 2007 |
A few weeks ago I received a letter from a reader, who unfortunately, remained anonymous. His message informed me that the image of the flag being blown to the left (stars on the right side of the flag) is used primarily for war. Or, at least, that images of the flag as such are symbolic of the nation being at war. I think the sender of the message for that insight since I had been ignorant of that connotation.
I have since taken time to reflect on this new information. After much thought I have decided that the title image shall stay as it is. I do this because it is my opinion that a democracy must be constantly at war if it is to survive.
However, by “constantly at war” I do not mean that democratic nations should in any way be aggressive to thier neighbors. A thriving democracy is at war with its own ideals. Its people should question the decisions of its leaders, and take great interest in how and why legislation is written and passed. Current leader should question the judgments of those that came before them; not to be obstinate, but to examine if the law of the past is still working to enhance the future.
Our own two party system does these things well. However, we are not without many problems.
Two parties can be in conflict with each other, but anytime one party achieves dominance (as is any political parties goal) the system becomes burdened by flaws. For many decades the two party system was able to struggle against itself successfully and take considerable time passing any law which had sweeping consequences. In our present high speed world of communications, the time it takes to guide even sweeping reform from idea to enaction has become dangerously short. Policy makers also suffer from help. They have large staffs which can research, summarize, detail, and write materials with amazing speed. Decisions do not have to be mulled over during long hours of writing and consideration, now only a snapshot is needed before action can be taken.
Minority parties can change this dynamic. Certainly we do have people who run as libertarians and as independents, but they currently do not have much real power. We have been raised to believe strongly in only two parties. But with perhaps two or three more legitimate parties we could rectify some of today’s problems. With parties needing to make alliances in order to see bills through from start to finish there would also be the requirement of making concessions for votes. While it is true that “the majority rules” it does not follow that the majority is correct. If consensus is achieved across multiple parties, especially if 4-5 parties all agree with near unanimity that an issue must go through, the people may also feel assured that the matter has been seen by several often opposed viewpoints and seen to be required. The war of political parties insures that occurs at a deliberate and rational speed.
This also requires that the general population not only be involved with politics but to care more deeply about these matters than they do so now. Apathy must be clearly recognized as the chief killer of democracy. When the population begins to be disinterested in the welfare of their own nation then the nation will surely and quickly collapse. The American people seem to be swinging dangerously close to this position of uncaring. The battle must be taken to the people. They must be stirred from their seats and made to participate in civil debate. If people do not question their government, then their leaders are at a loss to the opinions of their constituencies. Politicians who become senators, congressmen, governors, and presidents in order to exercise their personal power and opinions are most dangerous to democracy. Every politician should desire power because he or she feels that they are able to speak for their communities and first, the sanctity of the union next, and only last for their own opinions.
Tese wars of ideals, parties, and minds are what create the sort of nation that has the limitless power of dedication an true patriotism. It creates a nation that is not secure because it has the most power but because it has found the best solution to each problem through rigorous debate and examination of each other option. Democracy is only and can only be strong because it cannot be secure in walls but must attack its own fortifications to find truth.
Posted in sustainable democracy | No Comments »
