Subject: An Integral Transpartisan Alliance - Action Proposal
Date: Wed, Mar 26, 2014
Msg: 100883
Maybe it's the astrology, maybe it's my nervous stomach, maybe I read too much – but I'm feeling it. We need an action proposal.
We've got strong voices here, we've got competency, and we've got capacity. We've got a broad activist spectrum from practical-hands-on to visionary idealism. We've got an emerging core of common ground, and we've got who-knows-how-many reasons for urgency.
Yes, we need to "keep talking about it". There's lot to talk about. And yes, we do have a good overview proposal for subjects to consider. We should consider them all.
But talk – alone – just talk? For me – "hot air rising" just contributes to climate change. We need to put pieces together.
Don Beck posted this yesterday:
I need to write all of this to give you a sense of what we mean by "Transpartisan." It means use all available means, create new "dots" and then connect them All, and build decision-making systems, as in value engineering or value management processes rather than negotiation, or "all coming together" naive. We all have work to do. The program is called DOTS: Connecting what matters to design what works in the Age of collaboration. I think this is one of the objective/goals we have in mind with this movement.
I'm for it. I vote yes.
I'm for using all available means, and creating new dots where necessary. I'm for connecting them all. I'm for building decision-making systems – as in whatever kind of engineering we need. And yes, we all have work to do. Let's do this: "Connect what matters to design what works in the age (now!) of collaboration."
There's a lot of stuff that "matters". We need to design (and build) what works – and get it rolling.
As far as I can tell – in this "age of collaboration" – and huge international bandwidth and information-management capacity – we should jump on this hard.
We don't need to "call it anything" (wrestle with a name) or decide what color to paint it, or who's the boss. We just need to start piling resources into the center of the table, sort them out in a coherent way, and start lining up the forces. Where do we do this? Well, any-old place that can handle it – and one place that has been working very well is this email discussion list. If we are talking online databases – and I think we should be – as a web systems/database programmer, I'd say this is all very basic and obvious stuff, nothing very technical, nothing controversial.
Use the relationship/dialogue skills we've all learned over the years – and if we need basic guidelines – the fundamentals of "Conversation Café" might be at the core. Do we need "leadership"? Probably yes – but we've got leaders here. We're already a "high council of the transpartisan movement" – and we're already "sitting in circle" to propose and negotiate everything. If we need to invite others – then let's do it.
AN INTEGRAL TRANSPARTISAN ALLIANCE
Working as a team, following basic guidelines of good dialogue and collaboration, as taught by many NCDD members, I suggest we begin to compile an activist project operating in any venue where appropriate, through any medium that supports it, including face-to-face meetings and conferences, intended to
1) Define common objectives 2) Form a basic working agreement regarding protocols – civility, collaborative methods, etc. 3) Understand that this process is connected across many levels and layers, and maintains integrity and coherence – whether in face-to-face small meetings ("living room conversations") or large scale meetings (NCDD conferences), or through any sort of electronic medium or web site (this email list, conference phone calls, online databases and wikis, etc.) 4) Establish an agreed-upon and shared internet framework or domain to locate this work 5) Develop a source of funding to lift this project into a basic level of viable professionalism 6) Work out fundamental principles of an enlightened new democracy (my vote: a balance of bottom-up and top-down influences – not "one-sided" – not either/or, but a coherent both/and – perhaps what some have called a "democratic republic", probably based on a proportional balance of local independence and collective responsibility) 7) Recognize that emerging new internet tools may provide a stunning and extremely transformative and effective opportunity for new kinds of political organizing 8) Establish a comprehensive collaborative database and network system capable of supporting this growth, where objectives include a. Developing a comprehensive list of individual members b. Developing a comprehensive list of interested or relevant groups, including political groups or other visionary groups c. Developing activist alliances around particular issues where motivations are shared among individuals and groups; exploring negotiation and co-creativity where motivations differ d. Maintaining contact and engagement with members and groups e. Considering and testing of new forms of comprehensive e-democracy 9) Expand the sphere of influence of our basic protocols and agreements – so as to engage the broadest possible spectrum of American politics and governance within a kind of "universal civility alliance" 10) Bring in all sectors of the American community – all types of expertise, all demographic groups, all levels of interest ("left brain and right brain"), based on whatever "universal common ground" emerges through our process
INTIMATIONS OF ALLIANCE
I feel big forces converging right now. It's this convergence, I think, that is motivating me. My instinct is – hit this, now, hard. It might work. Swing the hammer.
Here's what I am sensing.
I know that many (perhaps most) people on this discussion list – or within NCDD, or within any community operating on something like the prevailing ideas on "real-politick" – might find some of what I am suggesting far-fetched, and perhaps too broadly inclusive. "How can you combine all these things?" they might ask "Politics is separate, it has its own rules, it doesn't spill over into everything else".
And yes, to a substantial degree, these practical activists have a point. Some are working for immediate results in the next election. Some are working in well-established professional contexts. Some may have strong resistance to some other sectors of American society. Some blue state people don't like red state people. Some artists don't like engineers. Some scientists don't like religious people. But for me – the integral vision – and the transpartisan vision – are based on a broadly inclusive recognition that human beings populate a very wide spectrum of "diversity" – and this diversity comes in many types – not just ethnic or ideational – but also of psychological types. This spectrum is innate to human community, and for me, the Transpartisan or the Integral vision contains and combines them all – in a balanced wholesome way that is held together through fundamental common ground and common humanity – and could/should be held explicitly together through some kind of universal civility agreement. Maybe this civility agreement is the core of our emerging new alliance – or "network nation". I go with Don Beck's call. Don't be shy. Connect the dots – all of them.
I see a potential for a hugely powerful alliance – that we could start consciously converging into wholeness very soon. Perhaps immediately.
CONVERGENCE
I've been looking at some broadly inclusive leadership groups – and when I was reading through Don Beck's posting from the Integral Leadership Review that I sent here a couple days ago, I saw where he mentioned that John Steiner and Mark Gerzon are working on Transpartisan development. This was not something I had noticed previously. Then I also read where Don Beck mentioned Deepak Chopra's "Evolutionary Leaders" group. And then I discovered that Mark Gerzon and John Steiner are among those evolutionary leaders. How come I never realized that before?
The convergence is this:
Deepak Chopra is coming to Santa Barbara in a couple of days, for some fund-raising sponsored by Rinaldo Brutoco's World Business Academy. I've been active in the World Business Academy meetings lately, and ten days ago had a two hour meeting with Rinaldo Brutoco. Rinaldo Brutoco is also in the Evolutionary Leaders group – as is another immediate influence in my world, futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard – who is close to Rinaldo Brutoco—and just about every other Evolutionary Leader. Rinaldo Brutoco is also highly connected throughout the "conscious business" community, and is widely influential there. This is a small and very wide-ranging group, with millions of contacts.
We should combine these forces. We should explore the connection among all these evolutionary leaders, and invite them into a process of collective agreement, probably based on something like Conversation Café. We should be networking all these people, at least in a minimal way. Working through Rinaldo – and maybe Barbara Marx Hubbard – and maybe another Evolutionary Leader friend Barbara Fields – we should engage Deepak on this theme. His current mission is to get 100 million people "shifted" into a new consciousness. We've had pretty good agreement right here on this email list that "consciousness must shift" if the transpartisan ideals are to be realized in national or international governance. Deepak has great influence and visibility. His Evolutionary Leaders have great visibility and influence. And of course, the groundswell of transpartisan organizing across the American landscape is arising in many different ways from many different angles. We can be developing contacts across the full range of this groundswell.
All of this could (should) be combined into the foundation of a powerful transformative alliance, that combines the full range of collective wisdom with the full urgency of an enlightened new politics.
We should be punching this. What's to stop it?
Maybe this is ahead of the game. Maybe the timing is off. Maybe it's too fast. Maybe it's all squealing tires and no traction.
But what's to stop it?
Human doubt? Lack of imagination? Lumbering and sluggish institutional momentum? We don't know how to do this? I'm over-estimating every-body and every-thing?
Did you see those graphics the other day on raw internet horsepower?
Like they say in California – "Dude!"
"A TIDE IN THE AFFAIRS OF MEN…"
e-Democracy expert Steven Clift just posted the latest insight on the Loomio program to the main NCDD list today.
https://www.loomio.org/
What I get is this: "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune… On such a full sea are we now afloat…"
Any thoughts or feedback or comments much appreciated,
With gratitude and blessings --
Bruce Schuman NETWORK NATION: http://networknation.net SHARED PURPOSE: http://sharedpurpose.net INTERSPIRIT: http://interspirit.net (805) 966-9515, PO Box 23346, Santa Barbara CA 93101
Image: What happens in an internet minute: http://sharedpurpose.net/nation/images/Data-Explosion-What-Happens-in-Internet-Minute.jpg
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(below with some slight editing)
From: List for transpartisan leaders and innovators [mailto:TRANSPARTISAN@LISTS.THATAWAY.ORG] On Behalf Of Dr. Don Beck Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 6:54 AM To: TRANSPARTISAN@LISTS.THATAWAY.ORG Subject: [TRANSPARTISAN] A possible Transpartisan package approach
I just wanted to introduce myself.
What follows is based on decades of disciplined academic research, mind-brain analysis using fMRI, and actual field studies in difficult places where wicket problems confound us - South Africa, the Middle East, Iceland and all over Europe, and in dealing with extreme polarization in this country. My other partner, Elza Maalouf and I spoke recently at the National Assembly in France on threats from extremism, especially in Europe. Will gladly send you that document.. see www.buildpalestine.org. Our models of "transpartlison" include totally different concepts and systemics.
If you are interested you might consider the application Spiral Dynamics-Integral 6 day intensive -- In Quest for the Master Code, in two parts, at the Adizes Graduate school in Santa Barbara, April 7-16 and the unique Cultural Beats on Bourbon Street application on the future of New Orleans. April 29-May 2.. So one could bask at the beach or jump with the jazz since the Jazz Festival in the first week in May. See www.spiraldynamics.net and note the schedules and details. My partner, Said Dawlabani (author of the new book MEMEnomics: The next Generation Economic System) and I will be at the Forbes Summit on Reinventing America in cold Chicago, starting tomorrow, Mary 26.
We show how to overcome racial, ethnic, gender, and status stereotypes and break out of polarities and Us vs. Them conflicts. I worked with Nelson Mandela during the l995 Rugby World Cup competition in South Africa to use these tools to shift the culture away from the stereotypes. See the movie INVICTUS if you would like to see what resulted, in terms of a nation-building effort. Elza Maalouf, an attorney from Labanon, and I spoke recently at the United Nations on "From Clashes to Congruence of Civilization: A new Strategy for the World Community."
It is important that I try to explain the whole package rather than bits and pieces. See below. There is a great deal about all of this that I don't understand, even though I have been working with the body of knowledge for 30 plus years, primarily while on the faculty of the University of North Texas.
NATURAL DESIGN
First I add "natural design" to the sequence of dialogue and deliberation -- 3-Ds -- with the belief that major transpartisan efforts must go beyond both information and attitudes. Systems need to be set right to achieve functionality to determine what needs to be done. This is more a bottom-up approach than a theory-down, with trickle down from either the private systems and/or the government. Each is each. I work with subsurface dynamics -- value system codes -- to see how they form, polarize, and get on the slippery slope toward violence. I was influenced by the work of Professor Muzafer Sheriff called Social Judgment that defined the impact of ego-involvement or attitudinal intensity. This involves the formation and movement of positions on a spectrum from extremism to extremism through a series of gradations and a so-called "center."
These positions are fluid and form coalitions under the pressure of realities and threats. So, George W. Bush was seen as a Fascist from the extreme liberal view; and Bill Clinton was often seen as a Marxist from the extreme right wing perspective. This is called the Assimilation/Contrast Effect and it often freezes thinking and decision-making.
EVOLUTIONARY EMERGENCE
Second, in recent years I added an evolutionary/emergence framework from Professor Clare W. Graves that uncovered the world view patterns from survivalist beige, to animistic purple, to imperialistic red, to absolutistic blue, to pragmatist-materialistic orange, to sensitive-egalitarian green, and then across a great divide into systemic functionality yellow and holism turquoise.. These are underlying motivational-priority packages that select and align priorities. The colors have no meaning in themselves. African Americans who think red (such as Al Sharpton) are different from those who think in systemic nonracial yellow such as Mandela. And, our team has worked for years in Mexico dealing with drug gangs (red) and corrupt politicians (orange sleaze). This is called by Graves "the emergent, cyclical, double helix model of bio-psycho-social development." It is far from flavor of the month or psychobabble.
Understand the Tea Party-Conservative GOP (blue-orange) and the Democratic progressive (orange-green) are part of the same evolutionary flow and both are essential. They should not be in conflict. One leads to the other and the other must have it or will fall into a politically correct sink hole and lose elections, like now.
INTEGRAL MESHWORK
Transpartisan leaders need to mesh the two rather than take sides. If blue-orange fails, then progressive green will collapse and society will regress into holy wars, and destructive win:lose games. This is the integral meshworks perspective we have designed. I tried to get President Obama to join the Tea Party since he is President of the whole country, and all of the locations on the psychological/value system map and flow. A caution: Getting rid of what we don't want is NOT the same thing as getting what we do want. You can see what the Arab spring became the Arab winter. This makes the knowledge inherent in dialogue - deliberation but then Natural Design to get a sense of why what is next, is next, and why the interior capacities in a culture will often dictate or facilitate shifts. Our task is to function within flow states rather than defend final states, even the so-called "center" position. But the planet is full of different levels of development so car-washes or one-size-fits all solutions are toxic to the reality of human nature and change itself. We use Vital Signs Monitors to profile these patterns, and Summits on the Child in local communities.
Republicans who are frozen blue are different from those accused of being green Rinos. Social Democrats fuse red victims with green rescuers. Then one must use "bar-code" concepts to identify what is necessary in the real world. Our Palestinian colleagues claim their culture consists of purple-red desperately needing to add positive blue to their capacities while Israel is heavy blue/orange with emerging green in the Diaspora.. Russia blue is being reawakened but this time with a sense of strategic orange rather than empire red. To borrow an expression from a recent campaign for Bill Clinton by James C "It's about the economy" stupid" to "It's about memetics (value systems) stupid." Obviously you are not stupid but the UN is full of it, as is Washington DC. Beware of those who continue to play the race card for political advantage. Einstein was on target when he said we cannot solve problems using the sysem that produced them, but we need an entirely different paradigm and understanding of human nature. We are on the verge of uncovering and creating that universal conceptual model. I welcome all challengers. But, you must be prepared. Roughly 1,000 folks are using this approach around the world. This, of course, is an over simplification and the entire process is much more complex. But, it does allow us to deal with the realities rather than the surface-level displays an superficial beliefs and behaviors. See www.buildpalestine.org for an example.
These are NOT types of people or cultures; rather, they are ever shifting codes within people, organizations and cultures that reflect adaptive intelligences to Life Conditions. and Problems of Existence. We have a long series of assessment systems we use to profile societies. This package was especially useful in post-financial crisis Iceland that resulted in a unique set of national assemblies. I can send you a Phd dissertation on the process from Dr. Bjarni Jonnsen at the Adizes Graduate School.
WHAT WE MEAN
I need to write all of this to give you a sense of what we mean by "Transpartisan." It means use all available means, create new "dots" and then connect them All, and build decision-making systems, as in value engineering or value management processes rather than negotiation, or "all coming together" naive. We all have work to do. The program is called DOTS: Connecting what matters to design what works in the Age of collaboration. I think this is one of the objective/goals we have in mind with this movement.
Don Edward Beck, 320 Mimosa Drive, Denton, Texas 76201 tele 940.382.9080 cell 940.300.6363
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March 15, 2014 TO: TRANSPARTISAN LISTSERV COLLEAGUES FROM: THE FOUNDERS* Thank you for joining the Transpartisan ListServ, and welcome from all of us at Mediators Foundation. As you know, we have partnered with Sandy Heierbacher and NCDD to deepen the conversation about unlocking the partisan gridlock that has gripped America and taking political dialogue to a higher, more creative, problem-solving level. We are excited to be embarking on this journey with all of you. In addition to the many rich conversations that this forum will host, we would like to invite your participation in the following ongoing conversation on the breadth, depth, and possible directions of the transpartisan field. Below you will find an outline of the elements of this discussion on the listserv. Throughout all of our conversations and posts, we want to invite a spirit of inquiry and inquisitiveness, understanding that we are seeking to uncover answers and solutions that many have found difficult to find. NOTE: Although we are proposing a monthly conversation focus, please feel free at any time to share whatever is alive for you. March: Enrolling and Introducing Why have we joined this conversation? The focus this month is welcoming new members and getting introduced to one another. Please let us know when you join, and tell us anything about your work and your interest in the field. A heartfelt thanks to all of you who have joined and introduced yourselves thus far. Enrollment will continue of course, building every month. But for at least this month, it will be our primary focus. April: Clarifying ‘Transpartisan' What does 'transpartisan' mean to you? What does transpartisan mean? What does it mean to you? Are there other words or phrases that describe this "field" better, or add another dimension to our understanding of it? What kind of work do you do that is part of this emerging field? And how would you define the borders of the "Transpartisan field"? Why does the field becoming aware of and connected to itself matter? We propose that April's dialogue address these vital questions, as well as other related questions that come to your mind. We will launch the month with a sample of definitions from various sources so that we have a dynamic starting point for a community conversation. May: Mapping the Transpartisan Field Who is part of this emerging field of transpartisan practice? In May we will invite you to partner in a concerted effort to map the field. We will circulate a draft of a Transpartisan Field Map 1.0 to all of you and ask you (1) to place yourselves on the Map, and (2) to suggest other individuals/organizations that should be included. We will then share the Map 2.0 with all of you after we have compiled the new information. June: Gathering the Field What would you like to experience when the field gathers? As you may have heard, in partnership with NCDD, we have planned a 1st Annual Transpartisan Meet-Up on October 16 (the day before the annual NCDD conference begins) in Reston, Virginia. In June, we propose a dialogue that addresses the question: What would you like to experience when the field gathers? As we plan the agenda for this initial gathering, your input can help shape the day. What do you want to learn? What small groups do you think should convene? What questions would you like the group to address? What speaker(s) would you like to hear? What activities would be most meaningful to you? Obviously, this conversation can begin sooner than June. But we propose directly focusing on it that particular month since, by then, we will be in the planning stage for October 16. July: Taking Action: What shared action projects might we as a field consider? If the transpartisan field is to gain traction in American civic culture, we need to break out of the margins and into the mainstream. To do so, we will need to take actions of some kind to highlight or showcase the transpartisan perspective. In July, we will propose some ideas — and invite you to propose yours — so that, as a community, we can begin to consider potential shared actions. We look forward to a spirited, dynamic conversation. Thank you! *Letter drafted by Mark Gerzon in partnership with Sandy Heierbacher, John Steiner, and Gabriel Dayley
-- Mark Gerzon Mediators Foundation 2525 Arapahoe Avenue E-4 #509 Boulder, Colorado 80302 3038171409
"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them." - Albert Einstein
