Part 1. These points on the Great Transition have been excerpted from the email/web discussion. Which of these statements do you support?
Please check off all points where you agree, and offer an edited version where you would agree if the wording were slightly amended.
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The Great Transition Initiative and the Tellus Institute have published an essay by Robert Paehlke entitled "Global Citizenship: Plausible Fears and Necessary Dreams". It is available in .pdf here.
This survey is addressed to readers of this essay, and excerpts many points from the email commentary. The survey is intended as a helpful and illuminating exercise in itself, but it is also an exploration of digital methods for convening agreement on complex high-dimensional issues that must be resolved in a collective context -- perhaps the very sort of thing that must be addressed if the Great Transition Initiative is to be successful.
This is Part 1, and includes points introduced by Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Andrea Bummell, Michael Karlberg and Gavin Fridell.
Thanks for your participation or comment!
GTI: Great (or Global) Transition Initiative GCM: Global Citizens Movement GJM: Global Justice Movement
Select ALL statements that are true for you (perhaps more than one).
If the options appearing here do not express your own view, you can add new options, which will be available to all participants.
If the meaning of any concept or term seems uncertain, follow your own personal interpretation.
Answer
1
If there is to be a great transition, it is one that will be built by global citizens who are now acting collectively to articulate a vision of a more just, more humane, and more ecological future. (Haroon Akram-Lodhi)
2
A central objective of actually-existing networks of global citizens is the construction of economic policies that are consistent with the achievement of collective and individual human rights. Such "rights-based economic policies and programmes" are very different than current models that prioritize the maximization of individual utilities over meeting minimum collective and individual human rights standards (Haroon Akram-Lodhi)
3
[The question of] what can be done to make global governance more democratic from an institutional, legal, and structural point of view primarily points to the bold proposal of a democratically elected world parliament. [Andreas Bummel]
4
The right to vote in free and fair planetary elections perhaps constitutes the most emblematic expression of global citizenship and a democratic system of world governance. [Andreas Bummel]
5
Structural and political changes of the magnitude Robert envisions occur only with the emergence of larger systems of meaning -- semiotic systems -- that render them sensible, desirable, and possible. In the absence of such semiotic changes, structural and political changes of the kinds we are hoping for are extremely unlikely. (Michael Karlberg)
6
At the core of the semiotic changes I am referring to are assumptions about human nature, assumptions about the nature of society, and assumptions about the purpose and meaning of human life. (Michael Karlberg)
7
The great transition this forum seeks will not occur in a semiotic vacuum. Its structural dimensions, like those Robert examines, will advance only to the degree that its semiotic dimension advances. (Michael Karlberg)
8
The great transition will have to be, in part, a great semiotic transition at the level of widely held assumptions about human nature, assumptions about the nature of society, and assumptions about the purpose and meaning of human life. (Michael Karlberg)
9
Historically, semiotic transitions of this sort have been associated with the birth or reformation of major religious systems. Indeed, the Latin root for the word religion denotes binding people together in unity -- or in community -- based on a shared system of meaning. (Michael Karlberg)
10
The great transition in front of us today will depend on binding people together in a global community. What is needed is the emergence of a global system of meaning within which global citizenship and global governance -- and all the corresponding structural prescriptions -- are rendered sensible. (Michael Karlberg)
11
What is needed is the emergence of a global system of meaning within which global citizenship and global governance -- and all the corresponding structural prescriptions -- are rendered sensible, desirable, and possible. So the question we would do well to ask ourselves is: how (Michael Karlberg)
12
Paehlke proposes efforts to promote conscious, global, citizen-based political action to formulate new social, environmental, and rights-based forms of global governance. These efforts will force greater democratic accountability on the current undemocratic forms of economic governance, while also providing a framework for concerned citizens to counter accepted economic orthodoxy and political pessimism. (Gavin Fridell)
13
The challenge becomes constructing a movement that is both decentered and flexible, yet “self conscious” and “coordinated.” (Gavin Fridell)
14
Global citizenship might be best exercised through citizens demanding global justice and global concern of their nation states. (Gavin Fridell)
