Chapter Nine: A Plan of Action
Introduction
As a species, we have a gift for tolerating difficulties. We put up with undesirable conditions for a long time. We watch and wait, hoping the trouble might resolve itself. Or we anticipate someone or something else coming along to fix it. We weigh and re-weigh the cost of taking action. Consider the risks involved. Maybe we make excuses. Or deny a problem exists. We try to adapt.
Once we conclude that change is necessary, however, we respond. We’ve made transcontinental migrations. Crossed oceans. Broken open the atom. Risked our fortunes and lives for one another. None of us are without ancestors who paid the ultimate price to make the world a better place. We owe those who have come before us for our way of life, our civil rights and political freedoms.
We now face what may well be the most formidable set of circumstances in human history. Besides the lingering threat of nuclear annihilation, we’re grappling with global warming, deforestation, oceanic degradation, looming energy and water shortages. Past mistakes such as colonialism have left us with shantytowns and starvation, long-cultivated hatreds, unending wars and conflicts, international terrorism. Our population strains Earth’s capacity to sustain us. These conditions leave us no where to run. No future to excuse us if we fail.
Layers of localized problems fester beneath these global issues. Hunger, homelessness, unemployment and disenfranchisement haunt our cities, rural areas and reservations. Money and desire for power have corrupted our attempts to create democratic political systems. Despotism and hierarchy trouble our workplaces. Phenomena from road rage to neighborhood bullies signal increasingly undisguised aggression in the public domain. Any one of us at any time could fall victim to violence — particularly if we are female. We struggle with failed relationships and misunderstandings in our families. Our society suffers an epidemic of depression, alcohol addiction, illegal and prescription drug abuse. Cynicism, broken hearts and loneliness abound.
At the same time, our desire for Peace on Earth links us with dreams cherished from the beginning of civilization. A hope we’ve kept alive with our arts, religion and music. A promise we saw rekindled at the turn of the millennium.
We set out in this Handbook to trace a pathway to the World all of us desire, in such a way that each of us might see how our own way could lead there. We recognized at the start that we wouldn't need to agree on everything — just enough to get the job done. We also acknowledged that no one person has all the answers. What we offer here is just a sketch of the full picture that could emerge as humanity takes up the task.
In the previous chapter, we began working toward a solution by looking into Complexity Theory. We learned that societies such as ours depend on feedback loops. Each of us encounters and enacts narratives that inform the world in which we think, live and work. The microtheatres of our minds, homes, webspaces, work and social places replicate the underlying beliefs and values of society at large. The macrotheatres of our political and economic institutions close the loop by producing environments and ways of doing things that propagate and normalize the narratives we engage on the microtheatrical level.
Historically, we’ve repeatedly failed to free ourselves of these feedback loop relationships. Without deconstructing the master narrative (ego identity, competition and powering over) that underlies institutions and basic systems, political revolutions have replaced one hierarchy with another. And alternative narratives have often ended up indirectly serving the master narrative. To save our World, we need new understandings of who we are as well as new ways of doing things. Profound change that would constitute a phase transition.
This chapter proposes a plan of action. It draws on tools examined in earlier chapters. The first part approaches the microtheatres of our lives. The second part, our political and economic institutions. Both posit a new sense of ourselves emergent in the process of saving our world.
Part One: Microtheatrical Change
Each of us are complex, wholly unpredictable individuals living absolutely unique lives. Our stories are unrepeatable, sometimes almost unbelievable. We engage mystery, joy, sorrow and wonder — far exceeding what language can explain or describe. Minute by minute, a myriad of possibilities invite our attention. We decide which thoughts to think, which pathways to pursue, which activities to engage. Being a Subject center implies the freedom to choose. We bear individual responsibility for our behavior and character.
At the same time, however, we create who we are in the context of pre-existent microtheatres: our families, social circles, schools, workplaces, etc. Beginning in childhood, we unwittingly interiorize the master narrative and become its enforcement agents. We only break the spell as we become aware of how these microtheatres limit our freedom. Our personal creativity emerges as we realize that we can consciously alter what's staged there.
We shape our microtheatres through storytelling. Narratives deliver meaning to the choices we make. We weave the scenes of our Life together with narrative. We use narrative to make sense out of experience that might otherwise seem chaotic. We locate our personal stories within larger stories. People, places, events in our lives, our jobs, all rely on story. A master narrative serves as a root directory of all our narratives — sustaining their legitimacy, assuring their coherency. It constructs and normalizes the World around us.
In Part One, we explored the workings of our present master narrative. We interrogated its most basic idea of a self with interests fully extricable from those of the community. We noted that this ego identity conflates individuality with separation. We considered how it teaches us to interpret the wonder of our differences — gender, genetic inheritance, cultural background, skills, ancestral origins, nationality, age and numerous other factors — as grounds for comparison and competition. The ego exists on the foundation of “not-being” whatever is perceived as “other.” The ego narrative reduces being a person into being an object for comparison and use.
In Part Two, we touched upon alternative narratives. We observed that various cultural, religious and spiritual traditions, our arts and our sciences have offered alternative understandings of who we are, what we're doing here and why. Humanity has always treasured narratives advocating Love, Unity with Nature, Peace on Earth. Many of these alternatives include methods and practices — prayer, meditation, services, pilgrimage, the contemplation of mandalas and other artifacts, music — that can have the effect of at least momentarily liberating us from the master narrative.
In terms of Complexity Theory, narratives (whether derivative of the master narrative or in some way alternative to it) represent pathways or tracks of thinking. The pathways we most often activate inevitably generate discernable patterns of behavior and thought. These emergent patterns depict what we pay greatest attention to, regularly think about or enact — what most “attracts” us. Identifying the “attractor” in our microtheatres discloses a salient feature of who we are as individuals. Describing the attractor for the World at large reveals the master narrative.
Creating our phase transition starts with an alternative to the master narrative, or a “strange attractor.” Strange, not because we are unacquainted with its pathways; but strange because the master narrative brands such narratives as “un-realistic.” By definition, a strange attractor resides outside the master narrative. A strange attractor does not resonate with the system it moves beyond. In our case, ego informed activities. Altruism (acting for the benefit of others), for example, does not fit with a marketplace economy driven by the profit motive. Or forgiveness (seeking to learn and heal the cause for an offense, rather than retaliating) is not how the ego narrative would have us respond to injury or attack. A world characterized by these “strange” behaviors sounds unbelievable, improbable, impossible. Yet we’re able to apprehend altruism, forgiveness and the like because we already to some extent enact them. By activating such “idealistic” pathways more deliberately and consistently, we can change our world.
The work of a creating a strange attractor takes place on several levels. It begins with individuals in their personal microtheatres. Here, it involves mapping a pathway to that which matters most to us.
From infancy to the grave, we depend on, learn from, share with and care for Others. Our stories want an Other to hear them. We long for social contact and ultimately cannot live without it. We hurt when we’re made to feel we don’t belong; that we’re not a part of what’s going on; that we're not loved. One of our worst punishments is solitary confinement. Others can cause our greatest worry and sorrow, only because they also bring our greatest joy and happiness.
Human existence revolves around Relationship. We work together. We rejoice in friendship and intimacy. We like touching and being touched. We empathize, sympathize, support each other in times of need. We laugh and cry together. We reveal our discoveries, dreams, aspirations, sometimes even our failures, to one another. We congratulate and celebrate each other’s accomplishments. We need others to appreciate what we've done or are doing. Others satisfy our desire for purpose and meaning. Honor and respect — a look, a smile, a hug, a kiss — come from others.
The strange attractor we need to create would remind us of our on-going engagement with one another and how important connection is to us. We appreciate Others, near and far, who share their understandings, spirits, hopes and skills with us. We treasure friendships with Persons whom we may never meet. We care about Others whom we may never see again. When someone we love moves away, we remember their words, recollect our experiences together, long for physical again-ness. When someone we love dies, we mourn their loss — yet find that not even death can keep us from them. People who have played positive roles in our lives live on, in and through us — linking us to one another and to a kind of immortality. What we do for one another can never be erased. Because you have been here, the World is forever changed. With You comes Eternity.
Such a strange attractor thus opens us to those moments that gather coincidence around them and slip into a kind of timelessness. When the spatial and historical context recede. Being-with-You can evoke a magic that makes us feel as if we happened once before. That something about Personal Presence goes on forever.
On a practical level, creating our strange attractor means becoming aware of narratives and sorting through them. Discarding those that normalize competition and conflict. Selecting those that contribute to cooperation and harmony. For example, a strange attractor might treasure the wildness that generates endless variations on beauty, rather than viewing Nature as an “other” force needing to be powered over and gotten under control. Or, instead of drifting into speculation about possible parallel universes or clinging to metaphysical explanations that say our home lies somewhere else, a strange attractor urges appreciation and responsibility for what's happening here.
Our strange attractor prefers narratives that imply a Personal Presence acting for the benefit of an Other. In stories about the Beginning of the Universe, for instance, it might extract certain alternative themes. Conceiving the first moment in terms of a Goddess giving birth; a God declaring, “Let there be Light;” a moment in the eternally Loving Being of Yin-Yang; or the decision of timeless Up Quarks to share their energy with Down Quarks. In each case, an act of Relationship — specifically Friendship, Giving or Love — begins the World.
This strange attractor would focus on images and likenesses of this Goodness, the complex dynamic beauty of You, evolving from that beginning moment to now. Spatially, from the measureless subatomic to the expanding reaches of galaxies. Primordial sub-nuclear relationships bursting into matter. Chemical sharing opening pathways to the biological. Bacterial relationships leading to multi-organed bodies and sexual reproduction. Increasingly concentrated brain power emerging within a physically, ecologically and spiritually networked Earth. Through it all — love, service, joy, sacrifice, death, birth and life — eating and being food for one another. All in a sacred complex drama.
“And why not Personal Presence throughout the Universe?” a strange attractor might ask. Each of us an expression of this greater You-ness. Others and the World being You for us; we being You for Others and the World. In each of our special ways, each of us incarnating the You at the heart of our World.
Such a strange attractor would puzzle the ego mentality. The master narrative assumes the entire universe can be explained by laws of cause and effect. It understands competition, violence, class hierarchy, sexism, racism, war... but has no explanation for compassion, serving others, Love. It cannot imagine humans being motivated by anything other than desire for individual gratification or personal advantage. The self-as-separate identity stumbles in the presence of mystery and wonder.
Because a strange attractor liberates us from the master narrative, it brings us closer to free. A strange attractor sees from a different point of view. It moves decision making away from predictable ulterior motivation toward the authentically personal. Thus, at the same time that our strange attractor makes Love possible, it also protects against microtheatrical tyrannies disguised as love. Real love cannot be required, demanded, or in any coerced. We each must freely decide when, with whom and how to relate. Cultivating relationships of equality and mutual respect, our strange attractor assumes as many forms as there are individuals among us.
Yet creating a strange attractor requires some universal skills. We cannot change paths without first being able to recognize the pathway we're on, the thoughts we're thinking, the implications of our actions. A strange attractor emerges in Consciousness as one steps off the avenues of ego identity and pursues alternative pathways. Knowledge of alternative narratives proves helpful, because such stories contrast with the master narrative. If you can't discern the difference, how can you choose?
We must also have a basic understanding of sign systems and microtheatres of power, since creating a strange attractor involves deconstructing the workings of discourse, gestures, activities, even spaces and objects, in order to reveal their underlying narratives. Such an understanding can also help us to forgive one another for the mistakes and misdeeds that not only cause our everyday suffering, but also have brought us to the edge of planetary destruction. If all of us have suffered, all of us are also guilty. We have done harm, most often not out of individualized malice, but rather under the influence of cultural forces.
Finally, we need to gather and maximize our personal resources. We all have a greater measure than we might think of the personal qualities necessary for creating a phase transition. The master narrative tends to squelch the development of self-discipline, strength of mind, expanse of soul. Yet we have stubbornly kept these qualities alive in us, whether we realize it or not. And just as a wiggling butterfly wing can affect global weather, so repeatedly activating the smallest cache of greatness can develop into a powerful feature of our personal psychology.
Although there is conflict inherent in moving from one pathway to another, this in itself does not represent a problem. At a bifurcation point, one cannot escape judging and choosing between conflicting directions. How we deal with conflict determines whether we are reproducing the past or creating the world we all desire.
Believing we are capable of a world of goodness, brings us closer to it. We make progress toward the good by focusing on the good, creating goodness. We can practice strange attractor ways we already know — sensitivity to others, kindness, gift giving, forgiveness, encouragement, patience, understanding, small and large acts of responsibility for our world. And we can use our imagination to come up with new patterns for turning our microtheatres into loving ones. Microtheatrical transformation, however, is only the first step in a phase transition.
Part Two: Macrotheatrical Change
Microtheatres are not isolated. Networks connect microtheatres into ever larger macrotheatres. Home, workplace, school, friendships, websites, blogs, newspapers, cinema, radio and television link us with social networks. We communicate via wired and wireless networks. We travel along networks of streets, highways, interstates, air and sea corridors. Networks of production and distribution deliver food, water, energy, sanitation, healthcare, information, entertainment and so forth.
Networks abound. Life itself depends on internal and external networking. Living bodies consist of networked organs. Ecological systems translate into interlaced networks of hosts and guests. The outwardly expanding networks of planet, solar system and galaxies mirror networks spiraling inward.
Thought, sensation, emotion and intuition trace pathways of neural networks. Speech and language emerge from a network of sign system logic, grammar rules and personal creativity. Narrative fields arise from networks of discourse, each with a schema, inherent assumptions, conscious and unconscious objectives. Meaning itself develops from interweaving networks of experience, memory, shared explanation — and the pathways we choose for our storytelling.
We’ve learned from Complexity Theory that cells, organisms, bodies, eco-systems survive as long as their members, their parts, make appropriate choices. Successful decision making, of course, depends on accurate information about the system at large. Thus, complex adaptive systems require functional networks delivering not only material resources to their agents, but also useful and accurate information. Without reliable, free and open channels of communication, complex dynamic systems fall into extinction.
Societies repeat the pattern we find in the natural world. A successful society listens, responds to and integrates the input of all of its members. The more democratically organized, the better. A society assures itself the deepest cooperation and the widest range of intelligence when all its citizens have access to the available resources, receive undistorted information and participate fully in the decision making.
The master narrative, however, prizes competition and therefore legitimizes a pattern of individuals and small unelected groups exercising power over others. To that end, we search out ways to procure advantage. A prime opportunity presents itself where information channels can be manipulated to control the decision making and the direction of the overall system.
We presently have this problem in the United States. Privately owned media delivers only a limited scope and version of the news and what's behind it. We even find our public radio and television networks staffed by editors, analysts and reporters whose backgrounds and social circles reflect the interests of a privileged, ruling class. “The way things are” rarely gets questioned. The world appears all the more unalterable when artists, writers, entertainers, scientists and politicians replicate the same patterns. Compounding the problem, the gatekeepers of the publishing industries conduct business according to perceived market value. Consciously and unconsciously, we clog our networks with communication that has us take the master narrative for granted and consequently reproduce it.
This obstruction of our thinking and blockage of our imagination has historically proven a major obstacle to the creation of a better world. The ego identity has divided us: male vs. female, rich vs. poor, workers vs. owners, left vs. right, conservative vs. liberal, republican vs. democrat. The master narrative — concealed beneath the conflicts it produces — escapes interrogation and deconstruction, as we quarrel over budgets and taxes, appropriateness and inappropriateness, education, social policy, healthcare, etc, etc. We postpone the end of war, poverty, prejudice, unnecessary suffering and environmental destruction; delay the advent of a politics of altruism, the creation of Peace on Earth. Until another time. Or another world altogether.
When conditions threaten the survival of the entire system, however, the context changes. A phase transition becomes possible as agents become aware of the magnitude of the crisis, its root causes and realizable solutions. In a phase transition, everyone faces the same conditions; everyone suffers the same malaise. Everyone has a role to play.
Because microtheatres are networked together, everyone’s words and actions engage the world at large. Behavior conducive to goodness and friendship resonates with our shared hopes and dreams. According to the Butterfly Wing Effect, small efforts toward transforming this valley of tears are likely to gather momentum and accelerate. Everyone longs for a world of love, understanding, peace and happiness. This is not to say that everyone will immediately choose to join such a dance. Some will come early; others run late.
The definitive shift from microtheatres to macrotheatres takes place when individuals with access to the media become active. As editors, critics, bloggers, reporters, news analysts, talk show hosts, advertisers, writers, disk jockeys, politicians, entrepreneurs, marketing and public relations professionals, artists, actors, producers and owners of mass media do their part within their networks — a macrothreatrical strange attractor emerges. Thoughts, images, revelations, alternative narrative cascading through the system would link up with and encourage ever greater microtheatrical liberation. The oppressiveness of institutions produced by the master narrative would soon become apparent to everyone. At that moment, institutional change becomes possible. A moment that in our secret minds and hearts may already be upon us.
Systemic and Institutional change
Societies function by virtue of individuals performing a variety tasks. People make up the networks that deliver food, water, housing, energy, transportation, healthcare, essential and non-essential services. Obviously, not every member of a society is able to contribute equally. Some — such as children, the aged, the mentally or physically challenged — depend on the goodness of others. Among those able to contribute to the common good, we find a wide range of skills, enthusiasm, inventiveness and motivation.
Societies also differ. Our globe provides varying quantity and quality of natural resources. In addition, a history of colonialism has profoundly affected relative levels of power, poverty and wealth. And of course, we've created a wide variety of cultures, as well.
Economic systems summarize how people do what they do to meet their needs. A village economy differs significantly from that of an elaborated, technological society. Yet both systems will have rules, structures and ways of doing things, methods of exchange and reward. No other institution more clearly summarizes how a society functions, how its people think, than the economic system. No other system more definitively influences its members — their imagination, their narratives, their decision making, their behavior, their relations with one another and their world. The term “economics” derives from two Greek stem words meaning “house rules.” People set up house rules that accord with what they tell themselves about who we are and what we're doing here.
A few societies — certain Native American groups, for example — have proven humanity capable of economic systems characterized by cooperation and sharing. Generally, however, we base economic systems on the master narrative of separation with its attendant competition for goods and power. Communist revolutionaries did not succeed when they tried using force to realize ideals of a classless society where everyone would work for the common good and share equally in the wealth. Even where Communism improved certain aspects of peoples’ lives, the effort to impose a cooperative economic system has typically led to counter-revolution, totalitarianism, mass violence - and no less corruption, poverty and environmental destruction than economic systems overtly based on egoism. It is not enough to seek to change the house rules without addressing the underlying master narrative.
The ego narrative unapologetically informs the economic system we call “free market,” “free market capitalism” or “capitalism.” One can arguably trace its roots back to the earliest appearance of an ego identified use of resources. If you could take over and defend a piece of land, for instance, you were free to do so. You then owned that property, the resources on it and all the people and animals who lived there. Roman Law codified this idea of private ownership, including the right to unlimited individual property accumulation. History chronicles only part of the strife that has resulted.
In our present situation, technology has transformed earlier modes of exchange into a vast globalized economy. Multi-national businesses and corporations exploit planetary resources and people's labor in order to produce a profit for shareholders. Individuals and nations hoard wealth in order to maintain and expand their power — while millions in developing nations literally starve. And workers in developed nations lose their jobs, go without healthcare, struggle to makes ends meet. Meanwhile, access to coal, oil, minerals, base and precious metals becomes a matter of national security. Nations arm themselves against internal threats — to keep the lower classes from rising up in civil rebellion. And against external threats — to keep others from invading and ensure the availability of raw materials and worldwide markets.
The United States, for example, presently maintains seven naval fleets, global military bases, international radar installations, a deadly nuclear arsenal, intercontinental ballistic missiles, satellites, espionage, a super-secret National Security Agency and a gargantuan defense budget. And still we do not feel safe.
We should have recognized long ago that something is terribly wrong with institutions that depend on force to keep them in place. And reliance on the ability to inflict mass destruction is only one of the problems associated with an economic system subservient to the ego idea. Since laws and regulations can interfere with profit taking, money and power drive elections and influence legislation. Given the values of the master narrative, corruption taints every level of government — and undermines the democracy that we have sacrificed to establish and preserve.
An economic system produced by the master narrative and based on greed and fear cannot take us where we want to go. As corporate spokespeople and economists explain, the competitive strategies required by free market capitalism lock us into “profit first” business practice. The system can only reward activities when there's surplus money to be made. It doesn't pay to stop polluting or clean up the damages already done, any more than it pays to feed the hungry. Which is the main reason we’re still arguing over global warming and selling “rights” to pollute.
A phase transition would completely transform our world, beginning with a new economic system. If we recognized our self-interest as inseparable from that of our communities and our planet, we could truly and willingly base our house rules on sharing, trust and doing good for one another. Such an economic system could meet everyone’s needs. We could find a way to harvest the raw power of the sun, thereby creating a reliable, sustainable and non-polluting source of energy for all. We could feed the hungry, build homes for the homeless, heal the sick. We could take care of our environment.
Only the master narrative keeps us from creating a world in which everyone receives adequate nutrition, housing, health-care and education. We could engineer a system that guarantees everyone employment, everyone a sustainable income. An economic system mirroring our best ideals would respect democratic principles, ensure true participation in decision making in both government and the workplace.
Since changed behavior would let the world see us — as we would see ourselves — differently, we could lay our weapons down. Such a step need not be naïve, even though some individuals or groups might at first advocate a return to the practices of the ego narrative. While ‘turning our spears into pruning hooks,’ we could also develop new skills of personal responsibility and strategies of non-violence that could protect and defend our lives, freedoms, civil and human rights, as well as those of our neighbors. We could replace our war colleges with peace colleges, convert our ubiquitous ROTC programs into Peace Preservation programs. The very idea of a small privileged group taking advantage and exercising power over others could go the way of other crude practices we have abandoned in the name of civility and sanitation.
In the grip of the master narrative, we act out of an inaccurate notion of self-interest — one that allows no regard for others. Thus our moral standards seldom rise above avoidance of punishment, fear of ‘getting caught.’ True justice requires that we rethink our so-called justice system. Punishment and revenge have failed us. A phase transition would open the door to rehabilitation programs, substance-abuse treatment, psychological help, understanding and forgiveness. Crime and sick behavior are symptomatic of the insanity that characterizes our ego-bound world.
Justice also requires payment of debts — even those we as individuals may not have directly incurred. In the United States, for instance, we live on lands seized from Native Americans. We enjoy a standard of living founded in part on slave labor. The ego narrative tells us we need not take responsibility for errors that others made. A phase transition would set right the wrongs of the past.
Since a phase transition depends on all individuals doing their part in both thought and action, everyone needs education. We need the skills to deconstruct narratives. Civilization cannot exist with discourse promising eternal bliss for acts of terrorism. Earth cannot sustain unlimited human reproduction and population. We need to know how the present master narrative led to our history of hatred, wars and deprivation. We need to grasp how the ego identity causes our own personal suffering. A phase transition would expand and multiply our educational institutions.
Some might hope that changes of this sort would eventually happen, but think it will take centuries. Our problems, however, no longer afford us the luxury of waiting to see if slow and incremental progress might bring salvation. Phase transitions can and often do take place rapidly.
Article V
We define democracy according to the principle that we are capable of governing ourselves. In contrast, dictatorship, oligarchy and bureaucratic totalitarianism function according to the principle that certain individuals or small groups (who believe they are somehow superior) should govern us. On the one hand, the people have the power and direct their government. On the other hand, the privileged exercise advantage and power over the people.
A government “of the people, by the people and for the people” presupposes that the people themselves ultimately retain the right to determine the form and practice of their institutions. Citizens of democracies participate in decision making by submitting their concerns, voting on issues and electing representatives. The Will of the people becomes law.
Constitutions informing democratic governments include, explicitly or implicitly, the right of the people to redress their systems and institutions. Such provision exists by definition and for all time, ipso facto — lest some form or practice chosen in the past prove tyrannical at some future date. One of the basic Age of Enlightenment insights that led to the overthrow of kings recognized human responsibility for social and political institutions. We create them; they do not create us.
During the framing of the United States Constitution, George Mason raised this essential point. Its importance was not lost on James Madison who recorded the logic. In the end, Article V was sculpted and approved. It outlines a mechanism securing the right of the people to call for a Convention for proposing and ratifying amendments — outside the purview of the established National Legislature. Article V states:
“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress...”
No one argues that Article V provides the means for the calling of a Constitutional Convention. And no one argues that the results of such a Convention would require ratification. It is also clear from the debate surrounding the passage and the final wording of Article V that such a Convention stands independent of Congress. Almost everything else about a Second Constitutional Convention, however, remains undefined.
What form would such a convention take? Within what time frame and with what sort of petition could it be called? Who would fund it? How would its delegates be chosen? What powers would such a Convention actually have? Could it re-construct institutions and systems?
Legal, editorial, professional and personal answers vary on all of these questions. For the most part, a generalized distrust of one another taints discussion surrounding Article V. Those on the Left of the political spectrum fear that those on the Right would use a Convention to rescind the Bill of Rights. Those on the Right fear those on the Left would lift restraints necessary for social order.
Some believe another Convention should never be called. Others believe the requisite number of petitions have already been submitted. Some suggest that such a Convention can have no more than amendatory powers. Others attest it represents the Premier Assembly of the People.
The first and only Constitutional Convention produced our present Constitution. It did what many delegates knew needed to be done, while going far beyond what others expected. It laid the foundation for the nation we've become. It bequeathed us Article V.
Historically, threatening to invoke Article V was used to urge passage or blockage of various bills. After awhile, it was no longer taken seriously. In the 1960s, however, Senator Everett Dirksen began collecting petitions regarding Supreme Court intervention in the re-apportionment of State Legislatures. The effort failed. The possibility of a Convention surfaced again in the late 1970s concerning a Constitutional mandate for a balanced federal budget. Today, on the World Wide Web, you can find innumerable articles and sites dedicated to the topic.
Calling for an Article V Constitutional Convention in context of creating a phase transition, however, places the discussion in an entirely different light. Microtheatrical transformation — liberating ourselves from the master narrative — would necessarily be well underway before this macrotheatrical step. The way the master narrative has us doing things would already have become intolerable. It would then be time for institutional change — the moment to create new political, social and economic systems. With desire for change cascading, instead of raising the specter of endless conflict, a Constitutional Convention could draw us together, help us individually focus on our personal goals and catalyze the greater movement.
The process leading up to the Calling of the Convention could itself facilitate translation of phase transition ideals into reality. The internet, editorial pages, radio talk shows, television participation events, newspaper forums and town hall meetings could serve as mechanisms, starting points, where people could initiate and participate in the discussion that would ultimately specify the details of an Article V Convention. Each state could aim at producing a document outlining its suggestions for the logistics of the Convention — from delegate selection and convention form, to framing a set mandates and specifying the required mode of ratification.
To ensure that the Convention would be called in a reasonable amount of time, to avoid the confusion of fifty different petitions and to guide the Convention so that's its work would meet with swift and unanimous approval, it would serve us well to link the Calling of the Convention to our National Elections. We, as a People, could vote for or against the Calling for an Article V Constitutional Convention. We could do so by way of a National Referendum, or by electing a presidential candidate who represented not a competing party, but rather a single petition drawn from the suggestions made by the States or informally from the citizens at large. It would be a relatively easy subsequent procedure for all State Legislatures to thereafter submit that nationally approved petition to Congress.
Whatever pathway we would take to its calling, a Constitutional Convention could serve as a most significant step in a phase transition. Such a Convention could draw on the resources and collective input of our best economists, scholars, bankers, investors, entrepreneurs, laborers from every field. It is impossible to predict the exact details regarding the form of the new systems and institutions. We do know that Constitutional continuity requires a ratification process of whatever changes the Convention would propose. We also know that a phase transition implies a whole new master narrative about who we are and what we're doing here. Thus we could expect our new institutions and systems to be grounded in cooperation rather than competition, to nurture fairness, ever greater participation and representation. Structures reflective of a new understanding — responsive to everyone’s needs, responsible to our planet.
Part Three: Belonging
Drawing from insights provided by Complexity Theory, we’ve suggested how a phase transition might unfold. Saving the World begins with individuals creating and activating alternative discourse in their microtheatres. Conscious and unconscious networking inevitably leads to more and more people liberating themselves from the master narrative. A strange attractor begins emerging for the society at large when mass media reflects a gathering disenchantment with the ego idea of ourselves.
From here, we can only begin to imagine possible expressions that an emergent master narrative based on love might inspire. Individuals dispersing their fortunes in order to help others. Forgiveness replacing revenge. Cinematic narrative celebrating cooperation and altruism. People in positions of power and privilege relinquishing their advantage in favor of equality and democracy. Individuals revealing the corruption that they never wanted to be part of. Unexpected acts of kindness becoming normal. More people smiling. A drop in the rates of crime, suicide and depression. The ego narrative becoming an object of academic study, a tool for understanding our history of war and conflict. Talk show hosts advocating, “Feed the hungry,” “Shelter the homeless,” “Disarmament,” “Peace on Earth...” Everything the master narrative would deny us.
Clearly, a phase transition would mean different things to different people. Some might understand it as participation in the long awaited Messianic Age. For others it might mean that the Second Coming unfolds as people make a place for Christ here and now in their heart. Some might translate the phase transition as the Prophet Returning through their own personal responsibility. Some again might simply see it as a metamorphosis of such magnitude that it was totally unbelievable before it began. We've conceived myriad ways of nurturing the hope that we would one day create the world all of us desire. A phase transition would fulfill those dreams.
Some may doubt that such a Great Change can actually happen. We know we prefer getting something for nothing. Like making the world a better place without having to give anything up, without having to sacrifice, without having to do anything. We also know, however, that change doesn't happen like that. Change requires conscious effort, time and material resources. In our case, it means creating a whole new understanding of ourselves and others. It means overcoming fears and cynicism. It means new forms of responsibility and leadership. It means realizing that your words and your actions can save the world.
We also have doubts because we retain unhappy memories of failed visions. We know that terrible evil has been wrought in the name of good intention. We look around and see how far we would need to go. We distrust one another. Change raises the specter of the unknown. We fear reproducing another version of the ego world. We recoil at the thought of making matters worse.
Crossing from where we are to where we want to be, however, may be less difficult than it appears. We are an ingenious species, more intelligent, more brilliant, more loving than the master narrative has ever let us believe about ourselves. When we bring our intuition, feeling, perception and reason together, we can see our failures and limitations; but we can also see our possibilities. We can imagine a better world. Nature has enabled us to correct our course.
Learning means recognizing an error and not repeating it. Until the late twentieth century, we assumed our sign systems were able to deliver the “truth” of the Universe to our minds. We thought reality was out-there, waiting for us to discover it. We inherited understandings of ourselves based on limited perception and sign system representation of one another and our world. Our narratives interpreted what we saw in Nature as a struggle for survival based on the principle that might makes right. We assumed the correctness of the ego idea.
Contemporary science widened our perceptual range. Philosophical inquiry revealed our authorship of reality. Interrogation of language has thrown light on our narratives, their pathways and fields. Complexity Theory has given us insight into how change happens. We now have evidence and reasoning that resonates with the intuitions and feelings offered through the centuries by the arts, by religious and cultural alternatives. Questioning the ego idea of ourselves, we begin recognizing that it is a mistaken pathway. For the Living — the animals, the plants, the fauna, the flora, our Earth — the right and wrong of human narrative profoundly matters.
The bridge to the World all of us desire begins within. No outside power keeps us from creating the world we would like to see. We individually fill the in-between of ourselves and our world with narrative. We choose which thoughts to think, which to elaborate; which pathways to pursue, which to abandon. Only each of us alone can free ourselves from the master narrative. Each of us can respond to the needs of the world, to the possible ways we might help create a phase transition. Love and the desire to be loved have always proven a far deeper and more enduring incentive than money and power, fame and privilege.
By whatever mystery and series of events, we've arrived at this cross-roads. Here we decide whether as a species we are worthy to go on. Our meaning waits to be discovered. As Mother Earth's sign system maker and reader, we appear exceedingly well qualified for assuming the role of Her Gardener, Caregiver of Her Children. We long for a miracle. A possibility now in our hands.