Creating a Cohesive Culture of Resistance and Transformation
posted by DragonSnap | December 16, 2010
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IcerocketThe United States is a crumbling empire, and more and more people are waking up to this.
I personally have had this awareness for many years, although its just recently I was able to put these words to it. Sometimes I can feel time like waves, and I can tell where life is going for not only me, but everyone. I felt from a very early age that there were major cultural shifts coming, and that I would want to be a part of them when they started hitting shore. That time is here. We are living these changes. Other friends of mine, also intuitive, have felt these Earth changes coming for a long time as well, and often there is a tendency (for me as well) to idealize collapse, imagine that only a Utopian future is possible. In our tendency to idealize collapse, I think sometimes we fail to plan completely how to transition our culture. Look at the USSR. That collapse was not pretty at all. Things can go badly.
Part of the difficulty in planning a transition like this is that there is not enough cohesion between those who want to see change, who want to create a new culture. Many people, when first realizing how the dominant culture has failed us, and how collapse could be on its way, want to *do* something. They find issues dear to their hearts, become activists or join movements. I think this is a great start, but the situation right now is that there are many disjointed movements and not a big sense of cohesion. For those of us living in the US (and indeed in many cultures), we might be able to expect the government and dominant culture to continue closing down more and more on any resistance, so the more we are connected with each other, the better.
One essential consideration is that different people wake up in different ways. Some wake up through studying ecological principles or learning about peak oil. Some people wake up through meditation, spiritual practice or a really good trip. Either the left or right brain can lead a person to awareness of systems. Systems awareness, in my opinion, is the key to understanding the current problems and working to create alternatives. If a person can think in systems (either with intuition or logic), it becomes easy to see why certain problems exist and how to create systems that actually work for everyone involved.
Even though many more people are becoming systems thinkers, there is still a tendency to specialize and reduce. I think this partly comes from wanting to share our gifts in the way that we can contribute best. So, for example, a person with sound awareness of economic principles may want to work on creating alternate money systems, to play to strengths. This is great, but as I see it, so many people specialize the way they want to help transform the world, that they isolate themselves from people in other fields. Because of this, any overall consciousness shifts that happen are still disjointed, and we have only weak senses of solidarity with other parts of the movement to transform culture.
When it comes down to it, culture is glue. Just try to change one element of how a culture operates, but without changing the overall patterns within that culture, and its difficult to make real progress. The culture will adapt (either by its leaders adapting it or by the people itself sticking with what they know) to incorporate the change, but somehow weaken it, rendering it more or less ineffective. That's what we saw with the civil rights movement, to an extent. Because of all the work done during that time, the oppression changed forms, but it did not go away. What we have right now, in the place of separate water fountains, is a prison-industrial complex that some have labeled "the New Jim Crow." When we see how power, or culture, adapts to maintain its basic function, its easy to get discouraged. By the way, "adapting to meet its basic function" is a definition of resilience. Resilience is a word that's bandied about often, but sometimes we need to ask, what is resilient? If the dominant culture is resilient, is that desirable?
I think what we are missing is a common culture that unites the different movements. Or perhaps, this culture IS already in place, but we are not expressing it as vibrantly as we could, not realizing how essential it might be. Because Evolver is a place where so many different ideas come together, and is the most inclusive movement happening (because it reflects all aspects of this shift), Evolver is a great place to start talking about bringing cultural (and not just intellectual) elements into play.
Although I don't think we should stay forever lodged in ideology, ideology is a good place to start. What are the things we can all agree on? The things all of our movements have in common? I don't claim to represent what everybody believes in, but here are a few examples of things we might all agree on (not meant to be an all-inclusive list):
Respect for the Earth
Respect for people
Shared power
Creating Systems that do these things (so like, economic systems that DON'T steal from the poor to pay the rich... like our current interest-based, debt-based system)
The second part might be creating actual cultural elements around that:
Myth and story. This can include "true" stories (like in documentaries), but also includes ideas formulated into "fiction" stories that represent truths essential to us. Myths that help us identify with the ideological underpinnings of the culture we are creating. Myths that help us feel connected to each other, and to the changes we are creating. Stories that we can tell to give us hope, to give us ideas for how to move forward in difficult or confusing situations.
Music and art: ANY medium, any work that is in the same spirit as the changes we are trying to create. I'm including performance art, either formal or informal (I'm a huge fan of flash mobs for example, and any kind of street performance)
Style: Even clothes can help be cohesive to a movement. I personally am not a stylish person, I don't have interesting clothes. Strangely, I've always wanted to have a cool "look" but never prioritized it. I just occurred to me, however, that clothing can be a way of connecting, especially when there is no judgement involved. So, I am definitely not advocating judging anyone who dresses boring, or within bounds of mainstream culture, but having clothing be a part of representing the movement could be cool. I think any counter-culture style works, or blend of styles, works and if you look around on Evolver.net, you see plenty of people with unique styles. It is possible to identify unusual/interesting/freakish people by their look, although many of us still are more "incognito." A couple movies I've seen again recently, are "Swing Kids" (where kids in Nazi-occupied Germany resisted through emulating the music, dress and culture of the American Swing movement) and Hackers (where a bunch of hackers (with awesome clothes and parties)) end up foiling an evil plot. Clothing can be a way to identify with each other, with a certain type of thinking, besides being fun.
So, in review, what are the functions of having cohesive culture to a movement to create a new way of life?
Connect with each other
Help us remember why we are doing what we are doing, what our goals are
Help us feel like we are part of something, and to keep the energy up for doing the work
Offer alternative stories to what the dominant culture is portraying
Communicate our visions to anyone who might stray from the dominant culture in the future
Create symbols for our ideas, that can be conveyed easily, to garner support
Comments
right on
— Dec 16, 2010
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. They echo my own!
I think that the more we build projects that speak to our shared experiences and struggles, and the more we come together to create culture and art in varied expressions, AND the more we communicate openly and nonviolently, the better cohesion we can have.
Making it stick this time
— Dec 16, 2010
I used to work for an architect who was deep into ecological building and he had attended the first Earth Day celebration and studied ecological building practices in the 70's. He related to me that back in the mid 70's with the 1st oil crisis there was a lot of interest from all directions, and he had a good practice of designing ecological buildings, earth shelters, and being able to influence his clients. Then the 80's happened, and by the 90's we forgot about the lessons learned.
Why didn't it stick? It's the culture and the media, we got distracted and moved away from the path. I agree these are values we need to pass on to our children, and their children.
Thanks for your point about specialization. Buckminster Fuller said the only path to resilience is through generalization. And generalized people are a rarity. Our society gears us to specialization - why do we ask a 5 year old what they want to be when they grow up? Why are we trying to limit their horizons? In this coming time we need people to get interested in the world around them, and outside their comfort zone.
6 Tektite Serpent
----------------------------
"That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly" - Thomas Paine
"We never reflect how pleasant it is to ask for nothing" - Seneca
so many factors
— Dec 17, 2010
There are so many factors to good work not sticking! One really is specialization. The army core of engineers estimates that 3% of people are systems thinkers. I have a theory that the number is so low because of the way our educational system operates. I think our current culture actively discourages systems thinking, and I think the reason is because the more people who are systems thinkers (can actually understand how a whole system operates and how the pieces interact) the more people can understand how terribly messed up everything is. They only want us smart enough to do our jobs, not smart enough to question the way everything is done.
You mention the media. The media is a huge culprit, and its so far off track because its mostly corporate owned. Corporations (and big money in general) are the problem (and at this point the government almost purely exists to serve corporations), and so how could we possibly trust corporations to give us information? Media that is not independent can't be trusted for the important things (actual critique of the modus operendi).
Information is power, and because our media and educational systems are so corrupt and ineffective, power is drained away from the people on an ongoing basis.
All the more reason for us to do everything we can to create something different, but to do so using tools of culture. The more we can make our transformation movement iconic, the more likely we will be able to catch attention and get through all the filters that have been set up against us. The Zapatista movement survived largely because they knew how to use the media to get their story out, and they created stories, images, looks, etc., that conveyed their points in very simple and iconic ways. They got worldwide media attention and therefore got some protection because the Mexican government couldn't entirely knock them out with so many people looking.
Virginia Paris
Well said !
— Dec 16, 2010
It's worth noting that cultures composed of altuistic individuals, in the long term consistently outperform specialized competetive cultures. That generalization brings application of solutions across multiple areas in ways that are just not possible when everyone is being a nose to the grindstone specialized corporate insect .
Thanks for this !
Just when I was asking for more discussion of ways beyond !
" A rising tide - drowns those without boats " - Cee Are
"The object under your feet is always the dance floor " - Cee Are
Culture is not your friend...
— Dec 16, 2010
as Terence McKenna stated and I will agree with you that the glue that keeps a lot of what the west calls "culture" is fear based and manipulated by a variety of mediums that basically distract humanity away from the potential that is within each of us. Once those distractions are exposed and the focus becomes inward and then shared amongst communities it will spread outward which can then become the transformation of the essence of the human species creating compassion for all living things including our mother Gaia....Thanks for this post!
Yes
— Dec 17, 2010
Yes, and I will take it one step farther. A lot of this will be happening simultaneously. So, it's not exactly "ONCE these distractions are exposed.." because as individual people wake up, our responsibility is to evolve ourselves, both within and with our outward actions including within community, even while many lies and deceptions are still being perpetrated. That way, as more people wake up, they can join in our work, and they can have a place to connect (because waking up initially can be really awful). Also, we need to be building structures to take care of ourselves for later... economic systems, communication systems etc. The more infrastructure we can create that could stand independantly of the current economic and political structures, the easier thing will be in the long-run.
Virginia Paris
This is why I check Evolver Daily
— Dec 16, 2010
Well said,
You articulate perfectly, and bring up some great points. Thank you soo much for taking the time to say what you had to say and giving us some of your gift.
Sam I Am
The establishment is
— Dec 17, 2010
The establishment is paranoid. The corporate gov't is obviously paranoid, otherwise why would they be so intent on building such an Orwellian structure of surveillance, prosecution, and incarceration? Their "War on Terror" is a war on civil rights and civic vision which feeds fear and provides their excuses to infiltrate and subvert any organization that presents a threat to their control. The lies, disinformation, and misrepresentation from the corporate-gov't complex are their attempts at damage control to maintain the domination they so desperately try to hold on to. I bring these points up because as futile as the situation may appear, the ax swings both ways. In such a system, the truth is our strongest ally. Consider this quote from R. A. Wilson in 'Cosmic Trigger': "Systematic lying creates what communication scientists call a "disinformation situation," in which everybody eventually begins to distrust, demonize, and diabolize everybody else."(p.48) In order to immunize ourselves to such a "disinformation situation" I urge the continuation of such honest, open dialogue in the spirit of love, that we may build the trust of one another to the level that it becomes impervious to the sort of infiltration and subversion so indicative of les agents provocateurs who have destroyed so many former attempts by prior visionaries and their complimentary activists. Most of all let us not be naive. Our strongest offense is our defense. When we can stand in such solidarity that they can no longer penetrate, nor put asunder, what we have constructed, then we have won. Then they will destroy themselves in their own confusion, their own "disinformation situation". I say this because they have so consistently lied to us that ultimately they must also be lying to themselves and so have no grasp of the truth, thus their paranoia. As their paranoia increases, and finds not an outward target, it will turn inward. It inevitably will implode upon itself.
"Be who you are. Say what you feel. Because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
Brilliant
— Dec 17, 2010
Yes! This is brilliant!
I think one of our biggest challenges is figuring out how to do all of this, create change together within a culture of connectedness, and do it without centralized leaders. When you have centralized leaders, they are easy targets to take out. It's not that we shouldn't have leaders, its that we should have lots and lots and lots of leaders, with everyone having the amount of "power" (power = the ability to get things done) as they are ready to take on, commit to, and be dedicated to (being in service to those they serve not the other way around). If everyone understands what we are doing, then no matter who they "take out" it won't matter, the movement will go on.
Virginia Paris
A pretty awesome Ted talk I
— Dec 17, 2010
A pretty awesome Ted talk I watched today about how to build a movement.
http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement.html
-Invisible Agent
"No one really knows exactly what happens when we think, therefor we can never really ever know anything." -Michael Larson
So many good points are made here...
— Dec 18, 2010
"so many people specialize the way they want to help transform the world, that they isolate themselves from people in other fields. Because of this, any overall consciousness shifts that happen are still disjointed, and we have only weak senses of solidarity with other parts of the movement to transform culture."
-so true, to many of us put ourselves on personal missions to utilize our own talents/awareness/abilities that sometimes in many ways exclude the whole consciousness that we all want to grow like we are all building this house together and the person that knows how hang chandeliers runs ahead of the group slowing down the overall process because we do not have extra hand with hauling in the lumber and since we not help we do not feel as apart of group because we in some sense did less.
Forgive english is not super great. :)
Thank you for the great
— Dec 18, 2010
Thank you for the great metaphor!
Don't worry about your English, it is very good.
Virginia Paris
Gratitude
— Dec 18, 2010
I would just like to acknowledge the depth of gratitude I feel when reading this post and all of the replies. I am aware this doesn't really contribute to the conversation itself, but I suspect that there are a significant number of souls reading this in addition to myself who have been profoundly moved by this conversation and I would like to honor everyone who has contributed to it. For me this has taken the form of a novel type of hope, in that such a display of intelligence, compassion, creative systems awareness, and willingness to share without resorting to bickering is refreshingly beautiful. Thank you all.
Conscious Music for Personal Evolution
www.ericgeoffrey.com
thank you back, and thank you to everyone
— Dec 19, 2010
Thanks for everyones comments. Even the one person who I think was disagreeing with me, did it politely. A lot of people had a lot to add, too!! Discussion is where its at!
Virginia Paris
this is an awesome conversation
— Dec 18, 2010
I'm glad its here, and its imperative. The ego is not an enemy, its a tool. I recently heard an episode of dream talk radio in which Joan Borysenko spoke about using the alter-ego as an ally, a tool. Ego is not who we are, but it is a physical representation of who we are. And ego is free! A collective ego has the potential to be an inviting game-changing host to the collective shifting values of our world today. Thanks for this post!✌
YES!
— Dec 19, 2010
What a beautiful way to put it.
In my opinion, ego is a very EAGER tool. When it is destructive, its because it has been given destructive instructions, and it wants to do its job well. Give it constructive work to do (it is very task-oriented) and it can be amazing!
Virginia Paris
merger
— Dec 24, 2010
I haven't read all the comments so this might be redundant, but I have this sense that through the 2012 consciousness shift specializations will not be an issue. Ideally anyways... The oneness, the cohesiveness of this would have an alignment with the many facets of specialization. Our desires and needs would fluidly lead us to the person that possesess such knowledge, wisdom, product.
The giving and receiving from all heart/love fair exchange.
A common goal of working on our individual hearts ripples out to all the people on our path, the planet and God - ultimately awakening to this oneness.
Speaking of Cohesion............
— Dec 25, 2010
Avatar, Inception, Tron. Need an icebreaker for virtual realities, neo-liberal conquest of the Amazon, Brujeria, etc.
The "mythological language" necessary to discuss issues pertinent to this movement have been conveniently supplied by Hollywood. All we have to do is do a little cut and paste, what Lévi-Strauss called bricolage, and it is possible to communicate with pretty much anyone in the first world on psychedelic topics.
Funny how these ideas are getting a foot in the door. Is it pre-fab mythology to spark new conversations, or is it catering to a public that is demanding the narrative? both? Probably better not to track it in linear time. I cant help but wonder if there is a secret club of myth makers somewhere though.
Not to mention 2012! Thanks Pinchbeck for throwing an epic party. An appeal to the old american millenarianism with a new twist... We all get to be the second coming of Christ and hook up with some Navi at the same time!
Even Kindle commercials are doing it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFCAtI_AGpA
MAYANS ? ALIENS? sPY TECHNOLOGY, ZOMBIES, TIME TRAVEL, ARTIFICIAL INTELIGENCE, ,MAGIC ZOMBIES, WIZARDRY, ATLANTIS
Is it the dawning of the Age of Aquarius?
My hope is that our minds are on the supply side of things. Can't have this culture sold back to us like bell-bottoms
Anyone interested in our monetary and banking system
— Dec 31, 2010
Should view these series of talks, given in a simple and understandable way.
Debunking Money
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Debunking+Money+%28%231%29&a...
Don't worry my sister
— Jan 06, 2011
You have the right mentality in everything is changing, if you want to know why we are changing, it is because our society as a hole reflects our personal decisions we make everyday, and we are in the 21st century, we had all this time to learn since the dawn of time, and its that change we are making from a teenager to a responsible adult (as a world) so just know you are on to something, and i can show you more by checking out my blog... blessings :D
waking up
— Jan 08, 2011
your statement - ..." they can have a place to connect (because waking up initially can be really awful)".
really struck home as ahving the multiple sets of tranformative events that have constituted my experiences thus far in this incarnation
has been -
-
-
-
harrowing-
-
Looking around I see that alot of my energy has gone into coping and providing means for others to cope with
waking up
I do not know what I can do at a distance to help
perhaps this alternative to perception of poetry
will be of use for some :
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Should emotions speak clearer to your heart
Recite out loud the following
Not as if you were the recipient
Not as if trying to be the author
Not as if it has naught to do with you
But aloud
to hear the words
to respond to their sounds
vibrating in air . . .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
" A rising tide - drowns those without boats " - Cee Are
"The object under your feet is always the dance floor " - Cee Are
Held prisoner by our systems
— Jan 12, 2011
The main fight I see comming here in the U.S and other countries is this.We are all in one way or another held prisoner by our systems.
Look at the education system we have here in the united states now. It has vastly changed over the years. These changes have been comming faster and faster. Just since I graduated in 86. We no longer teach math science and critical thinking skills to our students. We still have the classes that are named as such but with the outcome based system where there is no right or wrong only emotion and feelings. True education dies. Look at people 18-25 today and see the results of this form of education. You will see its results. They are confused and ignorant for the most part. They have gotten out into the real world and are unable or unwilling to cope. This is parents fault as well as education.They have been taught that the system owes them a job and all the creature comforts of life. And this system will not hold them responsible for failure.
Our goverment encourages bad behaviour. Look at recent bail outs and economic policies comming from our goverment. The major corperations and financial systems for years have been creating a climate of personal debt and corperate debt. When these policies finally caught up to them they went crying to goverment for help. Bush in all his glory said sure we will. Tarp was born. Then enters Obama he not only agrees with Bush but he doubles down on a bad policy.Tarp2 is born. These were not sound economic policies. They appeared on the face as good things but. What they really did was allow these same bad policies created by these companies to be continued.
Welfare state or welfare slavery? Here in the united states we have this wonderful system called welfare. When It was first created. It was ment to help the poor untill their situation improved. It was never intended to be a life time support system. But that is what the politicians have turned it into.Combined with outcome based education and personal irresponsibility.These people that are cast into this system have become the political slaves to it. Their personal ambition and dignaty has been destroyed.They not only pass on this slavery to their children. But they encourage others to join it.
Things we can do to break away from a failing system.
There are some things in our own lives that we can do to start breaking away from this failing system. One of the very first is to take responsibility for our own actions and decisions. We as humans do not allways make the right decisions .But this is how we learn and grow. Do not allow our systems to take away this very personal right. If they do we stagnate and are doomed to repeat our failures.
Second Educate yourself. Here at this time in our history we have this wonderful information tool. Its called the internet. Here we have a wonderful way to research and learn about our world. Do not allways rely on a broken education system for your children either . Question and listen to them.Then go out and help them find the answers. Take responsibilty for them and do not pass this to others.
Third but just as important. Go out into your communities and create a barter system. I am sure every one here has a talent or a skill. Go out and seek others with the skill or talent that you seek to use. Talk to them see if you have something they need. Ill bet you find that you do and can work out an exchange. This way our broken monitary system does not affect you. Only when we allow ourselves to be held prisoner by these systems do they succede. Mike L.
