Faith and hope or fear and worry?

Obama campaigned on a platform of hope, which seems to have resonated with many people in the U.S. I know I was certainly inspired by his vision. But I am starting to get a feel for what is really asked of us at this point in history. The past 8 years were a period of intense fear mongering and that fear has permeated deep within the world psyche, especially in the U.S. Fear and worry are not things that get turned on or off like a light switch. They sink deeper and deeper, chilling our aspirations and dreams and casting a pall, turning vibrant colors into flat greys. Much like a hard winter, it takes a prolonged period of warmth for the deep chill to disappear. 

That is like what is happening in the U.S. right now. The fear mongering has ended, but it will take time for us to warm up and remember our hopes and dreams.  This will happen automatically gradually, but I also think we are called to choose hope, even when the evidence may not fully support it. This requires a cultivation of faith, which is easier said than done.

It is clear our global economy is struggling. Volcker says we may be facing something worse than the Great Depression, and that is very, very bad. This could be something to fear and worry about, but fear paralyzes and makes it harder to get to work making things better. That is why it is important to choose hope and cultivate faith. These are the things that will get us moving in the right direction most quickly, and the faster we work the less suffering there will be.

There is no going back to the old new economy. It is likely that oil is peaking or has peaked, and that will create a major drag on the economy. In addition, the economy of a few years ago was an addict's fever dream and had something to do with sustainability or reality. 

We must not try to recreate what has been lost. In reality, what has been lost was not that great. It was an unsustainble bubble. Mass materialism, conspicuous consumption, vapid self-indulgence. I say good riddance to that. BUT the realignment will be painful for many, unfortunately, but there is little way around it. What we do not need another bubble and crash. Trying to re-establish the production and consumption levels of the past is a mistake and will doom us to cleaning up another mess in a few years. We have to face up to reality.

As I mentioned above, there is really only one thing to do. Get busy remaking a sustainable economy and a more balanced future. I think we will see people living more localized existences, probably making less money but having more time for community, and using that time for community projects that benefit everyone participating. This will be a time of coming together to remake a system that works, which will be satisfying in itself. I suspect people will be growing more of their own food, and reconnecting with the joy of fresh, local food. We will see much more renewable energy and community-level and region-level self-sufficiency. Global trade and information sharing will continue, but only those things that are really needed and cannot be produced locally. 

The banks will probably need to be nationalized, because they were at the heart of the old economy and they are so insolvent with so many overinflated assets that no one wants to buy. We have way more financial capacity than we will need and many banks should fail, and a few of the best should be reformed and strengthened. We do need to restore lending to stimulate business investment, but we are already seeing that simply giving the banks more cash will not increase lending. This is another reason for nationalization. We need banks that have the national interest at heart and are willing to lend in those areas that are truly going to stimulate the economy. The stimulus will make a difference, but it will not be enough. We need to invest as much as possible as quickly as possible in the energy infrastructure of the future that will allow the economy to get started again. With an energy source secured, business will be able to begin to work again.

At a personal level, letting go of fear and worry and choosing hope and faith will be essential for preserving our happiness through this hard time. If we hold on to fear and worry, we will only end up torturing ourselves and those we care about. Fear will not make us more successful: it will slow us down and make us miserable in the interim. Choose hope. Have faith.

Deeper Democracy

I am very interested in democracy and what the next generation of democracy might look like. I believe that although most people in the U.S. consider themselves to be free and to live in a democracy, I believe that there is much further we can go with the lived concept of democracy. If we think about what deep democracy would look it, it would certainly have to support an ever deepening process of self-actualization, positive creativity and fulfillment. If we view humans as not static but as very dynamic and adaptive, and further postulate that any limitations we see for ourselves individually or collectively are merely a function of the limits of perception rooted in this arbitrary current moment and not real in any permanent sense, we come to understand that this deeper notion of democracy is critical to real freedom and progress. Democracy must provide an environment that allows us to continually grow and expand in our consciousness and power to create a world that reflects our deepest aspirations. A virtuous cycle is created in which we are supported in developing  richer, more nuanced and more "true" aspirations, which we are then supported in manifesting and bringing to life. As we bring our aspirations to life, then our perspective expands and we can deepen our aspirations that much further and repeat the cycle. I consider anything less than this a sham democracy that does not do our true, infinite human nature justice.

I should also point out that the notion of individual democracy as it is practiced in the U.S. is really only a first step towards real democracy.  Real democracy is much more of a collective concept. Viewed through the lens of creativity, certainly we are capable of creating more together than we are separately. In this notion of democracy, groups of people can come together for a period as short as a minute or as long as a lifetime to create a shared aspiration. This shared aspiration is as close as they can come to what they jointly consider to be heaven on earth. These group experiments are capable of creating much richer, broader and more significant effects than what someone acting alone could do. In this way, social innovation can be dramatically accelerated and society as a whole can develop much more quickly. I assume in this view of democracy that the notions of coercion, force and violence are totally absent and so people are free to be inspired by their highest selves and the highest selves of those around them. Of course I realize that coercion and violence will be with us for a long time, but at this point in time I do believe we should purge them from our aspirations at least. They are outdated concepts that should die as soon as possible.

I will list below some practical developments that I believe are necessary to this notion of deep democracy and that are essential for creating the conditions that will allow us to move down this path.

• Democratic media and communications: In some previous posts I have written about how the media has been complicit in Bush's push towards totalitarianism and how it also has developed in such a way as to provide us with our own echo chambers that reinforce our existing perspectives. Both of these are signs that there is a need to look at the role of the media and how it does or does not promote democracy. These two types of problems with the media represent the continuum of failures that we must correct. At one end is media's role in reinforcing and perpetuating the message of a centralized authority, even when a populace is not in agreement with that authority. It is well known that repetition has a powerful effect on what people believe, and the media can repeat erroneous or damaging messages thus strengthening them and weakening the ability of people generally to discern their true aspirations and interests and organize to make them manifest. This is bad. 
  At the other end of the continuum, media can trap us in a bubble/echo chamber of our own perceptions that walls us off from others, robs us of their perspectives and wisdom, and keep us locked in a small, static version of ourselves. We hear only what we have heard before, and through the power of repetition, we begin to invest these things with the patina of Truth, because there does not seem to be any alternative. In this way we are also limited and prevented from moving down the path of self-actualization. We need to engage with other perspectives in a real dialogue that transcends our limited individual assumptions and mental models to begin to form an enriched and broader conception of our  shared reality.  
  So then what we need is a media that promotes real dialogue, that allows us to connect with similar and dissimilar perspectives with people around the globe, that allows us to begin to coordinate our efforts to manifest shared aspirations but also leaves room for serendipity and chance encounters that can help us to question and see through incomplete and limited aspirations that are smaller than they need be. Much like the way natural selection and mutation work together to promote genetic progress, we need an equivalent process of social selection and mutation. That should be the job of the media. The Internet has helped tremendously in this challenge, but we much be vigilant in ensuring that it remains free, that it allows us to find kindred spirits, and that it allows us to coordinate together while keeping us open to what we don't know we don't know.
• Democratic energy: The next essential ingredient will be access to energy and energy self-sufficiency. Energy is the fundamental building block necessary for manifesting tangible results on planet earth and is thus necessary for self-actualization. Renewable energy is clean and can be deployed at individual and community scales. The widespread availability and adoption of renewable energy will support the deepening of democracy as communities free themselves from outdated and damaging systems of production and livelihood that currently keep them enslaved.
• Democratic resources: Aside from energy, there are some physical resources that are truly limited and scarce. This includes land, rare minerals, etc. Hopefully as we move towards greater sustainability we come to understand what the real human carrying capacity of the globe is work within it. Everyone needs access to sufficient resources to feed, clothe and house themselves sustainably. If groups of people choose to come together to pool their resources towards shared ends and projects, fine, but the fundamental right of everyone to these physical necessities of life much be strengthened.
  
• Democratic process: We must make advances in the processes that enable us to make decisions as communities and as a society. Our electoral system is only marginally democratic. When this process comes into contact with economic power, it quickly gets warped in the direction of the interests of the rich and powerful. It also selects as leaders people who are abnormally driven, personally ambitious and probably ego-centric. These "leaders" are not representative of the general population, nor of what we would hope for the general populace. We need processes that better allow for the efficient integration of interests and the transcendence of superficial disagreements.

That might be just enough to move us to a qualitatively higher notion of democracy and social progress. If I think of anything else I'll let you know. :)