Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

 In the first thread I ever posted here, I asked if there were any experts, or thoughts about, a type-by-perspective interaction. Unfortunately, much of the initial post was so rambling that only a couple of brave or patient souls chose to muddle through it. 
  I would still value any insights about type-by-perspective interactions, but my larger concern and interest is “How do we best go about shaping the world to make it better, in terms of maximixing human potential and human goodness/virtue?” 
  My first thread contained a comment in which I proposed that gift assessment (and by that, I mean something like assessment of “natural apptitudes” and related “personality dispositions”, sometimes called “types”) would seem more important than perspectives, per se, when it comes to forming an optimal cooperative/collective.  
   Once the “gifts” are found, the next step is to find a niche for each of those gifts. I believe that if we develop a system of knowing and using the gifts, much of the vertical enlightenment that Wilber mentions will more-or-less occur as a matter of course. 
   If I am wrong, please chime in and help me challenge the assumption. It is not just a hypothetical exercise - not if we are serious about worthwhile cultural transformation.
   The vehicle that I propose would be the most effective in organizing and integrating the “gifts” would be a model community. If it works there, it can be replicated throughout the larger social system, or, in business terms, the model community can be used as a “benchmark”.
  Below is my defense of the small-community-level approach to cultural transformation. What do you think? Concerning both the “gift” approach and the model community approach? Are these two ideas something we would need to impliment if, in fact, we are serious about effecting Cultural Transformation? 

  Excerpt from Intro section of The Marketing of Virtue: Allsberg Rising: 
   One objective characteristic of this book which might set it apart from other writings or discussions about the topic of culture-creating is the fact that The Marketing of Virtue: 
Allsberg Rising devotes a great deal of attention toward blueprinting a fictional model community, at the level of a small town. This characteristic appears to give the book an 
advantage over many of the broader, more general, discourses about cultural transformation. On the other hand, many other discussions have leaned the opposite direction, toward the (level of the) individual, with a “Let there be peace on earth, and let it 
begin with me” line of thought. 

As compared to these more general or more narrow approaches, the current offering seems like the bed in the Goldilocks fable, in that it feels “just right” for investigating the 
most effective means of implementing the envisioned social changes; this, despite the fact that it is only a virtual community, a drawing-board version of a model community.

During my blogging participations online, I rarely encounter discussions geared toward making a scaled-down version of the world or of a nation, in the form of a model town. Yet, the hallmark of scientific investigation is to start small, with simulated realities called “experiments”, and then see if the observations on that smaller, artificially-controlled, scale 
can be generalized to larger and/or more naturally occurring circumstances. This is the reason I focussed on a model community. The book is intended to be a plan for a
sociocultural experiment. 


 Darrell

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

Hi, Darrell, I think this is quite an interesting subject – but also quite daunting because of the difficulty of actually carrying out such an experiment.  Daunting, but not impossible.  You recall Skinner's book, Walden Two, I suppose?  Where he outlined an ideal fictional community modeled on behaviorist principles and non-punitive philosophy?  Quite a few people have attempted to create such communities, and one in Mexico (Los Horcones) is still thriving, apparently (though many others either failed or else changed sufficiently to no longer be considered “Skinnerian” communities).  Thinking about your proposal, I'm reminded also of Arcosanti in Arizona (the focus there is more on environmental-friendly design) and also of Daniel Quinn's recent writings.  But Quinn's book is too sketchy and general to be very useful, IMO (besides being very Greeeen).
 
Anyway, since I haven't gotten back to you privately about your book, I would enjoy talking further about your ideas here.

More later.

Best wishes,

B.

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

Hi Bruce, Yes, this might be a more user-friendly way to discuss “the book”, since the above post is more or less the essence of “the book” (part of me feels bad that in making the post, I shamelessly plugged “the book”!, but my main intent was dialogue, not promoting a book). 
   Not quite the essence. I missed the “spiritual”, transfaith, or “thinking like energy” (a secular translation of “spirit”, “thinking like spirit”). At this point in my thinking, I am here operating more from the LL quad in forming a culture that makes folks want to be together in a physical location and a culture that shapes the UL “mind” in a way that is more effective or proficient. 
  I am acting as a “Cultural Creative” minister, in which the cultural creative part is new, and the “minister” part is very old-school and churchy. Like my many nightime dreams of standing in a barnyard looking out to a city skyline in the horizon, I am standing between old and new, rural and urban (and/or suburban, where I now live). 
   This position is one aspect of the word “gift”. By being plopped down on earth in this time and place, I can transform the world a bit differently than if I had been born, say, in the hustle-bustle of Manhatan. Of course life experience there would also be a gift, but a different one. 
   This form of “gift” (life exposure, rather than natural apptitude or personality type) is closer to the perspectives of the integral map. Where you are, and where you were, does create a perspective.  And Ken is “right on” when he senses the needs to integrate the perspectives. 
   When I emphasize “gifts”, I am merely reaching into my LL traditional culture, from a playbook in the biblical book of Romans, in which each unique human character is seen as a member of a larger “body”. This, though shunned by postmodern thinkers as “traditional” (smacking of authoritarianism?), is, to me, a worthwhile, meaningful, useful, “myth” (a “gift” is a rather amorphos thing). 
   In fact, the traditionals may need to make a trade with the cultural creatives (and, if possible, with moderns). “We'll accept the idea of pure energy as more-or-less equivilant to our word and concept of spirit, if you accept our word and concept of gift”. Now, that's a social contract! And one that may form an effective alliance between two major sociological groups. 
   With such an alliance, the moderns may be better pursuaded to listen to the core “spiritual” piece that got left out of the modern and postmodern world's repression of religion (due to the Line/Level Fallacy), and religions would have their good (LL) “goods”, or services, on the conveyor belt that opens them up to integrating better with the “world” - which also means better “serving” the world that “God so loved…” 
   So the new version of the essence of my book would have to include the “spiritual” piece in both the form of a group belief in a pure energy core of self and in the form of a “God-given gift”. The incarnation theology seems in line with the gift idea, in that the “whole light spectrum” (another Secular Translation of Christian - and other spiritual vehicles' -  Knowledge, or “STOCK”) of “God” is split off into colors of individuality, and that those unique frequencies have transformative value, or a ”purpose”. The community assisting the individual in finding his or her “gift” or “purpose” is a very traditional cultural belief that, IMO, should be not only salvaged, but should be used fully to advance human wellbeing. Where the open market failed to find the niches matching the deep design of each person, the new alliance of social spirituality will be able to do better. That is the dream, and that is an essential element in the model community I propose. 
   So here is the formula so far: 

    “Get gifts right. 
      See the light.
      Use a model town site”
  
   My previous discussion overlooked the “see the light”, spiritual, element of the proposed model community. 
   I decided that the AQAL model works great for codified systems, but that the emphasis on actualizing “gifts” as the building blocks of an optimal community may work better at the early, formative, stages of a community (or new “culture” emanating from such an exemplary community). A gift-hood model works better near the base of the human flare or fountain which is continuously unfolding during an ongoing “intelligent designing” of reality. The “gift” is the initial and essential split-off from the white light Source. It is an “operating system” in and of itself (similar to Liebnetz's “monad”? Or Covey's “center”?).

  Thanks for joining this discussion. 
     Darrell

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

Bruce, Thanks for the links. I finally got around to using them. Attempted communication with Los Horcones, and ended up ordering a used book of Quin's, Beyond Civilization. I was “sold” after reading an introductory section written in the form of a “fable” about the development of “civilization” and the emergence of a new social invention (which the mythical “ruler” in the fable tried to discourage, but which we cultural creatives might bring about yet!). 
   Each match  you or others provide me, is a potential marketing/disemination tool. On one hand, my motives are base, trying to peddle my work. On the other hand, my motives are pure, as the ideas in the book are my very best shot at offering a transformative tool to the world. If the quality or timing simply isn't there, and I fail, so be it. I gave it my best shot. 
  Not quite. After writing it, I must try to spread it. Until I try to get the word out, how will I know the book couldn't get traction in the current world and market? 
   Thanks for your info/links that can be used to help me spread the word. You are a good teacher. Thanks for the learning and the tools you provide me. 

   Darrell

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

Hi Darrell

Great question for a thread. My answer is a disappointed “no we're probably not serious about it”, probably because as Bruce says it seems so daunting. No reason not to try though!

I like your idea of starting small, and the idea of the culture supporting the gifts of individuals.

My own observations on your wider question is to look at the leading force, the leading form of media,  in the majority culture. In the West it's not books, or newspapers, or storytelling, or sand art(!), not even music or movies. It's TV.

One of my favourite Ken Wilber quotes is: “In fact, at this point in history, the most radical, pervasive, and earth-shaking transformation would occur simply if everybody truly evolved to a mature, rational, and responsible ego, capable of freely participating in the open exchange of mutual self-esteem. There is the 'edge of history.' There would be a real New Age.”  Up From Eden, pg 328

Sadly, my sense is that most TV certainly does not encourage the development of mature, rational and responsible ego - it does not encourage the open exchange of mutual self-esteem. (Although people like Joshua Meyrowitz do a good job of pointing out the positives of TV.)

I often fantasise about what the effects might be if we were to replace Fox with something like a TV version of the Positive Pyschology News Daily! :-)
(I know, ratings, therefore advertising, therefore financial viability would be an issue… like a said it's a fantasy. But then again…)

James

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

James, Your ideas are helpful to my sensed “cause”. I totally agree that plain old “rationality' would be a big step up from where we are. I own the book by Al Gore called “The Assault on Reason”. It makes the same argument that we need to work hard to get reason back into the democracy, if democracy is to work decently. 
  David Fishkin added another piece to this “oranging”(Wilber, IL) of America. Fishkin said we need a deliberative process. At one point, he held a “national issues convention” in Austin, Texas (an orange-to-green zone right in the middle of an amber state!, an oasis!). 
   Both the cultural “oranging” advocated by Gore, and the procedural, or process, form of oranging advocated by Fishkin would be great.  but if done in the middle of an ocean of ignorance and lack of discipline, they would be no more than “drops in a bucket”. 
    This is why the model community seems so important to me. The drops are contained in thimbles and shot glasses and mugs and pitchers and buckets and ponds and lakes and, eventually, in oceans. Critical mass can be achieved on a small scale, and then applied to the next level of the nest of being, or of “holons”. 
   While we are at it - what with our better control of the independent variables and the outcomes (dependent variables) due to a smaller scale - why not experiment with culturally crafting ideas (food for thought) all the way up to integral?! It would be our experiment. Our's to do with as we see fit. Our responsible and rational expresion of libertarianism (rather than expecting something for nothing, as, to me, libertarians tend to do, or instead of saying “leave me the 'f' alone”, as libertarians also tend to do.). Our cultural transformation goal would not  be for only rational problem solving, but for an integral vision of humanity - a new and fuller version of the “one body”. 
   I liked the “Positive Psychology News Daily” as it is an apple to apple comparison of what Fox is (a “perspective”, rather than news). Your version would be desire-based or love-based, rather than Fox's fear-based approach. Much of Fox's fear, however is based on a real sense of the world encroaching on the traditional ways. I think Wilber is right in assessing the sociocultural need to counteract the Traditional's (“Nazi's”!, his words, not mine!) tendency to “fixate” at an amber level of understanding. See some of the thoughts I shared with Balder above, for a look at how we might start to “reach accross the table” and to, on the modern side of the table, de-“repress” the spirituality and morals, and allow a new way for Traditionals to “speak”, rather than in the fear-based way they now are. Your proposed TV program would at least offer an other approach, or a different language. But it would not necessarily reach accross the table. I'm afraid it would only make the Traditionals dig their heels in more, and would just up the ante (sp?) on their war against the world. 
   Thanks for joining in this chat. 
   Darrell

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gKX9TWRyfs
http://www.thevenusproject.com/

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

Darrell, as you know, I am very interested in the implications of your book, and would like to see a way of implementing it experimentally. 
Love,

Nicole

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

Nicole, Yes, I would like to inform the group here that Nicole and a friend of hers met with my wife and I in the first “International” (Canada and U.S.!) Conference (4 people!) of Making Allsberg” (the proposed transfaith spiritual, gift-maximizing, power-sharing, resource-sharing, model community). The Conference was held in Dayton Ohio. It started in the Wright State library and then moved on to a Chinese Buffet! A great and informative and inspiring time was had by all!
    Darrell

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

It was so great meeting you and Becky. We will have to get together again soon, by telephone of course this time since it will be a while before I am your way again.

Love,

Nicole

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

Dear Zakariyya, I didn't have time to watch the whole utube movie yet, but what I saw was inspiring, and felt oh so true. We do seem to be worshiping money. Can that worship itself be “transformed” to the “Marketing of Virtue”?  Please understand that one of my major motivations is to use the money system currently in place to “put itself out of business”. This is a responsible form of anarchy! When the enemy sees you coming they fight back. But if you use the enemy's own tools and weapons, they get morphed from the inside out, or exploded, like agent Smith in the Matrix, once Neo learned to lower resistance and go inside of the illusion of control that agent Smith embodied. Neo became as spirit, or, as I say, he “thought like energy”. Using the current of currency can transform this world wide religion into a higher stage which no longer requires the buying and selling of human lives. Working for pay is merely prostitution. Selling one's body, and getting all sweaty, for the satisfaction of someone else. Employment could be replaced with “Engagement”, like two persons marrying and sharing each other, rather than prostituting ourselves by being employed. What if I had “employed” my wife, rather than becoming engaged and then married to her? She feels trapped enough, like a slave enough, in this long commitment, but she does it for love. Love is the “payment”. Love is the currency, the energy flow, that brings both she and I the riches we longed for and now cherish. Not money. Love. 
  Not money. Wisdom.
  Not money. Spirituality.
 Not money.  Sense of meaningfulness.
   Get the idea? The list is long. 
   Not money. 
    Moneynot!  

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

Your really speaking the lanquage of true change that is good change

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

u guys are idiots…money talks bullshit walks…money makes the world go round…money can change a lot of things…i have seen plenty of people with good ideas but no money to manifest them…

in our world money matters…b4real…*

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

When you say these guys are idiots I think you are on to something. Actually I have very little idea of what they are talking about. Clarity is key especially when dudes start talking about money for they might be suggesting taking yours away. All in the name of peace of course and transforming the world. 

I have yet to hear anything concrete.

The money system is very difficult to understand and its mostly misunderstood.

But that's for another time. ;-).

Gaddy

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

Gaddy…they b idiots 4real if they b thinkin i have any money they can take…

ROTFLMAO…i b a broke bitch…

hey mr. money…i can love somebody all i want…but it aint gonna put food on da table…

course if anyone has a few extra bucks and wants to help me buy baby a new pair of shoes…

Starlight Dancing…

gol*

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

Well they'll take a few of your shekels, whatever you got. ;-).

Now here is what they should be saying, while they put their right hand, “I'll take a reduction in my wages by 50%”.  

But they don't do that, it is better that the other guy/gal be unemployed - why should I take a reduction in wages? Altruism, you kidding?

The Government says OK then, “we'll just inflate the money supply by 50% which in effect reduces the value of your wages by…50%. They pull the old switcheroo. The numskulls think they're protected, their wages stay the same, but the cost of goods doubles. So as we used to say, “same difference”.    

In this way, no social unrest and the Unions are happy.

It's a crazy game, no ?

Gaddy 

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

In case you didn't know this, this is what the Government is doing right now. Expect inflation coming soon. And why the Obama Administration is asking for more stimulus. $$$$.   

People will try to beat the system by increasing “productivity”. Work harder and invent new technologies, yada yada. 

It's how the game is played.   

If the value of your home has gone down, well, they'll get it back up. It's all smoke and mirrors but this is what we demand. It's called reducing your debt.

Paying off old loans with new inflated money. How easy can it be?

Unfortunately it screws those on fixed incomes.

Gaddy  

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

what's the solution?

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

money is good, get it any which way you like thats good. sleep around or fake it, love or manipulate 8—)) the question is how do you use the money?

consumerism costs more than it appears. supposing you pay a dollar for some processed or factory farmed food, its actual cost is probably five dollars. which are subsidized by health care policies, which are subsidized by your getting sick, and you pay for a treatment, which increases your dependance on drugs, which gets you to the next level of sickness, and you have medical insurance, skillfully targeted at cures that dont work. protected by law , required by law etc, and in subtle ways too.

the framework is a dependance syndrome, organisations survive through control mechanisms, that engage the individual. not just governments, which are just peripheral events that encroach to the centre. facilitated by networks we participate in.

but if i dont use the money thinking some qualified quack is going to help me, then that money is going to facilitate actual quality. and i get to reverse dependance, a simple holistic principle.

think about fuel there are alternative cleaner technologies dime a dozen. think about cancer there are alternative cures dime a dozen, that work! think about water, there is no inhabited place left in the planet, where you can drink or bathe in water, that isnt going to cost you. unless you go looking for clean springs. now, thats a plan

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

of course consumerism is also paid for by inflated money supply, but since gaddy already mentioned that, iam just pointing to systemic issues

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

valli and friends, As regards the systemic problem of inflation, I think we need to distinguish between two potentially inflationary actions: 1. printing money (a form of borrowing) for more consumption, 2. printing money (a form of borrowing) for investing in our mutual survival and long-range prosperity. 
   There is a world of difference between the two debts. But Fox News and other conservative pundits would have us equivocate the two forms. The result is that they would damn us to non-investment. We could not take out a pooled loan to become independent of oil. We could not take out a pooled loan to develop our human resourses by health care reform or educational reform (who in their right mind ever thought it was a good idea to charge exhorbatant amounts of money to develop an individual gift that would benifit the community, thus creating a huge obstical and disincentive for develping said gift, and depriving the community of many gifts?!). 
   As I see it, the only way out of our debt, is to attack the true debt of de-humanization which we have allowed the money system to do. The only way to attack it is to make an investment economically. Like Starlight and others said above, love takes money to support it. A loan, and the accompanying monetary debt, would be worthwhile if it creates true growth in the form of well-being and human productivity, via harnassing the many neglected human resources at our disposal, but currently being like an oil reserve that we are not able to access and refine. Economic debt for the purpose of investment to overcome humanistic debt is a winning formula. Inflation or debt for more of the same consumption will, well, consume us like “a lake of fire”, and we will go to “hell” with debt. 
  This discussion must, IMO, make a sharp distinction between a loan/debt for true investment vs. a loan/debt that goes nowhere but down. To adopt a no-debt, pay-as-you go approach is to kill our potetial to heal and to grow. Failure to make the distinction in the above two kinds of money-printing debt is critical, if we are serious about effecting cultural transformation. For that matter, it is critical if we are serious about surviving! 

    Darrell
   Darrell

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

valli, I really liked this that you said: 

the framework is a dependance syndrome, organisations survive through control mechanisms, that engage the individual. not just governments, which are just peripheral events that encroach to the centre. facilitated by networks we participate in.


Our way of “moving forward” (I'm sick of that phrase!) is to get some form of extrinsic “power”. If I have extra power, then I'll be prepared, just in case I need it. Problem is, the Anobolic bulking up actually causes problems over time. Extrinsic power does seem to corrupt the whole-flow capacity of a system, whether it is a social holon or an individual holon's body system. 


From this perspective of the cultural problem (a zone 7, collective thought distortion that “Extrinsic power is good”), the best solution would be to increase understanding and use of “intrinsic power” - to power of one's own natural “gifts” or orientations which might be harnessed harmoniously for the betterment of the collective. “Each according to her gifts.” Of course this mean we need to start assessing intrinsic power, in both formal and informal ways. Testing for multiple intelligences and psychological types can be useful to see what sort of “frequency” the individual may be operating with, and to see how that would fit into the orchestra of collective enactment. But I suspect that a good ol' healthy “community” that involves folks actually getting to know one another and stopping to listen and express and emotionally process issues would do an even better job at helping each participant identify a “gift”, even if the “gift” is little more than a meaningful myth which channels the participant's energies in a constructive, pro-social way. Shaping the “feel of a we” (zone 3) via culture creating and sharing of “gifts” (with zone 7 collective cognitions that “everyone has a gift” and “everyone is special” and “everyone is valued” and “everyone is needed by us”) into an interdependent tapestry that transcends the dependent consumerism and the dependency on “winning” and other forms of extrensic power-plays, would seem to be the way to go. 
   As I said earlier, a model community which can control cultural variables (but which has to be careful not to isolate itself too much from the external world) would be the most “serious”, feesible, vehicle for change. Any successful outcomes of the experiment (outcomes would roughly = dependent variables of a scientific experiment) could be replicated in other studies, or “benchmarked” by other community franchises. I propose this hybrid of experiment and “putting it (a model community) on the market”. If the consumer can look at the results and say “hey, that's the lifestyle I really want for me and my loved-ones”, then the market will bear this “product” .  
   See these links for a more in-depth view of my reasoning as regards this model community, cultural engineering approach:


Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 6


   Thank you for your insightful comments. Perhaps we are getting serious!


    Darrell 

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

Gadfly, Perhaps both the idiots and the non-idiots are right, but just looking at different sides of “money”.  
   Let's imagine a single dollar bill. It has two sides. Now imagine that the different artwork on each side stands for different aspects of one reality. On one side, there is the reality (symbolized by the artwork) of putting food on the table and providing shelter for you and your loved-ones. 
   On the other side are the “existential” impacts of money. How does it sculpt meaning into our culture, and into our minds, via the culture?  Is a millionare really, existentially, equal in our sight, which we pray reflects “God's” sight? Or does money create a distortion that the human millionare is worth more than the human poor person? Does money inflate the value of one person and deflate the value of another? 
   Of course this “side” of the dollar bill has nothing to do with the significant gift that money provides on the other side, by paying for an airline ticket for me to go visit my grandmother in Texas during her last moments on her death bed. This side shows the money in a good light- not in the “notmoney” light of the “idiots”.
   Both sides of our dollar bill are drawn correctly. Discussions like this may help us to see the whole dollar, and to discover its true value and true purpose. Perhaps we will even use it to transform “currency” into a non-interrupted stream of human-“gift” sharing. To convert currency into current. That is my idiotic dream! 
   In the meantime, thank you for pointing out the other side of money. 
      Darrell 

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

Starlight, Yes I agree that the only real change can be made when an “economic union” is made. Labor Unions have been busted by big money factions. Governement is more and more influenced by the stream of money from concentrated centers of economic power. The new social/cultural revolution needs to be performed with - you got it, money! 
Money to manifest it. But with a very clear understanding money it is nothing substantial, other than a temporary means to a better end. Money is our useful illusion that we can perform a magic trick with. But, heaven forbid that we would forget that it is an illusion, not a thing of great value in the long run. Not true, as in it can't be loyal to our long range needs. 
  Yet useful, very useful. Yes, we do need to come together and grab the purse strings in order to change the system. 
   Thanks for pointing out that other side of the truth.
     Below are a couple of sections from my book which seemed pertinent to our discussion here.  One addresses the need for “economic union” Another proposes a democracy-capitalism hybrid as we move from market dependency to a proactive economic re-shaping of our world. 

Economic Union

Consumer Co-op, Democralism

Darrell

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

darrell, i think this intrinsic value is complex. we are complex beings without the awareness of being which.so theres this gap.
which is a fall out of communities to begin with. then theres technology that has done damage.

imo you need synergestic technology to fix this. the internet is key for access to whats happening on the ground. of course you need money for these regenerative tools

unless the individual has already reduced this gap, which is what i see as a model, a community will not have consensus. so theres the problem.

howverer i have not had time to read the links, i'll get back to you on that :)

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

valli, I totally agree about using the internet as a gift to help close the gap. Just moments before reading your comment here, I replied to the same effect on Bruce's (Balder's) post about the internet and storytelling. Yes, we have a depth, embodiement, problem, and the community and the internet must be put to task to help make a good conveyor belt (Wilber) to help with spiritual (and other developmental lines) stage advance (also Wilber).  
    Darrell

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

Valli, I understand the individual change that must occur, if we are to close the gap between out and (deep) in. But I do also strongly feel that a culture (which is mind manifest) can shape the minds, or steer the minds, of individuals in the right direction for integrating depth with width. The gift and unfolding flare models can be promoted by community and by the culture the community co-creates with each and every individual. In Ken Wilber's words, the individual quads and the collective quads can “tetra-arise”. Not sure exactly what “tetra” means exactly, but it seems to indicate something like (in the ballpark of) Jung's syncronicity.
   As usual I am using my intuitive, dreaming, gift to make educated guesses here about “tetra”. Do you have a more precise, intellectual, understanding of “tetra”? 
    Anyway, the idea of conveyor belt is the main one here. Do you believe that such an accelerating group-effect or factor is true? Can the community “grow” well-integrated and “deep” individuals, individuals who have what S. Covey meant by “character”, as opposed to superficial “personality” techniques? Can community help folks take off their masks? Help us stop playing harmful games? I believe so. That is why I wrote a whole book about it, and risk striking out at the plate - failing miserably - due to the largeness and complexity of the idea, and due to the immaturity of my writing skills. My hope is that the book is more than a strike out, but even if it is, I am proud to have mustered up the courage (and energy/work) to write it. 
  Thanks for now becoming part of that narative. In a way, you are already living in “Allsberg”! 
      Darrell

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

hi moneynot,

have you heard of 'transition towns'.  
transition towns were spawned within the sustainability movement as aan nswer to post-oil based civilization.  basically it is a model to organize communities to be viable post-oil.  i find them interesting for several reasons: 1.  they make use of cutting edge large group processes, like open space technology.  2.  they localize money, by creating community dollars.  3. they are enactive, that is they live their vision/mission.

i particularly like the newest offshoot of transition town.  in this offshoot they focus on thrivability, that is how can a community thrive right here and now, whether a post-oil economy occurs or not.  

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

nerverness, No, I had not even heard of a “transition town”. But from what you say, there is a recognition of a more-or-less natural relationship between greener energies and interdependent social paradigms. Jerimy Rifkin, in his book The Hydrogen Economy, suggested a strong “democralizing” effect that hydrogen fuel cell technology could have, since oil recquires centralization and concentrated wealth, whereas fuel cells could generate power (electricity) from all over the place, by many participants (more like a peer-to-peer format, or the terrorists cells!), providing the internet can be used to energy-share in an internet-like version of a grid. According to Rifkin, Hydrogen fuel cell technology lends itself to de-centralization and greater integration of the masses - an interdependent sort of energy production, accompanied by a spreading out of power, and, therefore great potential for democralizing our political/social structure. 
  Thomas Freidman's book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, also shares Rifkin's association of oil to concentrated, centralized, power. Friedman shows how oil reserves correlate with dictatorships (petro-dictators) and with a stunting of diversified economies that would have empowered the masses through a strong middle class, etc. Both authors see our dependency on oil as a dependency on authority (meaning whomever gets enough power to be called “the authorities”). Odd how currently we are growing transition towns at the same time the tea party authoritarian personality is rising up. A regression, based on fear of change? Which will win? Tea Party Towns or Transition Towns? Depends on whether we will be ruled by fear or rationality and desire to improve. 
  Can you give me any links/leads to info about the Transition Towns? 
   Darrell 

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

I wonder if Auroville would fit this category?

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

Thanks Dave, Yes, at first glance there is a lot of similarity between Auroville and Allsberg. Close enough that I may want to also compare the two further. How are they different? Does the Allsberg look to have any advantages over Auroville? No matter, as they are not in competition, except perhaps in the “marketplace of ideas”. 
   Here are some of the Auroville statements that match some of the things I said about Allsberg (in my mix of fiction and concept book):

Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. 
Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. 
But to live in Auroville, one must be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.Auroville will be the place of an unending education, 
of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.Compare the above to a general description in the intro section of my book: 
These broad strategies include: 1. the above-mentioned use of a model community to try out new forms of culture and governance, 2. forming a new relationship between religion and state, one that integrates spirituality with state, while maintaining a separation of church and state, and 3. culturally engineering non-monetary incentives, such as by developing individual gifts which inspire individuals to give of themselves. and a brief description of Allsberg in Chapter 1: 

All Mart could be transformed into Allsberg - a place where you can practice the ultimate one-stop shopping for what you really need in order to be fully human. It is one-stop because you live there! You live in the place that stores and teaches virtues. You stay in the therapy group dedicated to optimal living. Allsberg could be sold like other lifestyle-oriented communities, but its lifestyle would be more than a life of leisure or of meeting eligible bachelors and bachelorettes at the pool. The lifestyle of Allsberg is a life devoted to developing virtue and to actualizing human potentials. Allsberg will be devoted to the truly good life.     An optimally healthy community would seem to have certain characteristics which less healthy communities lack. Todd thought of 5 main things that a healthy community needs to be: 1. aware (citizens who are educated, accurately informed, self-aware, and aware of healthy vs. unhealthy relationship dynamics), 2. challenged/motivated, 3. friendly/supportive, 4. gift-utilizing (community identifies and finds a way to use each citizen’s gifts/talents), and 5. simple/safe (each citizen is relatively free of mental overload and fear-invoking stimuli, and is provided a safe and healthy environment that helps him/her maintain a peaceful state of mind). A community with these qualities would be a breeding ground for human virtues.Another snippet (chapter 6): 

Now the challenge was to integrate Allsberg into the marketing system, much like integrating a new fast food chain into the economy. Instead of marketing burgers and fries, Allsberg would market healthy lifestyles as a franchisee in a chain of model communities . Just as fast food chains alter the cultural landscape, the chain of model communities would impact on the way we think and live our lives, only now in an intentional manner, rather than as an afterthought or accident. Since these communities would be formed out of wise deliberation and out of the citizens’ informed consent, the impact would be much healthier and broader, touching every part of our lives and culture.    These model communities could even be marketed in a way that they appear attractive to investors and to other folks who are in the habit of using the corporate business model to manage human resources. Todd thought that Allsberg and Virtueville could be called “Indigenous Corporations”, or “Culture Creating Cooperatives“ (C3s). The town is the corporation (or “cooperative”), and all the adult citizens are equal shareholders. 
  and a couple of links (from chapter 6) about the unfolding vision of Allsberg:  
   A Mystical Experience
   
Common Sense and the Core Virtues
   
  Do you think the two model communities (or plans for such) match? 
Darrell

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

hi moneynot,

yes it is interesting that both left and right wings are disenchanted with our government and creating initiatives at the same time.  a link to transition towns/initiatives is:  http://transitionus.org/.  there are quite a few others also.  

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

Neverness, My thoughts as to why the left and right are converging with an impulse for restructuring the way we do “us”, is that Ken Wilber was right on with his (cultural) “pressure cooker” analogy explaining an as-of-yet unresolved conflict between the modern world which embraced science, and the old world which embraced religion. When Wilber, in his book, Integral Spirituality (and elsewhere, such as his and father Keating's video, The Future of Christianity) said that there is a “steel lid” on a “pressure cooker”, he found a very effective metaphor that corresponds to a very real social/political reality. 
   People hunger in two ways: spiritually and literally (rather, some do literally, and more and more fear that they might literally hunger). To fulfill the “living” “L” of Stephen Covey's proposed 4 basic “L” needs (of Living, Loving, Learning, and Legacy, in which “living” means to “make a living”, or survival needs), we feel that we must participate in the modern world, must “buy into” it, and must “play ball” with it. But we also hunger for spirituality, and still tend to look for it in religion - after all, religions, we thought, were the experts in spirituality. Also, some of the traditional myths or metaphors do, in fact, feel spiritual. 
    So, where do we pledge our allegiance? To the modern world? Or to “Old-Time Religion”? To the apparent rationality of modern and post-modern thought (sensing that it not only allows us social membership, but that such social membership “butters our bread” in much the same way that a salesman or busnessman makes valuable contacts on the golf course)? Or to the apparent spirituality of organized “faith”? 
   Ken was very right when he said that we are torn between the two. He is also right in his assessment that both sides are putting a steel lid on the pressure cooker. The religious right is putting a steel lid on the pressure cooker by clinging to the old mythic and ethnocentric forms of spiritual thought and practice. They got, as Wilber says, ”fixated”. Then, somehow or another, those fixated in an earlier level of spirituality in organized religion also got stuck in the ranks of authoritarianism and the “right” - adhering to tradition and trying to join ever-diminishing forces against the encroaching modern world. They are fixated at a lower level of worship and at the “right”- desperately trying to enforce what they think is right, but becoming more and more politically “right” while upholding their beliefs. 
   On the other hand, the modern world, ever since science “won the day”, has tended to ”repress” (Ken's term) the spirituality still found under the rock (as in living under a rock!) of traditional religion. For some reason (punn intended), the modern person finds herself in the ranks of the “liberals”, on the “left”, trying to find a rational solution to the world's problems, but being cast as non-spiritual or as even anti-spiritual. 
   And Wilber was mostly right in saying that the rational crowd actually de-valued and repressed “spirituality”, much like an adolescent child goes through a phase where he/she “individuates” and pushes away from his/her parents, and carves a self image out amoung his/her peers. In the case of modernity, the peers are the modern world, and its embrace of a rational approach (which ironically, doesn't seem all that rational of late). 
   The dual action of repression from the modern world and fixation from the faith traditions are both putting a steel lid on a pressure cooker. 
  Where I would differ with Wilber is that I feel the modern world is no longer repressing spirituality that much, but has begun to form new spiritual thoughts and practices in the so-called “new age” developments and in the newly-emerging sociological group called the Cultural Creatives (now surpassing the size of the Traditionals). 
   Still, the Traditionals are very much fixated. But even there I have seen some loosening of the mythic/literalist grip in some moderately right-leaning denominations of the Christian Church. This is why I am embarking on writing a book that re-frames the old beliefs in terms of some modern concepts that both traditionals and cultural creatives might be comfortable with, might claim as mutual territory which they can share. 
   If a shared language of spirituality can be formed between traditionals and cultural creatives, then a workable union might also be formed, and the two forces may be liberated from “left” and “right”, and may begin to more effectively offer spirituality to modern man, thus lifting the steel lid off of the pressure cooker. 
   Getting the CCs and the Ts together is a political manipulation of sorts, but, IMO, a positive manipulation which is both sustainable and healthy, or “positive”. If it is a scheme that manipulates, it is at least a positive scheme and a positive manipulation. 
   But the disenchantment you mention on the right and the left, is by no means harnessed, or channeled by the above proposed means of lifting the lid of the pressure cooker. The pressure is very strong now, and we are poised to change more from “heat” (mounting social problems and unrest) than from “light” (proper understanding of the dynamics and contributing factors, and of effective corrective strategies). 
    The model towns (right-leaning or left-leaning) could, like an effective role-model show the other kids in the neighborhood a more integrated mix of spirituality and rationality, and of (what is good about) the old and the new. 
    Regarding the “heat” and the “pressure” which has still not been channelled properly, murmerings of anarchy come closer to describing the disenchantment you are talking about. A viable integrative vehicle, such as model communities are needed. If we don't find a way, we'll lose the will to cooperate. Spastic revolution could occur if we don't find a way to channel this energy. 
    When I watched just over half of the u-tube video the Zak shared, Zietgiest II, I cried like a baby. I realized what my traditional religion meant when it said, in the bible, that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son”. To me, it meant “I (following the Ideal, God) love the world like it is my son”. I have two sons, so I can relate to that fatherly love. I felt that sort of love for the world when I could not contain my tears over the exploitation suggested by the video. Unfortunately, I believed some of the premises of that video, and took it to heart, even though it was unsettling and so disturbing that I might be tempted to avoid the issue. 
   On the other hand, someone like Sarah Palin comes around and postures “going rogue”, and the masses, out of uncritically analyzed discontent, follow. IMO, Sarah so wants the world that she manipulates it like a Sugar Daddy. I also cry that so many are so easily manipulated. 
   The disenchantment seems to be coming to a fever pitch, and folks are operating irrationally, as though they have a high fever and cannot make sound judgments. Again, we need a way - a “healing balm”, not the other word that sounds like “balm”! 
    Darrell
   

Re: Are We Serious About Effecting Cultural Transformation?

The following paste-in was just submitted for review at  Multifaithworld.org . Since it fit the theme of this thread I included it here, even though the discussions have moved on to more recent forums. I'll try to paste it in in those more recent discussions as well, if I can find a place where it seems to fit. 
   My thanks to all of the participants in this thread, as it has helped me to learn about several Allsberg-like interfaith or culture-creating communities and movements/organizations. All told, the answer to my question is “yes”. We, those who responded (and I'm sure many others who didn't happen to see this thread or to comment) are serious. Why? because we cared enough to educate each other about cultural transformation. “So thinketh a man…”
  Here is what I submitted for posting at Multifaithworld.org. :
I had a thought about the possible dynamics contributing to Major Hassan's violent acting out. Ken Wilber, in his book Integral Spirituality, and elsewhere, describes a cultural “pressure cooker” which began during the Renaissance when a split between science (or other expressions of reason) and religion. Over the years, according to Wilber, the culture has increasingly leaned toward science and technology, which, in turn, rejected religion as being pre-rational. This rejection is one half of what Wilber calls a “steel lid” on the pressure cooker. Science-leaning culture has been “repressing” religious thought and spirituality. College students taste the fruits of the Age of Reason and become confused about thier faith, now mistaking it to be merely pre-rational. They must choose between reason and faith. They either reject their own faith (throwing the baby of transrational faith out with the bathwater of antiquated religious dogma), or worship in the closet. Such is the modern and post-modern world's repression of faith.
But faith traditions themselves have provided the other half of the “steel lid”. By defending the legitimacy of their dogma and practices, faith traditions “fixated” at a mythic and ethnocentric level of development. They/we, in effect, clung to traditional understandings while the world left them behind. Over time, the world got bigger. Religion felt encroached upon. The more tradtional one's religious cognitions, the more encroached upon one feels. At this point in time sociologists (Ray and others) estimate that the sociological group called the “Traditionals” are now surpassed in number by an emerging group called the “Cultural Creatives”. While the core of the Cultural Creatives group identifies with spirituality and values spiritual growth, it is likely that their voices only add to the Traditionals' sense of losing the battle with the world. Put any being in a corner and what do you get? Major Hassan - perhaps.
The way out of the corner and the pressure cooker? According to Ken Wilber, the faith traditions themselves are in a unique position to almost heroically remove the pressure, by counteracting the fixation factor. This would be accomplished by the faith community's increased support for higher stages of faith understanding and of spirituality.
In my own unpublished book, The Marketing of Virtue: Allsberg Rising, I, like Wilber, attributed some of the “walls between religion” to traditional faiths' bais toward simpler, early-stage, forms. These simpler forms also tend to be more rigid and dependent on concrete thinking, thus contributing to divisive “walls”.
Unlike Wilber, who views the fundamentalism from more of a cultural evolution point of view, I posited a more economic factor to the bais toward more fundamentalist forms of faith. I proposed that each religion is in a kind of marketplace competition with other religions. An emphasis on instant salvation makes for more “sales”(more converts), not to mention that such a magic pill mentality resonates with the spiritually hungry masses who are not yet schooled in the ways of true spirituality. Faith traditions dummy down their “product” in order to speak at the level of understanding (still “worldly” thinking) of the target group.
In my opinion, religion in general has overemphasized the quick sell, and has underemphasized development of deeper and deeper (or higher and higher) levels of spirituality within thier ranks. I speculate that the traditional faiths justify the bias by assuming that once the recruits sign up, they will more or less do the deep stuff on thier own as they mature in their faith. Unfortunately, it looks to me that external prompts and supportive education is often needed to effect spiritual acualization. The assumption/rationalization amounts to a faith version of letting our members “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps”!
Wilber attributes the rift between religion and science-leaning modern culture to an equivocation of pre-rational and trans-rational thought as regards spirituality. He calls this error in thinking the “Line/Level Fallacy” (in which the whole line of spiritual development is wrongly equated to the mythic and ethnocentric stage of faith). The scientific world wrongly assumed that all spirituality was prerational, dismissing the possibility of a higher-evolved transrational mode. Of course, modern physics is starting to glimpse the transrational (A funny thing happened in the lab!), but most of science and the modern world has not yet caught up. The modern world still tends to pit “rational” against an indiscriminate “irrational”. I would suspect that the largest of the three sociological groups, the Moderns, would tend to make this Line/Level Fallacy error.
In the intro section of The Marketing of Virtue: Allsberg Rising, as well as in the opening section of my current project, Christians Thinking Like Energy, I suggest that we begin a process of unifying the Cultural Creatives with the Traditionals, in order to have more leverage and sway with Moderns. My fictional account of the development of a model interfaith (or “transfaith”, as I prefer to call it) community is an attempt to give the Cultural Creatives an actual venue to invite Traditionals into our “town”.
In Christians Thinking Like Energy, I hope to show how Traditionals and Cultural Creatives can develop a mutual language which works for both camps. Starting with the modern concept of pure energy as a suitable metaphor for spirit, and visa versa, I will strive to elucidate resonances between the spirituality of the Traditionals and the spirituality of the Cultural Creatives.
Please pray for me as I endeavor to facilitate these new bonds in the spiritual community. If you would, please include the request or intention of lifting the lid off the pressure cooker which moved Major Hassan to act out. Pray that the next potential victim/victimizer finds a place (for his or her spiritual yearnings) in this world.
Darrell Moneyhon