- Change the paradigm within myself
- Share what works for us (Throw a better party)
- Get clear what social structures would look like in the new paradigm? How can we develop our skills to radically transform existing structures into new ones?
- A life-enriching mission that workers are motivated to do the work purely by the life-serving mission
- Organization gives sincere gratitude to workers, along with nurturance for them to continue doing the work
- What education is necessary for people to have our paradigm so that they can create other structures that resemble our paradigm?
A mother who's breast-feeding her infant doesn't need a salary/money as payment for her to be willing do the job. She needs money to nurture her to service life.
Joseph Campbell's summary of spirituality: Don't do anything that isn't play
The culture I grew up in viewed the good life as punishing bad people.
The 4 key dimensions of Social Change
- The story: How were we meant to live, and what is our nature as human beings?
- Humans are basically evil & selfish until they're crushed or controlled by the virtuous forces
- Our culture requires making violence enjoyable. All our country history talks about us being the good guys defeating the bad guys.
- Gangs & domination structures
- Educating to be gang members
- Compulsory education is an oxymoron
- Pump into your head moralistic judgments: good, bad, right, wrong, normal, abnormal, should, shouldn't, have to, can't
- To make violence enjoyable, you reduce people into object. When you think of what someone is, you don't see the life in that person.
- Power-over: punish, reward, guilt, shame, duty, obligation
- First thing we teach kids: NEVER give authority the power to tell you what to do. Easy to teach 6yo, hard to teach their teachers.
- How do we turn out? We become violent and self-protective. This closes the cycle, proving to us that we need more effective ways of punishing the bad guys and rewarding the good guys.
Radical Objectives & Peripheral Objectives
First opening gambit: empathic connection
Did you count to a million SLOWLY before shifting focus from the other person to yourself? Else your empathy will seem like a technique.
- Double check: Is there more you want to say, before I respond to you?
- NEVER use a FAKE lead-in to empathy: Yes, I understand it's very tought, BUT
Notebook: Every time I come across a message/ a look/ a tone of voice and right away I see an enemy image, I write down what the stimulus was.
- Make a list of words that you know you're really afraid people might think you are
It's not important that [we empathize] out loud. It's important that we live in our heart, not in our heads.
ALL SOCIAL CHANGE EFFORTS BOIL DOWN TO THREE WORDS: ASK, ASK, ASK.
I have a need to contribute in a way that will enrich the lives of ... Will you tell me what you need to know to decide whether you want it or not?
Recommended readings:
- Spiritual Matters - Michael Lerner
- A Spirituality of Resistance - Roger S. Gottlieb
- Open & Closed Minds - Milton Rokeach
- The Powers That Be - Walter Wink
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