Gaia Community: scotty's Blog

Episode 3: Democracy Strikes Back (Democracy Shmemocracy Part 3)

http://scotthpayne.gaia.com — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 03:41:14 GMT

So as a third entry to the ongoing exploration of democracy, its benefits, its limitations, and what a politics of the future might look like I wanted to push back against some of the things I've said to date. Last week I was rowing (surprise!) and listening to the podcast I ALWAYS mention on this blog, On Point (shock and awe!), whose show was about the rise of China as the next big superpower. The issue of political stability was a big part of the discussion and the student protests of Tiananmen Square came up.

I thought about those protests and something occurred to me about the people who organized/participated in them: they were fighting for democracy at a time and in a region that put them on the frontier of thinkers and actors for that region and at that time. They were ahead of their time. And that caused me also to be reminded that democracy, like anything, does not arise within a vacuum; it arises in a context. There is roughly a set of values that necessarily accompanies the rise of a concept like democracy; one that focuses on the importance of individual freedoms, of a notion of the inherent value of each person, and has a distinctly egalitarian (sometimes naively so) thrust. The further realization was that there is a significant portion of the world that has not yet hit this altitude of development, and so there is a still a significant portion of the world for whom democracy is a vital concept.

So I absolutely cannot write off democracy as past its usefulness - that would be a profoundly ethnocentric move that I am not willing to make. In fact, a strong argument can be made for the idea that the most important work one can be engaged in on a global scale is to be working towards creating the conditions under which greater and greater portions of the world move into that altitude of development in which concepts like democracy arise and gain traction.

One could, in fact, say that to only focus squarely on what the "politics of the future" is beyond something like democracy is to entirely miss the point. And really, who wants to miss the point (entirely or otherwise)?

To be posted at a future date: different types of democracy and where this typology might lead us.

Cheers,

Tags: politics, integral theory, democracy, Tiananmen, China, development, values

Democracy Schmemocracy Part 2

http://scotthpayne.gaia.com — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 01:56:42 GMT

I recently heard a definition of democracy by the President of Pakistan that went something to the effect of, "democracy is the method of governance that dictates what the majority of people want is what happens."

If we accept this definition (and we may not want to), then could we not also say that the outcomes of democracy will represent the desires of more common center of gravity that will hit a leading edge of consciousness, in all likelihood, only ever by accident?

If we are willing to concede this point (and we may not want to), then can we conclude that rather than the saviour of all things, democracy may only ever engender wide spread mediocrity at best, and stagnation at worst?

And if we're willing to come this far (and we may not be), then we are left with that gut nawing question: if democracy is not the politics of the future, what is?

Tags: democracy, politics, consciousness, integral theory

Koan Even Think About It!

http://scotthpayne.gaia.com — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 02:29:22 GMT

If there is nothing to say, but you have to say something, then what the fuck do you say without sounding asinine? Or is the point to sound asinine and not care? Or is caring precisely what you should do because otherwise you wouldn't bother to say anything in the first place. And then you'd be right back where you started, speechless.... precisely where you always already are. What was I saying?

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Response To Ahmadinejad At Columbia University: Hot Or Not?

http://scotthpayne.gaia.com — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 02:59:01 GMT

Below is a link to a transcript of the recent appearance of Iran's President Ahmadinejad at Columbia University and what ensued:

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/202820.php

So what I'm trying to figure out is: was this a classic example of leftie, indignant, inclusive-intolerance that should be ripped a new one; or a case of higher centered willingness to "speak truth to power"?

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Fucking Failure Like A Mistress You're Afraid To Love

http://scotthpayne.gaia.com — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 02:35:45 GMT

Laying on my back, unable to sleep a few nights ago I started thinking about what the predominant things are that hold us back fro doing what we, in our so-called heart of hearts, want to do. What are those things that ensure we never go out on a limb and attempt to reach whatever we've designated as our "potential."

I suppose that in a post-modern setting I'm not allowed to speak for others, so I'll just speak for myself - though I will admit up front to a deepening suspicion that my thoughts are not mine alone. What holds me back the most is a fear of failure. Sure I could go out and try half the things that I think about: start businesses, write and perform plays, write and perform poetry, etc... But I don't, because I'm afraid that those endeavours will fail and I will be exposed as a "failure."

But hold on a second, I already fail all the time.

For instance, the idea for this entry came to me while I was failing to be able to get to sleep (I know, perhaps reaching a bit), but - I also failed to be productive about my insomnia and rather than getting up and writing this entry on that night, or going and reading a book, or meditating, or doing ANY of the things that I could I have done... I lay there being frustrated about not sleeping.

I have failed recently to not get angry at my partner over things that didn't warrant getting angry about, I've failure to not over indulge in bad food that caused me to regain two pounds that I had previously lost and forced me to re-lose them instead two brand spanking new pounds, I've failed not to smoke a few cigarettes in the last couple of days, and I've certainly failed at coming up with half decent excuses for smoking those cigarettes.

I've failed in relationships. I've failed in work places. I've worn black and brown at the same time - the biggest fashion faux pas I know!

And throughout all of this failure my life has not come to a screeching halt. I may have been disappointed at some points, even so far as depressed about things turned out; lost money, failed exams, experienced significant loss and emotional pain, but my life never fell apart. I didn't cease to be or cease having value as a human being.

This is because failure is transitory. You don't fail once and that's it: your whole life is failure. You fail, and you move on. Life is dynamic and failure is part of it. Success is transitory too, just ask Britney Spears.

As is so often the case, it seems to come back to the Buddhist notion of attachment. We seek and desire success, we fear and avoid failure. And in the process we miss much of what is available to us, for no truly good reason.

So, my new year's resolution in 2008 (when that time comes) is perhaps to failure more often, and to embrace the experience of doing so.

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Democracy Schmemocracy

http://scotthpayne.gaia.com — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 03:26:32 GMT

As a prologue to the ever postponed entry on an inter-subjective politics, I'm going to talk a bit about what brought me to the point where I felt the need to wrack my brain on what such a politics might look like, instead of doing the sensible thing and soaking it in beer.

I was listening to an On Point (www.onpointradio.org/) about civic engagement where the host, Tom Ashrbook, was interviewing Robert Putnam, author of the book Bowling Alone (www.bowlingalone.com/). They were not talking about the content of that book, but invariably it came up b/c it is what Putnam is best known for. In the book he talked about how Americans are becoming less and less engaged in civic life - and that was what did it.

I started thinking about this issue, which my experience had lead me to believe was accurate. Why is it that ppl seem so disengaged from their civic lives/duties. What occurred to me is that, if I asked ppl this question, most said that they didn't feel like politics/voting had any real bearing on their lives. The reality of Ottawa/Washington DC/London/Where ever didn't ever intersect or have an impact on their reality. And upon further reflection, it seemed to me that this is how we do tend to think about things. Separate, compartmentalized realities that never really make any contact. We've become monads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz#The_Monads)!

At least that is the extreme, albeit prevalent, post-modernist conclusion. A constructed solipsism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism). Which, it further occurred to me, is a natural political conclusion given our inability to get past seeing democracy as THE answer to that which ails ya. It doesn't really matter what political stripe with which you identify, if you're talking to anyone about the necessary solutions to our political woes (read either domestic or international or global) the answer is *cue fanfare music* DEMOCRACY!

Now I'm not slighting democracy here, in no small part b/c I don't have anything to offer by way of better alternative. But I think it would be helpful if we understood what deomcracy is, and what it is not. The Merriam Webster dictionary, which I happen to have access to, defines democracy thusly,

"a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections"

In Wilberian ( www.kenwilber.com) terms, what that says to me is that democracy is primarily a lower-right affair - it is the political structure of a certain groups of ppl. But what democracy doesn't necessarily have anything to do with is the INTERIORITY of ppl. So, as Ken has said many, many times, you can hold free elections and if the people are at roughly a red/egoic place of development, then they are likely to elect a red military dictator (a la Palestinian elections of Hammas). Extrapolating this to where I started, if you are in an extreme post-modernist stage of development, democracy is going to produce a political structure that is relativistic and unwilling to make any judgments that might infringe upon your uniquely subjective sphere. Orange/individualistic stage = roughly what most Western gov'ts look like (with an increasing helping of green).

So democracy is neither the answer to many of the world's "under-developed" countries/nations current state, nor North Americans' reengagement in civic life (or at least it isn't THE answer - there may not be a panacea). This is primarily b/c democracy is not much more than a lower-right tool that reproduces the lower-left stage of its operators - it has very little to do with the subjects' interiority. What ppl often mistake democracy for is the civil society that accompanied its flourishing in the west (orange western enlightenment). And while democracy might be a necessary precursor to such an interior development, it has been fairly well proven not to be a sufficient precursor to bring about such transformation from prior stages of development.

So what DO we need? My thoughts: a politics that cognizes, engages, and begins to integrate interiorities. The first step, something that operates from an inter-subjective space.

And that brings us to about here.

Cheers,

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Leggo My Ego

http://scotthpayne.gaia.com — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 03:44:24 GMT

The line between being an active force in the world and making positive things happen because it is the right thing to do and doing it because it makes the ego feel good to be "that" person is so fine sometimes. And yet, despite the subtlety of the difference, it is precisely that difference that will often times determine the real success of your actions. This is not to say that every egoic move towards glory accumulation will result in failure, the world is rife with examples disproving that notion. But movements that seek to create an energetic possibility for real transformation, something that is more than just surface, require a minimum of authenticity.

And whether those whose choose to participate are immediately aware of it or not, they seem to be able to judge (consciously or subconsciously) whether that authenticity is present, and therefore help to determine whether the offering is successful. In one of his works (Zarathustra maybe?) Nietzsche talks about the uber-mensch's ability to determine right from wrong without a reliance on "social norms." One might say that for Nietzsche, the uber-mensch had developed a built in "truth-o-meter." At times it seems like we all have built in truth-o-meters, that, regardless of what our egos/lower selves might desire, almost immediately tell us what is the right course of action. From a "buddhist" (I use quotations b/c I don't claim to have much in the way of formal buddhist training and so need to informalize my use of the tradition) perspective this notion of a built-in truth-o-meter could be seen as the subtle(/causal level) intuitions of your own already fully awakened amness.

So on some level, I'm always already aware of when I'm acting out of an egoic space and when I'm acting out of an authentic space (with the qualifier that this is not a strict dichotomy: I am not either acting completely out of ego or completely out of authentic self, there are variations and gradations between the two poles in this self-created spectrum) I just need to continually work towards developing a greater degree of attentiveness to the whole process and be prepared to listen at all times.

Ahhhh... if only it were all as easy as we like to tell ourselves it is. And it is. Or is it?

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Transcendental Meditation Blues

http://scotthpayne.gaia.com — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 05:58:42 GMT

In lieu of posting something on inter-subjective politics, which I'm feeling a need for further research and rumination on, I'm sharing a poem I wrote recently. It has largely to do with a dissatisfaction of conventional politics and so dovetails nicely.

Floating

Floating down the city streets

Floating over the roof tops

And over the hydrants

Dreaming fires

That breathe life into the trees

Older than your self righteous

Ego-maniacal

Diamond studded thoughts about

Right

And wrong

And left

And right

And

Stop.

How many timers have you stopped?

How many timers go off

Every day that you sit

Idly by

Wondering if today is

The last day of

Of the first day of the rest of your life

Pontificating on

The brash cynicism of

Our “generation”

That seems to think

That its all

Right

There.

Stop

And don’t forget

Which is to say remember, *

It’s so easy to eat the garbage

The great ones never ate the garbage

They might have slept out

In the garbage

To see what that was

To see who was there

To have the courage to look humanity

And the condition in the eye

And they were believers

They believed their

Fucking brains out

Night

After

Night

After night

Until the sweat dripped

From every poor body

That they met in those garbage heap dreams

But they didn’t eat the garbage

Whittman

Didn’t eat the garbage

Weil

Didn’t eat the garbage

King

Didn’t eat the garbage

Anthony

Didn’t eat the garbage

Kerouac and Ginsberg and Burroughs

Didn’t eat the garbage

It’s too easy

And you’re better than that.

So what do you do?

When you’re left shaking

Not your head

Not your body

Not even your soul

Just shaking

The whole world is

Shaking

We’re in perpetual motion

Shaking

Back and forth

Left to right

Back and forth

So what do you do?

How do you do something that is

True?

When you can’t even talk about

Truth anymore

Without having to

Explain yourself

Because Truth is in

The hand of the

Holder

The eye of the

Scolder

The unarmed

Soldier

Who fights with a pen

That shakes the very Earth to its

Core

And topples empires

With an indignant

Sense of

Egalitarian corruption

That makes the whole world

FLAT

Fuck!

We figured out the world was round

How many years ago?

And we’re back to

FLAT?!

FUCK!

So I waited

Found a stone upon which to

Take up residence

Sat down

Closed my eyes

And waited

Centuries

Millennia

Eons

I waited

As galaxies were born

And died

In the blink of my eye

I waited

Perfect Buddha Prince

Tender Lotus Leaf

Stranded in the desert

Passive traveler

Sojourner Truth

And I was tempted

Fuck yes!

Knees trembling

Body aching

Tongue swollen

Oh I was tempted

Tits

And

Ass

And

Pussy

And

Cum

Sliding past my the inner movements

Of my cock-self, loathing

I was tempted

But still I rested

In the cool emptiness

Of my own

Equanimity

Opened to the

Unblinking shadow of my

Third Eye

My Shakti sigh

My Dharma-ky

Fried eggs on the sidewalk

And called it gold!

Ripped snores of contemplation

Like angels and devils from an

Unwritten dichotomy

And when I

Woke up

Nothing made any more sense

Than it had before.

Fuck!

But

What if

That’s just the way it is

Just the way it was

When you looked out

With your

Original Face

The face you had

Before you were born

The face you’ll have

After you die

That you recognize

In the mirror

Where everything is backwards

And that’s

Just

The way

Yes

Sigh

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Not quite preliminary thoughts on inter-subjective politics

http://scotthpayne.gaia.com — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 03:07:32 GMT

I had intended to post some thoughts on possible sketches of an inter-subjective politics tonight, which I'm increasingly convinced is the next big move for most fields that needs to be fleshed out and gently nudged into the mainstream. However, my first blues/classic rock jam in over six years last night ran late and 6:00am came far too quickly this morning, so my brain isn't quite up to the task that my mind is still buzzing with enthusiasm about.

The point of this is to put the idea out there and see if anyone has any thoughts about an inter-subjective politics. I recognize that there are probably many ideas/sketches/thoughts/models out there, I just haven't run into any of them aside from a cursory interaction with Don Beck's stratified democracy (see newly added link below).

http://spiraldynamics.net/DrDonBeck/essays/stages_of_social_development.htm

I couldn't abide the thought of not putting something up here and will try to offer more than just an intention over the weekend. Any input in advance is very much appreciated.

Cheers,

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Article on a possible future direction for activism

http://scotthpayne.gaia.com — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 06:59:07 GMT

For anyone who is interested in exploring new directions for activism that are, perhaps, not as reactively given to burying one's face in conflict; there was a great article in a magazine called Fast Company about former Sierra Club president Adam Werbach taking on Wal Mart as a client through his environmental consulting firm. The article touches on the tension in being critical of that which t can be fairly labeled unjust and the need to remain open to interactions and relationships that may create the potential for significant and radical change - even if that change is ignited with a percived "enemy."

For anyone who familiar with Ken Wilber and integral theory, I would gently and tentatively propose that this is a movement towards a second-tier, integrally informed activism.

Regardless, the article is worth reading.

www.fastcompany.com/magazine/118/working-with-the-enemy.html

Cheers,

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