Reclaiming
Community:
Histories
and Futures
Sohail
Inayatullah, Professor, Tamkang University,Taiwan; Professor, University of
Action Learning; and Visiting Academic, Queensland University of Technology.
Email: s.inayatullah@qut.edu.au.
website. www.metafuture.org
I
start out with a simple question:
1. Who are the carriers of the codes of the future?
In
the middle ages, interestingly enough, it is the exact social formation many
of us find troubling today.
2.
Middle-ages development of capitalism burgers.
I
quote extensively from Macrohistorian Johan Galtung.
Thus
a class of burghers (living behind the burg, behind the city walls
expanding with city growth) eked out an existence and grew increasingly
wealthy. They were marginal to the system, they did not fit into the feudal
hierarchies at all, their origin was dubious. What they did was similar to
social outcasts such as Arabs and Jews. They were outcasts because what they
did was contrary to the dominant ethos, the dominant cosmology of at the
time, with its emphasis on inward looking, and because they were social
outcasts they could do what was extra-paradigmatic (and yet demanded, like
the brothel in a puritan culture) and hence, possible, destined to become
the basis for a new dominant cosmology lurking in the corridors of history.
But there road toward increasingly elevated status in the modern period
finally formalized through the french revolution was long and tortuous
indeed, persecuted by aristocracy and clergy alike, defending themselves
through a complex system of guilds, strongly class divided within and in
harsh competition with each other.
(page 5, Western Civilization in the Contraction Mode, Galtung).
3. Are we at a similar period.
4.
Who then are carriers in this struggle between the nation-state
(closed borders, what is good for the nation is good for the individual) and
capital (open borders, what is good for General Motors is good for me). Who
is outside of the discourse of Prince and Merchant.
Are they the Social Movements NGOs? This is Ibn Khaldun's question: Who
are the bedouins. But we must go even deeper than that. For Khaldun, the
bedouins did not change the nature of the system they merely took over
power.
SARKAR
AS EPISTEMIC TRANSFORMER
Perhaps
it is thinkers such as Sarkar, his Prout movement and his dozens of other
movements.
His
movements are:
(1)
Third World oriented, hoping to be the carriers of oppressed yet
also seeing the oppressors in humanist terms;
(2)
Tantric,
focused on reinvigorating mystical culture and not necessarily on immediate
efficiency;
(3)
Comprehensive,
working on many issues (and not just on the issue of the day) from women's
rights and workers' rights to the prevention of cruelty to animals and
plants;
(4)
Very very long term oriented,
hundreds of years, that is, structures and processes that cannot fulfil
their goals for generations ahead;
(5)
Committed to leadership creation
and not just organisational development, thus avoiding the bureaucratic
tendency;
(6)
Trans-state oriented,
not solely concerned with nation-states and ego-power but acknowledging that there are four conventional types of power - worker, warrior, intellectual,
economic - and the challenge is to develop processes that create a fifth
that can balance these forces.
This
of course relates to the larger concern for Future Generations Thinking as
practices by those outside of the dominant Western mode of instrumental
thinking.
Generally
these are indigenous movements. Partly their cosmology supports these
perspectives, and partly they ascribe to these as a reaction, defense, as
opposite to normal, dominant society.
FUTURES GENERATIONS
(1)
Commitment to the Family
(2) An expansion of the family, of the notion of being, to include all
Sentient beings - plants and animals;
(3)
An Intergenerational approach
(4)
Primarily values-based, not forecasting but with balancing the
fundamental forces of the universe: "Man", Nature and God(s);
(5)
Repeatability, a view that the future is the past, that ensuring the
survival of future generations is in fact keeping alive the dreaming of
ancestors (as in Aboriginal dream time epistemology
(6)
A Spiritual and collective view of choice and rationality.
(7)
Pedagogy that has a strong focus on enhancing wisdom.
(8) Sustainability or reproducibility.
Of
course, much of this has now, if not become, mainstream, at least become
part of innovative education and planning. At least part of the discourse,
if not the reality.
1. Going seven generations out.
2.
Including future generations in planning
3.
Developing of governance that is both leadership and democratic
orientation
4.
Concern for nature the sustainability discourse
At
the same time, there is a great deal of Orientalism in this discourse.
1.
First, just because one has an enlightenment experience or is
indigenous does not necessarily make one closer to the earth or more
spiritual. One can be in bliss and still racism, sexist, nationalist.
2.
Second, local cultures are constructed as the opposite of the
dominators. However, this is partly because they were local living in
small scale, in community but also because they are constructed that way
by the dominator culture.
3.
Local cultures as well have been dominating toward others. But since
their size was smaller, the impact on others is from a system view less,
from a personal community view, however, it is as important.
This
then is the problem of efforts to reclaim community, the return to
community.
As
in the middle ages, it is a search for safe future, a stable future, a
future where honor and higher values are more important. However, like the
middle ages, this future is often feudal, strong notions of hierarchy, and
no capacity for meritocracy, for the excellent to innovate. While group work
certainly creates partnership, it also, as in Australia creates a cut the
tall poppy syndrome.
BACK
TO THE PAST
Return
to community generally is an image when:
1.
West was rising, forgetting that other cultures where marginalized, women
were not working. This is the constant image evoked by moral groups>
Islam in the 7th century, India during Rama Rajya, New Zealand
and Australia in the 1950s and 1960s.
2.
Nations were supreme and able to handle big capital. Part of the critique
from leaders such as Mahathir is not that there is something wrong with big
capitalism but that his own billionaires are disadvantaged in it since they
make money of the local economy (and can lose when exchange rates do not go
their way). This was George Speight's concerns as well. His clan was not
getting enough of the pie, or that others were calling for distributive
justice (those not of his kind).
In
Asian nations, it is not return to community or even reclaiming community
since communities are strongly hierarchical but a move to
individualism. Of course, this does not mean a disintegration of asian
societies but a move closer to the individual instead of the collective.
This is especially so for the middle-class, for the poorer classes,
community, even while oppressive, still leads to a better existence than
modernization, development or globalization as Nandy says: there is
poverty but not misery.
TRANSFORMING
COMMUNITY
What
this means is that we need for more critical view of community At the
very least:
1.
community must have doors open for those who desire to leave
2.
community must be inclusive of other cultures, or at least open to
dialogue with them
3.
community, while perhaps having an alternative local economy
LETS, Local Dollars, Barter must have a way to raise capital in the
external world, if needed (for travel, for example).
4.
Community must be critically reflective of its own pathologies
5.
Community must be every expanding, ie from a local area to the planet
as a whole, making everything positively local, meaning a neighborhood, as
opposed to negatively local, meaning, I live here and you don't.
THE
NET
There
is a third claim to the carriers of the future.
1.
Young people concerned not with cyclical time but with quick time
2.
Internet as the global brain, uniting us all
3.
Internet being the new multiplicity, allowing many perspectives of
everything
4.
True global democracy, cyber democracy
5.
End of capitalism as the net becomes the worldwide barter system.
Middle man collapses since perfect information is possible
6.
Capitalism transforms since ethical and smarter markets are now
possible eco and health-bots.
While
certainly, as with the movable type, the printing press, it will challenge
other modes of knowledge presentation, reducing authority of publishing
houses, reducing authority of those who interpret the text (mullahs for
example in the Islamic system), place-oriented manufacturing centres, is it
really a foundational transformation?
What
of studies that correlate net use with depression?
What
of studies that show that the net is basically a utopia called virtual
porntopia?
What
of studies that show net use among young persons actually hinders their
physiological development?
What
of the shakedown in the markets and the winners being traditional giant
corporations such as GE and others, and not small home-office businesses?
Certainly
the Net help creates the end of modernity but does it create a new global
future, with its own name, and not just a post
Of
course, for the globalists, the carriers of the new civilization are
obvious.
GLOBAL
CARRIERS
1.
Scientists creating new technologies gene enhancement (increasing
our collective intelligence, repairing the damages human genome), nano-technologies
(ending scarcity) and AI (linking as all, and letting us develop our human
skills as bots conduct our household and basic informational chores).
2.
Multinational corporations are the best vehicles for this, they
spread wealth, ideas, and technology. And while income in the short run
up to 50 years is not spread evenly, overtime all ships rise as the
water gates of innovation enrichen us all.
3.
Intelligentsia providing theories that support such an expansion.
This is different from intellectuals whose mission is to cultivate the mind
and dissent when a system becomes hegemonic.
What
this is missing is that globalization clearly excludes the marginal, women,
young people, many elders (even as they live longer). The balance between
the poorest and richest is beyond comprehension.
As
elisbet sahtouris argues from a biological perspective, it is if only one
organ was getting all the blood while the others where dying.
Using
her work further, she argues that if an initial state of affairs is an
imagined state of unity. The next phase is diversity and difference of
opinion. This leads to foundational conflicts.
At
this stage, there are three possibilities. 1. Destruction. 2. Accommodation
(no real change, but a balance of power, dιtente. 3. Negotiation and
Resolution at a higher level.
What
this means is that yes we need to return to community but a transformed
community.
This
also means that yes we need globalization but a transformed globalization.
In
the short run, certainly movements against language, culture, worker
exploitation are needed at the national level. But the long run has to be
creating a planetary civilization outside of national borders.
1.
Move from nations to associations. To confederations. To world
governance. Technology can make the local global and the global local.
In
China, this means moving to six Chinas.
2.
Challenging certain types of science far more public science,
spiritual science, postnormal science.
3.
Alternative energy solar, wind, etc.
4.
Taking the spiritual seriously, that is living it, but also being
cognization of scientific studies that correlate meditation with health and
enhanced intelligence.
But
essentially this is about power, ie why we don't follow the facts in
health, for example.
We
don't follow the realities because we exist in different worlds. Part of the
challenge is to create new foundational metaphors.
Shiva
Dancing
Mature
Rainforest
THE
PLANETARY LEVEL
At
a planetary level, Duane Elgin asks the question. If we humanity was a
person, how old who he or she be:
His
conclusion is that humanity would be a teenager.
Teenagers
are rebellious prove their independence (As we do from Nature)
Teenagers
are reckless tend to live without regard to the consequences of their
behavior (Reckless consumption, pollution of natural system and species
extermination
Teenagers
are concerned with appearance (As in materialist society where what you own,
how you look, are primary identity determinants)
Teenagers
are drawn toward instant gratification (We seek our own immediate pleasure,
forgetting about others, particularly the poorest, weakest, as well as other
species and future generations)
Teenagers
tend to gather in groups or cliques and often express us versus them or in
versus out (We divide ourselves into nations, ethnicities, religions).
Can
we become young adults and
1.
Embrace the other
2.
Be future oriented
3.
Start planning for the global family
4.
Not just drift through life (as with teenagers) but move according
our purpose.
5.
Become responsible for ourselves and our evolution
6.
Move outside of the real but simple dichotomies of self/other and
community/global.
At
least in the US, there is some good news in that there are claims that a new
force in social politics, the cultural creatives, are arguing for a third
way of politics. However, the evidence that this is a universal movement is
far from conclusive.
WHICH
FUTURE?
Generally
there are two preferred scenarios that reveal themselves in visioning
workshops on preferred futures as well in the media.
The
first is the globalized artificial future and the second is the
Communicative-Inclusive future.
The
globalized scenario is high-technology and economy driven. Extreme features
include, the right to plastic surgery and an airplane for each person.
Generally, the vision is of endless travel and shopping, and a global
society where we all have fun by having all our desires
met. It is the Western vision of paradise.
Community
in this future is based on genetic ties or virtual communities as well as on
intended. For example, rural communities will be so not because they are
agricultural based but because they are different from the city, indeed,
they provide areas of respite for Earth as City: City as planet. Rurality
may become redefined as areas of elite wealth and not as areas of cultural
backwardness, as areas of limited choice, as, for example, the Australian
Bush or the South Asian village are seen today.
More
specifically, this scenario of the future can be defined as:
·
Genetic
Prevention, Enhancement and Recreation New Species , Germ Line
Engineering and the End of Natural Procreation
·
Soft
and Strong Nano-Technology End of Scarcity and Work
·
Space
Exploration Promise of ET Contact or at Least, Species Continuation in
case an Asteroid hits Earth.
·
Artificial
Intelligence and ultimately the Rights of Robots - development of personal
artificial bots
·
Life
Extension and Ageing Gerontocracy and the End of Youth Culture
·
Internet
and the Global Brain
·
Globalization,
large transnationals organizing production of needs and desires.
The
underlying ethos is that technology can solve every problem and lead to
genuine human progress.
At
a grand level, this vision of the future challenges traditional notions of
truth, reality, nature, Man and sovereignty. Truth is considered multiple,
socially constructed. Reality is physical but as well virtual (cyberspace).
Nature is no longer considered fixed but can be challenged and changed by
humans, largely through genetic manipulation. While previously human
evolution was stable, with cultural evolution quicker and technological
evolution the quickest, now the technology has the potential to quicker
human biological evolution itself. This fundamentally shifts the tension
between culture and technology, to technology and biology, leaving culture
where? The category Man has been has been deconstructed by feminists and
shown to be historically constructed. And finally economic globalization
makes sovereignty problematic and cultural globalization makes the
sovereignty of the self (one stable self) porous, leading to far more
liminal selves.
Communicative-Inclusive
In
contrast is the communicative-inclusive society, which is values driven.
Consumption of every possible good in this scenario is far less important to
communication. It is learning from another about another that is crucial.
While technology is important, the morality of those inventing and using it
is far more important. Instead of solving the world's food problem through
the genetic engineering of food, for example, the reorganization of society
into layered communities and softer more nature-oriented alternatives such
as organic foods are far more important.
Food is not only necessary for our biological growth but food is
social (creating community) and food is spiritual (the correct foods helping
one become more subtle and incorrect foods, crudifying one's
body/mind/spirit).
The
goal is not to create a world that leads to the fulfillment of desire but
one wherein desire is reduced (the Buddhist perspective) or channeled to
spiritual and cultural pursuits. While earlier incarnations of the scenario
were to make everyone into a worker (the Marxian distribution dream) or
everyone into a shudra (a worker,
the Gandhian sentiment) or a peasant (the Maoist), recent articulations are
far more sophisticated and focused on what Sarkar has called Prama
or dynamic balance. Prama means inner balance (of material/spiritual),
regional balance (of nations, no one nation can be rich if the neighbor is
poor), of industrial/agricultural production (not leaving the land but
seeing it as part of national development) and of economic balance
(self-reliance in basic needs plus export orientation of non-essentials).
More
specifically the communicative-inclusive scenario has the following
characteristics:
·
Challenge
is not solved through technology but through creating a shared global
ethics;
·
Dialogue
of civilizations and between civilizations in the context of multiple ways
of knowing is the way forward;
·
A
balanced but dynamic economy. Technological innovation leads to shared
co-operative economic system;
·
Maxi-mini
global wage system --incentive linked to distributive justice;
·
A
soft global governance system with 1000 local bio-regions;
·
Layered
identity, moving from ego/religion/nation to rights of all;
·
Holistic
science --life as intelligent.
The
underlying perspective is that of a global ethics with a deep commitment
that communication and consciousness transformation can solve all our
problems.
The
trends that underlie this scenario are as with the earlier scenario
challenges to Truth, Reality, Nature, Man and Sovereignty but with a
different angle. Instead of genetic science it is new paradigms in physics.
Instead of a world ruled by multinationals, it is the growth of Green
Parties and social movements associated with transparency
that are far more important.
Truth
and Reality are seen as both ultimate (spiritual) and physical. It is multi-perspectual
in that we make are own realities, however, there is an underlying
non-constructed unity to reality that of a moral universe driver by
cause-effect. In one word: karma.
This comes out from the growth of the spiritual movements and cosmological
exchange (the non-West creating cultural bridgeheads in the West) as well as
through the dramatic new health paradigm, which while essentially spiritual
focuses on integrating mind-body, seeing both as essential to well-being.
Nature, however, is not to be tampered with. Urbanization is the problem and
nature is given, indeed, a sacred trust given to humanity. Man is contested
as humans are among the many species on the planet nature, animals, with
spiritual entities, Gaia herself. Sovereignty is challenged as nation-states
are considered passe' part of the problem. A solution could be a
planetary civilization based on the self-reliance model.
However,
this scenario should not be seen as anti-technology, although there are
certainly groups that prefer aspects of this vision who are more luddite
than others. But most likely technology is likely to be driven by ethical
values. For example, technology could be used to give information on the
caloric count of foods, so as to avoid high-fat foods. These health-bots
could also immediately let one know the level of pollutants in the food,
where the food was produced, and over time the social conditions that the
food was produced in. Thus the net, cellular phones could be used to
transform globalization from within, giving consumers information on
products so that they could make choices consistent with their worldviews.
Technology would thus serve as a moral guide, an angel over one's shoulder,
helping one do the right thing.
However,
while this is a change in paradigm, at a deeper cosmological level, it is
not a foundational change, in that this scenario represents the alter-ego of
the West. It is the West, contracting, searching for that identity it has
unconsciously repressed.
Which
scenario is likely to come out to be the world we live in. While technology
and centralized power is moving us toward the Artificial Society, social
movements are moving us toward the Communicative-Inclusive future. However,
both will create new forms of community.
Which future will you choose?