by Kenn Burrows and Dr. Michael Nagler
Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution.
—Niels Bohr, quantum physicist
A great deal of social pathology and human suffering can be traced to the demoralizing image of humanity that is upheld by popular culture, primarily through the mass media. The degradation of the human image and progressive loss in confidence about human society and destiny is one of humanity’s greatest problems. Popular cul-ture’s default image of the human being remains that of a primarily physical object separated from all others and doomed to compete for increasingly scarce resources because of its dependency on consumption for happiness. This objectification and commercialization of every aspect of human life has led to the breakdown of relationships and communities, and the degradation of our environment. Conse-quently, a culture of fear shapes our collective attention, making the world appear mean and dangerous, and blinding us to prevalence of human goodness.
By contrast, the convergence of “new” science (including quantum theory, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology) with the ancient wisdom traditions underlying all world religions offers an uplifting image of humankind. Collectively, we all stand to benefit from this convergence, which promises to reduce violence and promote physical health and collective peace. Momentous discoveries in new physics, evolutionary biology, and positive psychology provide an image of human beings deeply connected with, in Albert Einstein’s words, “the whole of nature in its beauty,”1 including our fellow humans. The convergence of “new” science and ancient wisdom is a new and potentially powerful basis for rewriting our cultural narrative.
This chapter focuses on seven key challenges facing humanity in this time of global crisis and new possibility.
These interdependent challenges stem from a single crisis of per-ception. As mental creatures, we perceive the world in terms of our beliefs and assumptions. The outer world reflects our inner world and most “problems” we face originate with our limited perception. All the views we hold have blind spots.
Across and within societies, divisions and diversity separate peo-ple—by heritage, class, race, political affiliation, and more. We are a diverse people in need of common moral vision and purpose to draw us together. Mahatma Gandhi provided this for his people in his time. His vision of humanity’s common welfare informs this chapter.
Today’s challenges require us to think in holistic and systemic ways. In this view, many of these challenges are not problems to be fixed so much as polarities to be managed. We must let go of polarized thinking (either/or) in favor of integrating polarities by seeing them as complementary (both/and) aspects of larger systems: for example, mind and body, local and global, nature and culture, public and private, tradition and innovation, liberal and conservative.
Interdependent polarities balance each other. “Problems” arise only when an overemphasis on one pole causes a lack of integration in the system as a whole. Polarity management involves focusing on one polarity and then the other, valuing the best in both, so that each element tempers the excesses and overcomes the limitations of the other.2 At a personal level, this means learning to hold the “creative tension” among divergent points of view.
That said, polarity management does not require being wishywashy or overly inclusive; it means thinking critically and confidently about alternatives, most significantly perhaps in instances where real polar choices must be made—for example, between violence and nonviolence, which we discuss subsequently.
This chapter invites the reader into a deeper conversation about our collective dilemma—with the hope that, together, we can learn to hold the creative tension in each of these seven areas in order to support ongoing cultural change toward a more just, creative, and abundant life.
COMPETING WORLDVIEWS AND POLARITY MANAGEMENT
Every conflict is one between different angles of vision,
illuminating the same truth.
—Mahatma Gandhi
For over half a century, psychologists and others have studied the val-ues and ideological commitments that differentiate the political left and right. This research consistently identifies two antithetical value systems with contrasting understandings of freedom, right and wrong, the individual, the state, and collective good. For example, in examining liberal and conservative values, Jonathan Haidt argues that people are fundamentally “groupish” (tribal) and tend to congregate in homogenous, partisan communities—each a separate moral enclave with its own understanding of the “facts.”3 Group members tend to reinforce each other’s point of view in a process Haidt calls “consensual hallucinations.”4
Partisan political confrontations are part of an adversarial frame of mind that Deborah Tannen calls “argument culture,” which she finds increasingly prevalent in our major cultural institutions, including media, law, and education.5 Within this adversarial culture, blaming the other is standard public discourse, and compromise is seen as weakness.
Polarized thinking is typical of the dynamics between competing sides in many conflicts: One side—the innovators—identifies a set of problems and promotes ideas or policies to address them. Standing in opposition, the traditionalists identify with the current system, and they feel allegiance to its strengths. Traditionalists see shortcomings in innovators’ plans and seek to preserve the old ways.6
By contrast, the goal of polarity management is not to blame one side or even to seek solutions constructed from polarized positions. Instead, the aim is to identify and fully integrate the strengths and weaknesses of all sides. In this view, each side is partly right but also incomplete. Mediators and organizational consultants regularly help disputants engage in this process, encouraging disputants to examine their own positions’ weaknesses and the others’ strengths. A time-tested tool, mediation gives disputants the chance to devise solutions that address each party’s needs, fears, and issues.7
VIOLENCE AND NONVIOLENT ACTIVISM
Peace researcher Johan Galtung identifies three levels on which violence disrupts human life: direct, structural, and cultural.8 Direct violence is physical. Structural violence refers to structures in a society, usually economic or political, that inflict violence on a specific group or groups. Cultural violence is more subtle, but arguably more important because it legitimizes direct violence and structural violence. Violence has become a cultural norm in twenty-first-century United States, as evidenced by a perusal of the top stories in Censored 2013, including the militarization of domestic police departments, the na-tion’s shameful incarceration rates, and sexual violence suffered by women who serve in the US military.
Gandhi believed that principled nonviolence was the only form of struggle that contains the seeds of renewal, because it presumes that the opponent, or a sleeping public, is a potential partner whose latent awareness can be awakened. Though the logic of nonviolence is compelling and experience validates its effectiveness, the prevailing culture leaves us poorly prepared to recognize this. How often do nonviolence advocates hear, “It never would have worked against the Nazis”? Yet it worked brilliantly at Rosenstrasse, the 1943 Berlin demonstration that forced the Gestapo to release several thousand Jews.9
The “meme” of nonviolence is catching on, thanks to the two waves of liberation struggles, first in Eastern Europe and, more recently, in the Middle East. But the word “nonviolence” only entered the English language in 1926 and there is still a good deal of confusion about its meaning and potential.
Nonviolence is powerful. Its power derives from resisting disruptive drives like anger or fear, which confrontations typical arouse. Violence takes a heavy toll on its perpetrators.10 However, successfully withstood, the negative drive becomes a creative power. Activists must learn how to respond to physical force with spiritual strength. This requires the inner cultivation of what Gandhi called soul force. Martin Luther King Jr. explained, “We did not cause outbursts of an-ger. We harnessed anger under discipline for maximum effect.”11
Principled nonviolence is proactive and constructive. Gandhi suggested a general guide for activism: 10 percent resistive and 90 percent constructive.12 Most movements today either protest without constructive work or (more rarely) undertake constructive work without skillful means of handling conflict. When activists learn how to build the world they want, nonviolently, confronting the inevitable resistance to their constructive efforts with love, rather than rancor or bitterness, it’s hard to imagine how anything could stop them.13
THE HUMAN FOOTPRINT AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Humans have left their mark on at least 83 percent of Earth’s surface.14 From peak oil to food security, from climate change to population growth, our negative impacts on the environment can make the future seem treacherous and uncertain. In this view, anyone considering our impacts might react with fear and hopelessness—or disbelief.
An alternative perspective emphasizes our collaborative and innovative capacities. If each of us has an ecological “footprint” that is a quantitative measure of our individual environmental impact on the planet, it is also true that we have an ecological “handprint.”15 Your ecological handprint is defined qualitatively in terms of community participation and community development—mobilizing for stronger communities with less impact on the environment.
Communities around the globe are doing just this. For example, Australia, India, and Canada are just three of the countries that par-ticipate in UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development program to reach people and mobilize action on individual, community, national, and global levels.16
MANAGING MEDIA: INFORMATION, SOCIAL NETWORKS,
AND NEWS
Media no longer just influence our culture. They are our culture.
—Center for Media Literacy17
The digital age has made an overwhelming amount of information accessible to many of us. Smartphones and tablets provide hyper-con-nectivity to social networks and cloud computing, radically changing the lives of those who are “always on” to the extent that information fatigue is common. Researchers recommend the following to manage the digital flood of information:
Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn all enable users to create a profile within the website to represent them-selves. These profiles allow users to interact through e-mail, instant messaging, and other integrated communication channels within the site.18 The growing popularity of social networking sites over the past five years has been colossal. Facebook is expected to reach one billion members in August 2012.19 But is this growing social network wholly positive for individuals and society?
Research shows that heavy use of social networks actually contributes to increased feelings of social isolation.20 Researchers recommend the following to minimize social media’s negative effects:
Although personal loneliness is one real risk of overreliance on Internet social networks, it may not be the most dangerous. Social media speed the rate at which misinformation and rumors spread, enhancing the potential for manipulation. For example, as reported in Censored 2012, the US military has sought to manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence Internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.22 Social networks have the potential to ease the task of elite hegemony, a topic addressed in more detail by Elliot D. Cohen in chapter 7.
Journalism is undergoing its own integrative revolution. As editors seek innovations that will increase journalism’s audience and inspire community involvement, a quiet revolution is underway to redefine the definition of “news.” Peggy Holman of Journalism That Matters proposes adding a new question to the five (who, what, where, when, and why) that journalists conventionally pursue. Asking sources, “What’s the best possible outcome you can see from this situation?” is central to this new journalism of possibility.23 These possibility-oriented stories attract participation, inspire ideas, and activate individuals and community. When hard-hitting stories not only expose issues but also shed light on possible responses, something changes. Rather than leaving audience members informed but despairing or cynical about government, business, or their own community, such stories provide a hook for ordinary people to engage.
For additional examples of innovative journalism undertaken outside the constraints of corporate news, see chapter 4, “Media Democracy in Action.”
INTEGRATIVE EDUCATION:
THE ART AND SCIENCE OF LIVING
What forms of education are appropriate for students facing the complexity of the twenty-first century? Scientific and technical educa-tion are often named, given the noteworthy successes of these fields over the last century. The sciences are best at describing physical re-alities—fostering a rational approach to education with a tendency to reduce life’s complexities to abstract, intellectual understanding and objective descriptions.
Contrast this with engaged education focused on the social and creative arts—learning through direct (vs. abstract) experience. The arts teach students something that the sciences cannot—the prima-cy, uniqueness, and range of human experience. Studies show that mindfulness training and the multidimensional languages of art— sound, color, music, images, and narrative—can shift human consciousness in profound ways—awakening creative insight, and connecting us to more of who we are and what matters most. Art-based practices and mindful ritual have a great civilizing effect—helping to slow down, simplify, and transition to more sustainable, fulfilling lives—reminding us that we are surrounded by the luxuries of nature, art, and time—despite the hurry and excesses all around us.
True education is the return to the mind of the child.
—Mencius (Chinese philosopher, fourth century BCE)
Engaged learning also teaches us that baby mammals, including hu-mans, learn best by playing and exploring. Instead of treating play as luxury, we can understand play as essential to creative living and complex problem solving—with play, not work, as the key to success.
Our global future is also calling us to develop greater social-emotional intelligence and to learn how to appreciate and relate to different cultures and worldviews. These pro-social skills and creative arts are associated with right-brained thought processes that support expanded, integrative thinking—making science, art and engaged learning natural partners in twenty-first-century education.
REDEFINING WEALTH AND ECONOMY
The human being can never be satisfied by wealth.
—from the Katha Upanishad
It is increasingly clear that under our current economic model, our societal problems run deeper than the financial page can explain, and that restoring economic growth will not solve them. The current debt crisis, resulting from a concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few, presents a ripe opportunity for disillusioned and disenfranchised citizens to explore and transform our relationship to money.24 In E. F. Schumacher’s words, we need to develop a new economy that proceeds “as if people mattered.”25
Until we disabuse ourselves of the fantasy that wealth—material possessions—fulfills our need for meaningful lives, nothing will prevent those who are good at accumulating it from doing so, inevitably at the expense of others. A 2010 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that once peoples’ basic needs are met, additional income and other (external) rewards do not increase their happiness.26 So what does support happiness? Is it possible to devise an economy where the standards that guides us are happiness and quality of life, instead of money and the gross national product?
Advocates for a new economy believe so. Guiding principles of this new economy include:
In these ways, the new economy supports people’s true needs, in contrast with one that artificially stimulates desires but leaves those true needs chronically starved.
Two fundamental principles from Gandhi’s economic thinking are useful in understanding this new economy. First, the purpose of an economy is the satisfaction of material needs, not the satisfaction of human wants: “There is enough in the world for everyone’s need; there isn’t enough for everyone’s greed.” Our higher needs are not material and do not depend on finite resources. In a satisfying exchange, love and respect are resources that multiply with use. Second, our actual relationship to things—and to nonmaterial endowments like our talents and personal advantages—is that of trustee. Whatever the law may say, we are not their owners, and insofar as we use our endowments, our responsibility is to do so for the good of the whole.
In this view, three types of socioeconomic exchange redefine the meaning of wealth and help us to recover the natural relationship of cooperation.
1. A gift economy thrives among family and intimate friends: we help each other move, offer to babysit, or bring a sick neighbor a meal. The joy of giving without expecting anything in return promotes trust and solidarity. Occupy, Burning Man, and “free-cycling” networks exemplify the gift economy.
2. Community exchange systems include peer-to-peer production, crew funding, and worker-owned cooperatives.29 Peer-to-peer production involves a free association of equals who pool resources to create products treated as commons rather than commodities.30 The open-source, noncommercial design and distribution of some software is one example of this. Emphasizing collective intelligence and use value over market value, peer-to-peer exchange directly challenges the economic status quo of market allocation and corporate hierarchy. Crew funding brings together peoples’ skills and resources to fund small businesses and other ventures. 31 According to the United Nations, nearly one billion people worldwide are member-owners of cooperatives and co-ops are expected to be the world’s fastest growing business model by 2025.32 Worker-owned cooperatives provide for equitable distribution of wealth and genuine connection to the workplace, two key components of a sustainable economy.
3. Community banking and state banks provide an alternative to the multinational banks like the Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Wachovia, whose financial misconduct has devastated so many people’s lives.33 Spurred by the Bank of North Dakota’s success, fourteen states now have pending legislation to create or study the possibility of state-owned banks.34 Bank of North Dakota has kept credit flowing throughout the financial crisis. It also keeps community banks thriving: North Dakota has more community banks per capita than any other state. Community banks serve local businesses, which in turn generate local jobs—a winning strategy in a job-starved market. Last year North Dakota had the lowest unemployment rate in the country.35
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
Science and the scientific method continue to bring humanity incredible knowledge and gifts; we stand in awe of, and in great debt to, the scientific community. Technology is a powerful force that has shaped and defined (to some degree) human life since the very beginning. In-deed, human history is directly related to the technologies of each era.36
Today, advances in science and technology have resulted in a computer-based age that offers many sectors of the population instant access to the world’s information, as discussed above in the section on “Managing Media.” However, technological developments often come at the expense of the environment and public health. For instance, as consumers replace outdated cellular phones and computers with the latest models, the disposal of the resulting toxic electronic waste impacts poor people and the environments in which they live, in places like China and Ghana.37 And when market forces drive the development of technology, products that have undergone minimal testing or scientific oversight become available to consumers who do not fully know or understand the risks that they pose. In chapter 1, Elaine Wellin’s “Environment and Health” news cluster reports on the risks posed by everyday household technologies including cell phones and microwave ovens, as well as carcinogenic ingredients in common bath products.
In Europe such concerns have led to regulatory policy premised on the precautionary principle: “Where the scientific data are insufficient, inconclusive or uncertain” or “where a preliminary scientific evaluation shows that potentially dangerous effects for the environment and human, animal or plant health can reasonably be feared . . . the risks are incompatible with the high level of protection sought by the European Union.”38 This legislation authorizes regulators to “stop distribution or order withdrawal from the market of products likely to be hazardous.”39
There is active resistance to the precautionary principle in the US. American business interests describe it as unnecessary government regulation. Although laws authorize the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration to intervene in cases of public health, compared with the EU, the US has limited centralized coordination of risk anticipation, risk assessment, risk reduction, and harm restitution.
COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP, TRUST,
AND THE COMMON GOOD
There is no human institution [without] its dangers. The greater the institution the greater the chances of abuse. Democracy is a great institution and therefore it is liable to be greatly abused. The remedy, therefore, is not avoidance of democracy but reduction of possibility of abuse to a minimum.
—Gandhi
Commons movements—epitomized most recently by Occupy and its 99 percent—have the potential to produce fundamental changes in our economy and politics. But such movements require a new type of leadership to realize their potential for creating commons-based alternatives to private markets and polarized politics. Dan Pink suggests a set of integrative skills for twenty-first-century leaders and workers—skills such as storytelling, teamwork, empathy, play, and design that are associated with right-brained processes of intuition, creative thinking, and relationship. Activating these skills gets people thinking, feeling, and making associations across natural polarities.40 In particular, new leaders need to recognize the power of art (music, dance, story, poetry, image making) and ritual to galvanize communi-ties in shared, meaningful experience. The arts bring us together and help lead the movement.
The collaborative leader needs to be process-oriented, developing skills and employing methods that facilitate meaningful dialogue and manage conflict.41 Emphasizing process shifts leadership responsibility from a few central figures—the conventional paradigm for most movements—to collective participation. This way we discover how to build common trust and connection across our differences and support a culture of collaboration and sharing. Put another way, the challenge of collaborative leadership requires finding a balance between centralized and decentralized authority. In The Starfish and the Spider, Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom make the case for decentralization.42 However, their subtitle, The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Movements, is not entirely supported by their argument. What they actually show is that a harmonious combination of decentralization and localized authority is the hallmark of the most successful organizations. They call that harmonious balance the “sweet spot.”
What is the “sweet spot” for a contemporary commons movement committed to principled nonviolence? We propose it would combine two things: an overall strategic plan and appropriate leadership. Lasting movements require some degree of leadership or they fall apart.
Gandhi exemplified the appropriate kind of leadership. Although he took final responsibility for all decisions in the midst of intense cam-paigns, openly calling himself a “general,” the military analogy only went so far. The differences were clear, both in description and actual practice:
Though Gandhi’s presence is missing now, nothing prevents us from cultivating qualities like these in ourselves, or recognizing and supporting them in others. Thus, a kind of decentralized leadership could emerge that is not toxic and does not violate the spirit of the new social movements. The opposite of abusive authority isn’t no authority; it’s respected, selfless authority. Movement leaders should aim for an appropriate balance between setting direction and empowering others to take ownership.
Many in Occupy have begun to feel that the first wave of the move-ment—characterized by spontaneous protest coordinated through social media—has run its course, and it is time to dig in for a long, serious struggle. In this spirit, the Metta Center for Nonviolence offers its Roadmap, articulating the following principles:
The steps of the Metta Center’s road map help to resolve the dilemma pointed out by Paul Hawken:44 Although Occupy may be a reflection of the largest social movement ever seen, it is not really a movement per se but a number of disconnected projects that lack developed leadership, a common ideology and a strategic overview.45
Conversation is at the heart of collaboration and a vital source of empowerment. Positive change begins with people discussing what they value. Meaningful conversation is an antidote to our increasing isolation from each other and a key to resolving important issues in our communities; it is perhaps the best remedy for the sense of alienation that underlies much of society’s crime, vandalism, and terrorism. Authentic, nonpartisan conversation is the premier collaborative practice to empower ourselves and develop trusting relationships. In fact, the Latin and Indo-European roots of “con” and “vers” mean a “turning together.” Talk is one-way. Conversation demands listening and talking in equal degrees. When we speak our truths and hear each other deeply, hearts and minds are opened, and we turn together.46
APPROPRIATE TRUST OR FEAR, OPPOSITION TO COLLABO-
RATION AND TECHNOLOGIES OF SHARING
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.
—Alice Walker
At the heart of collaboration is our ability to create conditions that warrant appropriate trust. Knowing who and what are trustworthy is central to an equitable and secure future. Yet, we seem to have lost trust in one another and our collective institutions. An October 2011 poll found that fewer than one in seven Americans trust the government “to do what’s right almost always or most of the time,” an all-time low since pollsters began asking the question in 1958.47 A similar percentage of those questioned in an earlier 2010 poll showed a lack of confidence in the government’s “ability to stand up to vested interests.”48 If this is the dominant view of “The People,” we need to do something about this. A people divided against itself cannot stand, and if there are issues of secrecy and corruption in government, we need to collectively organize and make the necessary reforms. Yet, without a sense of trust and common purpose, this is unlikely.
In our pain-avoiding culture, most people think that the mentally healthy life is the one characterized by the absence of crisis. Nothing could be farther from the truth. What characterizes mental (and social) health is how early we meet in crisis.
—M. Scott Peck
The information superstructure and global economic integration have led to more connections among people, markets, and ideas that ever before. And, there is great hope that peace between oppressors and the oppressed, and amongst warring factions, will be possible, using advances in information-sharing to build a platform for the generation and circulation of ideas and values. Cooperation on a global scale has the potential to increase economic performance, abolish war and famine, and achieve environmental sustainability.
Some may say collaboration is idealistic and unlikely. We would point at evolutionary history, which demonstrates the repeated organization of self-interested living processes into greater and greater unified cooperatives. The emergence of a cooperative society could well be the next step in a long trend in the evolution in which the nature of cooperative organization has progressively improved. We put our money on life and its evolutionary capacity—in other words, its greater diversity, complexity, capacity, and meaning. The cooperative future looks bright.
Make Connections
Collaborate for Impact
Learn and Innovate
Dwell in Possibilities
Incite Hope and the Love That Does Justice
—from the Interaction Institute for Social Change
1. From a 1950 letter, quoted in Walter Sullivan, “The Einstein Papers: A Man of Many Parts,” New York Times, March 29, 1972.
2. Barry Johnson, Polarity Management: Indentifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems (Amherst MA: HRD Press), 1996.
3. Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion (New York: Pantheon, 2012), 191ff.
4. Ibid., 107.
5. Larissa MacFarquhar, “Thank You for Not Fighting,” New York Times, April 5, 1998, http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/04/05/reviews/980405.05macfart.html.
6. Johnson, Polarity Management.
7. Ibid.
8. Johan Galtung, “Cultural Violence,” Journal of Peace Research 27 no. 3 (1990): 291–305.
9. See, for example, Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall, A Force More Powerful: A Century of Non-Violent Resistance (New York: Palgrave, 2000), chap. 5.
10. For example, consider the high suicide rate among American soldiers returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, as reported in Peter Phillips and Craig Cekala, “Human Costs of War and Vio-lence,” in Censored 2012: The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of 2010–11, ed. Mickey Huff (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2011), 46–48. For an update on this story, see chap. 2 of this volume.
11. Martin Luther King Jr. quoted in Stephanie Van Hook, “How to Sustain a Revolution,” Truthout, January 4, 2012, http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/5895-how-to-sustain-a-revolution.
12. As told to author Kenn Burrows by Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi.
13. See, for example, Michael Nagler, “Occupy 2.0: The Great Turning,” YES! Magazine, April 5, 2012, http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/occupy-2.0-the-great-turning.
14. Hillary Mayell, “Human ‘Footprint’ Seen on 83 Percent of Earth’s Land,” National Geographic News, October 25, 2002, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1025_021025_ HumanFootprint.html. The human “footprint” extends to the world’s oceans as well; see, for example, “Oceans in Peril,” Censored story #2 in chap. 1 of this volume.
15. Joel Smith, “It’s Not About the Footprint: It’s Also the Handprint,” Pacific Northwest Inlander, April 18, 2012, http://www.inlander.com/spokane/article-17842-its-not-about-the-footprint.html. See also http://www.carbonhandprint.org.
16. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, “Education for Sustainable Development (ESD),” http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/education-for-sustainable-development.
17. Center for Media Literacy, “What Is Media Literacy? A Definition . . . And More,” http://www.medialit.org/reading-room/what-media-literacy-definitionand-more.
18. Zizi Papacharissi, “The Virtual Geographies of Social Networks: A Comparative Analysis of Facebook, LinkedIn and A Small World,” New Media and Society 11 (2009): 199–220.
19. Jon Russell, “Fueled by Emerging Markets, Facebook Set to Hit 1 Billion Users in August,” The Next Web, January 12, 2012, http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2012/01/12/fuelled-by-emerging-markets-facebook-set-to-hit-1-billion-users-in-august.
20. RebeccaSweeney91, “Social Networking Sites; More Harm Than Good?,” Online Conference on Networks and Communities, April 27, 2011, http://networkconference.netstudies. org/2011/04/social-networking-sites-more-harm-than-good.
21. Ibid.
22. Elliot D. Cohen, “Social Media and Internet Freedom,” in Censored 2012: The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of 2010–11, ed. Mickey Huff (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2011), 58–60.
23. See, for example, Michelle Strutzenberger, “Create a Narrative of Possibility by Adding a New Question: Peggy Holman,” Axiom News, October 21, 2011, http://axiomnews.ca/node/1798.
24. Rob Williams, “From Bankster Bailout to Blessed Unrest: News We Can Use to Create a US Economy for the 99%,” in chap. 1 of this volume, develops this theme in more detail.
25. E. F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Matter (Point Roberts WA: Hartley & Marks, 1999[1973]).
26. Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton, “High Income Improves Evaluation of Life But Not Emotional Well-Being,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, September 7, 2010, http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/08/27/1011492107.full.pdf+html. See also David McRaney, “The Fascinating Scientific Reason Why ‘Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness,’” AlterNet, January 25, 2012, http://www.alternet.org/health/153887/the_fascinating_scientific_reason_ why_%22money_doesn’t_buy_happiness%22.
27. The Kingdom of Bhutan has been a leader in this area. In 2011, sixty-eight countries joined Bhutan in cosponsoring a resolution titled “Happiness: Towards a Holistic Approach to Development,” which the UN General Assembly adopted by consensus. In April 2012, Bhutan hosted an international meeting focused on the topic, “Wellbeing and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm.” Held at the UN’s New York headquarters, this meeting sought to launch a global movement toward measuring—and increasing—human happiness and quality of life as an alternative to the narrow, conventional measures of economic growth and development. See “Wellbeing & Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm,” Government of Bhutan, April 2, 2012, http://www.2apr.gov.bt.
28. See, for example, Gar Alperovitz, “The Rise of the New Economy Movement,” AlterNet, May 20, 2012, http://www.alternet.org/economy/155452/the_rise_of_the_new_economy_movement.
29. In addition to the three forms detailed here, community exchange systems also includes the DIY (Do It Yourself) and DIWO (Do It With Others) movements, time banks, and community currency programs. See, for examples, http://makezine.com; the Bay Area Community Exchange Timebank, http://timebank.sfbace.org; and the Complementary Currency Resource Center, http://www.complementarycurrency.org.
30. Michael Bauwens, “Blueprint for P2P Society: The Partner State & Ethical Economy,” Shareable, April 7, 2012, http://www.shareable.net/blog/a-blueprint-for-p2p-institutions-the-partnerstate-and-the-ethical-economy-0.
31. See, for instance, http://crewfund.org.
32. Jessica Reeder, “The Year of the Cooperative,” Yes! Magazine, February 1, 2012, http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/2012-the-year-of-the-cooperative. See Censored story #7 in chap. 1 of this volume.
33. On the damage done by multinational banks, see Williams, “From Bankster Bailout to Blessed Unrest,” in chap. 1 of this volume.
34. Kenn Burrows and Tom Atlee, “Collaboration and Common Good,” in Censored 2012: The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of 2010–11, ed. Mickey Huff (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2011), 141–43.
35. Kelly McCartney, “Report: Public Banking Can Democratize the Economy,” Shareable, May 31, 2011, http://www.shareable.net/blog/new-report-public-banking-can-democratize-the-economy.
36. For one perspective on technology’s role in human evolution, see Kevin Kelly, “Technology’s Epic Story,” TEDxAmsterdam video, November 2009, http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/kevin_kelly_tells_technology_s_epic_story.html. Kelly defines technology as “anything useful invented by the (human) mind,” including not only physical products, but also cultural inventions such as laws, libraries, and cities. He argues that technology helps us reinvent ourselves and our relationship with the natural and cultural world.
37. See, for example, “Guiyu: E-wasteland of the World,” CNC, June 19, 2012, http://www.cncworld.tv/news/v_show/25325_Guiyu:_E-wasteland_of_the_world.shtml; and Stephen Leahy, “Ghana: Toxic Electronic Waste Contaminates Surrounding Area,” All Africa, November 1, 2011, http://allafrica.com/stories/201111020037.html.
38. Summaries of European Union Legislation, Glossary, http://europa.eu/legislation_summa-ries/glossary/precautionary_principle_en.htm.
39. “The Precautionary Principle,” Europa: Summaries of European Union Legislation, February 2, 2000, http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/consumers/consumer_safety/l32042_ en.htm.
40. Daniel H. Pink, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future (New York: Berkeley Publishing Group, 2005).
41. The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation offers rich materials to train and support community leaders, consultants, and citizens in developing collaborative leadership skills. See http://ncdd.org.
42. Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Movements (New York: Portfolio, 2006).
43. Metta Center for Nonviolence, “Roadmap: From Spontaneous Protest to Unstoppable Move-ment,” http://vimeo.com/45555473.
44. Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming (New York: Viking, 2007).
45. For another perspective on Occupy, see Michael Levitin’s contribution in chap. 4 of this volume.
46. Jack Ricchiuto, “The Power of Conversation,” Interaction Institute for Social Change Blog, video, posted August 10, 2010, http://interactioninstitute.org/blog/2010/08/10/the-power-of-conversation-2. On the Interaction Institute for Social Change Blog, Jack Ricchiuto discusses four types of generative questions and related conversations that can help people shift their sense of alienation, distrust, and fragmentation so that they can experience greater connection and civic engagement.
47. Eric Alterman, “Think Again: The Era of the ‘1 Percent,’” Center for American Progress, October 6, 2011, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/10/ta100611.html.
48. Ibid.
KENN BURROWS has been an educator and consultant for over thirty years, teaching holistic health studies at San Francisco State University since 1991. He is founder of the Holistic Health Learning Center, a unique library and community action center staffed by student volunteers. He is also the producer of The Future of Health Care, a biennial conference. Prior to coming to SF State, he taught at Foothill Community College for twelve years and operated Stress-Care, a corporate training and consulting company. He also serves as faculty advisor to Project Censored as the SF State affiliate, and is a member of the executive board of the Media Freedom Foundation.
MICHAEL NAGLER is one of the most respected scholars and advocates of Gandhi and nonviolence in the world today. He is professor emeritus of classics and compara-tive literature at University of California–Berkeley, where he founded the Peace and Conflict Studies Program; founder and president of the Metta Center for Nonviolence (mettacenter.org); and author of, among other books and articles, Our Spiritual Crisis and The Search for a Nonviolent Future, which received a 2002 American Book Award and has been translated into Arabic, Italian, Korean, Croatian, and several other languages. Among other awards, he received the Jamnalal Bajaj International Award for Promoting Gandhian Values Outside India in 2007. Michael is a student of Sri Eknath Easwaran, founder of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation (easwaran.org). He has lived at the center’s ashram in Marin County since 1970 and is a presenter for their programs of passage meditation.