INTEGRAL ANTI-CAPITALISM cont'd.

[Layman Pascal]

For an introduction to this expanding meta-thread see Integral Anti-Capitalism pt I. We continue here because we have, hilariously, exceeded this website's capacity...

LAYMAN PASCAL

I agree that holacracy should be singled out for special investigation. The provocative notion that we are dramatically over-emphasizing the need for "conscious leadership" pertains very pertinently to this discussion. Robertson, like ourselves, is pointing to the fact that business (organizations) which integrally improve the interiors and cultural
spirit of their participants are still predisposed to certain outcomes as a result of their actual structural habits of communication and their specific decision-making protocols.
His notion of a constantly self-correcting dynamic organization drawing upon the capacity of individuals to act as tension-sensors relative to the "evolutionary purpose" of the organization is compelling and admirable.

More important is simply that he is making a stand and making an attempt to construct a protocol (constitution). I am not fully versed in the 4.0 version of the holacracy constitution but we should get deeper into some of these proposals.  

Given the level of your current knowledge of their protocols, what would you want to change or add in order to ethically and functionally empower this approach even more?

THEURJ

First some housekeeping in providing links in part I to comments on holacracy: their website, comment 1, comment 2, comment 3 (and 3 more on p. 7), and the first 7 comments on p. 8. 

I’m not yet familiar enough with holacracy to know it might need. So for now I’ll ask questions.  From p. 8 there was a blog post on ownership and the model might (but not necessarily) include outside capital investors. I asked:

“One question immediately pops up on outside investors. Are there limits on the amount of outside capital investment? What if their investment is such that without it the company could not financially survive? And/or depends on it for start-up? Then such investment would control the company, like it or not. If you don't do what I say I'm taking my ball and going home. No ball, no ballgame. Not the same as a mortgage or loan company.”

Granted why such investors are included on the Board there are other stake-holders to balance their input. But are there rules about which outside individuals or companies can invest? Do they have to have similar values like triple bottom lines instead of just profit for their investors? Can a Goldman Sachs provide start-up capital? Or Romeny’s ex-firm, Bain? Just wondering, so perhaps it’s time for those out there more familiar with the system to engage us?

LAYMAN PASCAL

I appreciate your inquiry about the potential influence of outside investors in holacratic systems. Perhaps they have a good protocol for that. Or perhaps not. In general, all "smart groups" need to comprehend and anticipate the distortion influence that donors and enablers wield. The psychology of human nature shows that we may believe ourselves to be quite sturdy and impartial while we are really bending in the breeze.

One of the concerns I had while perusing the holacracy constitution was about the voting procedure for filling roles. There are many parts of their approach which impress. In particular I would like to make not of the necessity to place constraints upon discussion. When the mention of a concern is met with the mention of counter-concerns then the intelligence and practical efficacy of discussions drops dramatically. A highly suspicious mind might even supposed that the human hive is encouraged to engage in the constant casual usage of dysfunctional conversation. So their use of controlled phases in both operational and hiring decisions is admirable. However, their actual voting protocol seems (to my naive glance) to be based on a model of transparent majority. A sophisticated "show of hands".

So this may be an area in which holacratic principles can be expanded to include a more thorough use of "secret ballot" and "averaged ranking".

The former often seems like a show of bad faith and an invitation to covert dangers... but these are considerably outweighed by the liberation of individual intelligence from any conscious or unconscious concerns about the social consequences of their input.

The latter evades a primitive "first past the post" approach in which our intelligence is functionally limited to a yes/no determination about each candidate relative to other candidates.

Another thing I admire about holacracy is that it represents a functional procedure and culture in which participants would appear to become better participants by participating. Their capacity and ethical commitment to the good of the organization through its evolving protocols should be an increasing trend. Any smart group needs to be arranged so that even people who try to distort the results will find their capacity and will to do this reducing over time. Replaced by the inspirational efficacy of the group.

This brings me to another issue relative to voting, both in political and economic groups. That is the relative absence of specific instructions about how to translated ones feelings into a vote-mark. This is almost completely unaddressed in terms of popular elections. To discuss it even seems insidious to some people who fear coercion (and/or wish to maintain the current material power structures).

Protocols should have at least a clear suggestion about how to locate both "gut" and "intellectual" data within ourselves and convert that into a numerical value which can be contributed to a group decision. A lack of clarification at this critical junction may act as an invisible source of drag upon an otherwise very functional group organism.

It might even be possible to define an "integral-level organizational set up" for business or politics by simply compiling a list of areas in which intelligence and capacity are distorted. We might recall that most of Wilber's philosophy has emerged in levels correlated to his discovery of "fallacies" or "basic errors". Integral proposals about business and society could be all over the map unless there is a reasonable set of constraints that make sure they fall in the most lucrative zone.

So other than the potential influence of outside "helpers" and "donors" what other sources of distortion or inhibition do you see going mostly unaddressed in otherwise progressive groups?

THEURJ

My next question of holacracy is who came up with it? It seems to be the pet project of Brian Robertson, his own brainchild. I'm wondering if that is so of if it was a community or P2P project? I mean, the structure of holacracy itself calls for distributed decision-making but was the creation of holacracy itself derived from this process or mostly dictated by Robertson? I've yet to find an answer at the site so I posed this question to them via contact info. I'll provide the response if/when received. I think the answer is pivotal in determining if this thing called holacracy arose from its own medicine.

LAYMAN PASCAL

I look forward that answer if it is forthcoming. The notion of self-arising systems is something which haunts the periphery of these discussions. My fantasy is that we can devise a group protocol which so reliably and simply exceeds the cognitive capacity of the individual participants that it would be foolish to predetermine the purpose and nature of the group. Collectively we could a better job of determining what kind of a collective we should be. "Smartgroups" of this kind could then spread through the world in a very radical social uprising. How possible that is remains uncertain...

As I understand holacracy, the different companies making use of it are assumed to engage in their own mutational modifications of the "constitution". So even if Brian wrote the whole thing out in his bathtub it still retains an open source quality. The answer to whether its current forms are or are not the result of distributed decision-making is almost certainly: sort of.

One of the reasons the holacracy approach is so amenable to business organization is that it seems to depend upon the functional axis of a specified purpose. The aim is somewhat pregiven -- our job is to sell widgets or maximize share-holder profit, etc. His use of the metaphor of the sensors on an airplane derives from a mechanism that is assumed to be designed for a well-known purpose.

My question would be whether or not this "aim" is a necessarily functional element in generating enhanced organizational capacity? Or whether it is simply an artifact of the need to make these systems serve a relatively conventional marketplace task?

THEURJ

Your suggestion of a smart group that arises creatively from a continually evolving set of parameters seems to be the intent and practice of holacracy. As to the organizational purpose of Holacracy One, it seems to have multiple bottom lines including but not limited to profit. For example, see this post in the comments where I noted that the top to bottom pay ratio is 3 to 1, and quoted some of those multiple purposes:

"With Holacracy at play, the game is entirely different: with the decentralization of authority, the separation of people and role, and the dynamic evolution of those roles, we end up with a situation that looks more like free agents going about their work with no central planning. There might not even be a single person who knows about everything you do."

This sounds much more like the sort of emerging P2P organizational structure discussed throughout this thread. And also of significance in the post following this article where The Integral Center of Boulder has "voluntarily relinquished their rights to control their company as owners. Instead, they have ceded authority to a purpose-centered governance process called Holacracy, a model that distributes authority across the organization and gives primary power to the organization itself."

These are indeed advances over the kind of conscious capitalism promoted and AQALly packaged for sale at I-I.

LAYMAN PASCAL

(comment pending)

This is an interesting moment. Apparently Amazon.com is experimenting with a version of holacracy as well. It clearly represents a theoretical advance over the typical kind of conscious capitalism which combines advanced sentiments with a potentially dangerous and uninspected ideological allegiance to more primitive routines of social organization and wealth production. Yet we cannot know the results of the experiment in advance.

I have tremendous optimism about emergent p2p organizational structures. Experimentation is utterly necessary and should be strongly encouraged. I am also very hopeful that advances can be made in terms of quantification. This is very central in my thinking lately.

It seems that experimental protocols for advances social organization systems suffer from the lack of a quantifiable evaluation of their respective degrees of "collective intelligence". Most people are drawn to such possibilities by ethical and aesthetic criteria which do no necessarily persuade the world. So I would love to see experimentation supplemented by the attempt to devise a metric for estimating the intelligence of a social organization protocol.

Along similar lines, my "tetrabucks" type notions represent the possibility/necessity to structure our currency at a level that correlates to advanced P2P organizational structures and post-pluralistic consciousness.

The potential of an evil holacracy has hardly been broached. If it works -- it works. Other than simply the tendency of less complex people not to use more complex systems, and the tendency of more complex systems to complexify their participants, there needs to be some inter-organizational structures which incline all organizations int he direction of broad human well-being. It is my assertion that as long as primary areas of value remain outside monetization the actions of groups trying to utilize official social credits will constantly become unstable.

So I am imagining a line leading from pathological capitalism to standard capitalism to conscious capitalism to trans-capitalist network organizations to such organizations bound together by a integrated set of metrics for determining the intelligence of groups and splicing together (at least) four broad domains of human value.

Along these lines -- how will we decide whether holacratic integral business is working better?

THEURJ

As to how we determine whether alternative economic paradigms are 'working,' I'd suggest that even by the standards of typical business democratic workplaces like co-ops are successful. If by that we mean the organization runs smoothly, has low employee turnover, high employee satisfaction, makes a profit or surplus over operating costs, and other such typical measures. Plus they fulfill their stated purposes as expressed in theRochdale principles, like community education, cooperation, democratic control, etc.

I'd say the same applies to holacracy. They also have to accomplish the usual business parameters like above but also meet stated principles like in their constitution. Given Robertson's business acumen I'm sure at the site he has precise and measurable indices to track such progress, though I didn't try to find them as yet.

LAYMAN PASCAL

(comment pending)

[Edward theurj Berge]

Here's the story mentioned above.

[Darrell R. Moneyhon]

From Steele's book (I ordered it from Amazon today and already am reading the temporary Kindle version that lets you read in advance): 

Instead of a top-heavy, opaque, centralized, and rigidified system that misses the big picture  and rewards a few at the expense of the many, it is possible to create -- at a fraction of the cost of what we spend now on largely worthless secret sources and methods -- a "Smart Nation" in which a mature decision-support function educates and enables every citizen to be a collector, producer, and consumer of legal, ethical, open-source intelligence, and also to be a vibrant member of the authentic intelligence community of the whole-humanity connected as one, thinking as one, acting as one. 

Notice some of the overlap in the basic line of thought with this excerpt from our (Layman's and mine) about-to-be-published book About Wholeness: 

I (D) like that perspective on the innovation called democracy: “A system which would harness more of the intelligence and energy of the people.” Yes, a system devoted to the unfolding of human potential, as opposed to a top-down exploitation of already-manifested characteristics. In terms of developing human potentials, democracy is like fracking oil or natural gas. The energy that is hidden in the rocky layers and sediment below is squeezed out of each participant. At the very least the participant is empowered to vote. This sends an optimistic signal—a positive expectation—that each person has the capacity (either already present, or forthcoming after a few misled votes) to help lead the collective in a good, adaptive, direction. At best, the expectation will eventually squeeze out more critical thinking and sense of responsibility for the welfare of the collective. Some of the empowering, or “fracking,” devices are: education, the press, political debate, and free enterprise. 

Unfortunately some of the layers of rocks and sediment are tricky and thick. Even with these devices, much of the potential lies hidden underneath. 

Some of the problem may lie in the natural limits of the electorate themselves. There are natural limits to intelligence, to potential and to brain/mind integration capacity. Democracy’s nay-sayers often assume this factor to be the fatal flaw of the purer forms of democracy. They argue that the average voter just isn’t talented enough to be a good leader or a good “decider” (to use ex-President G.W. Bush’s phraseology). 

This camp tends to “blame the participants,” instead of blaming society’s empowerment tools and methods. They tend to think that it's just not possible to squeeze out enough potential to create an adequately informed and competent electorate. They don’t think it's worth heavily investing in “fracking” devices, because for the most part “what you see, is what you get.” They don’t really believe in vast stores of untapped potential—at least not in the average person. Like the occasional big oil rig strike, a few gifted standouts will gush forth the leadership and intelligence which the collective needs. 

As far as these thinkers are concerned, the best leadership comes from these few good oil wells (people). The rest of the “wells” are not heavily invested in. The resources that it takes to frack oil (potential) from those non-rich wells is thought to be a more or less wasted. Better to spend most of your resources on the more productive wells. 

But the proponents of democracy believe that that line of thought constitutes a negative-self-fulfilling prophecy by elitists. The masses (comprised of typical “oil wells”) may have plenty of reserves beneath/within them, but it will never be tapped into as long as the elitists think it is not worth the effort or resources to do so. Proponents of democracy tend to believe that the human-potential “fracking” process will prove to be quite worthwhile—especially in the long run, long after the wildcatters have found all the gushers. 

William Edwards Deming suggested that in order to have effective “continuous quality improvement” we need to place most of our focus on tweaking the system instead of blaming the individuals for failures which occur within the system. The proponents of democracy tend to adopt this view. They attribute most of democracy’s failures to design flaws in, or lack of maintenance of, the “fracking”/empowerment devices themselves. It's up to us to make the system create and maintain effective “fracking”/empowerment devices. Blaming individuals is just a cop out. 

If education simply goes through the motions or is not invested in enough (or not invested evenly enough) to provide the learning opportunity necessary to draw the potential out, then the expectation of critical thinking in the voting booth will not be met. 

Also, the paradigm of education as teacher of information and predetermined skills might be flawed. In Allsville Emerging, I make the case for an education which emphasizes the assessment, development, and engagement/employment of individual human gifts (aptitudes and temperaments). The “gift” focus is an inside-out approach to education, instead of our traditional outside-in approach. According to educator Carter G. Woodson, the word education means to educe—to draw out (potentials, gifts), as opposed to putting information in. 

------

The last couple of paragraphs from the About Wholeness excerpt is highly consistent with this comment that Steele made in his Manifesto ... book:  

The establishment of a transparent and open government, open society, and open economy that is truly of, by, and for We the People requires the self-actualization of We the People. 

-----

"Gift" development within the education system goes hand in hand with a vast network of gift sharing, which would be in line with the kind of open source harvesting that both Rifkin (with his "lateral power") and Steele advocate. The synergistic effect of integrating all these gifts is a whole much greater than the sum of the parts. Perhaps largely because so many of the "parts" are being overlooked in the top-down, "drilling" (see analogy in About Wholeness excerpt), paradigm and system. 

Darrell

[DavidM58]

Hi Darrell,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I like where you're going, but am getting tripped up with the fracking analogy, since I tend to view fracking in almost exclusively negative terms. Plus the thought of "squeezing out" more critical thinking from participants does not sound very attractive.

Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling is not occurring because it is an improved technology over traditional "top down" drilling.  It is occurring as the result of depletion of the easy to get, energy rich, abundant oil in the race for what's left.  Fracking takes much more energy resources to get a lower quality oil, so the net energy return is much less.  It is also much more environmentally destructive than the more traditional processes, and finally it is becoming more and more apparent that it is yet another investors bubble that can soon be expected to burst.  In spite of what the media (and govt) has been telling us, it is most definitely not an energy revolution.

Check out some of my posts:

Oil Company Woes: This is What Energy Depletion Looks Like

An "Energy Renaissance"?

BREAKING: Gov't Slashes Calif. Oil Estimate

New Energy Report from I.E.A. Forecasts Decline in North American O...

The "Red Queen Syndrome": "It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place"
i.e. There's an awful lot of money being poured into providing for our energy "needs," yet the returns on these investments are stagnating.

Now, none of this is to say I don't agree that we need "the self-actualization of We The People" - a greater emphasis on the patterns of Networking, Creativity, etc., in addition to recognition of where we are in the Pulse of available energy and perhaps adapting to more realistic expectations, and letting go of a 'growth at all costs' economy.

[Darrell R. Moneyhon]

David, Yes it was a strained analogy because I wanted to stay with the oil extraction theme. What is related to oil extraction but not the top-down "drill baby drill?" Interesting to think that that slogan might be highly connected to the thought system of top-down and cream of the crop and divine right of kings (and successful capitalists). Drill baby drill is linked to the high resistance, low frequency (in metaphysical spiritual talk terms of grosser, less refined, mental/spiritual formats), mode of thinking, enacting and being. You are right in that oil extraction itself is also connected to that thought system. Oil as opposed to electricity from renewable energy sources. Old school as opposed to new school which is ecologically minded (not just ecologically-hearted like the greenies, but understands and takes into account interaction effects which are important for understanding things in a more systemic or holistic or "integral" way).

Rifkin and Kevin Kelly and Steele and others are of course nudging us toward a more systemic way of thinking which reminds me of the biblical "tree of LIFE." Life includes much more dynamics than the "things in life." Even science's predictable "laws" are embeded in meta-laws which don't act in typical classical object sort of ways. Quantum theory is thinking more like energy fields as they try to explain the quauntum quirks of particles who seemed to be communicating with one another instead of going about their own separate merry Newtonian inertia ways. There appears to be a meta-law-like substratum of this "reality" of the "ten thousand THINGS." The way to understand that sort of dynamic substratum reality is, I believe, to learn to think in a mode resembling or matching energy and energy fields (especially the latter). As far as I can tell the "spacey" way that the right brain thinks is our best go-to function to help enter this mode. Without the mode it will be like Hue Ning's parable of trying to wipe a stone until it gives a clear unbiased reflection. Thinking like matter and things, in terms of left-brain discrete units, simply is a stone that cannot act like a mirror. We must turn to the non-dominant brain to make the mental chemical compound it takes to "think like energy" or the dynamic mode of thought related to the Tree of Life, ecosystems, synergy, interdependence, lateral power, etc. 

    Had I not tried to stay with the oil extraction theme I would have switched to something more like OSMOSIS. It would have been a mixed metaphor, but would have avoided the negative association with fracking. Few people are "down" on osmosis!

We can actualize more human potential with osmosis than we can by drilling information and discrete pre-set skill sets into human minds. We can osmotically pull out or soak up the unique potential of each human gift or gift complex. We can "grow" humans by using a depth-unfolding paradigm similar to the quantum and subquantum substratums of reality proposed by David Bohm and Basil Hiley in their book The Undivided Universe. I simply use the visual metaphor of a solar flare (which seemed to be a modern update of the visual metaphor of a "fountain" flowing deep and wide, which was mentioned, of all places (!), in a bible school song). The self-flare unfolds from in to out or deep to surface.

The way reality acts deep within is different than the way reality acts at or towards the surface. Not that surface realities aren't real. Not that duality isn't real. Just that a deeper reality is more real or more enduringly or wider-applicability "real." These different depth-related realities become the centers for stages/levels. No one is only at a higher or lower level, but has all the depth levels within him or her in the form of pure or absolute "potential."  

But each person has relative potential called gifts which help certain depth realities with surface reality more than certain other depth/surface combinations. While mystics might have the gift orientation of (Jung's) "intuiter," they may lack the depth-interface functions in-between really deep and surface levels. As pure relaters and direct responders of the deepest deep, an intuiter may need the grounding of people strong at Relationships, the gift orientation ("GO") of "Relater" (variation of Jung's Feelers). And then both might need the help of Doers at the surface, classical reality, level of cosmic unfolding. Different gifts act as bridges to assist with what I call "depth continuity." Depth continuity means even-flow from in to out. No gaps or short circuits.

But not necessarily only Arjuna Ardagh's "transluscence," because the "light" from the depths must be spread evenly so as to allow gradually more opaque characteristics toward the surface. If the the light is too bright it causes psychosis and mania and fried minds. Like a river maintained by a system of damns the flow of the light must be paced or regulated so as not to call spiritual backlash from "flooding." That is why those with the GO of Dreamer/Intuiter need the other gifts as gates or damns which allow a more consistent flow of light from the deepest depth all the way to the surface. 

   But this damn system concept is still old schoolish thinking like matter. It is an accelerator/braking system view. Better to have modulators than damns. And the pulling action of osmosis instead of the pushing action of high pressure fracking. 

    It will take time for minds just begining to think like energy to find just the right metaphors and analogies. 

    In the meantime, I hope the inadequate analogy of fracking vs drilling at least conveys the concept of looking for more human potential to develop and use than we are doing under the old school system. I hope the strained analogy nonetheless suggests a more inclusive approach instead of the older more exclusive, elitist, cream of the crop, "leader," approach of "drilling." 

      Darrell

DavidM58 said:

Hi Darrell,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I like where you're going, but am getting tripped up with the fracking analogy, since I tend to view fracking in almost exclusively negative terms. Plus the thought of "squeezing out" more critical thinking from participants does not sound very attractive.

Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling is not occurring because it is an improved technology over traditional "top down" drilling.  It is occurring as the result of depletion of the easy to get, energy rich, abundant oil in the race for what's left.  Fracking takes much more energy resources to get a lower quality oil, so the net energy return is much less.  It is also much more environmentally destructive than the more traditional processes, and finally it is becoming more and more apparent that it is yet another investors bubble that can soon be expected to burst.  In spite of what the media (and govt) has been telling us, it is most definitely not an energy revolution.

Check out some of my posts:

Oil Company Woes: This is What Energy Depletion Looks Like

An "Energy Renaissance"?

BREAKING: Gov't Slashes Calif. Oil Estimate

New Energy Report from I.E.A. Forecasts Decline in North American O...

The "Red Queen Syndrome": "It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place"
i.e. There's an awful lot of money being poured into providing for our energy "needs," yet the returns on these investments are stagnating.

Now, none of this is to say I don't agree that we need "the self-actualization of We The People" - a greater emphasis on the patterns of Networking, Creativity, etc., in addition to recognition of where we are in the Pulse of available energy and perhaps adapting to more realistic expectations, and letting go of a 'growth at all costs' economy.

[Darrell R. Moneyhon]

"squeezing out" potential, which may I suppose include critical thinking too. But I meant squeezing out potential hidden in the crevices of the layers of defensive resistance built up in an overly competitive society.

Yes a drawing out action is what I really mean by "squeezing out." Osmosis rather than fracking. Or something like photosynthesis rather than drilling oil. But as I said in my previous reply, I was trying to avoid mixing metaphors. Perhaps I lost more than I gained by going with the fracking thing which does have great negative connotations. At best I would only want to use this strained analogy in passing -- not an oft repeated one. 

darrell

Darrell R. Moneyhon said:

David, Yes it was a strained analogy because I wanted to stay with the oil extraction theme. What is related to oil extraction but not the top-down "drill baby drill?" Interesting to think that that slogan might be highly connected to the thought system of top-down and cream of the crop and divine right of kings (and successful capitalists). Drill baby drill is linked to the high resistance, low frequency (in metaphysical spiritual talk terms of grosser, less refined, mental/spiritual formats), mode of thinking, enacting and being. You are right in that oil extraction itself is also connected to that thought system. Oil as opposed to electricity from renewable energy sources. Old school as opposed to new school which is ecologically minded (not just ecologically-hearted like the greenies, but understands and takes into account interaction effects which are important for understanding things in a more systemic or holistic or "integral" way).

Rifkin and Kevin Kelly and Steele and others are of course nudging us toward a more systemic way of thinking which reminds me of the biblical "tree of LIFE." Life includes much more dynamics than the "things in life." Even science's predictable "laws" are embeded in meta-laws which don't act in typical classical object sort of ways. Quantum theory is thinking more like energy fields as they try to explain the quauntum quirks of particles who seemed to be communicating with one another instead of going about their own separate merry Newtonian inertia ways. There appears to be a meta-law-like substratum of this "reality" of the "ten thousand THINGS." The way to understand that sort of dynamic substratum reality is, I believe, to learn to think in a mode resembling or matching energy and energy fields (especially the latter). As far as I can tell the "spacey" way that the right brain thinks is our best go-to function to help enter this mode. Without the mode it will be like Hue Ning's parable of trying to wipe a stone until it gives a clear unbiased reflection. Thinking like matter and things, in terms of left-brain discrete units, simply is a stone that cannot act like a mirror. We must turn to the non-dominant brain to make the mental chemical compound it takes to "think like energy" or the dynamic mode of thought related to the Tree of Life, ecosystems, synergy, interdependence, lateral power, etc. 

    Had I not tried to stay with the oil extraction theme I would have switched to something more like OSMOSIS. It would have been a mixed metaphor, but would have avoided the negative association with fracking. Few people are "down" on osmosis!

We can actualize more human potential with osmosis than we can by drilling information and discrete pre-set skill sets into human minds. We can osmotically pull out or soak up the unique potential of each human gift or gift complex. We can "grow" humans by using a depth-unfolding paradigm similar to the quantum and subquantum substratums of reality proposed by David Bohm and Basil Hiley in their book The Undivided Universe. I simply use the visual metaphor of a solar flare (which seemed to be a modern update of the visual metaphor of a "fountain" flowing deep and wide, which was mentioned, of all places (!), in a bible school song). The self-flare unfolds from in to out or deep to surface.

The way reality acts deep within is different than the way reality acts at or towards the surface. Not that surface realities aren't real. Not that duality isn't real. Just that a deeper reality is more real or more enduringly or wider-applicability "real." These different depth-related realities become the centers for stages/levels. No one is only at a higher or lower level, but has all the depth levels within him or her in the form of pure or absolute "potential."  

But each person has relative potential called gifts which help certain depth realities with surface reality more than certain other depth/surface combinations. While mystics might have the gift orientation of (Jung's) "intuiter," they may lack the depth-interface functions in-between really deep and surface levels. As pure relaters and direct responders of the deepest deep, an intuiter may need the grounding of people strong at Relationships, the gift orientation ("GO") of "Relater" (variation of Jung's Feelers). And then both might need the help of Doers at the surface, classical reality, level of cosmic unfolding. Different gifts act as bridges to assist with what I call "depth continuity." Depth continuity means even-flow from in to out. No gaps or short circuits.

But not necessarily only Arjuna Ardagh's "transluscence," because the "light" from the depths must be spread evenly so as to allow gradually more opaque characteristics toward the surface. If the the light is too bright it causes psychosis and mania and fried minds. Like a river maintained by a system of damns the flow of the light must be paced or regulated so as not to call spiritual backlash from "flooding." That is why those with the GO of Dreamer/Intuiter need the other gifts as gates or damns which allow a more consistent flow of light from the deepest depth all the way to the surface. 

   But this damn system concept is still old schoolish thinking like matter. It is an accelerator/braking system view. Better to have modulators than damns. And the pulling action of osmosis instead of the pushing action of high pressure fracking. 

    It will take time for minds just begining to think like energy to find just the right metaphors and analogies. 

    In the meantime, I hope the inadequate analogy of fracking vs drilling at least conveys the concept of looking for more human potential to develop and use than we are doing under the old school system. I hope the strained analogy nonetheless suggests a more inclusive approach instead of the older more exclusive, elitist, cream of the crop, "leader," approach of "drilling." 

      Darrell

DavidM58 said:

Hi Darrell,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I like where you're going, but am getting tripped up with the fracking analogy, since I tend to view fracking in almost exclusively negative terms. Plus the thought of "squeezing out" more critical thinking from participants does not sound very attractive.

Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling is not occurring because it is an improved technology over traditional "top down" drilling.  It is occurring as the result of depletion of the easy to get, energy rich, abundant oil in the race for what's left.  Fracking takes much more energy resources to get a lower quality oil, so the net energy return is much less.  It is also much more environmentally destructive than the more traditional processes, and finally it is becoming more and more apparent that it is yet another investors bubble that can soon be expected to burst.  In spite of what the media (and govt) has been telling us, it is most definitely not an energy revolution.

Check out some of my posts:

Oil Company Woes: This is What Energy Depletion Looks Like

An "Energy Renaissance"?

BREAKING: Gov't Slashes Calif. Oil Estimate

New Energy Report from I.E.A. Forecasts Decline in North American O...

The "Red Queen Syndrome": "It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place"
i.e. There's an awful lot of money being poured into providing for our energy "needs," yet the returns on these investments are stagnating.

Now, none of this is to say I don't agree that we need "the self-actualization of We The People" - a greater emphasis on the patterns of Networking, Creativity, etc., in addition to recognition of where we are in the Pulse of available energy and perhaps adapting to more realistic expectations, and letting go of a 'growth at all costs' economy.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Whole Foods capitalist ideology is failing. This story should be no surprise. Whole Foods has always been overpriced and everyone knew it, hence the nickname Whole Paycheck. But that was their marketing strategy. It wasn't just whole, healthy food, but that sort of food for the upper middle classes and higher. The whole strategy was based on and aimed at those who fed on the capitalist free market wet dream, that if you just try hard enough you too can be healthy, wealthy and wise.

When the economy was good there were enough yuppies to afford shopping at this status symbol. But since the economy tanked due to those capitalist forces sick with greed and self indulgence, quite a few of those prior professionals have entered the ranks of the unemployed or underemployed and can no longer afford to spend their whole paycheck on good food. Also consider that lower-end grocers are now picking up those products at far lower prices, since they see the writing on the wall of the bad economy and cater to the lower classes.

But keep in mind that not only the Wall Street crowd created the economic collapse but the lower-end chain stores maintain that sort of economy with poor wages and little benefits. They create their own market for their products since their workers cannot afford better. And often said workers need government assistance, which socializes the losses on society while the capitalists keep the profits.

Whole Foods is complicit in the process in that they ignored the poor and lower middle-class from the outset; they were always about catering to the upper classes and figured the rest of us didn't deserve to eat healthy food. Whole Foods has always been part of the capitalist delusion that thinks the rest of us get what we deserve because we're too lazy etc. Now that many of its erstwhile yuppies can no longer afford their products they'll just have to abide by their capitalist philosophy and fail due to 'free market' forces, like their own greed and failed ideology.

[DavidM58]

The Rising Global Movement that calls for #noTTIP

TTIP is the latest bid to capture policymaking by the profit-making interests of the 1%, with dire implications for anyone who upholds a vision of a more equitable and sustainable economic order. But campaign groups and activists are working hard to expose this trade agreement for what it is, and to build an overarching global movement that can prevent this massive transfer of power to transnational corporations.

---

As the next round of negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) take place in Brussels this week, civil society groups are continuing to mobilise against this ongoing free trade agreement between the U.S. and EU that poses a threat to our public services, environment, food, privacy and democracy. On Saturday, around a thousand people occupied the square in front of the European Union’s base in London, UK, and demanded an end to the trade deal that is being described by the #noTTIP coalition of activists and organisations as an unprecedented corporate power-grab...

Read more: http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-07-18/the-rising-global-move...

[Edward theurj Berge]

Weird Al hits #1. Yes, his latest CD Mandatory Fun has hit the top spot on the Billboard 200. Recall the video below, where he explains how producing and giving away videos from the CD on YouTube will lead to sales. The Fox Snooze capitalist just cannot grasp this concept, how sharing for free actually sells things.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Naomi Klein's new book is due out this September and called This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. See this article for info. Here's the website for the book. The climate crises is an opportunity to abandon capitalism and remake our political and economic systems. The following video is a brief intro to the upcoming book.

[andrew]

I don't think Vltchek: 

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/08/why-do-they-hate-us-3/

is necessarily an OLEG. When dealing with this type of religious fanaticism: 

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/Former+Dragon+Kevin+OL...

on a global scale; it is predictable and right that there be resistance. Whether the left leaning countries could develop healthy alternative societies for their populations is something that should be allowed to happen--without outward and wayward manipulations by the global corporatcracy.

[andrew]

We should also be mindful that over the last 500 years, it has been the collusion between institutionalized religion and royal houses ( who's inheritance today is the corporate structure), and their imperialistic mindset, that has brought the world to the precipice it now sits on. To me, it is no accident that the corporate structure is so mythically minded (Ka$h), considering the previous collusion. 

[andrew]

It may be worth considering here how IT will be used to justify violence in the coming years ( and it will be). If we were to look at IT's developmental theories within the context of what is going on in Irag NOW, today, ( based solely on todays circumstance) then i could see reasonable justification under IT for the use of force to protect a greater good ( the survival of an indigenous tribal people at the hands of bloodletting religionists). However, if one extends the lens of analysis a little wider , then the justification becomes much less sure ( and perhaps down right wrong) when dealing with the ongoing conflicts within those lands. If IT 's developmental theories become justification for global economic hegemony over indigenous lands, then we have a problem Houston. I don't have the solution for how to get Islam into the post-modern structure, but I sure as hell know what won't get them there!

Please pardon some of the grammar and spelling here: it's been a long physical working summer.