Democracy Co-Intelligence in Politics, Social Change, Community and Cultural Evolution
Holistic Approaches to Politics and Social Change
Other parts of this site relevant to co-intelligent politics
(all articles are by Tom Atlee unless otherwise specified)
This section contains my favorite articles about democracy, which were very influential in shaping my co-intelligence political theories.
Perspectives on Democracy
[9K] suggests three ways of viewing democracy - the power perspective
(represented by Democracy:
A Social Power Analysis and Ralph
Nader), the participatory perspective
(represented by Living Democracy)
and the intelligence perspective (represented by articles
in the "Co-Intelligence in Politics"
section of this page). These three essential perspectives give
us a powerful 3D view of democracy.
Living Democracy [29K]
Frances Moore Lappé and Paul Martin Du Bois' brilliant
new vision of democracy -- as it is being practiced in communities
around the United States. This article features their reconceptualization
of power and self interest; their innovative description of "the
arts of democracy"; and, on a separate page, their insightful
chart Alternate Conceptions
of Democracy.
Democracy: A Social Power
Analysis: [42K] John Atlee describes the different forms
of social power, the laws by which they operate, and how to design
a democracy using these laws. This article, written by my father,
provided a breakthrough in my own understanding of the nature
of power, freedom, democracy and the nature of our democratic
institutions.
**The
Challenge of Technology in a Democracy
provides a series of articles about how democracy can sustain
itself when most of the challenges it faces are too technical
for the citizens (or even their representatives) to understand.
It also offers some resources for teledemocracy (the use of telecommunications
technology to enhance democracy).
The Concord Principles
[15K] Ralph Nader's blueprint for bold new democratic institutions
through which citizens would control what they own (airwaves,
public lands, pension funds, etc.); would operate powerful watchdog
groups to keep corporations in line; and would make the electoral
process work for them -- up to and including voiding elections
by voting for "none of the above." The Concord Principles
were a foundation of Nader's 1992 presidential candidacy.
Participatory Democracy: Three Paradigms - Vera Bradova
describes the pros and cons of representative democracy, direct
democracy and democracy as self-government, leading to a vision
of their ultimate integration into a fuller democratic system.
This long, well-footnoted article was way ahead of its time when
first published in 1993. Includes an extensive bibliography. [still
being scanned and edited]
Principles of Public
Participation - Lists of guidelines from The International
Association for Public Participation, The Community Development
Society and the Co-Intelligence Institute.
American Indians: The original
democrats [8K] quotes from Jack Weatherford's research to
show how the Native American societies were the utopian model
guiding Jean Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Paine, as well as the
source (through Benjamin Franklin) of federalism, constitutional
removal of leaders, taking turns speaking, and caucuses.
Deliberative Democracy - This rapidly
spreading concept comes closest to the co-intelligence vision
of democracy, and is already well developed in the world. For
the rationale behind it, see A
Call to Move Beyond Public Opinion to Public Judgment. For what's going on in the world in this field,
see An overview of
the emerging deliberative democracy movement
and Fascinating references
on deliberative democracy
A compact vision of co-intelligence
[26K] - This essay offers an overview of co-intelligence, simplified
into two parts: collective intelligence and collaborative intelligence.
It shows how integrating these two produces a new vision of cultural
transformation. Even this introductory material, well applied,
could have a profound impact on our culture.
Democracy and the Evolution
of Societal Intelligence - A relatively quick look at
the evolution of society's intelligence from strong leaders through
democracy and beyond.
A Co-intelligent Social Change
Agenda [78K] - This long essay describes many things that
could be done to build a co-intelligent society, and the holistic
logic underlying them all. (I often use its section Some
Notes on Economics and Co-Intelligence [15K] as a separate
article.) Building
a Culture of Dialogue (among other things) [26K]
is a shorter article based largely on "A Co-Intelligent Social
Change Agenda" -- although each of these articles contains
much unique material.
Deep Democracy and Community
Wisdom [9K] explores the intrinsic advantage that a community
has over an individual in generating wisdom: an individual is
limited by their single perspective, whereas a community contains
many perspectives, diverse capacities, wide-ranging knowledge.
An important task of government and leadership is helping communities
translate their diversity into usable wisdom.
Co-Intelligence and the Holistic Politics of Community Self-Organization [35K] describes, from a permaculture perspective, some design principles for self-organizing communities. Includes notes on leadership, co-intelligence, a couple of dozen tools for self-organization and dialogue, the spectrum of politics and the powerful formula REPRESENTATIVE DIVERSITY + CONSENSUS PROCESS = POLITICAL WISDOM. The application of this formula is explored further in Citizen consensus councils [10K] which describes a process design (of which there are a half-dozen existing different models) that could be the foundation of a far more co-intelligent democratic order (see also citizen deliberative councils). Citizen consensus councils and direct democracy [9K] explores how to integrate the two approaches. (For lots of other community-level co-intelligence materials, see Community Co-Intelligence )
Pat & Pat, a view from 2020
(fiction by Tom Atlee) a futuristic,
down-home story about a new, co-intelligent politics. It tells
how Patrick and Patricia McFallow become co-mayors of Story City,
Iowa, in 2016. During their four-year mayorship they engage thousands
of citizens in powerful, empowering conversations about what they
want their community to be like and how they can change it. Of
course, the community starts changing, brilliantly and fast.
Political Life: Moving from
Collective Stupidity to Collective Intelligence [27K] provides
clear guidelines for how to redesign our public life for greater
collective intelligence. Also see A
closer look at societal co-stupidity.
Thoughts on Co-Intelligent
Social Change [11K] - A compilation of lists including "Guidelines
for co-intelligent social change," "Notes on positive,
co-intelligent social change actions" and "Some possible
characteristics of a co-intelligent society (to guide our social
change efforts)" -- all written for social change activists.
Co-Intelligence and Social Change
[20K] - The first and perhaps best description of co-intelligence
for social change activists. See also Co-Intelligence
and Issue Activism and The
Search for a More Deeply Alive, Effective Activism.
Feedback, Social Power, the
Evolution of Social Systems [23K] explores the role of feedback
in evolution and learning, in the evolution of intelligence, and
in the health and transformation of social systems, noting the
critical crossroads we've come to and the possibly mythic role
of concentrated wealth in the coming transformation.
Co-Intelligence as an Approach to
Transformational Social Change [14K] is a somewhat technical
paper written as a chapter for a book on Transformational Social
Change (I have no idea if it ever was published!). It features
the role of synergy (the whole is greater than the sum of its
parts) and "holergy" (a part is greater than its role
in any whole) in creating change.
Jumping from the Hot Pot: Notes on
Democracy in a Technological Age [55K] is a critique of exceedingly
risky scientific and technological developments, with suggestions
about how co-intelligent political approaches could monitor them
to avoid catastrophe.
A "scientific" democratic process? [7K] - Is it possible to replicate group wisdom with a different set of participants, just as one replicates experimental results in another laboratory?
Using Synergy, Diversity and Wholeness
to Create a Wisdom Culture [45K]- Here is the theory underlying
holistic politics. It explores the "more than" in the
common phrase "the whole is more than the sum of its parts"
-- especially analyzing different types synergy and the ways in
which the whole and part embody, contain or connect with each
other. The resulting lessons are explicitly applied to the challenge
of evoking the wisdom of the whole on behalf of the whole.
Changing Worldviews,
Changing Politics [6K] - This brief, cogent article
explains how democracy is based on the "old paradigm"
of Newtonian mechanics -- and how holistic "new paradigm"
understandings require a new perspective on politics. A somewhat
longer version of this thesis, with many practical applications
of holism to political life, can be found in Thinking
Holistically beyond Politics and Governance [14K]. (Both
of these could be put in the section above, but they focus on
the holistic paradigm, rather than co-intelligence, so I've placed
them here. -- Tom)
The Politics of Human Potential
[11K] - A letter about collective intelligence to California
State Senator John Vasconcellos who proposed a politics based
on human potential. The letter suggests (a) that we need to enhance
citizens' collective capacity for generating wisdom, (b) that
this is the proper role of politics and (c) that the Senator could
advocate this as part of enhancing our collective human
potential. Includes a great quote from John Dewey on the role
of intelligence in a democracy.
Transformational Politics -
[40K] Tom Atlee's first major article on the subject in 1991,
revised in Sept 1999, which contains the unique 6-band "Spectrum
of Political Engagement" and explores how we might develop
the two upper bands, cooperative politics and holistic politics,
and what the nature of such "Transitional Politics"
might be. A briefer exploration of a similar spectrum can be found
in "Transformational Politics
(draft outline)" [10K].
Beyond positions: a
politics of civic co-creativity [12K] Tom Atlee's commentary
on the 2000 Presidential elections, noting that "Taking positions
prevents us from moving towards each other, and with each other,
to find options that better meet the needs of all involved, including
the needs of the communities and societies in which we live."
Requirements for Success [8K]
- Robert Theobald's wise, popular credo for cultural transformers,
developed with his colleagues in the Transformational Learning
Community.
Collective Intelligence in the
Solar Age [8K] - Hazel Henderson describes in one page a global
social vision of balance between competition and cooperation --
and between left and right brain thinking -- moderated by numerous
social and economic feedback systems and informed by Gaia. She
suggests that this approach would allow us to evolve into an era
of gentle, intelligent, collaborative democracies.
A New Paradigm Democracy Movement? - [11K] Tom Atlee suggests that many recent democratic innovations could add up to a new holistic political order, if we could just get together and explore how that might be the case. He proposes a set of assumptions to gather around and some steps interested parties could take now.
The Search for a More Deeply
Alive, Effective Activism [14K] Tom Atlee outlines an inquiry
into more holistic forms of activism, including an essay on Activism and the New
Science: Some Lessons for Action in a Nonlinear World.
Spiritual Politics: (see links below)
The overarching mission of this co-intelligence work (as represented by this site) is human co-evolution. From a co-intelligence perspective, politics should also be about co-evolution -- the way we collectively, progressively change our policies, institutions and societes. So you will find that many of the ideas, methods and examples of co-intelligence offered in this site have potential political applications, even when they weren't first designed for that. The following parts of this site are significant resources for co-intelligent politics.
- Co-intelligent approaches, processes, organizations
- Stories and examples of co-intelligence
- The co-intelligence dimension of Y2K
- Co-intelligence books and publications
- Co-intelligence quotes
- Co-intelligence ideas, theories, models
- Community Co-Intelligence
- Sustainability Resources
- Integrated Human Systems
Moving Beyond Power Plays to Collaboration [11K] by Kenoli Oleari
Feedback loops, resilence, financial systems and Y2K by Tom Atlee
Co-intelligence thoughts on Seattle WTO demonstrations by Tom Atlee and others
Spiritual activism/politics articles and sites:
Three pieces by Tom Atlee on the spiritual underpinnings of collective intellience and wise democracy:
"Spirit and Stardust" speech by US Rep Dennis Kucinich
"Politics as Spiritual Practice" speech by former mayor Larry Robinson
Caroline Casey's Center for Visionary Activism - a wild, politically conscious, extremely alive and visionary mix of astrology and many forms of spirituality.
The Global Renaissance Alliance http://www.renaissancealliance.org/GRA/index.html is a citizen-based, international network of spiritual activists called to take a stand in our local and national communities for the role of spiritual principle in solving the problems of the world.
The Center for Visionary Leadership's interesting site on spirituality and politics http://www.visionarylead.org/spiritualityandpolitics.htm , features explorations of how to apply spiritual principles to social problems and citizenship, and includes a nascent effort to organize spiritually-oriented voters.
Paul Ray's "New Political Compass" -- Post-materialist social and consciousness movements are shifting politics in the Western world beyond left vs. right to a 4-directional politics that resembles a political compass. The New Political Compass is summarized in YES! magazine on http://www.futurenet.org/22art/ray.htm and you can download the full report (167kb) at http://www.futurenet.org/22art/NewPoliticalCompassV73.pdf.