Posts Tagged ‘democracy’

When The Minority Is You

Nov 26th, 2009

What do you do

When democracy’s all through

What do you do

When minority means you?

‘What Do You Do‘ by The Proclaimers (from ‘Sunshine on Leith‘ -1988)

I was listening to this song the other day. I don’t usually pay much attention to the lyrics, but something about the line ‘What do you do when minority means you?’ caused me to stop and think (yes, it happens from time to time!).

Minority of One

I am a minority of one.

No other human being has the same view of the world, interests or responsibility for my life as I do. Even if I found someone who was similar enough I doubt I would fully trust them to govern any major aspect of my life. That’s my responsibility and I don’t want to put aside some things that are important to me – such as my continued education, my health, the well-being of my family etc..

We are all minorities.

As being a minority can be a lonely experience, we tend to group together in many different ways. We’re each part of communities based around families, schools, churches, interests, work or where we live. Each of those communities is a minority as well.

The only point at which we stop being part of a minority, I suspect, is when the community is so large it encompasses each and every one of us – the community of all the human beings sharing this planet.

Majority Rule

I get the impression at the level of society that the mainstream has settled for our (principally US and European variants) vision of how to organise at society level. Of course it’s a hugely complex thing and living in Europe I’m much more familiar with Western forms of government that are often conveniently lumped together and called ‘Democracy‘.

One of the principles I’ve taken for granted through my whole life is that of ‘majority rule‘ – one of the seemingly unchallenged foundations of democracy. Whenever a group of people has to make a collective decision, in my experience it ends with someone saying ‘Let’s vote.’ Of course, the unspoken assumption is that the majority will get their way and the minority will immediately give up their disagreement and follow the decision.

I’ve been wondering if maybe the root of many conflicts and violence in the world are a direct result of this assumption. After all, whenever a majority forms, there is, by definition, a minority. Aren’t many of the wars in the world a direct result of separation into majority and minority? Minorities fighting to get heard? Majorities resorting to force to get submission of the minority?

Is ‘majority rule’ really the best way we can imagine of making collective decisions?

Learning and Growing

As an individual I’m changing and developing throughout my whole life.

Physically I may start to decline at some point, but how I see the world and operate in it gets better and better as I learn. When things don’t work I make adjustments and when they do, I capture what works and repeat it. Sometimes I go down a path that isn’t serving me and then I might make radical change, but usually the growth is more gradual.

I’ve found that this is not just an unconscious experience but one where I bring things to the surface, explore my experiences to learn from them, to consciously grow and seek improvements.

While the process and the journey are different for all of us, I believe we’re fundamentally built the same way – as learning machines.

I do this as an individual, but …

… Are We Learning As Communities?

Probably, but there are not many signs of it. Reading the media and watching the foreign policies of the powerful nations I would have to conclude that ‘democracy’ and ‘majority rule’ are perceived as the ultimate form of governance. So much so that there’s a desire to export them all over the world.

I don’t have any answers at the level of society – but I’m concerned by the lack of conscious questionning of our ‘systems’ by those who hold power.

There are form of governance that don’t alientate minorities – for example ‘sociocracy‘. But there seems little appetite to introduce these kinds of government that include minorities rather than exclude them.

And it scares me.

After all – we are all minorities.

Heart of business

Jun 23rd, 2009

by ianpeatey.

20 comments

‘Business bashing’ seems to be a common pastime with corporations getting the blame for everything from pollution, climate change, destruction of the natural world through to waging and maintaining war. In short, just about all the ills of the world are apparently on the hands of big business.

Is business really that powerful and that destructive?

It’s driven many of the rapid advances in our standard of living over the last few hundred years. So yes, it is powerful! These advances (mainly enjoyed by the minority of the world’s population) have come with many, unpleasant side effects. So, yes, it is also destructive.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the power of business could be harnessed in a different way? A way that doesn’t extract such a high price from the majority of mankind and from our planet?

Behind every business …

Blaming business doesn’t really get to the core of the problem as it’s a convenient facade to hide behind.

Much of the complexity of the business world is nothing more than smoke and mirrors hiding a way of organising people (sometimes very large numbers) to do together, more than they can do on their own. It’s a way of bringing people together to create value, and, through the market economy, pass that value on – which was made a whole lot easier with the invention of money.

Isn’t that what it ultimately boils down to?

All the time we’re pointing the finger at ‘corporations’, we’re not talking to the people behind the face of the the corporation. Business is people – always was and always will be.

‘Business’ itself doesn’t do anything – people do. Many may have a legal identity of their own, but they have no life of their own – people do. Organisations don’t make decisions, that’s what people do. And businesses don’t wage war, rape the environment and pollute the planet. PEOPLE do!

I’m convinced that these are not bad people and they are not deliberately wreaking havoc and destruction on the world. In the many years I spent in large corporations, I don’t remember ever meeting someone who was hell bent on devastation or intent on causing pain and suffering.

What I did notice were three things that I believe contribute to some people apparently not caring about the world.

1 Leaving your heart at home

A few days ago I was sitting behind two businessmen on a train. I really wasn’t eavesdropping, they were talking loud enough for everyone to hear who chose to. I don’t know exactly what they did or what their responsibility was but they were talking about problems with one of their businesses caused by the economic squeeze. They could have been venture capitalists, or something like that. Before anyone writes to tell me that they couldn’t have been venture capitalists because of x, y and z … I’ll just say that I have little idea what a venture capitalist does, it just sounded good.

“It’s not a problem. I’ll just tell the 4 of them they don’t have jobs any more,” said one.

What struck me most, was that he laughed as he said this. It could have been nervous laughter, but from the way the two of them were talking it didn’t seem like it. In any case, his tone was light and cheerful. Business as usual.

How can someone talk so lightly, even with amusement, about telling someone they no longer have a job?

There seems to be unwritten rule that when we walk into the workplace, we are expected to leave the majority of our emotional world at home – especially that part connected with compassion. Typically we’re employed for our bodies or minds, but rarely for our hearts.

The man on the train had clearly left his heart somewhere.

2 Fear

Despite all the talk about empowerment and employee ownership, most business remains firmly autocratic, hierarchical and strangely resistant to democracy. In my experience few bosses deliberately use fear to get things done. There are some around, but they really don’t need to.

Fear is built into the structure of most organisations.

Most people I talk to are not motivated to work solely for money or position (a rare few are) but they do value the sense of security they have from a ‘steady job’. It takes a lot of courage to disobey, disagree with or even speak your mind to your boss when you don’t like how things are going. If that applies to the small things, then it’s even harder to speak up against the corporation you work for.

It’s easy to say, “If you don’t like what your company does, then leave” – but for many people, while clearly a choice, that’s a frightening step.

Fear steps in.

On a day to day basis, the boss influences and decides promotions, pay increases and many other things. The boss can punish and can reward and whenever those two appear, fear is not far away. Fear of getting punished, fear of not getting rewarded.

Fear is built into business as a tool to get things done.

Would fear be needed if everything we did in the name of business made the world a better place?

3 Distracted from purpose

I think business has simply got off track.

There are many reasons why it’s happened. The dominance of the financial systems lead to short term focus on what’s easily measurable (profit, share prices etc). Intense competition in many areas of business require hard, aggressive tactics to maintain market position – and hard, aggressive tactics are rarely high in the compassion stakes.

There are surely plenty of reasons why business has generally lost sight of its purpose. It is there, just hidden under surplus layers of commerce and an obsession with short term gain.

We’ve forgotten that behind all business is an intention to create value and serve life.

And we’re all part of it in some way. Whether you work in a business or just buy stuff from business you can make a difference.

Be clear on purpose, carry your heart with you always and act out of love, not fear.

Bridging the empathy gap

Dec 26th, 2008

by ianpeatey.

7 comments

UPDATE - 2 January 2009

‘Bridging the empathy gap’ has made it to the next round of voting as the most popular idea in the ‘Government Reform’ section and in the Top 10 most popular ideas overall. Next round of voting starts on 5th January to decide the 10 ideas that will be presented to the new President. I’m very grateful to everyone who supported the idea in the first round and ask that you continue with that support into the second round of voting. Ian

This post is a bit of a departure from normal as it’s a message mainly written by someone else.

It’s a request for your support in bringing a very specific, ‘peace-making’ proposal to the attention of President Elect Barack Obama. I’m excited about this, not only for the idea itself but because it’s done in way where my single vote has a measurable impact on the chances of its success (my own vote moved the counter from 156 to 157 votes casts).

The idea has been developed by some of my friends and colleagues at the Center For Nonviolent Communication and they’re hoping to get overwhelming support for this idea (as a minimum they need around 1,200 votes by 30 December 2008). Even though I’m not American I’m still affected by, and interested in, decisions of the Administration and this approach gives me a voice without interfering.

I invite you to have a look at the copy of the Email below and if you’re drawn to it, then follow the instructions for voting. You might also consider linking to this post, copying it, stealing it, Digging it, Stumbling it, or anything else you can think of that might give it wider attention.

If you’re not drawn to, you can still do the same, just you probably wouldn’t want to vote!

Here’s the message:

We are requesting support for a proposal to begin a movement to increase the empathic ability of those who serve in our government. Literally 4 minutes of your time with only 5 steps to bring an idea before the Obama team that could effect the kind of change we are all hoping to see!

President Elect Barack Obama said, “I will open the doors of government and ask you to be involved in your own democracy again.” Change.org has created a forum that will submit the top ten voted for proposals to the Obama team for review. Ideas for Change in America is a citizen-driven effort to identify and create momentum around the best ideas for how the Obama Administration and Congress can turn the broad call for “change” across the country into specific policies.

We have posted a proposal named “Bridging the Empathy Gap – Yes We Can” designed to make empathy central to government functioning, tying it to Obama’s repeated highlighting of empathy as a crucially needed quality. The proposal is appended at the end of this message for your review.

To make it to the 2nd round of voting on this site, we probably need to have at least 1,200 votes for this idea in the coming week. If you are moved to have this idea brought to the attention of the administration, please take the steps below as soon as possible. Ideas that get a lot of votes quickly are posted as “ideas on the rise” and have more of a chance of getting votes.

Click on: http://www.change.org/ideas/view/bridging_the_empathy_gap_-_yes_we_can (or if the link doesn’t work go to http://www.change.org/ideas and search for this proposal or for “empathy”)

Click on Vote! and a window will open to create an account asking for name, email and a password

Fill in window to create your account

Return to your email to complete registration by clicking on the link provided in the email from change.org

Click on Vote again and you are complete! The “Vote” button will have changed from blue to red and the text will say “Voted”.” It will only let you vote once for each item.

Once you have an account you can invite friends and get them to vote as well.

Our hope/goal/intention is to create an overwhelming response to our proposal so it can get the attention it needs to be brought to fruition.

Thank you for giving your time in this way.

Catherine Cadden, Jori Manske, Kathleen McFerran, Miki Kashtan, Sylvia Haskvitz

HERE’S THE PROPOSAL

Bridging the Empathy Gap – Yes we can!

President-Elect Barack Obama has spoken repeatedly about empathy, which he defines as “the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes; to see the world through those who are different from us.” In his words, “And that strikes me as the most important quality that we need in America right now and around the world right now.” Empathy is a value we can cultivate in our government now.

We propose to create an inter-departmental office of empathy (or a division within a Department of Peace if one is established) that can support the closing of the empathy deficit by employing strategies such as the following:

1. Implementing specific processes and methods for making empathy central to government operations both within government and in every sector of society to support meaningful use of our resources.

2. Identifying specific offices, agencies, and individuals within government that would benefit from intensive training in empathy skills.

3. Utilizing advanced empathic facilitation as a foundation for decision-making to support efficient and productive processes in all branches of goverment.

4. Assessing the impact of government policies and decisions on the overall purpose of bridging the empathy gap.

5. Creating public forums for dialogue to create empathic connection between people across differences – political, religious, ideological, racial, class, etc. The purpose of such forums would be bridging divides in our nation.

6. Creating and proposing curriculum based on Nonviolent Communication (www.cnvc.org) to all schools for teaching empathy skills.

7. Creating an Empathy Corps – volunteers trained in empathy skills to go into conflict zones domestically and internationally to support diffusion of conflict through empathic connection.

“Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.”
- President-Elect Barack Obama