Taking Things Into Our Own Hands

How might we do this? I wrote before about Malcolm Gladwell’s tracking of Rick Warren’s ‘Cellular Church’, a religious and now social action network based on ‘cells’, political units even smaller than communities, handfuls of people with shared values and ideals working, each in their own way, on self-organized actions inspired but not directed by Warren’s ‘anti-hierarchy’. The power in the cellular church is all on the front lines. Warren is substantially just a facilitator, suggesting principles to guide the cells in deciding what to do, but not directing or coordinating those actions. He eschews the ‘power’ of hierarchy not out of altruism or humility, but because he knows that people will act more passionately, more persistently, more substantially, if the ideas are theirs than if they are ‘instructions from above’. Warren writes:

Suppose we were to try to create a complete, new social and political ‘system’, all over the planet, based entirely on personal responsibility and action at the cellular, microcommunity level, assuming the existing social and political systems can and will do nothing for us and have outlived their usefulness.

That movement would need a name, and it would need some kind of critical mass to launch it (we want Oprah to invite us to explain it, but if the legacy media aren’t interested, that’s just fine). It would also need four other things:

• Principles: A set of principles that reflect broad human values and ideals, especially those that are not reflected in the actions of the existing political and other systems. Those principles would guide, but not dictate, what the cells of the movement would focus their attention and actions on. They might include leaving a socially, ecologically and financial healthy world for our children and future generations. They might include self-learning and educating each other in the critical life skills we need to appreciate others and to be part of nature and to make a joyful, stress-free living doing things we are good at and love doing and which are needed. They might including preventing and self-treating diseases and illnesses and looking after each other when they are unable to look after themselves. They might include living a radically simple, indigenous life, taking from the Earth and from others no more than we need and no more than we give back. These principles would not be about standards or rights or things we should expect or demand of others. They would instead about personal responsibilities, what we hope for our future and expect of ourselves to pave the way to realizing those hopes. They would guide us to appreciate the world as it is now and could be and to take things into our own hands to make it better.
• Practices: A suggested egalitarian methodology for (a) surfacing relevant information about problems and issues that the cell is concerned about, (b) achieving a collective understanding of these issues and some promising approaches to deal with them, (c) deciding what to do, individually and collectively, and (d) when deemed appropriate by the cell, linking up with other cells interested in the same issues so they can collaborate on larger-scale activities. I think my complex system ‘convergence’ methodology, perhaps bringing in elements of the ‘U’ presencing methodology as well, might work: It’s scalable, egalitarian, proven to work in addressing the most complex issues, and not hard to learn and teach (and the more you practice it, the better you become at it). 
• Network Facilitation: A very lean, simple set of tools that enable cells to self-organize and to network and collaborate with other cells.
• Attention, Guidance and Encouragement: At least initially, in order to kindle the movement, the founding group will need to offer attention, guidance and encouragement to all the movement’s cells. I would suggest that they do this through what I call The Magazine (that’s simply what I would name it — the word means ‘storehouse’ and it would be a storehouse of information, ideas and enthusiasm for the movement). I’ve described the idea for this in an earlier article: Weekly looseleaf pages (suitable for those on both sides of the digital divide) that contain stories (no theory, no analysis, just real, detailed stories of what’s happening and what people are doing about it) that illustrate aspects of a critical issue, or possible approaches to it, that can be filed and archived in binders by subject, and which have a few ideas for possible action and space for each individual and each cell to note what actions they would propose to take.

Note that this does not require a large coordinating group, or a major media outlet to connect and communicate with the cells, or a large budget of time or money to ‘coordinate’. It is deliberately anti-hierarchical, not centrally organized, unfunded, and leaderless. The model is purely organic. It will take on a life of its own and go where it will go. The principles and practices will be amended by collective consensus. The founding group will establish the initial set of principles and practices, launch The Magazine, teach the practices to others, and then get out of the way — once the movement is launched, they become largely irrelevant to its evolution. Those with personal ambitions for fame and power need not apply.

How might such a grassroots political ‘system’ work to solve a problem like, say, global warming? It would probably start with self-education actions, then progress to conservation actions, energy self-sufficiency (using renewable, community-based sources), boycotting of major users and wasters of non-renewable energy and polluters, pledges to buy local, re-learning to make and do things for ourselves, and cooperative programs to achieve radically simple lifestyles. As the cells and communities that do these things start to be recognized as ‘model’ communities they will be emulated by others. Companies that make housing, automobiles, and other major contributors to global warming will be replaced by those that are more responsible and responsive to the new market. As the companies that now depend on huge government handouts and subsidies lose market share and become unprofitable, they will no longer be able to buy politicians, and those subsidies will end, removing many of the distortions in the current economy and accelerating the shift to more environmentally responsible, zero-waste, cradle-to-cradle production. Conservation all by itself could have a huge impact. So would a major grassroots move to buy local — wiping out the Wal-Marts of the world and creating astonishing new markets for locally-produced products, while eliminating the need for long-haul transportation — a major contributor to global warming. As we re-learn how to make things and do things for ourselves, we will re-discover the wondrous value of community, of self-sufficiency, of taking time for simple pleasures, and abandon the malls for the much greater (and less destructive) pleasures of the back porches of those we love.

None of these changes assess blame for or directly confront the major perpetrators of global warming. The political system exists to protect the wealthy and powerful and perpetuate and increase their wealth and power. The politicians and lawyers are paid to block political solutions to global warming. What this grassroots approach does is ignore the existing political system and create a new one, which we the people control, that renders the existing political system obsolete. I think the power to stop global warming is on our hands, not through the ballot box or the street demonstration, but by educating ourselves what we can do as individual citizens and consumers to stop feeding it, and to choke off its source of political and economic support through personal, responsible behaviours.

In an upcoming article, I’ll take a stab at a first set of principles for such a movement. Suggestions for principles, and for a name for themovement, more than welcome.

Thanks to Jon Husband for his provocative e-mail that prompted this article.