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January 29, 2004 By Uncategorized

Good old whiskey river:

As we are already that which we seek, all that is needed is a 180 degree turn to look one’s self in the eye. But the courage needed to turn to face the Void or the ‘Faceless’ is far more than most of us possess. So we manufacture fantasy worlds of power, magic and the paranormal, and blissful flights to describe what we think enlightenment might be rather than truly facing its shattering nature.

It’s another way to talk about what happened to my friend Doug.

When I think about Emergent Democracy, and I confess that I’m not well schooled in the theory, I ask myself, from whence does democracy emerge? And that is really the nature of the question that leads me to this thinking I have been doing about decolonization. I think that democracy emerges deep within the person – everything emerges deep within the personal – and it flows from a truthful and honest engagement with oneself. Living in truth is just this: understanding where that “line of conflict” really is within us and developing the capacity to choose and act on it when we are called to.

Ken Wilber has written extensively on this stuff, and I offer a quote from his classic Sex Ecology and Spirituality where he quote G and R Blanck, authors of Ego Psychology:

“Evolution…is a process of progressive internalization, for, in the development of the species, the organism achieves increased independence from its environment, the result of which is that ‘reactions which originally occurred in relation to the external world are increasingly displaced into the interior of the organism.’ The more independent the organism becomes, the greater the independence from the stimulation of the immediate environment.”

— quoted in Wilber, Sex Ecology and Spirituality, p. 263.

That independence from the external environment includes freedom from the cultural stories that tell us that we can’t do things, like overthrow totalitarian regimes. Becoming independent as a person leads to new connections that ARE the emergence in “Emergent Democracy.” And it seems to me that once that force is unleashed, change is almost a done deal. Or as Schell puts it:

Individual hearts and minds change; those who have changed become aware of one another; still others are emboldened, in a contagion of boldness; the “impossible” becomes possible; immediately, it is done, surprising the actors almost as much as their opponents; and suddenly, almost with the swiftness of a thought – whose transformation has in fact set the whole process in motion – the old regime, a moment ago so impressive, vanishes like a mirage.

— Schell p. 166-67

Think about that. It starts with one thought, a thought that arises from a mind that has freed itself from the tangle of external “can’ts” and has jumped from mind to mind and heart to heart. That’s it. And so when the change comes, it seems like a dream, as Havel was fond of saying about his presidency. One day you are a pariah to the state, and the next moment you are president.

A comment left a Jon’s blog wirearchy illustrates the defeatist perspective that I’m talking about. The commenter writes:

With the Democratic primaries going on what I’ve noticed is the conflict that often makes true change impossible. The people who want a change talk about how much they want things to change, and then they begin to winnow out the candidates who are different, who would change things. The excuse is, “We need someone electable,” someone who is close enough to what we already have, someone who is not noticeably different from Bush. Someone sort of conservative. We want someone who is liberal and innovative, but who is fade, and will not rock the boat. Because… damnit, we like the boat.”

Those are the kinds of stories that we have to free ourselves from. I mean that the author of these comments has to free himself from them. Worried about what other people are doing. This is what Schell means when he says that before living in truth is opposition, it is affirmation. That’s what Doug discovered. Action is possible and even easy, but it’s a lot of work to get past the frame of impossibility that we construct around ourselves to become, what the Blancks call “independent.”

But really, what choice do we have if we are to live in truth?