PlaNetwork People
June 10, 2003
Browsing through various blog posts about the PlaNetwork Conference I'm amused to find lots of different people. Compare these. (000121)
First, from Jay Fienberg, in his wrap up of the conference: (000122)
Do you know the Myers Briggs test? I think this conference has a lot of N's attending. I am an N too, so this is cool with me. But, I think I am a little in shock at being around so many intuitive, forward thinking people. I tend to expect being around people who possibly think you're a freak if your intuitive rather than people who are intuitive themselves, so this was great for me ;-) (000123)
Second, from mistaking paradise, with a brief comment about the first day: (000124)
today i went to day one of the plaNetwork conference at the presidio in san francisco. the attendees were a mix of hard core global social change activists, technology visionaries (including both brittle partisans and gregarious alpha geeks) and a broad base of left-leaning non-profit idealists. this is a soft money crowd, short on business logic, where capitalism is mistrusted and conservatives are considered an appalling subspecies. obviously by themselves this group is not on a fast evolutionary track to wide social collaboration as long as so many partisans wallow in simple closed minded arrogance. (000125)
We are the world... (000126)
What are you: (000127)
Comments
mistruster of capitalism, considerer of conservatives an appalling, lethally dangerous subspecies. (00012K)
Unfortunately, being an intuitive and forward thinking person doesn't always add up to being a cooperative and tolerant person (i.e., in the present). I can speak for myself, because I stuggle with understanding and working with certain individuals whom I strongly disagree with. (000130)
At the PlaNetwork conference, there were definitely some people whom I felt were aggressive and reactionary towards things they disagreed with. I didn't like them, and I tried to echew any support for their orientation. (000131)
In general, as a gathering of people, I was impressed by the number of forward thinking and intuitive people that were there. What was interesting for me personally was being able to talk about some visionary social-technology thing with so many people and hardly getting blank stares back from any of them ;-) (000132)
But, I really think of this as a personality style (one that I happen to like simply because it is like my own and I feel some familiarity around people with this style) rather than as an inherently good social orientation. (000133)
In other words, I don't think being intuitive and forward thinking inherently makes anyone cooperative and tolerant. (000134)
about the gathering of people i noticed that there was an openness to discuss things. Most of people i introduced myself to seemed really open to hear what i had to say. (00018U)
In terms of intuitive, yes being intuitive simply means that you have an openness to seeing things in the world that most people do not. I think there is a definite pattern emerging here in relation to various metaphors that we have used to understand the different ways of functioning and interacting with each other. Specifically that those in power are usually not intuitive, and that those who emulate them (the mainstream) are not as well. (00018V)
I do not feel being intuitive is an attribute you are born with but rather something that you achieve through what Prescott College ecopsychology professor Laura Sewall sees as a process of "becoming attentive" to the more subtle processes that underlie our reality. (00018W)
While it is true that not all intuitives are cooperative and tolerant it is much more difficult to be intuitive and to deny the complex interrelationships that sustain our world. (00018X)
Most of us came to this conference with the belief that the current capitalist system of capitalism is sucking the planet dry. Yet the roots of this system go way deeper than capitalism and embrace the core which is the patriarchal mentality of nearly all the world's civilizations. (00018Y)
While i do not believe it is wise to simply to devote yourself to a socioeconomic system as you would a religion (i even have some problems with that), i do believe that capitalism is the only system at the present time that is able to create social stability in our world. Capitalism works because it encourages people to produce more and to innovate, creating jobs and economic prosperity. Without these things it is difficult for us at this time to imagine how we could have social stablity. So there is an understandable obsession towards more and more growth. Yet capitalism is on the verge of bankrupting us socially and eoclogically because this drive is very primitive and unrefined, so that capitalism functions in an exploiative and unsustainable way. Eventually and ultimately the goal is to create a steady state economy. (00018Z)
The question is whether capitalism is essentially exploiatative as Chomsky and company say--the old guard left--a "mix of hard core global social change activists..."--or whether a new transitional (such as what Hawken talks about in his book natural capitalism) form of capitalism can emerge to help us to realize this vision of a sustainable and socially just society? (000190)
On the notion of the planetwork conference as a "soft money crowd..." (000191)
The people at the planetwork conference have not yet developed critical mass, because they have yet figured out how to practically deal with capitalism and the accompanying social system in way that is ideologically comfortable for them. Most are not at a stage where they have significant resources to finance their vision and make it reality. But critical mass is not simply about money, it is about how we can develop the empowerment and to empower others through effective social networking systems. (000192)
There was much discussion at the conference of the problems that we face as a species. Yet to fixate too much on the problems and not enough on developing viable, small, decentralized but highly networked human scale models of sustainable development. (000193)
Ahh, and where "capitalism is mistrusted and conservatives are considered an appalling subspecies...." Well i would say conservatism or liberal really has little meaning in our world today. (000194)
Francis Ford Coppola came to Arcosanti (www.arcosanti.org) and spoke at Paolo Soleri's weekly school of thought about this briefly. He said simply killing them off (those "appalling conservatives" who control our socioeconomic systems) is simply too messy (it is also not compatable with the idea of tolerance and respect for diverse perspectives and the people who express them). (000195)
We need to help those who are mired in the mainstream, (which i believe is basically conservative in that it is resistent to signficant and evolutionary social change based on deeply held fears) view of the world to see that their way of seeing the world is detrimental to their future and humanity's future. Creaively and innovatively communicate with those who defend the status quo with all their energy. (000196)
But it is not really about conservative or liberal or capitalist or anti-capitalist. The people who obsess about these things are reactionaries and they come in all the ideological colors of the spectrum. These people spend so much time talking about how evil the other side is that they have no time to think about sustainable, human scale solutions to massive global problems. (000197)
First though i think we need to better communicate with ourselves those who are supposedly on the same page. and i think that is what the people who came to Planetwork are attempting to do. (000198)