Our Collective Wisdom

Hiatus

I AM NOT DONE.... I SHALL PERSIST.... I SHALL RETURN
~ Alan Briskin
Talmudic Commentary: "Pshh, Big shot.  I'll believe it when I see it."

Dear Friends and Subscribers to Becoming Conscious of Capitalism,

When I first began writing, I sought to discover new perspectives about our social and economic arrangements called capitalism.

I wrote at the beginning:

"At a time when many voices are calling for a new form of conscious capitalism, this is a chance to step back and  consider where we have been and how we can best shape the future."

My intent then, as it is now, was to share my journey of exploration, to clarify, provoke, inform, and at times delight.

I now am entering another period of reflection and discovery, so there will be a hiatus regarding regular posts.  I will continue, through my blog The Power of Our Collective Wisdom, to send periodic musings, quotes, images, and notice of books and events unfolding. If you have not already done so, please subscribe to my blog and/or mailing list to be notified of postings.

We'll let you know when the series begins again.

The Heart of Collective Wisdom

I will be speaking at the Unitarian Universalist Breakfast Forum in San Francisco on Sunday, March 11, 2012.

My topic is "The Heart of Collective Wisdom".

Come join me!
Martin Luther King Jr. Room
First Unitarian Universalist Church
1187 Franklin St. at Geary
 
Breakfast begins at 9:30, program begins at 9:45 and ends at 11:00
 

WISDOM EMERGING

WISDOM EMERGING:
Finding the Intersection of Leadership,
Spirituality and Courageous Action
with Alan Briskin, Lauren Artress and Angeles Arrien

January 26-29, 2012
Earthrise, Petaluma
Register Now for early bird rates
Download the Brochure

 I'm excited to tell you about a four-day workshop I'm co-presenting with Lauren Artress and special guest Angeles Arrien called Wisdom Emerging: Finding the Intersection of Leadership, Spirituality and Courageous Action. Jan 26-29, 2012, at Earthrise in Petaluma. REGISTER NOW for early bird rates.

For the past two years Lauren and I have been outlining ideas for a workshop that would reflect our belief that this is a critical time in human history for groups to develop new visions of the future, and bring together our work on collective wisdom.  We are delighted that our friend Angeles Arrien, who is also a key contributor to the collective wisdom field, has agreed to join us as a guest presenter.  

Journey to Hell: Not a One-Time Offer

ALAN JONES WRITES IN THE SOUL’S JOURNEY:

“We need to go to hell by entering that place where our longings and desires are trapped. What particular hell do we need to confront? What or who in us is lost and crying out for help? James Hillman implies that going to hell is vital for the soul because 'the cure for the shadow is a problem of love'. How far can our love extend to the broken and ruined parts of ourself, the disgusting and perverse? How much charity and compassion have we for our own weakness and sickness?’ What can help me take on the spiritual task of confronting my deep sense of shame?; Is it possible to really love oneself? What about those unworthy and unacceptable parts? Must we love them too?”

For me, the moral of this passage is that it is OK to tell people to go to hell, but first you must visit yourself and find out a few things - what you can reconcile, what you can forgive, and what you can heal. Hell can be a place where we regain our vitality, remembering the parts of ourself that have been shut off, shut down, and ridiculed. Hell is where we regain our fight, our delight in fantasy, our memory of long lost desires. But hell is not all wine and roses. The price for wholeness is a good deal of discomfort. If you go to hell, leave a note for yourself that the most frightening parts are temporary and have a way of preparing the soul for a richer and fuller life.

Alan Jones says that visits to hell are critical because the good is so easily corrupted. Evil is always most appealing when it is served up with a high ideal, a faux moral value, a fantasy of purity and holiness. Hell teaches us to be aware of such things, in others and ourselves. Not long ago, I listened to an Iranian gentleman who was imprisoned and tortured under the Khomeini regime. He said he once asked his guards why they tortured their own people. They answered if was for the prisoners’ own good, so that their souls would be purified for the next life.

If we cannot tolerate the inner journey to hell, we will create it outside. So tell people to go to hell, and don’t skip the trip for yourself.

Virtual Choir

For anyone who wants to believe in the humanizing possibilities of a connected world,
here is your anthem.

--Chris Anderson, TED Curator

The composer Eric Whitacre invited his online fans to participate in an ambitious attempt to create the world's largest virtual choir. Featuring 2052 performances from singers in 58 countries, the Virtual Choir 2.0 - singing Whitacre's "Sleep" - is the largest assembled online in history, and far surpasses Whitacre's original goal of 900 voices.

Check out his website

Or listen to 5.5 minutes of meditative music followed by credits from around the world.

 

(Recommended by Jeff Wood)

The World Peace Game

Check out John Hunter talking at the TED conference on solving the world's problems with his fourth grade class... it's entertaining and touching.... and suggests that in the emergent nature of self organizing groups, there is a human capacity for wisdom that is not written in any manual.

 

Recommended by Noah Blumenthal

Essential Qualities

"One of the essential qualities of collective wisdom is a palpable sense of connection with each other and to larger forces that is found, for example, in nature, in relationship to our ancestors, and even in relation to a physical place….

People who talk about their experiences of collective wisdom often report a sense of openness and awareness of something larger than themselves. The ability to communicate seems broader, and people are often astounded by the creativity that comes forward.

“You have a sense,” Frenier observed, “that the whole group is creating together, and you don’t quite exactly know how.”

~ The Power of Collective Wisdom: And the Trap of Collective Folly

 

Hula Hoop Activity

The following exercise was developed by Marty Kaplan:

Collective Wisdom:
Activities for Attunement, Discernment and Calibration

Name: Hula Hoop Activity
Number of People: 6-10
Materials Required: Hula Hoop
Space Requirements: Sufficient space for 6-10 people to stand in a circle
Time Requirements:  25 - 35 minutes

• 5 minutes set-up
• 10-15 minutes active problem solving
• 10-15 minutes discussion

Tea and Intolerance, Part Five: What Can Be Done

Aikido World Headquarters, Tokyo, Japan; photo by Alan Briskin

I began this series of posts by addressing the question of what can be done in groups and collectives whose members value open and honest dialogue but are faced with individuals or sub groups who are adamant about their beliefs, dogmatic in their tone, and unrelenting in their positions.  I explored the Tea Party as a case in point and wondered how there might be a way to understand their appearance on the national stage from historical as well as psychological and social perspectives.  Most critically, I wondered if there is a way to step inside another’s shoes without having to agree with them, but still able to respect the larger framework and validity of their respective positions.

To my delight I began to receive answers from the universe of people, events, and projects I interacted with.  Here was my first revelation - that when one asks a question sincerely without too many preconceived answers, new possibilities begin to emerge. I began to notice that my attention, having been shaped by my interior question, began to have greater focus, subtlety, and agility.  I could pay attention longer to an issue rather than moving to a reductionist position.  I could sense nuances and texture to arguments that seemed at first blush right or wrong and I could move more easily through the ambiguity and complexity of the issues.  I was having reverse attention deficit disorder symptoms without the side effects of medication.  For entrepreneurs reading this, we should call it RADD and market it.

Second, by listening with this kind of attention, I began to see, hear, and grasp new facets of friends and colleagues, many of whom I’ve known for decades. 

Collective Poem

This poem was created out of fragments of speech over a three day period, drawing from individual conversations and group discussions I had or witnessed at the annual Berrett-Koehler Publishers Author
Co-op retreat.  The language used was specific to the situation but I have been encouraged by others who were not there that it may have a significance beyond its original setting.  I hope it tickles your fancy:

Collective Poem

We’re running short on time
but don’t knock yourself out:
We want to reach as many
People as possible
Skyrocket sales
Create a twenty-year book
from a launch party
that lets 1,000 flowers bloom.

Walking 2.5 miles of an
interpretive nature trail
I wonder how to interpret
my life. 
Am I wayfarer or tourist?

I keep hearing that there is
so much to cover,
But did I not also hear
that the trail is a circle.
And in a circle, we will
come to the same place –
again and again.

Kabir said as much
But I felt the invitation
and the challenge.
When my time ends, will the
world cry or rejoice?

Two streams parallel the trail I’m on.
One flows from the past with all
its inconsistencies and shadow.  The
other runs into the distance obscured
by the brush.

Are there not also two parallel lives
we live, the one on the inside and
the one we show to the world?

I know I need to tweet and blog
and have a services page,
but I have been instructed by
higher counselors to consider what
I need to receive, to ponder
what of value I resist.

There are those who bound over
rails, unencumbered by the
group… but we’re running short
of time and it is by holding
hands and moving accordion-like
that we will reach the
farther shore.

I was asked if
I was coming or going
and said Yes!

~ Alan Briskin, 2010

Part and Whole

A poem based on phrases and fragments of a speech* given by Deepak Chopra:

My grandchildren are here today
the most important part for me.

Here is my question:
What if consciousness
was not
a byproduct of our brain?

What if instead
it is the ground of Being,
the basement of the Universe
in geometric space-time
where all co-exists
as possibilities.

The great Rishi wisdom teachings
tell us consciousness
cannot be imagined
but makes the imagination possible.
Can you imagine?

From the basement of space-time,
everything is born from a quantum vacuum,
 Beauty, Truth, Love, Joy, Compassion,
and also our Diabolical Self.
There is only the collective mind
that shows up as the individual mind.

The sage plunges into it,
expresses it, becomes one with it.
Healing is nothing more than
the memory of wholeness

Nature can say that the
human species
was just an experiment
that didn’t work out
Or Not!

The frantic search for security
only reinforces the insecurity.
Surrender to the mystery
of the divine,
which is constantly on the move.

My grandchildren are
here today,
the most important part.

* Deepak Chopra’s speech, on which this poem was based, was given on the day he received the Goi Peace Award** in Tokyo, Japan,  November 8th, 2010. 

I was there as a moderator the following day for a panel discussion with Deepak and thought leaders from Japan on the subject of death and dying, and wrote the poem from fragments of his speech and the group conversation. 

The mission of the Goi Peace Foundation, which sponsored both events, is to bring people together in wisdom, united in their hearts toward the common goal of peace on Earth. By encouraging public awareness and building cooperation among individuals and organizations in all fields, they aim to build an international peace network and stimulate the global trend toward a culture of peace.

Threshold Guardian

Part One of the Tea Party series is already catalyzing response - witness this exchange begun on FaceBook by Michael Harkins with a reflection about the imagery that accompanies my post:

Michael said:
"Alan, you put into words many of my same thoughts. I must say I too enjoy the satire of Colbert, but also worry about the fragmentation of America. I can't help but wonder about the image you displayed with your thoughts. It appears to be ...a threshold guardian. These images often barred the way to all but the bravest. To go past this point would take all the Hero's strength, wisdom, and luck. Is there a place we can go to iron out these differences? I hope we can get past the gnashing of teeth, and find a common ground, and start healing America."

I responded:
"Michael, I love your observations and I think the threshold guardian archetype is crucial. We become frightened by what we cannot yet see - which is a territory in which our differences can be mediated by a love that is larger than our mere opinions. It is very difficult for an individual to do this alone, to get pass the guardian without harm, but it becomes more possible with others."

Michael again:
"I also think with the exaggerated polarization in our society, the threshold guardian leaves no common ground. If we looked on the other side of the statue we’d see that this demon is a Janus with two faces, pointing in opposite directions, keeping us apart. No single individual can push the two halves apart to make a space, a temenos, a sanctuary, where we can share our thoughts and be unafraid. As you say, it will take many of us, and much love."

Your thoughts are welcome - on this theme of threshold and what might lie beyond it, or whatever else calls to you. Watch for Part 2 of the series, coming out October 25th...

Empathic Civilization

If you have to ask what a picture is worth, then you probably can't afford this column.

In The Power of Collective Wisdom we wrote "seeking collective wisdom is a conscious attempt to elevate group life from its history of fighting tooth and claw to reach the top of the hierarchy or achieve dominance over others."  And we referred to the human capacity for empathy, compassion, and the role of mirror neurons in allowing for the permeability of emotional life.

So check out these words below from economist and best selling author, Jeremy Rifkin, the author of The Empathic Civilization. If you want to see his ideas come to life in pictures, however, check out this graphic illustration of his ideas (sent by my colleague, Gabriela Melano, this is a 10 minute synthesis of a much longer presentation - brilliant).

"Economic activity is no longer an adversarial contest between embattled sellers and buyers but, rather, a collaborative enterprise between like-minded players. The classical economic idea that another's gain is at the expense of one's own loss is replaced by the idea that enhancing the well-being of others amplifies one's own well-being. The win/lose game gives way to the win/win scenario.

In the distributed economy, where collaboration trumps competition, inclusivity replaces exclusivity and transparency and openness to others becomes essential to the new way of conducting business, empathic sensibility has room to breathe and thrive. It is no longer so constrained by hierarchies, boundaries of exclusion, and a concept of human nature that places acquisitiveness, self-interest, and utility at the center of the human experience."

~ Jeremy Rifkin

Collective Collapse: It Takes A Village To Implode

Robert Moffat, senior vice president of IBM systems and technology group, was recently arrested by the FBI for conspiracy involving insider trading. The arrest sent shock ways through Wall Street exposing illicit, back channel dealings between prominent high tech executives and hedge fund managers. My information comes directly from Fortune Magazine, also seemingly shocked by it all, and reminding me of the policeman character in Casablanca played by Claude Rains who closes Rick’s Café by telling Humphrey Bogart, “I’m shocked, shocked to find out that gambling is going on here.”

Robert Moffat apparently was a hard working and respected executive considered a potential successor for CEO at IBM. The Fortune article describes him as a numbers cruncher, former Eagle Scout, and a man weighing in at 6-foot-2 and 265 pounds – a solid guy on all fronts. He had become sexually involved with a woman who worked for a hedge fund and she was quoted saying that trading business information was for her “like an orgasm.” The tale becomes more complicated as she was in love with her married hedge fund boss but it didn’t work out. Shocking.

One of Moffat’s attorney colleagues summed it up best: “There was no planet on which I could have understood what was being said about Bob. I just shut down.”

So we have insider trading among millionaires and billionaires, an Eagle Scout who seems to have it all risking everything, a woman who finds stimulation rubbing shoulders (at least) with powerful men, and another man who simply cannot comprehend how a straight shooter like Bob could go wrong. Well, there certainly is a lot to be shocked about. What we have here is a collective collapse. Most disturbing to me is the notion expressed by Bob’s colleague that he knows of no planet to understand what happened?

Where Has All the Wisdom Gone?

The magazine Leadership Excellence dedicated its recent issue to wisdom and wise judgment. Review the entire magazine, including my article, Collective Wisdom: Where has all the wisdom gone in organizations?

From my article:

Peter Senge writes in the foreword of our book, The Power of Collective Wisdom: “Few words have a longer historical association with leadership than wisdom and few words have less credibility in that association today.”

What has happened to account for such a discrepancy? And, what does the concept of wisdom offer today in a networked world driven by speed, time pressure, and fierce competition? Download my article (pdf)

Lauren Artress on Collective Wisdom

This is a short video of Lauren Artress talking about the importance of collective wisdom. Lauren is the founder and creative director of Veriditas, a non profit organization dedicated to introducing people to the healing, meditative powers of the labyrinth.

100 Words

William Murtha has just come out with a new book, 100 Words: Two Hundred Visionaries Share Their Hope for the Future. The book has plenty of visionaries and my words as well...

At the time, I was reflecting on Teilhard de Chardin’s prophetic writings about the nature of the noosphere and how the very nature of our suffering as well as the global threats to our planet would usher in a new form of consciousness.

Here are my 120 words:

If I were to look into the future, I’d see the living envelope of life, our biosphere, becoming more fragile. As I scanned further, I would also note something else, an energy force surrounding the biosphere, crackling with spiritual energy. In small groups and through millions of networks, I would observe healing actions that signified our collective potential. Looking further, I would see a circle of humanity creating a future that honored our interconnectedness. These first millions would be heralds of a new consciousness. They would grasp the co creative power of solving problems together. Rather than fearing the loss of their individuality, they would form associations that respected human differences and each others' talents. This would be collective wisdom.

Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

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A serial journal of cogent reflections and irreverent insights on the social effects of capitalism and the roots of partisan politics. Pairing prose with HDR photography and “flash points” drawn from current and historical perspectives, the author seeks to recover lost wisdom and courageous action beyond the shouting and noise of today's headlines. 

Chapter Sixteen
The Dark Prophet
Part II: Capitalism's Shadow
Time Range: 1867-1883, 2012

It is easy to dismiss Marx as a revolutionist or even as a theorist of socialism, but much harder to ignore his warnings about capitalism. He had discovered the Achilles’ heel of economic arrangements that celebrated their ability to create prosperity, generate innovation, and provide a bounty of goods and services as well as jobs. Capitalism proclaimed itself the final act in the history of economic evolution. Marx refuted the claim. His diatribes, as painful and polarizing as they were, force us to become conscious of capitalism’s other consequences.

We are confronted with capitalism’s shadow, the dependence on jobs defined solely by the marketplace, the depletion of natural resources, and the addiction to material gratification and personal glory out of sync with spiritual, community, and personal growth.

Yet, for all these dark prophecies, they are still within the imagination to address. There is ample evidence of the power of human collaboration combined with science and social purpose to tackle even the most difficult social issues. The darkest prophecy that Marx left us was not about economic concentration, ecological destruction, or the effects of inequality. It was about ourselves. It was about human polarization, the nature of privilege, and feelings of revenge - things Marx understood deeply in his bones.

HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography by Alan Briskin: multiple shots at different exposures are combined into one image in order to show "more of what's there".

Chapter Fifteen, Part Three

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A serial journal of cogent reflections and irreverent insights on the social effects of capitalism and the roots of partisan politics. Pairing prose with HDR photography and “flash points” drawn from current and historical perspectives, the author seeks to recover lost wisdom and courageous action beyond the shouting and noise of today's headlines. 

Chapter Fifteen
Moving from Factions to the Whole: Paying Attention in New Ways
Part III: Social Perspectives
Time Range: 1811, Current Times

FLASH POINT

"If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check."
— Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Duane, 1811
 

Social Perspective: How Inequality Gets Under Our Skin
What societal pattern might connect a heightened sense of mistrust, poor health, violence, diminished life expectancy, and low job status? If you guessed social and economic inequality, then we are beginning to think collectively together. But why? Why should this be the case? We would need to explore the multiple interlocking factors that determine and influence the frequency and distribution of this kind of pattern. We would need epidemiologists willing to use their training to identify the root causes of illness and other health-related events in social and economic circumstances, unrelated to any particular economic theory or ideology.

Remarkably, this is exactly what epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett set out to do in their book The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. With mind-numbing charts, diagrams, and statistical comparisons, these two professors documented why, by virtually every measure of well-being, the distribution of wealth far outweighs the importance of overall wealth in a community, region, or nation. Boiled down to its core, the results of these studies demonstrate how social and economic factions fracture the whole and make it worse off for everyone.

How so?

Social and economic inequality creates exaggerated differences in social standing, and social standing — our place in groups — has a dramatic influence on our health, intelligence, well-being, and positive images of the future. Here are three dramatic examples from animal and human studies drawn from Wilkinson and Pickett's work:

HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography by Alan Briskin: multiple shots at different exposures are combined into one image in order to show "more of what's there".

Chapter Fifteen, Part Two

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A serial journal of cogent reflections and irreverent insights on the social effects of capitalism and the roots of partisan politics. Pairing prose with HDR photography and “flash points” drawn from current and historical perspectives, the author seeks to recover lost wisdom and courageous action beyond the shouting and noise of today's headlines. 

Chapter Fifteen
Moving from Factions to the Whole: Paying Attention in New Ways
Part II: Mind - Body Perspectives
Time Range: NOW

FLASH POINT

"The transformation of human consciousness is no longer a luxury, so to speak, available only to a few isolated individuals, but a necessity if humankind is not to destroy itself.
At the present time, the dysfunction of the old consciousness and the arising of the new are both accelerating. Paradoxically, things are getting worse and better at the same time, although the worse is more apparent because it makes so much `noise'.

Silence and Stillness
When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world."
~ Eckhart Tolle in Stillness Speaks

Mind and Body: A Physiological Perspective on Wholeness
The movement from factions to wholeness includes the wisdom of the body. It may seem a leap, but being aware of our body is a direct experience of the movement from part to whole. By attending to breath, we slow down and cultivate presence. By being aware of our physical body, we bring into consciousness the wisdom of the throat, heart, and gut. By attending to stillness, we awaken our connection to the infinite.

The body does not lie. When we are excited, aroused, joyous, giddy, we know it from inside our physical being. Similarly, when we are feeling disturbed, frightened, humiliated, anxious, or angry, our body is registering that as well through physical processes that cannot be negated by the outer mask we wear. Eckhart Tolle said it well: “When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world."

In our research on collective wisdom, one of the surprising findings was how many people in the field of facilitation understood this as an essential element in their work with groups. Named one of the ten key practices for preparing for the movement to wholeness, whole body sensing was described as the movement away from logical, orderly, cognitive processes alone and toward the mind’s connection to a “cellular intelligence that permeates the body.” This form of intelligence allows for subtler signals from the body to be recognized, a “serious discipline for the integration of the human system — mind, emotions, and body, for right and left brain integration; and essential for the integration and completion of collective learning” (Alan Briskin, Sheryl Erickson, Chris Strutt et al, Centered on the Edge).

HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography by Alan Briskin: multiple shots at different exposures are combined into one image in order to show "more of what's there".

Chapter Fifteen, Part One

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A serial journal of cogent reflections and irreverent insights on the social effects of capitalism and the roots of partisan politics. Pairing prose with HDR photography and “flash points” drawn from current and historical perspectives, the author seeks to recover lost wisdom and courageous action beyond the shouting and noise of today's headlines. 

Chapter Fifteen
Moving from Factions to the Whole: Paying Attention in New Ways
Part 1: Psycho-Spiritual Perspectives
Time Range: 1787-1789, Current Times

FLASH POINTS

"Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction."
— James Madison, Federalist No. 10, November 23, 1787


"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men … where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all."
— Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789 (source)

The Founding Fathers of the United States, like Madison and Jefferson, were deeply concerned with the tendency of groups to congeal into political factions and dictate solutions from their own factional viewpoint. With only a touch of irony, Jefferson’s statement, that he would decline an invitation to heaven if it meant going with a political party, should give us pause as we look out on our current landscape of political activity. However, it was not conflict they were avoiding, nor were they looking for simple forms of compromise among multiple distorted views. They were, in an uncompromising fashion, looking for productive angles by which the union could be preserved and intelligence awakened in the collective body. They were seeking to unravel a paradoxical riddle: How could creation of a central government be complementary with individual moral agency?

HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography by Alan Briskin: multiple shots at different exposures are combined into one image in order to show "more of what's there"