Harrison:
Your post resonates, in part, with things that I am working with right now but
are not yet in writeable
form...
Anyhow, The first thing that came to my mind is that you need to read the book
from Francesco Alberoni (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Alberoni),
"Genesis" (Genisi, in Italian), that describes in detail the processes
of emergence (or metanoia) of movements that have transformed the governance of
society, from the French or American revolutions, to the primitive
Christians or the Reformation.
Indeed this may
apply to an individual (Paul's metanoia), to the creation of a "society of
two" (as in love, treated in his book “Innamoramento e amore")
or to the "collective metanoia" (emergence) of social forms of
governance.
I don't know if
there are English versions; check it out.
Abraços
Artur
________________________________
From: Harrison Owen <[email protected]>
To: 'World wide Open Space Technology email list'
<[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2012 4:46 PM
Subject: [OSList] Emergent Governance
Several days ago I had the unique pleasure of joining our friends and
colleagues (by Skype) in the Ukraine for their OSONOS. Given the state of the
Ukraine, to say nothing of the state of the world, the conversation eventually
got around to the subject of Leadership and Governance – and how could all that
work. That conversation seemed to meld seamlessly with one I had had with a new
friend here in the USA… Leadership and Governance. And mixed in was a new
thought (for me) all about Emergent Governance. As I said to my US friend…
You started me thinking – which ordinarily is a dangerous thing. I can’t quite
pin down the logical trail, but that is not surprising because I usually find
myself thinking in circles. But one point along the way was a conversation I
was engaged in yesterday. There is an interest group which has monthly
luncheons at my club with the vaporous name of “The Human Values Group.” In
truth we talk about whatever pleases and may or may not have value. Anyhow the
conversation yesterday drifted to a consideration of various political forms.
It seems that some of our members had just returned from Cuba, so that was the
start. Then we got on to dictatorships of various sorts ranging from China to
Singapore… and shortly we were arguing about the “goods and the bads” – which
quickly morphed into ideologies/political systems, and you know where that one
could go.
As the folks headed into the stratosphere of abstraction – I found myself
thinking, wondering might be better – Has anybody ever done a natural history
of governance? Rousseau pops to mind, but he always seemed to me pretty
idealistic, and just as doctrinaire as anybody. For sure we have certainly done
histories of governance, tracing our way back from the present to whenever. But
how about the reverse? Two folks get together, Adam and Eve for example.
Relationships form and certain modes of behavior seem to work, others don’t. It
is not a function of laws, and certainly not legislation or “idealized models.”
Just very practical – and more to the point a natural expression of that
fundamental relationship which to the extent that it is ever verbalized might
be something like --- the way we do things around here. Well that might be the
beginning of a story, but before I got too far with that one, my mind jumped.
To Open Space. Funny thing. We have opened space 100,000’s of times in multiple
cultures, and the behaviors are almost identical (except for superficials like
language, dress, etc). And nobody ever specified the rules. The Principles
don’t count, and yes we do announce the Law of Two Feet – but all of that is
simply to acknowledge what will happen anyhow. So could we be looking at
emergent governance? We are definitely looking at the process of self
organization (I think). Could that be the root of governance?
Big jump – here’s a thought. Rather than thinking about (working on, creating)
models of governance (autocratic, democratic, plutocratic,
sociocratic…whatever) which are then promulgated (you wrote a book, so did Karl
M.), and if implemented are almost inevitably laid on from the top (wherever
the top isJ)… how about starting at the bottom/beginning and see what grows
naturally? Emergent Governance!
It would perhaps become necessary to clean things up a bit, regularize it, so
to speak – but that should be done, I suggest, all under the rubric of finding
the minimal level of structure necessary to sustain life. But all that could
only be done after the fact…of emergence.
Just Thinking…
Harrison
Harrison Owen
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