Introduction
Exploring this book
Let us put our minds together and see what
kind of life we can make for our children.
-- Sitting Bull
This book was written for all the people who
want a better world than we have now. It is especially written
for social change agents, community organizers, spiritually motivated
activists, and the millions of people sociologist Paul Ray calls
"cultural creatives" -- the co-creators of a new culture.
If you happen to be someone who has left activism because it was
too adversarial -- or if you feel called to be more active in
response to the suffering, danger or tremendous possibilities
you see in the world -- this book is for you, too. I wrote it
as an invitation to everyone who is seeking to transform our human
culture in conscious, collaborative, life-affirming ways.
Its purpose is two-fold. First, I want to introduce
you to the co-intelligence perspective -- a vision of what intelligence
might look like if we deeply understood wholeness, interconnectedness
and co-creativity.
Next, and most importantly, I want to explore
how we might use the perspective of co-intel-ligence to transform
our troubled democracy into a living system capable of creating
a world that works for all, by generating the collective wisdom
we need to creatively address our twenty-first century problems,
opportunities and dreams.
The political vision of this
book
I called this book The Tao of Democracy
because Lao-Tzu, the founder of Taoism, is famous for his insistence
that when leaders lead well, people feel that they did it themselves,
and that it happened naturally. Democracy is, in the end, about
creating processes that allow people to empower themselves, not
about Great Leaders saving the people. This book is about increasing
the capacity of We the People, as a whole, to govern ourselves
wisely, thereby realizing the dreams of all democratic visionaries
from Lao-Tzu to Thomas Jefferson.
At the core of the political vision in this
book is a straightforward, simple, and yet revolutionary thesis
that flings open the doors to positive democratic change:
Given a supportive structure and resources,
diverse ordinary people can work together to reach common ground,
creating wise and deliberate policy that reflects the highest
public interest.
Around the world thousands of people have experimented
with democratic innovations based on this premise. In this book,
I explore the evidence that these "citizen deliberative councils,"
in their many forms, can be used to help us resolve social problems
much more wisely than we do now. I also explore the possibility
that these innovative institutions, combined with other aspects
of co-intelligence, could produce a new culture capable of
consciously evolving itself.
Our predicament
Such democratic innovations are critical at
this moment in history to deal with the crisis-generating capacity
of twenty-first century civilization:
Collectively, we are creating effects in
our world beyond our collective ability to comprehend what we
are doing, at a speed that surpasses our collective ability to
reflect and respond.
It does not take a rocket scientist to see
where this is headed. Our civilization is racing headlong into
massive breakdown or breakthrough -- or both. This book is about
consciously choosing breakthrough. It is about breaking through
to conscious evolution and conscious co-creation of our collective
future.
Most of you are undoubtedly all too aware of
our considerable social and environmental problems. I will not
burden you with the usual litany. But I would like to use a few
of our troubles to illustrate the point I make above, about the
imbalance between our capacity to create and our capacity to respond
to the consequences of our creations, as communities and nations.
It is clear to many of us that, in the very
near future, our lives will be changing even more dramatically
than we have already experienced. Our vast collective power --
our technological and economic power -- is so great that we are
creating impacts far beyond what is called "the human scale"
-- that scale of everyday life where we evolved with a certain
balance between our powers of creation and our powers of response.
Gone are the days when the worst we could do
was conquer a neighboring tribe or overgraze a local hillside.
We are reaching a point where individuals and small groups will
be able to create, or destroy, almost anything. We have moved
beyond the scale of centimeters and miles down into the microscopic,
even subatomic realms, and up into the planetary and interstellar
realms, from angstroms to light years, from nanoseconds to gigabytes.
We break up atoms and chromosomes. And collectively we change
forests to deserts. We litter the upper atmosphere with layers
of space junk zooming around earth at hundreds of miles an hour.
Our inventions are transforming the lives of our grandchildren's
grandchildren -- and we do not have the foggiest notion how. And
we are doing all of this faster and faster, more and more, bigger
and bigger.
Meanwhile, individually, we can directly comprehend
only a tiny fraction of what we are collectively doing. Our individual
senses, nervous systems and brains are not capable of taking in
the gigantic effects, both current and potential, that our civilization's
creativity is capable of generating. Our nervous systems are set
to respond to what is here and now and obvious: we can not feel
radiation, the population explosion, the vital information missing
from our newspaper, the disappearing ozone layer. And when we
are faced with any significant piece of the full information,
we get overwhelmed.
Stop and think about this for a minute.
We cannot individually comprehend the range,
depth and detail of the consequences we are collectively generating
for ourselves.
Well, if we cannot appreciate our circumstances
individually, perhaps we can do it collectively. Unfortunately,
our democracy is not designed for that. Even in those rare instances
when it is not being manipulated by special interests, it operates
on elections and polls, on the numerical adding up of our individual
opinions. Logically speaking, this cannot do the job that is required;
if we can not individually comprehend our circumstances, adding
all our individual incomprehensions together will not improve
our understanding.
The need for collective intelligence
and wisdom
It is clear we need far better ways to perceive
our world, to reflect on it, to act and to learn from what is
going on around us. Of course, we need these things as individuals.
But most of all, and urgently, we need these capacities as whole
societies -- indeed, as a civilization.
The language I use to talk about this is that we need greater
collective intelligence than our democracy is able to deliver
in its current form. It is not that we need a better collection
of intelligences, a mere sum of all our individual smarts. We
need something that is significantly larger and more synergistic
than that, an intelligence that is bigger than the sum of its
parts.
In other words, we do not need collected intelligence.
We need collective intelligence, a coherent integration
of our diversity that is greater than any or all of us could generate
separately, just as an orchestra is greater than the sum of its
instruments. We need a new kind of collectivity that does not
repress individuality, diversity and creativity but that, instead,
allows us to arrive at creative consensus without compromise.
We need a shared power that calls forth the best in all of us
and cherishes our diversity for the riches it contains.
Furthermore, we need to apply an unprecedented
level of collective wisdom to all the challenges we face. Right
now, there is much wisdom on earth, scattered here and there.
But our collective actions as societies are clearly not wise.
It is far too easy to imagine that the problem is "out there,"
with all of the various powerholders and interests groups that
keep the wise solutions that already exist from being implemented.
But if we find ways to work with one another across a wide range
of differences, we could then create the broad-based coalitions
we need in order to implement the wisdom that we have.
We need ways to focus our full capabilities
-- heart, mind, soul, and gut -- on our collective situation.
We need to be informed by big-picture sensibilities, aware of
our potential for both catastrophe and evolution, for both co-stupidity
and collective wisdom. We need methods that can help us deepen
and expand our thinking, feeling and dreaming, and we need ways
to weave it all together, collaboratively, into a shared future.
Co-intelligence is the capacity to do that, individually and collectively.
Co-intelligence
Co-intelligence is a capacity. It is also the
field that explores theories and practices dealing with the dynamics
of that capacity and how to use and enhance it. There are many
tools available for this task, as you will find in this book.
As a culture, we have abundant insight and know-how that just
need to be pulled together and aligned so our whole society can
see and think and feel and dream more effectively together.
When we succeed at that, we will not only be
saving ourselves from disaster. When we become fully capable of
wisely co-creating a better future, we will be taking a giant
step forward into conscious cultural evolution.
It is time for us to take that step.
Exploring the landscape of this
book
This book is arranged so that later chapters
build on earlier ones. But it is also possible to explore areas
you are interested in by dipping into relevant chapters.
- In particular, if you are interested in democracy,
take a look at Sections III and IV -- looking over chapters whose
titles appeal to you.
- If you are interested in what all this has
to do with Taoism or spirituality, check out Chapters
4 and 20.
- A very condensed summary of co-intelligence
is available in Chapter 1.
- If you learn best through stories
and examples, Chapters 2, 12 and 13 will be your cup of
tea.
- If you collect methodologies and processes
(as I do), you will likely find Chapters 7, 8, 13, 14, 16 and
17 of special interest.
- For better understanding of the democratic
design innovation most central to this book -- citizen deliberative
councils -- read Chapters 12-14.
- Activists will
find Chapters 5 and 19 thought provoking.
The purpose of this book, as noted above, is two-fold: to introduce you to co-intelligence,
and to show how co-intelligent processes and systems can help
us solve our collective problems wisely.
Sections One and Two introduce you to the basic ideas and conceptual models
of co-intelligence, illustrated with a variety of stories, examples
and descriptions of co-intelligent methods and processes.
You will discover a key definition of co-intelligence
-- "what intelligence would look like if we took wholeness,
interconnectedness, and co-creativity seriously." Co-intelligence
moves beyond IQ-based theories to offer a view of intelligence
that is fully alive and far more comprehensive than individual
reason.
In Section One you will also learn about six
manifestations of co-intelligence: multi-modal intelligence,
collaborative intelligence, resonant intelligence, collective
intelligence, wisdom, and universal intelligence. Focusing
on the fourth and fifth of these, collective intelligence and
wisdom, we proceed to Section Three, the heart of the book: an
exploration of how co-intelligence can transform our public affairs,
the area of life that we usually think of in terms of politics,
governance, citizenship and activism.
Section Three tackles that realm head on and in detail, describing
how we can create a conversation-rich deliberative democracy
that naturally and dependably produces community wisdom.
It offers an overview of cooperative and holistic politics, as
well as the role that citizen deliberative councils can
play within this larger picture. Citizen deliberative councils
are the key innovation featured in this section. Hundreds of these
councils have already been held around the world, in a wide variety
of forms and contexts. When you get a glimpse of this compelling
story, currently invisible to most Americans, I expect you will
see how great a difference these councils could make if popular
demand led to their widespread use as a regular part of our democratic
system.
Section Four explores how we might proceed with this and why we
must. After delving into the dynamics that have made current forms
of citizenship almost meaningless, this section describes
the emergent "culture of dialogue" and many ways people
are tackling public issues together. It explores the co-creative,
non-adversarial conversation, participation and action that can
transform twenty-first century cultures. And finally, it takes
a look at the kinship between co-intelligence and the Tao.
After reading reflections on people who are
involved in this emerging movement for a co-intelligent
culture, you can explore some ideas for becoming a part of this
movement, yourself.
At the end of the book you will find an annotated bibliography
of books that have contributed to the development of co-intelligence.
What is now possible
Remember the thesis I said was fundamental to this book:
Given a supportive structure and resources,
diverse ordinary people can work together to reach common ground,
creating wise and deliberate policy that reflects the highest
public interest.
This book explores the many ways in which this
statement is true, and how we can use this truth to transform
our world. While some amount of supportive structure and resources
are essential to this process, it is by no means a prohibitive
amount, especially considering the resources that we spend in
other areas and the mounting cost of our thorny social and environmental
problems.
Fostering collective intelligence on a society-wide
level is a project that requires complementary top-down and bottom-up
strategies integrated so that they feed back into each other.
A broad movement in support of citizen deliberative councils can
lead to the use of this highly-effective means of harvesting the
"people's wisdom" on behalf of the common good.
If we created such a movement (see page 276)
-- and as it succeeded -- those periodic citizen deliberative
councils would provide high quality, dependable public judgments
about public issues that concern us all. Although they would be
"only" temporary small groups of ordinary citizens,
they would do their work and make their statements from the "top"
of our political culture. Instead of highly placed public officials
deciding everything with one eye on fickle "public opinion,"
we'd have groups that reflected the evolving, thoughtful, informed
wisdom of our whole community or society, speaking clearly into
official deliberations and into the widespread conversations going
on naturally all the time at the grassroots.
This new feedback loop between the top and
the bottom would continue as the conclusions of these councils,
and the stories of their participants, catalyzed more such conversations,
generating a broad base of support at the community level to make
the wise course-corrections our society needs.
You may consider this book an introduction
-- and invitation -- to the Co-Intelligence Institute's websites:
co-intelligence.org and democracyinnovations.org.
They contain extensive additional information on all these subjects.
With your support and whatever energy and insight
Life sends through us, further books and projects will be forthcoming.
May it prove to be a great and fruitful journey for us all.
Coheartedly,
Tom Atlee
Eugene, Oregon
July, 2002
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