This is page three of our conversation centering around Joe Simonetta and
his book, Seven Words That Can Change the World.
VISIT:
Page One Page Two
Joe writes to Suzanne:
Let's say we get "X" number of people together. I speak. People are moved. They ask of us what the next step is. What is our answer? We need to think about this.
Suzanne replies:
Yes. The others who rabble rouse leave you stirred, with nowhere to go. Unless or until we have some alignment beyond ourselves in place, perhaps it's just to collect ourselves under the Mighty Companions umbrella, where everyone is invited to stay in touch (and, of course, keep promoting "Seven Words" as the guts of an alignment, just as I've been hustling for with the auspices I contact). We'll be the filter for what goes back out to everyone, in "making sense of these times." What we all "do" develops – things can happen in different cities, like they will be happening in L.A. But the starting point is this simple spine of yours, to collect ourselves around – "progressives" can't be a body, as we need to be, until we shake on some deal, and that's what we're offering.
Joe replies:
Yes, and it's good that you have Mighty Companions in place to direct any potential traffic and to serve the purposes that you outlined below. That is valuable. Somewhere deep in my consciousness, I'm getting the message, "Think out of the box. Do something unique." I've got to figure out what that is. There is something that wants to come through.
Jeff Hutner writes:
You must read the cover story of the New Statesman, Should We go to War Against These Children? by John Pilger.
It is hard to understand the disconnect of humanity from its heart and soul. War is just another obscene business that operates on the foundation of divide and conquer rather than unite and embrace. It is in this separation from the wholeness and oneness that underlies our very existence that psychic and ultimately physical pain has its roots. The beauty of a child running free in the meadow contrasts with the starving and dying children – an estimated 35,000 each day. One can only look at history and wonder what the first men thought when they destroyed another precious life. With the military-industrial cartel in power, we sit at a golden dinner table surrounded by armed guards eating foods sprayed by outlawed pesticides from third world countries forced to export them to pay off their mountains of debt leaving their own citizens to fend for themselves.
What a world....And where and how do we overcome the inertia of building arms and begin linking them in a revolution of the heart and an evolution in consciousness. Perhaps by reading your book, Joe....
Joe responds to Jeff:
What you wrote is very beautiful and perceptive. Your answer is correct, we must evolve as a species. Otherwise, we are lost.
Suzanne responds to Jeff:
I picked up on Medialens.org from the John Pilger piece you sent, Should We go to War Against These Children?. [The site says this in describing its posting of progressive pieces: "Medialens has grown out of our frustration with the unwillingness, or inability, of the mainstream media to tell the truth about the real causes and extent of many of the problems facing us, such as human rights abuses, poverty, pollution and climate change."]
It moved me to write this to the Editor of Medialens:
We are of one mind, and I appreciated everything I read as I browsed on your medialens.org site. You would feel the same, I trust, about my site, "Making Sense of These Times," and I would feel myself to be in very good company if you added it to your links page.Something I think has happened in the last couple of weeks that has emboldened me to think of the reality of the power of an alliance. My thoughts were sparked by what's happening with Michael Moore, where the book that his publisher wanted to shred as out of keeping with the times has moved to the top of best seller lists, while Moore has been attracting huge, passionate crowds to his talks. This was on the heels of the extraordinary speech by Dennis Kucinich, calling us to the same higher mindedness that Michael Moore inspires, which has not stopped flooding my email – it is everywhere. For the first time, we can sense the power of the opposition to the Bush administration – before that, we couldn't get serious about an alliance. I think we can now.
With all of the intelligence on your site and mine, and on others we link to, I am feeling pressed to see how we can move from being gadflies into becoming a force. My best contribution is dialogue on my site among some people who write intelligently about the issues of the day, especially the track found at www.theconversation.org/joesimonetta.html. The grist here, for the spine of what progressives could rally round, is what Joe Simonetta compellingly presents in "Seven Words That Can Change the World," which has been read by all the participants – something better than the global capitalist system that "Our Insane Society" rails against, which would be the essence of the inner liberation talked about in "Ironclad Hearts." ["Our Insane Society," by David Cromwell, and "Ironclad Hearts," by David Edwards, are articles posted under "Philosophy" on the Medialens Articles: Subject Index page.] Some unifying factor, it seems to me, is what we lack for, and, if not this, then something else. My interest was in getting this dialogue underway.
I hope that I have opened up something between us. I am looking for an explicit alignment. It can start with just two entities – Margaret Mead was on to something re the "small group of thoughtful, committed citizens," which could be your auspice and mine. Are you interested in pursuing anything along these lines?
Joe writes:
Here is the first print review of Seven Words I've seen so far. It was in the NAPRA Review. I received it in the mail today from Hampton Roads.
The boldness of the title is a good bet to provoke curiosity. Can seven words really change this world? If so, what are they? This book doesn't disappoint. Though, of course, a book must be longer than seven words, even world-changing words. Simonetta is a skilled writer who makes every word in this slim volume count, a master at crafting basic truths simply and elegantly. His seven words, which shall not be revealed here, refer to three different kinds of relationships that he calls the foundational relationships of life: relationship with self, with others, with the environment. "Knowledgeable people have amassed a great amount of information about how to care for ourselves, relate to others, and respect our environment," he asserts.
Allan Savory writes:
I have been getting a lot of comment on my speech in Australia and my work on assisting governments to formulate policies that are socially, environmentally and economically sound – short and long term. As I always point out, the problem begins right at the outset with people formulating policies toward the achievement of objectives or goals, either to deal with or to prevent a problem.
Today I saw this comment in our general listserve with an interesting Website and reference to yet another person who is doing some clear thinking:
Alan notes: "If high ups or anyone comes up with the policy to achieve an objective there is always muttering at some level. If people come up with the same policy but toward an agreed holistic goal there is no muttering!"
There is solid reason for steering away from objective/subjective reasoning when it comes to wholes...Hillman puts it very succinctly in his piece Justice and Beauty - Foundations of an Ecological Psychology. He gave this piece upon receiving an award from the Italians in Rimini, his second. He was introduced by Gorbechev.
His point is that sub/ob is Cartesian reductionism at its worse when applied to our home here in this Animated World. Like the part in Allan and Jody's book when they go into the list of what works with mechanical thinking and what does not.
We must move beyond reduction for the sake of the world/our worlds....
Suzanne responds to Allan:
In a world where money is the primary measure, we are in a matrix that cannot evaluate in anything but a subject/object reductionist way, it seems to me. Justice and beauty are contexts of a different ordering. Who could argue with the inherent nobility off a world guided by those lights? What Joe is positing is a kind of A B C which operationalizes justice, grounding such high mindedness in a measurable practicality. Would that we all would relate in a landscape where art and aesthetics mattered more than economic reward. Wish we had some modern version of a philosopher king to call us to higher ground.
Jeff writes:
I never thought I'd agree with Fidel Castro, but it's not who says it but the truth of their words that really matters. Truth trumps ideology, reputation or source. What do you all think?
http://www.counterpunch.org/castrospeech.html
Eugenia Butler writes:
Did you see this from Fidel Castro? I think he really nails what’s going on globally. Fascinating.
http://www.counterpunch.org/castrospeech.html
Suzanne responds to Jeff and Eugenia:
I did see it, and was debating using it. Everything he says could be the statement of a philosopher king, but putting Castro on a pedestal as a visionary world leader made me crazy. What do you think? (Now, I'll insert it, thanks to your sending it, and perhaps others will have opinions, which I would love to hear.) I actually have Castro in the Quotes section from last September – I did it with the same trepidation. Here's what I used:
Can there be any hope left after having listened, hardly 36 hours ago, to the speech made the President before the U.S. Congress? ... underline some short phrases that say it all:
"We will use every necessary weapon of war."
"Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen."
"Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists."
"I've called the armed forces to alert and there is a reason. The hour is coming when America will act and you will make us proud."
"This is the world's fight, this is civilization's fight. I ask for your patience [...] in what will be a long struggle."
"The great achievement of our time and the great hope of every time, now depend on us."
"The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. [...] And we know that God is not neutral."
I ask our fellow countrymen to meditate deeply and calmly on the ideas contained in several of the above mentioned phrases: . Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. No nation of the world has been left out of the dilemma, not even the big and powerful states; none has escaped the threat of war or attacks. . We will use any weapon. No procedure has been excluded, regardless of its ethics, or any threat whatever fatal, either nuclear, chemical, biological or any other. . It will not be short combat but a lengthy war, lasting many years, unparalleled in history. . It is the world's fight; it is civilization's fight. .The achievements of our times and the hope of every time, now depend on us.
Finally, an unheard of confession in a political speech on the eve of a war, and no less than in times of apocalyptic risks: The course of this conflict is not known; yet its outcome is certain. And we know that God is not neutral. This is an amazing assertion. When I think about the real or imagined parties involved in that bizarre holy war that is about to begin, I find it difficult to make a distinction about where fanaticism is stronger.
Speech by Fidel Castro
http://www.radiohc.org/Distributions/Radio_Havana_English
Eugenia responds to Suzanne:
I understand that putting Castro forward is very uncomfortable – I almost didn't look at the piece with his comments. I would guess – from the same reactive instinct – a distrust coming from the stories I have heard about the miseries of living in Cuba. But, then again, I also know that I get such warped information, as we all do, even when we think we are defending ourselves against it. To quote a friend, perhaps the biggest problem with his rhetoric is his inclination to villainize.
But his insight is clear and true in so many respects, most cogently about the huge amounts of money being made in currency speculations – such empty and valuless transactions, what misery they cause, and how we turn a blind eye. Also, his insight into the particulars of the global inequities, the world wide miseries, and so on. I thought it fascinating in its clarity, and his stating so clearly what I already knew, but hadn't quite put together.
Maybe it's not to put him on a pedestal, but to put his comments forward as well spoken, and telling a kind of truth. I vote for taking apart our old notions of leadership and letting them morph into something less pedestalized...for starters.
Joe responds:
That's quite a piece. Lots of truth in it. The powerful exploit the weak. They always have. They take all they want and throw a few crumbs to the rest. It's an abuse of power and a demonstration of ignorance. It's a product of one of two sets of evolutionary survival instincts. This set that is associated with short term thinking (and characterized by fear, greed, power, consumption, and self-centeredness) has been and is destroying us. The other emerging set of survival instincts, the product of both evolution and our unique brains, is starting to contemplate our long term prospects (i.e., sustainability). It's a new concept that only our species is capable of introducing. All other animals are locked into the first set of survival instincts. This second set, long term thinking, relate to be healthy, be kind, respect the environment [Joe Simonetta's "seven words that can change the world"]. It understands that a certain kind of behavior is imperative, not arbitrary, if we want to live.
Suzanne writes:
What fits my blueprint is that certain people are finding each other. All of the needs and possibilities of the world are the background for it. Progress in the world comes next. Now this is my peculiar construct. Who knows? There are plenty of closed doors – separation clings hard. But the pull I feel for me is meaningful alliance. Maybe the Hightower/Michael Moore energy will be so explosive that it will be like the sixties, and a great surge will go on. That would be swell. In the meantime, alliance forged one on one calls to me.
What about that Castro talk? Isn't he a bad guy? How do we relate to his saying good things.
Jeff responds:
We are tuned to the same wavelength/vibration and collaboration holds great co-creative potential. Your site holds a resonance that is highly attractive to those seeking a home for progressive/quantum thinking. I believe we'll see sixties energy alive again and multiplied many times because this time it's a global movement.
Like most, Castro is a combination of bad and good. Cuba is one of the top organic food producers per capita in the world. I believe whoever tells the truth simply adds to the reflection. We need to move beyond the old conversations and I would expect there to be some very strange and unique combinations of ideas and actions that emerge from unexpected places and people that recombines to accelerate the progressive/populist movement.
Suzanne writes:
Here's something I came across today. The Net is a wide open possibility these days:
David Weinberger, co-author of "Cluetrain Manifesto" (and the upcoming "Small Pieces, Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web"), says that the Internet "is unleashing our natural desire to find other people interested in the same things as we are, our group-forming tendencies. The Internet has long passed the point of being a gigantic online library where we can track down content that matters to us. [It] is a conversation." (http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12631)He says all these [blog] sites represent more than just "a flood of new content."
Joe responds:
The flow of information may save us.
There is much change that needs to happen. It will happen in literally infinite numbers of ways. All support each other. It is the synergy that swings the momentum in time. Then there will be much celebration as we inch forward a bit. It's ongoing though. Always there is the danger of falling back. Always there is another challenge to face. Always there are new issues to resolve. The collective is similar to an individual life. Always there must be conscious and disciplined effort to remain aligned with that by which life is made whole and sustained. There must always be vigilance at the risk of losing ground. It's life's dance.
Jeff responds:
Perhaps it is time to announce via e-press release to webzines and the progressive media that a great conversation has started at your site. I suspect if more people knew, more would want to listen in and participate.
Suzanne responds to Jeff:
Maybe...I haven't created outreach as a campaign – I think about it and poke here and there when something comes up (some people who like what they see are passing it along, too) – don't know about more...maybe.
Joe writes:
Take a look at this very nice Website: Turning to One Another. Margaret Wheatley is a Fellow of the World Business Academy, where I work as Senior Editor. She says she created this site to provide conversation techniques and "to make you aware of the many conversation-based initiatives around the world."
Critt writes to Joe and to Margaret Wheatley:
My goal, what I am consciously working towards, is to host "Three Rules" [based on those "seven words" – be healthy, be kind, respect the environment] conversation circles. I presently have three willing groups - my son's South Shore Charter School, Jill Stein's Green Party Gubernatorial Campaign, and my technical writing department at work. What I personally lack is a "tool kit" to offer to the group that we, the participants, can draw from. I think I'm about to resolve that concern.
Joe, I would like to understand what people are doing after they read the book. Are you getting any feedback from groups you have visted on tour, such as the Unitarian churches, that are exploring ways to uncover, rediscover the principles working in our lives? For me, the moment I saw your sacred constructs, I became kinetically involved. With health, kindness, and respect we can turn to one another.
Joe responds to Critt:
"What are people doing after they read the book," you ask? First, keep in mind that the book was published five months ago. It is just beginning to find its way into the world. It will be published in China later this year, and it also is in the works for Italy.
I leave for California this Sunday to speak in Santa Barbara, Ojai (twice), and Los Angeles (twice), as well as do some radio interviews in L.A. Tonight, I speak at the Sarasota, FL Barnes & Noble. This is all just beginning.
Probably you will receive a copy of an announcement that Suzanne is sending out about the talk I will give at her home (April 14). She explains that we intend at that time to launch an effort around the message of Seven Words.
Your question is central: What do we do? The message (Seven Words) resonates well and has legs. It needs exposure. Associated with the Seven Words is something that has since occurred to me, and is the answer to the obvious question, "Why is it so hard for us to be healthy, be kind, and respect the environment? It seems simple enough."
The answer has to do with two sets of competing survival instincts. One is heavily genetically ingrained and must be unlearned. The other is an evolved awareness that exists but must be expanded globally and quickly. One set must be unlearned and the other learned.
My efforts are grounded in disseminating this message in the context of the "seven words." It is gratifying that people are responding to it strongly (see the testimonials). It is my hope that the message will spread, be further activated by those who have those kinds of abilities and, eventually, take on a life of its own.
Suzanne responds:
I just want to comment on the exchange about what people are doing after they read the book. (And, hello Margaret – I am a huge fan of yours, ever since that great article in the IONS Journal about self organizing systems, like termites, et.al.) The host of one of the radio shows I have Joe tentatively booked on is concerned because he agrees with Joe, loves the book, but doesn't know what to talk about after that. Kinda funny to me, because what I did after I read the book – and look, Critt, what you did, too – was to make it a priority to popularize what Joe is calling for. What to talk about is how to arrive at a world where people are thusly transformed – and the astonishing impact this book can have on that coming to pass. For this new book to have had such a profound effect on us two people demonstrates what people can do after they read the book – spread the ideas as a cornerstone of the next reality!Joe writes:
World Business Academy Fellow, Mario Kamenetzy (good guy), sent me the following piece this morning in an email. I've formatted it for Monday's edition of Connections, the Academy's weekly newsletter that I do. I think this is a remarkable statement. It relates directly to the work that we are doing.
Fellow Kamenetzky: Restructuring Minds for Sustainability
On April 17-18, 2002, the Global Environmental Mechanism Policy Action Group of The State of the World Forum will be convening a high-level group of environmental specialists from around the world in New York to plan for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September, 2002. Academy Fellow Mario Kamenetzky sent the organizers the comments that follow:
I hope that the world forum will bring to the debate on sustainability what I see missing in almost all discussions related to this issue: the role of education in achieving progressive structures of human consciousness. There will not be environmental, economic, or financial sustainability for as long as there is no sustainability in the human mind. We need to reform the educational systems in all countries, advanced as well as in development. As educational systems are now organized, they do not really educate people. People are mainly trained for competing in the marketplace, where those at the lowest levels of the economy learn intuitively how to survive, while those at the highest levels acquire increased skills for the task of accumulating money and power. Whether in primitive or sophisticated markets, both, the haves and the have-nots ignore who they really are and may become.
Economists and political scientists are slowly accepting that the problems humankind is facing are products of our minds, not of our genes. If we start restructuring the minds; the restructuring of economies and societies will follow.
Economic and financial reform towards sustainability should go hand in hand with educational reform. If educational reform is undertaken without an economic reform, hunger of the body and frustration of the mind will quickly cancel the advances that education can achieve in the patterns of thought, feelings, beliefs, and behavior. If the opposite happens, if an economic reform is undertaken without parallel efforts to change the structure of consciousness of the economic actors, the economic reform will end paralyzed by corruption and inefficiency, benefiting only those whom the reform will give power.
At each point in history, regressive forces try to keep people behind advances in the structures of the mind, which humankind achieves unevenly and slowly through its long and never ending evolutionary process. Where those forces dominate, people usually end being mentally and economically enslaved to the powerful few within their societies who oppose changes that may affect their interests. Under the rule of these powerful few, people could never become fully human and fully alive beings in constant evolution, they can only become suicide bombers, exploited laborers, or cannon fodder.
A sustainable future will be achieved if we move from a pure rational structure of consciousness that see nature under the command of corporations and at the service of their bottom line, to a more integrative and harmonizing structure of consciousness under which nature is seen as a partner that needs human care to sustain human life.Suzanne responds to Joe:
Elementary, my dear Watson. But all we seem to be up to in the way of education reform, for which there is considerable advocacy (see Arianna's current column – although not featured on my site – "Charter Schools Are Transforming Public Education: Is Anyone Running For Office Paying Attention?") is addressing appalling conditions in schools with bad teachers and bad equipment. As the author here says, "...the role of education in achieving progressive structures of human consciousness" is "missing in almost all discussions." What schools are teaching in the way of making us more conscious is hardly on the radar – one more aspect of life in which we are at best putting Band-Aids on, rather than clearing up what makes things fester. Of course, your work is about dealing with root cause, which Mario Kamenetzy here is eloquent about.Joe responds:
Yes, unless we get to the "cause," forget about it (all).Allan writes to Suzanne re invitation to Joe's talks in Los Angeles area:
Wish I could be there to meet and listen to Joe at one of his talks, but, unfortunately, I am completely booked up and cannot change things. It is wonderful that he is reaching so many people. I still look forward to meeting him one day and meanwhile, am talking about him to many people and getting them to read his book.
I have finally brought my talk for Tuesday down to what I hope will get through to these lawyers. Thanks for your help. I attach the final draft for your interest.Suzanne replies to Allan:
I found your speech spellbinding – totally absorbing and compelling. The solution part, however, I still think needs the explanation of flawed decision making spelled out. What are the bases for the automatic way we decide, and why would a larger body of decision makers be a better body? I think you still have some assumptions here that are so familiar to you that you don't spell them out. If there was Q&A after your talk, I bet people asked you to do that – and that could have done the trick. But I sure liked it a lot until I got near the end. I'd love you to beef up that ending and then I'd put it out. It's very powerful, and with all the problems so graphic and solutions in short supply, I think it could be very potent.
People like you and Joe teamed up would really deliver something. We should keep thinking about that.Allan responds:
Glad you liked it a little more and, yes, question time did allow me to go further with the decision-making process. I was very limited on time. I will see now if I can take the final bit and go further in enabling people not yet familiar with Holistic Management to understand.David Lorimer writes:
Hi Suzanne. Here is my review of Joe's book for the next issue.
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Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,
Rains from the sky a meteoric shower
Of facts...they lie unquestioned, uncombined.
Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill
Is daily spun, but there exists no loom
To weave it into fabric...
-Edna St. Vincent Millay-
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