This message is mainly to pass on a message from Am de Lange, and my
comments below. But let me bring up a couple of other things first.
I just realized that some people might be using the monthly list of new
members as an opportunity to send some general commercial message to all
the people on the list. Let me stress that that is NOT what it is for. The
list is for personal networking, to connect with the people you share
interests with. It is not a bunch of prospects for some Multi-Level
Marketing scheme you might be part of. If it works for you to have an MLM
business, all the best to you, but please, please don't use NCN as a
general recruiting ground for it.
Secondly, the NCN discussion list is occasionally plagued by heated
arguments between individuals or arguments about what sort of things ought
to be posted there, and those arguments often take away from people's
reason for being on the list in the first place. I'll shortly post some
updated guidelines for the list and, hopefully, provide a better layout of
what lists are for what purpose. The intention is that there are spaces for
all purposes that we need.
- Flemming
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From: "Mnr AM de Lange" <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za>
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 10:57:44 GMT+2
Subject: Re: NCN, New Members, May 1998
Dear Newcivics
I refer to the monthly compilation Flemming Funch <ffunch@newciv.org>
such as the newest one:
> These are the new members who joined during the month of May.
>
> Welcome to the emerging new civilization! As always, feel free to connect
> up with anybody you are inspired to interact with.
It gives me great joy to read the bio of every newcomer. The
diversity which they each month represent, is astounding. They
represent almost all the facets of an entire civilisation! Given
this and the fact that they all have one thing in common, namely a
desire for and a commitment for a better future, a New Civilisation
(NC) becomes more than a possibility. The NC is definitely growing.
However, I am also uneasy. What become of these people and their
efforts after a few months or after a couple of years? How much are
all our contributions on the NCN lists responsible for keeping all of
us together and increasing our capacity for a new civility. Or do our
internet activities disperse and deactivate them as the majoirty of
the institutions in our present civilisation do?
The reason why I am uneasy is that Flemming's monthly compilations
show an unceasing stream of people, but that their further
participation on the lists do not follow suite. Is it a case that
they unsubcribe so that only a few participate regularly, or is it a
case of a dam filling up until it overflows. If it is the latter
case, do I have to expect that one morning suddenly hundreds of
messages fill up my email box, possibly flooding it. On the one hand,
it will cause great problems if my email box is full. But on the
other hand, it will be one of the nicest things to happen - when the
New Civilisation becomes operative with a bang.
However, it will not become operative with a bang. Louis Pasteur
noted long ago that great things only happen to those who have
prepared themselves for it. Likewise we must prepare ourselves in
full before the the New Civilisation will actually happen. In other
words, we must become wise on the present civilisation and what is
positive and negative about it. A New Civilisation cannot happen in
the void. It has to take from the old one that which is positive and
let new positives emerge from them. This will not happen
automatically with humans acting as robots. It needs preparation with
every human participating consciously in spirit and mind.
Best wishes
At de Lange
Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education
University of Pretoria
Pretoria, South Africa
email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
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Comments from Flemming:
I am also personally experiencing some uncertainty as to what it really
takes to make something like NCN work and move to the next level.
I mean, here we have a couple of thousand great people. Quite obviously a
group of interesting, resourceful and diverse people. But then, what do we
do that really creates synergy amongst us, that really makes us accomplish
something together?
NCN is nice as just a generally inspiring kind of thing. Interesting people
join, we share our visions, there's good news about projects that different
people do, etc. That is great. But it also feels like there's something
more we're here to do.
The task is in part to turn our diversity into a strength, rather than a
cause of confusion and argument. NCN is deliberately created to be a very
open space with just a few very broad fundamental agreements. We all seem
to agree that it is a good idea to do something constructive for the world,
and that some kind of open, tolerant, self-organizing, grass-roots
infrastructure is required. But beyond that we might have quite different
ideas about what we think it is most important to do, or how it should be
done.
My hunch is that we need to figure out how to make a network of diverse
smaller groups work. We can't just get hundreds of people together in the
same place and expect them all to agree and to know what to do together.
Focused activities will most likely happen within small groups (5-20
people) that come together for a specific purpose. The issue then is how to
promote the creation and maintenance of such groups, and how we link those
groups together in a way that works for everybody.
As Am points out, it is obvious that a lot of fascinating and excited
people join NCN, and just as obvious that most don't really end up
participating in very much. I suspect that these messages here go out to a
lot of people who feel that NCN is a very nice idea and vision, but who
don't know how to fit into it, who don't know where the action is, who
don't quite know what is expected of them.
It sometimes stresses me out a bit to think that I ought to be the person
who has the answer. But, probably more reasonably, I think it is something
the group of NCN is figuring out together. We're doing something new,
something that hasn't really existed before. Many groups in the past have
formed based on one person having a specific plan or agenda, setting the
rules, and attracting people who want to further the agenda. Most groups
have been based on some kind of hierarchy, with somebody somewhere calling
the shots. NCN is different. It is more open and broad, and at the same
time more ambitious, than any other group I can think of. And there is no
power or motivation structure based on money or laws or religious beliefs,
nothing that forces people to do anything. So it is truly an experiment in
voluntary self-organization.
I have no doubt that we WILL grow something new and wonderous and never
before seen and that the world will be better off for that. Exactly how,
well, that's what we will be discovering together.
- Flemming
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o o
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/ * \ New Civilization Network / Synchronicity Networks / * \
/ * * \ ffunch@newciv.org / * * \
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