NCN ORGANIZATION
Various suggestions have come up on how NCN might be organized in a better
and more sustainable way. Most recently, Orya Matrix's proposal of making
NCN charge membership fees in order to finance what we do, and to make it a
democracy that elects officials to do business in the interest of NCN. And
for NCN to establish and constitution and a bill of rights, to operate
essentially as a nation.
Well, it brought mixed responses. Some people finding it to be very much
what we need to get to the next step. Others feeling it would very much go
against what NCN is about. It didn't bring agreement, but it did bring up
strongly held sentiments. So, a task now is how to utilize the energy
towards more organization, without breaking us up into warring factions.
Let me re-iterate some things I think are fundamental to NCN and which
might provide some pointers.
NCN is an open space that doesn't impose an agenda or a set of beliefs or
rules on anybody, unless they go along with it. A majority vote that
imposes rules or fees on a minority which they don't agree with would go
against what NCN is about, I think.
However, at least my idea with NCN was that it should be organic that
sub-groups form that adopt approaches that they find agreement on. I.e. a
sub-group of NCN can agree to impose a membership fee on anybody who wants
to join it, and might use the funds for the common good. And a sub-group
can form that adopts a set of principles for deciding things amongst
themselves. A sub-group can form in order to do business together. A
sub-group can adopt rules and penalties for itself.
No sub-group would impose anything on the rest of NCN, but is welcome to
inspire others to join its cause or its agreements. E.g. a sub-group of NCN
might choose to engage in political lobbying and might organize people for
that purpose and pursue specific agendas and aims. That's perfectly great.
It doesn't mean that all of NCN will vote on those agendas, though. As long
as anybody here has a different idea, NCN as a whole isn't going to adopt
any agenda more narrow that cultivating a space and an infra-structure for
all of us.
Then again, it IS probably time to find out how to do more focused,
sustainable activities amongst us.
I can think of several avenues:
NCN INFRASTRUCTURE
NCN as a whole needs better infrastructure. With that I'm mostly talking
about computer software and virtual collaboration facilities. We need
better member database features, better ways of grouping together, setting
up conferences for specific subjects, recording one's activities,
organizing one's projects, listing one's events, publications, projects,
articles, etc. I do have a vision of that and the skill to develop it, but
I'm only one person. I so far haven't succeeded in engaging anybody else in
getting serious on this, and haven't had the free time to get very far with
it myself. It either takes financing or a lot of dedication to the result.
Or somebody coming along with an existing solution that we can adopt.
I would hold that NCN as a whole IS the space and the infrastructure. With
better tools it can be more obviously effective in connecting people up in
useful ways, but it will remain a very diverse, heterogenous network.
NEW CIVILIZATION FOUNDATION
I can envision a relatively small number of very focused and knowledgable
people functioning as a foundation or think tank bringing new civ
principles and approaches to the world. If financed by grants it could
produce studies and plans and knowledge databases for the common good. If
financed handsomely, it could manage projects bringing viable new solutions
to the world. Or, if not otherwise financed, it could act as in a
consulting capacity, being for hire by companies or governments to help
study or implement new kinds of approaches.
Either way, that takes a lot of coherence and dedication and depth of
analysis. It takes more than getting a group of interested people together
on a mailing list. So, not to be rude to anybody else, this probably takes
a small group of people who already have become fairly recognized "experts"
in various aspects of new paradigm thinking: whole systems, new economies,
environmental issues, perma-culture, education, communication.
Such a New Civ Foundation would be an independent entity from NCN, probably
incorporated as a non-profit organization. It would have no say over NCN as
a whole, but would likely act as an inspiration and a focal point for NCN
and as a keeper of a knowledge database serving us all. And it would most
likely draw from the input of the much wider circle of all of us.
AN ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE OR BUSINESS NETWORK
Most of us here still have bills to pay and might be distracted from our
more idealistic pursuits by the pressures of survival. NCN is not a
commercial entity, and many of us are somewhat anti-commercial in our
views. However, ignoring the practicalities of sustainable economics in our
lives doesn't necessarily get us very far.
Creating a business network amongst us would be quite an obvious thing to
do. Directories of products and services available, win-win systems making
it viable to bring each other business, common marketing strategies,
virtual companies, and more.
Creating a common online LETS system and barter system and gift giving
system would also make very good sense. Even if we don't have or use
dollars we can very well exchange services for mutual benefit.
All of this would again have to be one or more subgroups of NCN, without
any say over NCN as a whole. That is, those who want to do business
together should have some facilities for that, and those who don't
shouldn't be bothered with it.
A New Civ oriented business network might well agree to channel a
percentage of revenue towards supporting something like NCN.
NEW CIV CONSTITUTION
I could very well see a group here developing some core documents that
could both claify our efforts here and act as an inspiration for many other
groups in the world. The existing New Civ Foundation workgroup produced
some remarkable work in the form of a mission statement and a number of
strategies to pursue in different sections of society. This kind of work
could be applied towards putting to paper some fundamental tenets that
could form the basis for nations or for the whole world, or just for our
own interaction.
Again, this would just be one sub-group, without any authority to impose a
set of rules on the rest of us. But the challenge would be to come up with
something so elegant, compelling and fundamentally obvious that most of us
would be happy to subscribe to such noble principles, whatever our more
detailed views might be.
DEMOCRATIC SELF-ORGANIZATION
If we must live up to our ambitious title of a *New Civilization* Network,
we ought to develop some ways of practically organizing ourselves and
making decisions. Along the lines of: If we were the people of Earth and we
needed to organize ourselves to make the decisions that are needed and to
develop the agreements that guide our interaction - how would we go about
that? Would we vote, elect reprentatives who meet in councils, or what
would we do?
I see that happening, not by suddenly imposing some arbitrary system on all
of NCN, but by a small group of people putting some energy into developing
a system they think will work, and then applying it to themselves. And if
it appears to work for them, more people might join and agree to use the
same system. If it doesn't work, nothing much is lost, and some other group
might come up with a better system.
SELF-ORGANIZATION
Common in all I'm saying here is: If you have a plan or some principles you
think might work, stand up and announce it and we'll see who gathers
around. Or join somebody else who has similar aims, and start working on
it. You don't have to ask for permission. Collaboration facilities such as
mailing lists or chat rooms or webpages can be provided to you, as well as
the audience of all of us here. If what you do is working, expect more
people to join it or adopt it. Don't expect to find universal agreement
from 3000 very independently thinking NCN members, and don't expect to be
able to impose much on them. But if they do happen to voluntarily agree,
fantastic.
- Flemming
o o
/ \------------------ Flemming A. Funch -------------------/ \
/ * \ New Civilization Network / Synchronicity Networks / * \
/ * * \ ffunch@newciv.org / * * \
o-------o----------- http://www.worldtrans.org/ -----------o-------o
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Dec 07 2000 - 23:22:13 PST