Seeds of Change - Heiner Benking's Blog - quergeist.info
Welcome to the NewsLog or Blog of Heiner Benking. A kaleidoscope of insights and impulses collected first in the DaZiBao (Rio) process Seeds of Change Viewsletter of the Club of Budapest since 1995, continually updated ever since. Now available for broader distribution and comments in this blog - enjoy, and come again !
7 Dec 2013 @ 20:06
Today all media are full of Nelson Mandela - I feel sadened, haunted, priviledged, at awe ! and very concerned!
We prepared „AFRICA BEYOND POVERTY“ between 1993 and 1995 [link] and Proceedings [link] so I am „all ears“ with all the „view“ and "words" comming in. Where is the difference, where have we been 20 years ago, and where are we today? regarding Africa and the World ?
I feel „we“ fail today and failed bitterly 20 years ago. Have our contributions, even well meaning and with full energies, have provided only little, or even worse, no lasting, even negative results!? Can we „bend the trend?
The ideas and insights were there, but to which ends ! ??, did we communicate well? Is this all our fault !? Or when stepping back, directly after the Wall had come down and the Politics Bureau of China initiated a meeting of UN State-Planners in Beijing in 1992 *** we had all the chances and failed miserably... People later advised the the Chinese gonvernment, but did they learn and appreciate from broader governance schemes ? And other approaches: Yehezkel Dror – ****** Ralph Siu *** ****
I feel today this looks like a global and total failure. Why I we did not speak up and words and documents where not read/received. All my / our failure? (further down I come back to my more reflecting, pondering, desperate mode at the moment)
How do I come to such strong sentiments and questionings?
I presently hear in our German National TV Nelson Mandela being quoted: Your playing small does not serve the world. - DICH SELBST KLEIN ZU HALTEN, DIENT NICHT DER WELT. taken from 'A Return To Love' (1992) by Marianne Williamson [link] This are NOT ! his original words but telling a lot and making me think..
The issue is close to what I am fumbling here tonight and for years.
1. “There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living…”
This is close, but not quite what is presented in the media and cited everywhere.
It leaves me with the question "When should we think and play big? and how can we serve best: Playing small does not serve the „World
Immediately, Mahelia Jackson is humming in my mind: If you go it, flaunt it but who is to speak up and when and on what subject? and who will listen when every word raised is under suspicion of self-service and fundamentalism, as wise people are silent !
Citation "Be Silent" and "Shut Up" as I learend from Anthony JUDGE. Please read his piece: The Deafening Silence of Those Who Know Nothing[link] which ends and starts with:
In one form or another, the most enlightened traditions enjoin people: To Dare, To Know, and To Be Silent We had much exchange about this being enlightened or not ! by "being Silent" and I qoted for him WISSEN _ WOLLEN _ WAGEN - (The full text below). So is it right to be silent ? or to speak up at the right time, on the right subject, to the right audience in the right situation, terse and inviting/empowering. Issues that matter to make a difference! You see me getting toughed, as this is my conern since long, as covered in [link] with our Magic Roundtables, and on the [link] website, which is focussing more on deliberation, dialog-design, and peace-making, as the next step, after lesrningbto listen, subsume, resonnate, and speak up!!
Bertrand Russell wrote, "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." "Why should the wise people of the world doubt themselves and the fools revel in their own idiocy?" I recommend: [link]
Nelson Mandela and Bertrand Russel where deep into peace-making and so it makes much sense to dig here a little deeper, and the roots cause of the SDP Peace Processes comes up: "identifying "Religious fundamentalism" as the Root-Cause of the Problematique.": check slide 34-35 in this presentation [link] For more about Structured Dialogig Design (SDP) and Multi-Track Diplomacy and Peacemaking here: [link]
People like Bishop Desmond Tutu or Charles François with their deepness, attentiveness, and as a world of insights and friendliness have left a strong mark and provided raw-models - so attitude, ability and availability are top to judge a person or mission/scope. I often cite Charles François with his "Doing what matters most towards mount awareness. Check: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fran%C3%A7ois_(systems_scientist) and this presentation he gave: [link] As you see I still advocate appropriate not oversimplsitic and undercomplex approaches, ways which go beyond linear, in the box, and only with one way to present and display conplex issues. See his Encyclopedia, and maybe the terms he like to include which say a little more about what I mean: [link]
Work in Progress - check - Wissen_Wollen_Wagen and Bishop Tutu, Africa and Asia, ... More >
29 Nov 2013 @ 19:42
Climate Change / Sustainability and Cognitive Overload, SCIENCE RESPONSIBILITY and the SUSTAINABILTY JAM
I could not mingle this year at the COP 19 even when so easy to reach from Berlin, and besides I have never ever made it to Warsaw. I did not attend not because the outcomes were obvious and only few had illusions about the capacity to come to grips with the Climate Challenges. I had my learnings at the , Climate Summit in Berlin 1995 and in my eyes even the COPENVEGAN - Copenhagen Climate Summit activities we did were helpful and brought lasting results not only in the SURVIVAL ACADEMY !
But there were more important place to attend in order to possibly a difference that matters. See entries in this blog the last days, and maybe wonder what happened after the WFSF 40th anniversay this summer ! AND check for example the VDW event today !! SUSTAINABILITY - Responsibility in a limited World
How can we come to grips with the Problematique? I always cite Yehudi Menuhin at this point, as he presented us the Seven Deadly Sins in his forword of the book: Culture of Refusal, Saying No ! It was published in 1999 as KULTUR DER VERWEIGERUNG, Das konstruktive Nein ! - but the translation is still „in progress“... This only to assure you that we do not believe that there is PANACEA, a quick-fix, a unique, universal methods, which helps us to solve the dilemata. (some people react like this when I highlight, introduce the SDP – see interview I did for Europe'sWorlds: 40 years Problematique or a recent contribution like: „Collecting, Connecting,... (PDF) S or check the 21stCentury Agora website:
I believe instead in view of the nightmare of predictable results in Warsaw, it is time to halt, „subsume and resonnate“ as I learned from Ralph G.H. Siu see the PANETICS Speakers Corner!
Some traditions teach that to be able to solve a problem requires to take a certain, typical the personal viewpoint out. So what is the viewpoint of all this Climate Negotiators? Can they consider co-existent positions and perspectives? We tried to outline what I mean here: various models: [link] and WeTurn: [link] and different perspectives or "Eyes": Landscape of Eyes and House of Eyes
Maybe these people consider climate as the Center of the Universe. Climate Change is very central and critical, but maybe we need to see it in perspective and context to be really able to address it. We can not predict weather nor climate, a look into historic records shows us that climate was unstable even when no Humans were around ! And that might the only thing we can say: Tipping Point with feed-back loops in highly complex, dynamic, even dissipative environments can go off like a loose canon. It might get very very cold, when all predictions tell us it will be getting hot and hotter. It all depends where you are, if you think episodic or epochal, wether you consider Ethics and Responsibiltiy with Space and Time Horizon, check Hans Jonas - Principle Responsibility - with Space and Time Horizon !! and Alfred Wegener Foundation at geotechnica 1991 and his hall-mark contribution: Charles Francois and his Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics and the PDF: article (PDF)
SORRY - my mother is in hospital - undergoing another operation - so no updates for some time... More >
22 Nov 2013 @ 15:05
Again a great event - I had to attend ! - as we were preparing for months a 3-day course of "LIVING DEMOCRACY" to take place next week, Nov 25-27 in Berlin. But unfortunately it got postponed last week !!! ... No comment on my part at this point !! I will make some hints further down... so please check out: Chances and Risks of Social Participation and HIIG and see the outline and programme:(PDF)
At the venue of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, hosted by the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), Global Network of Internet & Society Research Centers (NoC) a high callibre of movers and changers is on deck - check the links !! and the BLOG for example: 22.11. Partizipation per Petition: Tagung zur Beteiligung in einer digitalen Gesellschaft
I recommend:
Berliner Erklärung von Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern zu den Bedingungen der Demokratie in der DIGITAL-WELT[link] and the BERLINER ERKLAERUNG:
Maybe check my profile with Future Worlds, and there the links about dialogue and deliberation, contributions about Dialogue and Conversations, how we discussed Living versus Liquid Democracy years ago, or how we presented at the Brandenburg Gate in teh Speakers Corner (YouTube Video), or the broader topic of MULTI-TRACK DIPLOMACY and PEACE MAKING Come back for the prepared but unfortunately cancelled (Nov. 2013) 3-days event"LIVING DEMOCRACY"(programme PDF) oder Portal IdeenGeschichte (PDF) and [More].... (below) More >
14 Nov 2013 @ 11:01
ACADEMY OF THE ARTS venue at the Pariser Platz, the premier location in Berlin.
I recommend from their website: www.dahrendorf-symposium.eu Changing the Debate on Europe - Moving Beyond Conventional Wisdoms
?.... you can discover more about the German-British citizen and European, Lord Dahrendorf, his life between politics and academia, as well as the intellectual inheritance of his research. Get to know the concepts behind the Symposium which serve as its intellectual starting point...
Lord Dahrendorf’s Legacy Dahrendorf forcefully and repeatedly warned against taking seemingly comfortable policy frames and political positions for granted. He urged academics to question the status quo, and to challenge the political Zeitgeist. ... .
So let us this as raw-model and icon can be brought life to tackle the challenges "debated".
WORK IN PROGRESS PLEASE COME BACK - CHECK THE LINKS AND LIFESTREAM mentioned below:
I AM THRILLED, a high calibre gathering, check the stream and programme. Start here: [link]-@Dahrendorf_Sym - #DSym2013
I am making notes, but its so deep and challenges, that I want to think twice, mingle, and only present synthesis and ways and means towards shared positive action, capacity building, reaching mount awareness by doing what matters most and makes positive differences.
Notes and "FOOD FOR THOUGHT & ACTION": (a report and summary will come soon)
I was alerted in late August by Marcus Hedahls, London School of Economics (LSE) article: [link] and had provided Craig CALHOUN with our recent GLOBAL AGORAs publication: [I hope Craig has found the time to put some of the materials, I asked him to share, on the desk of researchers in his new function in the reknown LSE.
Check this and the new publications: [link] Strategic Articulation of Actions to Cope with the Huge Challenges or Our World - A Platform for Reflection. as published in this series as Volume One. A SOCIAL SYSTEMS APPROACH FOR GLOBAL PROBLEMS, 21st Century Agoras Monograph Series. I have written a little comment:
A Mission Impossible or The Needed Critical Piece of the Puzzle? Maybe you like it and I should share the list of content before you order!?
I hope you also like our connecting dots and spaces with Christakis, Laouris, Treviño, Kakoulaki and fearturing also work of Wasilewski, Jones and many other SDP practitionieers I came across over the years, trying to get some overview and insights into the "Problematique" and looking back onto Otlet, Judge and how work on a solution space is as old as the UIA ! Due in June - maybe ask for a preliminary pdf or LoC! Pls. see also the SAPREJ-12 bar below and maybe ask also for the slides of our presentation with Reynaldo and Bethania.
The conference proceedings with the new title: Collecting, Framing, Negotiating, and Connecting in Times of a GLocal “Problematique” - A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO COPE WITH GLOBAL CHALLENGES will be published by Cambridge Scholar Publishing 2013.
so I feel this is a very hot issue, talking with leading policy and industry people about central societal and futuristic matters,functions, features, benefits, impacts and proportions and consequences GLocally. *******
Very busy as always in November, so please check the links, check the videos, and maybe come back.
The whole theme is like a deja vue for me. Meta-Data and Information, Applications, Noise and Volumes were on my desk for 30+years, so was the need to visualize and participate, deliberate, negotiate, decide, ....
I feel that the paper adressing massive problems and dialog and decision making issues, a paper we did with Reynaldo and Bethania has been just hitting the streets, so check it out: [link]
Cambridge Scholar Publishing, available at the OAC. Check: ISBN: 978-960 86383-8-9
Collecting, Framing, Negotiating, and Connecting in Times of a GLocal (1) “Problematique” (2).
A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO COPE WITH GLOBAL CHALLENGES (3)
Heiner Benking, Reynaldo Treviño Cisneros, Bethania Arango Hisijara More >
8 Nov 2013 @ 16:36
Thrilling - awesome, I am with the coders/decoders/ "non-coder" world-makers of cultural expressions looking for fair and bottom-up and top-down harmonious approaches within 3 days. I REALLY REALLY LIKE IT. Great People. Please go to: How can Pirates & Capitalists, Hackers & Journalists, Amateurs & Pros work together? '''COMPLICITY | Berliner Gazette Conference 2013''' | #bgcon13 November 7th-9th at SUPERMARKT | [link]
Join in at the public event tomorrow and follow the [link] and see the public streaming tomorrow around and after "high noon" on Saturday.
_____
As promised to some participants some notes and links below at More >
5 Nov 2013 @ 09:32
I was extremely busy, a lot of milestones and treshholds have been crossed and lots of activities should be reported here below.
Presently we are gearing for the Warsaw Climate Change Conference - November 2013
[link] but as a collegue is doing the "recording" I might even be not there this time...
I will briefly record later main activities and outcomes:
* Entrepreneuship Summit: Magic Roundtable
* Innovators Club Rundgespraech
* Global Soil Summit
* Anna Lindh Salon
*
*
4 Jul 2013 @ 10:05
you can learn more about EarthShips around the d.people d.collective https://www.facebook.com/d.collective.space/ which celebrate their first year in New Collogne. I recommend this very special group of d_school alumni and other young "live designers and livers"
pls also check: prinzessinnengarten.net
http://www.flickr.com/photos/87641099@N03/8307318351/
[link] and the neighboring Betahouse and Modulo also in the place of the Design Academy at Moritzplatz. This is one of the places where Berlin thrives.
28 Jun 2013 @ 15:14
First time since long reporting not from BERLIN ! so check-out why !!
'GLOBAL RESEARCH AND SOCIAL INNOVATION: TRANSFORMING FUTURES'. The WORLD FUTURES STUDIES FEDERATION convenes every 2 years. I was around WFSF events 20 and 18 years ago - long ago, but this time I could not resist ! It is this year the 100th of Robert Jungk who helped not only around MANKIND 2000, but also in 1993 to get the WFSF going, so we celebrate the 40th Anniversary this year, see!? I could not resist...
Futures Studies - NOT Future Study !! Johan Galtung in our Workspace remembered Bob Jungk with him in Moscow in 1974. Nobody was interested in alternatives or plural futures ! So where are we now !? did we make the step beyond the binary, the plural, poly, trans, ... and beyond !? Or are we stuck in words, schools, "isms". Sometimes I wonder if we are not getting less open, more fenced and afraid of trespassers in our sweet "isolation" of our "turfs!" check: Handprintgs and Mindprints (not only Footprints): [link] and the Me, They, and the Others and their Position and Perspectives: [link]
The opening keynote by Jennifer Gidley is about exactly this! New Concepts, Paradigms, Knowledge. So let us see if this gets clear, real, and embodied, so we can not ony share, but collaboratively explore, negotiate, expand, transcend !! TRANSCEND !!
I came to do this event in Bucharest: [link] doing an Open Space or Open Forum like we did with Nadia and Tony already 20 years ago with these people - did DaZiBao and other efforts even earlier, so quite a challenge to see what is possible now and what was done after and in Rio 1992 !
WFSF was always difficult for me. After our breakthrough in 1993 not only in high level national media and with top academic credentials, and with youth and and:
check KNOWLEDGE SPIRAL & OUR VIEW OF LIFE IS TOO FLAT ... : [link]
So much time and effort was lost in 1993 and moreso in 1995, WFSF Nairobi, Africa Beyond Poverty. What a bold title, what a great chance, how little was achieved ! and has lasting effects ! [link] and see,!! [link]
Above is the MASTHEAD of the WFSF it says: Long term - Big picture - Radical change You see I could not resits. So let us go for it ! and check what is "long, big, radical" and where and when !! for whom !
PLEASE see the invitation to our side-track "Open-Everything" sessions:
Workshop Space 1
OPEN FORUM - OPEN SPACE
BENKING Heiner will call-in invited and surprise participants.
COLLABORATIVE FUTURES CREATION
Collecting, Mapping&Framing, Negotiating & Connecting for CoCreation and CoLaboration.[link]
During an open-space dialogue format, support for collaborative approaches for SUSTAINABLE FUTURES CREATION. The idea is to revisit in a retrospective inquiry to the early days of ‘positive and willing futures’ in the 1960’s. During this time, the issues of normative, participatory, and prognostic futures were clarified by scholars like Jantsch and Oezbekhan. We must discuss how these “out-looks” are realized today and in the futures to come. ...
The first 10 minutes of the presentation ..... More >
This is Heiner Benking's News Log, a private-public diary presenting events, symposia and happenings in Berlin and elsewhere - my farings, foci, issues and concerns.
PLEASE CONSIDER THIS PERSONAL BLOG an ARTISTIC and PERFORMATIVE MEDIA INTERVENTION !
The Log links to my work and interests and presents issues and special concern of maybe a very small group of "concerned, engaged generalist" - a Global Interest Group (GIG). This needs to be seen in contrast to the ubiquitous Specialized Interest Groups (SIGs), the "scientific" approach to organize subject areas and specialization and standardization and harmonization! of means, nomenclatures, and modes of thinking. My favorite stories in the WHOLENESS SEMINAR include:
BELA BANATHY: "GENESIS
OF GENERAL SYSTEMS THEORY" and "IVAN HAVEL: Longing for Unified Knowledge" where a "specialist" runs into the founding session of the early foundations General Systems, mumbling "this is not my field" or where Ivan M. Havel expresses his search for other kinds of knowledge.
As a starter I also recommend to check my MINDPRINT site, where we add the need for HANDPRINTS and MINDPRINTS, as FOOTPRINTS are good to visualize and communicate numbers, densities or consumption per area, but are not sufficient to negotiate and "harmonize" across domains and communicate gains in different cultures, technologies, times,... in short: incompatible but relevant information and our work on dialog, peace, policy-making, and multi-modal, faceted issues and consequences.
What am I? This is a "well-packed" question for which I have not the or a single answer. Some called me an in-betweener, go-getter, facilitator, hub, marvel-hero, trim-tab, bricoleur, bricoleers??? - career designeer, .... Some even "hank" which I disliked or Story which I liked very much !!
I have no single answer as I feel we need to walk the talk and sing and dance Life ! in spectra and fields in multiple embodied spaces.
To nebulous an answer? I am sorry but I do not go for overclaims and oversimplifications, under-complex and over-simplistic approaches with clan-think mindsets about real issues in clear contexts!
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7 Dec 2013 @ 20:06
29 Nov 2013 @ 19:42
22 Nov 2013 @ 15:05
14 Nov 2013 @ 11:01
12 Nov 2013 @ 14:21
8 Nov 2013 @ 16:36
5 Nov 2013 @ 09:32
4 Jul 2013 @ 10:05
28 Jun 2013 @ 15:14