this article appeared in Ode issue:
10
The success of self-help books has led to a supersaturated I.
Its time for the next spiritual step, a leap in human consciousness:
the leap to we. In our modern society, were all linked to one other.
And the answer to our political, economic and spiritual challenges lies
in co-operation, in a realisation that we are nothing less than we. Witness
the birth of a new way of thinking.
Im fed up. Were fed up. With the culture of greed. With road
rage. With hollow international agreements. With modern-day emperors,
who believe they can impose democracy on other countries. With pharmaceutical
companies that wont lower their drug prices causing the unnecessary
deaths of millions of people. With the wall that is being built between
Israel and the Palestinian territories. With neighbourhoods that take
away kids only playing field because some woman is worried about
her car getting dented. Ive had it with all this short-sighted,
egotistical behaviour, which puts immediate individual. satisfaction
or own group interests above all else.
And yet
I still have hope. I have hope because Im not the only one who is
fed up and resistance, our resistance, is growing. Ever louder is the
cry against the senseless violence, against media corruption, against
the threat of environmental disasters, against profiteers and liars at
the top, and against the artificial borders, walls and masks that separate
us from one another. Ever louder is the call for direct democracy, sustainable
entrepreneurship, tolerance and for new values. And yet
who can
tell us what we need to do to create these new values and how to apply
them? Which party, which individual or which movement will point the way
through the jungle of good intentions. Is there an answer to our global
crisis?
Yes, there is. The answer is we. And the good news is, that
we have already taken the first steps to activating that answer. Is it
a movement? Is it a new group of thinkers? Whatever the case, more and
more public opinion leaders are coming to the same conclusion: we.
All over the world leaders in different disciplines are giving the new
we feeling form.
Psychologists see us entering the transpersonal age.
Philosophers predict a move from socio-centric to world-centric
thinking.
Political scientists recognise the increasing importance of global governance.
Astrologists see the age of Aquarius dawning; a movement that will carry
us away from the old patriarchate which defended the right of the
strongest to an intuitive lifestyle and a feeling of solidarity.
In the business community, the top-down approach is making way for equality,
inspiring leadership and increasing room for creativity.
A growing number of spiritual leaders underlines the similarities among
the worlds religions and sees compassion and an ethical lifestyle
as a universally applicable source of transformation.
Pedagogues see children learning ever faster and more easily. Away with
memorising spelling and times tables; knowledge seekers are increasingly
turning to the Internet.
Even hardcore scientists are coming around to the potential
of the Zero Point Field (see Ode December 2003), which shows that everything
is connected to everything. It appears that everything and everyone is
continually resonating and communicating with everything and everyone.
At the deepest level you and I, him and her, this and that are only one
thing: we are We.
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In short, the world appears to be preparing for a global transition
from an egotistical consciousness that was geared towards survival, to
a general consciousness that embraces the entire cosmos and evolution.
Its no longer everyone for themselves, but one for all. Were
entering the age of world citizenship.
But wait a second, I hear you thinking, paradise on
earth has been proclaimed before. Indeed, throughout the ages a
myriad of dreamers, philosophers and gurus have preached about the coming
of a soul-saving merger of the narcissistic individual with the community.
But their predictions have never amounted to much. Inter-group tensions
have always ended up toppling the card houses before they could reach
the heavens.
So why should you believe my prophesy? What makes this era different than
others? Is this truly a unique moment in world history?
Yes, it seems so. The challenges facing the world community are nearly
all global in nature. It makes no sense to tackle global warming on a
local scale. Immigration problems cannot be solved nationally, but only
by co-operating with neighbouring countries. The same holds true for drug
smuggling, oil prices, anti-terrorist measures, dealing with dictators,
protecting human rights, eradicating child labour and sweatshops and regulating
international cash flows.
Jean-François Rischard, vice president of the World Bank, is convinced:
we are engaged in a fight for our very survival; a fight to stop the destruction
of the earth. In his book High Noon: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years
to Solve Them, he writes that it is a collective battle that leaves
us no other option but to join hands. After all, whatever the answers
to our modern problems may be developing and using alternative
fuels, greener technologies and applying or scrapping gene technology
they affect us all. Co-operation has become the key to our survival.
Of course, there have been other points in history when a we
feeling was crucial, such as following both world wars. But there is a
big difference between the we of then and the we of now. There was little
room in that former we for the individual and for personal development.
Across the board, the old we thinking assumed that all the individual
had to do was surrender in order to find freedom in the arms of the collective,
the herd. The I was seen as a source of evil that had to be
sacrificed. The individual became a weak-willed victim that could be manipulated
by others or by the group.
The new we is different. It is a we wherein the individual maintains his
independence. The ego remains intact and, in fact, has an important role
to play. The ego takes root, protects and ensures that every choice is
freely made. The ego could even be said to form the basis of we; instead
of merging with it, freedom has become an integral part of solidarity.
A solidarity from which the ego actually derives the strength and inspiration
it needs to further develop. A solidarity woven from countless threads.
A friend of mine had a T-shirt bearing the message: Them = Us. Those words
perfectly capture the transition. There is no longer any they,
because we are all connected. And this marks a sharp contrast with the
former we that was not inclusive, but judgmental of the other
that didnt belong to the core group. The old we excludes what it
considered strange or threatening. It was us against you.
The old we was the we of the herd and the family, of the monasteries and
the army, of working groups and teams, of football club supporters and
national teams. The old we stands opposed to the new we. The new we is
curious to meet and connect with others. It sets out in a collective search,
hunting for answers that serve the common good. The new we is convinced
that one plus one is three.
Paradoxically, the new we is a direct result of the wave of investments
in personal development that has been flooding the modern Western world
since the 1960s. In contrast to the previous period, the advent of therapy,
meditation and yoga ushered in an era of unprecedented individual development.
But while esoteric literature and self-help books continue to weigh down
bookshelves, and newspapers are full of advertisements for courses and
training seminars, we appear to be reaching a limit. The I
is becoming supersaturated. How much more time and attention can we spend
on our I without sinking into fatuous narcissism?
This limit is in keeping with the healthy psychological development of
a maturing human being. Beyond the highest ideal of self-realisation
in line with the American psychologist Abraham Maslows famous pyramid
glimmers the challenge of the new we. After all, isnt the
essence of human spiritual development in fact the transcendence of our
ego and the discovery that we are a part of the universe? Huge groups
of people are ready to follow in the footsteps of the few wise spiritual
masters that for centuries have served as role models. We is the next
spiritual step. We is a consciousness that your inner self can experience,
not an external identity with which you need to join.
The new spiritual we is gathering strength worldwide. An estimated 2%
of the world population has embraced the new we. This is in keeping with
the findings of sociologist Paul Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson.
In their book The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People are
Changing the World, they explain that a new subculture has developed,
both in the United States and in Europe, that is interested in personal
development and global justice. This group men and women, young
and old, black and white, well- and poorly-educated, rich and poor
rejects cynicism and materialism, and actively seeks practical ways to
express their idealism. The authors, who studied the issue for 13 years,
speak of pioneers; trailblazers of what may be the next step in civilisation,
for their numbers are swelling to an influential, critical mass.
The modern economy provides the strongest evidence of global convergence.
The influence of multinational companies reaches much further than the
shop floor or the office cubicle. Products are manufactured using materials
from every corner of the globe. Mergers and joint ventures have become
so commonplace that newspapers now often dedicate only a few lines to
them whereas 15 years ago they would have consumed copious amounts of
column inches for days. Co-operative ventures between multinationals and
local parties or interest groups, which responsible entrepreneurs
now refer to as stakeholders, have become common practice.
Mutual dependence has become so integrated into the world economy that
one has to ask how much longer we can reasonably speak of national
economies. Even in a system that continues to thrive on personal
interest and competition not exactly concepts that belong to the
new we it is clear that co-operation points the way to continued
economic success.
These economic developments are being stimulated by the IT revolution.
The world is connected through a series of global telecommunications and
information systems that have penetrated every aspect of our living environment.
Time and distance, borders and differences are rapidly disappearing.
Nowhere is this development clearer than on the world wide web, which
is probably giving the biggest boost to the burgeoning global we. Internet
knows no boundaries between cultures, races or religions and through it
everyone can connect to anyone at any given moment. Internet is the foundation
of a new world but dont confuse this claim with the dotcom
slogans of a bygone economic bubble. Internet is the joint creation of
a wild and eclectic group of people that meet and learn from each other,
that stimulate and help one another, that can love each other as friends
and family members.
Internet has also proven to be an extremely successful means of mobilising
people. An e-mail calling people to protest can rouse 10 or 100 thousand
people around the world. Alternative globalists may be the finest example
of a movement that has tapped the power of the Internet. They have shown
themselves capable of mobilising masses of people at a moments notice
during street demonstrations from Seattle to Prague and from Genoa to
Cancun, forever changing our perception of these cities.
In fact, the alternative globalists deserve an honourable mention as the
pioneers of a movement with a far-reaching awareness of we and solidarity.
Their resistance is aimed at organisations such as the World Trade Organisation
and the IMF, whose policies in their view dont strengthen
unity but create greater contrasts: between rich and poor, between North
and South. The political answers that are expressed at anti summits
and in the books they write propose solutions, which are leading to more
equality and justice on a global level.
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Not only is the world coming together politically, spiritually and economically,
but biological developments also point in that direction. Every ecosystem
is a complex matrix of life forms that are jointly evolving. Plants need
insects for pollination, lions kill off the weakest antelopes, thus reducing
the chance of contagious diseases spreading through the herd. The examples
are endless.
Humans are also part of this co-evolution. We developed from our ancestors
due to our ability to increasingly adapt to changing circumstances. That
process started gradually. But some 50 thousand years ago we took a giant
leap forwards that formed the basis of our modern culture. This leap was
the result of increasing population densities, which in turn demanded
physical adjustments. Humans found an ingenious solution: they changed
the way their brains functioned. They made them more flexible and more
creative thereby ensuring that they could better handle the increasing
complexity of their social environment. The nomadic hunter ultimately
became a modern city dweller, thus planting the seed that would make the
family unit the foundation of society.
Individualisation, combined with the increasing complexity of modern society
and the pressure of population growth now appears to be forcing humanity
to take another evolutionary leap forwards. The brain needs a we
gene to enable it to better handle modern challenges. You can see
the we gene in the making when people collectively mourn following a disaster.
The brutal attacks on September 11, 2001 had a unifying effect that spread
far beyond Manhattans borders. It was a dramatic and painful lesson
for humanity in mutual dependence. The first reaction of President Bush
Youre either with us or against us in the fight against
terror appears to be a misplaced after-effect of the old
we thinking. Reality is different now: it isnt about the world joining
up to take sides with the United States, but rather the Americans having
to join the rest of the world. That lesson, which is slowly sinking in
at the White House, will go down in history as a global policy reversal.
This was the birth of a new way of thinking, a realisation that we are
all in the same boat.
What makes silent vigils and radical events such as 9/11 so important
is that during those moments nothing stands in the way of the we feeling.
There is only one we. No other we, no they. Such moments are transformative.
The we that exists between people changes them. Following such an event,
many have the feeling that they have experienced something special, that
they have changed. For a brief moment they were a part of something larger
than themselves. They experienced a broader cohesion call it self-transcendence
a wholeness that gave them self-confidence and made life meaningful.
Years ago during my first Zen retreat I experienced this type of extreme
we feeling. The plan was to meditate for seven days from 6:00 a.m. to
8:00 p.m. And all that time we were to remain silent. I looked forward
to it. I was accustomed to the challenges that went with meditating on
a regular basis. I was expecting some muscle aches and other unpleasantness
as I got used to hours of sitting. But then, or so I hoped, the great
silence would settle over me like a blanket.
I was wrong. It was hard. Really hard. The first day started with pain
in my right knee and back. It was bearable if I shifted my position just
slightly, but in the days that followed what started as a slight prick
in my joints became a huge needle, then a kitchen knife and finally a
dagger. I also found it difficult to remain silent, particularly during
meals, which became a joyless chorus of lip smacking and swallowing.
Just when I began to seriously consider giving up, something changed.
The pain didnt subside, but became irrelevant. I could distance
myself from it. And the people sitting to the right and left of me in
the meditation room, slowly changed from strangers to friends that I felt
I had known for years. Their closeness gave me comfort. If I felt that
they were having difficulty with their position or that their thoughts
were wandering to painful memories, I sent them feelings of love and encouragement.
I didnt even know their names.
Gathering with others in the same room, living according to the same rhythm
and collective concentration meant we became tuned into one another without
losing the focus on ourselves. For me it was as if we slowly changed into
a single body. When we all stood up from our cushions for a walking meditation,
we moved as one. The act of placing our feet on the wooden floor became
the footstep of one large body.
Once you have experienced we in all its power, as I had during the Zen
retreat, you are never the same again. You find that subsequent important
changes no longer start with you, but with the world. You develop a truly
open and respectful attitude towards everyone. You develop a stronger
sense of compassion; compassion, for example, for refugees and the homeless,
who are usually branded as strangers. All of a sudden it seems odd that
we expect immigrants to adapt and settle into our country yet we cant
distinguish a Korean from a Vietnamese.
You can even experience the we feeling in the heat of competition. Bill
Russell, an American basketball superstar during the 1950s and 60s, recalls
moments when it felt as if he and his fellow players were floating above
their bodies: All our movements changed into a rhythmic, musical
dance between both teams. Although each team was doing everything they
could to win, the competition no longer mattered. When Russell witnessed
a spectacular move by one of his opponents, he found himself hoping that
they would score. Everyone was playing their best game, at an amazingly
high pace, and every pass, every fake became a work of art. Yet Russell
could anticipate each ensuing moment of the game in advance and felt so
deeply connected with all the other players it sent chills up his spine.
During the match, both teams formed a we that went beyond themselves.
At the highest rung on the evolutionary ladder we can approach every human
being openly and lovingly. Even our opponent, the enemy. Especially
the enemy. It is possible, but it is not always easy. The
old we the we of us against you, of dogmas,
judgements and rigid opinions continues to stalk us. But the pattern
is clear: we are leaving the age of I and entering the we era.
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The path to we starts close to home. Talk to others about the new we.
Bring it up in conversation. My experience is that such discussions create
new, open communities. They bring we-makers together in a relationship
without rules, laws or fixed agendas fragmentation disappears.
Real conversation dialogue requires skilful listening and
speaking.
In the United States, the early Quakers were very adept at this. During
their meetings, which were open to everyone, people only opened their
mouths if they truly felt the need to express themselves. As long as someone
was talking, he or she could not be interrupted. Nor was it tolerated
to attack the speaker or question their words. You spoke on your own behalf
and assumed full responsibility for what you said. This is how the Quakers
addressed the problem of slavery. It took years. Their joint decision
to free all their slaves came 100 years earlier than the rest of America.
Whats keeping us from using that same approach to start an open
dialogue with refugees, terrorists or prisoners? Or with avaricious company
chairmen and politicians?
The we teaches us to listen first, to abandon our pre-conceived notions
and reserve judgement. By listening the new we can make a great contribution
to bridging the worlds conflicts and disparities. Just think of
the small-scale but heart warming initiatives in the Middle East whereby
Israelis and Palestinians explore their future together, showing us there
is an alternative to the old paradigm of judgements and accusations.
If hierarchy makes way for the new we, the structure of global society
will change. With the help of the Internet, direct democracy will replace
the old fashioned hierarchical indirect democracy. Just
as companies under the influence of the emerging we become increasingly
emancipated and break-up into smaller autonomous units, so too will states
and governments emancipate and give responsibilities back to networks
and individuals, to us. Politics will go back to the town square in Athens
where it belongs, according to the metaphor. Close by, so that everyone
feels involved and responsible. The new perception of spirituality will
bridge religious gaps and bring people of different backgrounds closer
together.
The new we does away with walls, because he who builds a wall, shuts himself
in. And I have discovered that I can even let go of my annoyance with
bad drivers. As I once read on a poster: Love your neighbour, because
thats me.
Jaap Westerboss book Wereldwijd wij (Worldwide we) will be published
shortly by Altamira-Brecht. Westerbos is a cook and an artist. Under the
pseudonym André Wolf he previously wrote 'De tao van stampot' (The
Tao of mashed potatoes) and a column in Ode about cooking.
Old and new We
THE OLD WE
machine
top-down
emphasis on parts
differentiation I and we
executing orders
norms
the truth
span of control
products and results
knowledge is power
in search of simplicity
mutual dependence
obligation
boundaries
collective unconscious
discussion
ethnocentric
small ego
THE NEW WE
living organism
bottom-up
emphasis on wholes and networks
integration I and we
self-organisation
values
many truths side by side
span of support
relationships and people
knowledge is free
acceptance of complexity
freedom in solidarity
obliging
unbounded
collectively conscious
dialogue
world-centric
higher self
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