survival vs transformation

[Roberto Verzola <rverzola@phil.gn.apc.org>]

 > Bob Olsen:
 > My concern for survival first comes from the fact that I am poor.
 > The poor are the ones who will suffer (die) the most as a result
 > of electrical failure in January in Canada.

I am not asking that we forget about survival. I am asking that as we
confront the issues of survival, we should *at the same time*
consciously point out flawed mindsets and put forward new ones. If we
don't, we might survive the Y2K crisis, but it will be "business as
usual" afterwards and those flawed mindsets would lead us to worse
crises.

 > There almost nothing that I can do about the "system." 

This is a typical and presumably valid feeling during periods of
stability. But we are entering a chaotic period; chaos has it own laws
of development, and one of these says (roughly) that during this
period, the chaotic system is much more sensitive to efforts to change
its direction. Determined efforts which would seem puny during a
non-chaotic stage may prove decisive during the chaotic stage.
We have much better chances of changing the "system" during -- not
after -- the crisis.

My second point is that recent developments in systems theory,
particular complex systems, are giving us a somewhat different view of
reality, in which global changes can be attained even by minor local
changes in the fundamental rulesets of a complex system's basic
member. Applied to society, I take this to mean that each of us need
not even think in terms of changing the system globally, but simply of
changing our own and our neighbors' mindsets, and perhaps that of the
community that we live in. If there are enough of us doing the same
thing, and we reach a sufficient number of communities with changed
mindsets, a "phase-change" occurs -- the equivalent of finally getting
over the top of a hill. The new mindsets and social arrangements then
become self-reinforcing after that, foreclosing a return to the old
mindsets. But this has to occur *during* the crisis itself, when the
system is most sensitive to perturbing factors. At least, this is the
theory...

 > So, for these two reasons, I am most concerned about survival.

Then you should stay that way. I realize how difficult it is to think
in theoretical terms when confronted with survival issues. I, on the
other hand, will have to keep raising this systemic transformation
issue -- without asking people to forget about survival issues, not
even to spend less time on them. Let us concern ourselves with
survival, as you said, and then let us think of transforming the
system too. Perhaps some can concentrate on one and some on the other,
while we're all doing both. Otherwise, we might survive but it will be
"business as usual" after the crisis, and we will have missed what
could be the only remaining window of opportunity before an even more
serious crisis, one that threatens not just our technological tools
but our ecological base, again confronts us.

Regards, and thanks for keeping at it...

Roberto Verzola