How do we live through the increasing pace of social, political, and environmental CONFUSION? We can’t trust what we hear or even read on the news. So much of it comes from sources that have a stake in swaying our minds one way or the other. So, who do we trust to give us the information we need to live, as David Bohm might say, ‘coherently in the world?’  

Most of us know at some level of consciousness that we are part of a finite, limited planet, yet our culture tells us the sky is the limit or better there is nothing we can’t have or do if we work hard enough and want it enough to go for it. Well, the carrying capacity on earth is right around 2 billion people and we are nearing 8 billion right now – heading to 10 billion I hear. So, we have a culture that is out of sync with the actual flux and flow of the natural world. Because everything is connected to everything else (the quantum worldview) the natural world is always trying to balance itself and encourage new life forms to unfold. The older worldview – the one we continue to live out of – the Newtonian – had us as separate beings and things. Everything was static and could be named and described perfectly. Very left-brain oriented and inconsistent with our most critical issues such as the climate crisis.

But our culture has not been well examined in terms of its impact on the natural world. We don’t usually put the two together. Maybe anthropology studies it, but it doesn’t make mainstream news. It never reports that we have a culture that is basically out of control. It never suggests that our administrators and legislators at all levels of government might not be supporting the world view that supports all life on the planet. And that would be a travesty. That would mean that most life on earth as we have known it over the centuries will no longer be around. Our human and so many other species might not survive a warming and increasingly resource depleted planet.

So, what do we do? How do we fix a culture that is taking us down a death path?

Here is an idea that seems so clear from my ‘dialogic’ perspective….

You bring together the most powerful stakeholders in the world. You also bring together a random sampling of other stakeholders from various professions, income levels, and cultures, etc.

These stakeholders and thought leaders share their ideas and thinking on how to take immediate world-wide action.

They make presentations, talk among themselves in dialogue, inspire each other’s thinking processes and unfold new ideas to try. This is all televised on global networks.

Those attending are able to input questions and a large, whole-group dialogue begins to take shape. It lasts until there is a sense among those gathered that there is sufficient shared meaning to leave, take some actions, and return to learn again with each other in dialogue.

This cycle repeats itself in smaller and smaller units with some overlapping verticality so that units are tied together, almost as a beehive. There are separate cells, but they are all interconnected and are not isolated.

The funnel operates in both directions. The large opening has many people sharing their voices. At the tip of the funnel, we have the major players, people like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg…and those dialogues will be televised too. Then we will make some progress in moving past our current confusion.