Democracy has a vision of human rights, social justice and equality. Rules or laws and policies are used to enforce peoples' rights, however, it begs the question: Who makes the rules? Who sets the standards and whose voices are represented in the mainstream? Laws can be useless in picking up subtle or covert forms of prejudice and the way powerful people oppress others.
Deep Democracy, is a term phrased by Dr Arnold Mindell, founder of Global Process Work based in Oregon, USA. It emphasises the importance of representing marginalised positions in a community in order to create wholeness. It is based on the understanding that relationships between groups and individuals are not equal in power in the mainstream. Particularly if these voices have been disempowered in communities over long periods of time.
From
Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies Seminar Programme
Ancient Greece, the cultural birthplace of western civilization,
had something called a
forum, a space for public expression. Such a forum was truly open
to diversity of
thought, feeling, intuition, values, communication styles, dreaming,
spirituality and
diverse metaphysical realities. In other words, it was a place
where people felt safe to
passionately express themselves.
We need to revive the institution. A forum today would be especially
valuable for the
expression of those views not supported by the mainstream; those
emotions that are
often silenced, or sensationalized and pathologized, by the media,
parliamentary
procedure, or anyone else who happens to disagree.
Buckminster Fuller, one of the great minds of the last century,
supported this idea. He
said we need to support the intuitive wisdom and comprehensive
informed-ness of each
and every individual to ensure our continued fitness for survival
as a species. Fuller's
notion of this being a critical path element in our survival mirrored
that of Plato 2500
years earlier, when he wrote that Athens needed the intelligence
of all and couldn't
afford not to accept women as thinkers and leaders. Even if Plato
didn't expand his
thinking enough to extend that acceptance to other classes and
races, he planted a
cultural seed that took another twenty five hundred years to sprout,
and is only now
coming to fruition in culturally creative ways.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead had a vision in the final hours
of her life that she shared
with her friend and former student Jean Houston. Her vision was
about the survival of the
world through establishment of teaching-learning communities in
which people
gathered in small groups on a regular basis, in homes, schools,
churches, and
businesses. She saw these people in dialogue, taking their learning
and conclusions
into social action. In short, forums.
I hope that [our] community will re-create this ancient social
institution, thus
developing a more effective way of dealing with complex social
issues, and bridging
the gap between psychology and social action, and public and private
interests. A
modern forum would be patterned after our own unique culture,
and work on
developing an emotionally and environmentally sustainable community.
I envision
bringing forums into government, businesses, schools, and the
broader community.
The goal of open forums is to bring together people representing
the entire spectrum of
opinion on an issue-making space for all voices to be heard while
facilitating a
dialogue between them. All voices are a valued part of the whole
and need to be
expressed and heard if we are to create a sustainable multi-cultural
community.
Arnold Mindell, a leading experimenter with social forums,
says, "The basic idea of [a
forum] is to promote awareness and respect people and nature,
to treat every moment
as precious and to consider each and every event from as many
sides as may be
present, while protecting those with least power."
I may not personally agree with someone's position. But if
I don't support them to
express it, am I not helping to create a situation where they
have to resort to emotional
or physical terrorism to be heard? I am convinced that, behind
the most rageful views
and hateful actions, there is a basic human fear that needs to
be freely expressed,
understood and creatively supported. Only in the free exchange
of opinions, fears and
ideas can creative and positive change occur. A social forum is
inherently democratic.
One challenge in practicing deep democracy lies in developing
the skill and
awareness to facilitate interactions between people in a way that
is somehow lovingly
supportive of all parties. In Sitting in the Fire: Large Group
Transformation Using Conflict and Diversity (Lao Tse Press,
1995), Arnold Mindell writes about this process of
personal development, about the skills needed to facilitate emotional
group processes,
and about the development of eldership. "Eldership grows,
in part, from having
experienced the issues yourself, having known yourself as both
victim and oppressor.
What remains when the fire of your own desire for revenge has
burned low is a sort of
soothing cool that relieves everyone. It doesn't patronize. It
expects only those who can
to make the shift in consciousness from conflict to insight. Elders
themselves have
made the leap from one-sidedness to compassion."
What Mindell says of the individual is equally true for society.
Far from being one-sided,
a forum is an inherently compassionate place of listening and
solution-building....
Conflict is inevitable in a multicultural society. ....[I]t's
imperative that we open this
dialogue in our community, deeply hear the experience of others,
and find those
creative solutions.
Stan Siver is a process worker, facilitator, writer, and sailor, currently studying process
work at the Process Work Center of Portland, and working on a doctorate in the
psychology of social conflict.
From Conflict and Love by Stan Silver, in Alternatives for Cultural Creativity, Fall 2000.