Motivating Change

"If you want peace, work for justice"-Pope Paul VI

The old story is, 'I'm out for me and mine, since there's not enough in Dodge City for us all, so we'll have to fight it out.' The new story is, 'me and mine', is everybody, and also all the earth and it's denizens. There IS enough for everyone if we co-operate and share. In fact it's a lot more fun like that.

When the position of the magnet changes, the iron filings on the plate spontaneously rearrange themselves into the new pattern. How do we move the magnet? How do we get to the place where people are naturally motivated to do the things that will result in success for this planetary experiment of people and the rest? When a change becomes possible and is something people want, they are very quick and clever to get it. It can happen really fast, as in the practically overnight way almost everyone in the world acquired cell phones.

Peace is a good thing we can agree upon. Without peace, fear based thinking, the reptile brain dominates the conversation. If peace is a minimum condition, we must have a climate of justice. Even animals feel entitled to justice. Dogs or monkeys will get angry if they see their peers get unearned treats without sharing.

The constant war model is one we have a lot of experience with as a species, but it's only one model.  It has been successful for the descendants of its cultures.  We are all, without doubt, descended from brutal murderers, rapists, and abusers. (As well as plenty of nice folks, sure.) One researcher found that in the 25,000 member Yanomomi tribe, the clans of men were in a constant state of war, mostly over women. The men who had killed others had, on average, two and a half times as many children and wives.

So as the saying goes, "if you want peace, work for justice." And peace is only the ground floor! Economic justice must be on the agenda. There is no inherent scarcity of supply for our basic needs on this planet, despite the destructive and wasteful practices exacerbating our environmental problems. The very fact of all this waste is evidence of the abundance we even still do have. So as a starting place, we can be assured there is enough for everyone. That makes it much easier to imagine sharing and change.