Politics and Harmony

I would describe dynamic harmony as change, growth and forward movement that reinforces and strengthens the organism and its environment as it interacts with this environment.

With the concept of “dynamic harmony” I was trying to move away from a woolly unattainable nirvana, heaven on earth type of model of a perfect society to something that is much more viable and attainable in the real world.  A model that includes complex problems and contradictions but that is still a viable model that is worth striving for.   

We need to create a social and economic system that has far fewer destructive imbalances and much greater degree of harmony within itself.  To put it simply it needs to be sustainable and on the whole positive and forward moving.  

If the current global social and economic order becomes manageable as indeed I believe it must then it will be a hugely complex system that needs constant tweaking and adjustment, but first and foremost we have to stabilise that system.

Your own body when it is working well is in a dynamic state of harmony within its self and within its environment and the boundaries between the individual and their environment are very limited and purely based on the perception of a shell.  In fact when an organism is in a state of dynamic harmony it is a seamless part of a larger system.   A healthy individual system can be simply seen as a contained system of relationships that is working well within another system of relationships. Boundaries do exist but there are also countless pathways that connect the smaller system to its larger host.

There seems to be an unnecessary interest and focus on the need for individual change before macroscopic change is possible, this is a false division of labour and in order to make progress we need to work simultaneously on our internal and external environments.

There is no mystery to social and economic progress and radical reform.  The models already exist and what we need to do is to learn from, apply and modify the rules and relationships that already exist within successful small scale systems.

The process of pushing for progress is a messy business that often involves negotiation, compromise and taking two steps forward and one step back but the process of political development is constant and ongoing and if those people with the best intentions stop trying it will simply move in the opposite direction.  Political pessimism obviously undermines the motivation that is needed to keep up the good work.

Political passivity is the biggest obstacle to progressive change and political pessimism helps to feed this passivity and at the moment I would freely admit that, for someone who should know better, I am far too passive and that makes me part of the problem.   Buts that’s what is so attractive about political pessimism, it’s a wonderful excuse, if you are politically aware of what is going on around you that places an enormous burden of responsibility on the individual which can only really be released by negating that awareness with an artificially bleak point of view.

There’s no point in working for a better future because humanity isn’t worth it or what ever other cop out palliatives you make up for yourself to excuse your own inactivity.   Well I flatly refuse to fabricate or subscribe to any such excuses for myself.  I’m a lazy complacent bastard who needs to get stuck in !

The structure of beliefs that filter and determine the interpretation of experience is an interesting issue, it’s an interpretative framework of values and concepts that you have that are used to make sense of the world around you.  Political pessimism is a self fulfilling prophesy because it becomes a vicious circle of cause and effect that creates the failures that justify yet more pessimism and despair.  In truth people are capable of almost anything and the quantity evidence of the goodness of human nature and its opposite is almost boundless.  We can pick and choose from all of this experience and information to make our human environment either positive or negative and this chosen perspective will create experiences that reinforce this viewpoint.  

One interesting illustration of this is the best way to deal with a negative individual is to simply politely ignore their negativity and only respond to their positive behaviours and then carry on being your normal positive self with them and with everybody else.  Often their destructive behaviour will simply wither away in the face of this charm offensive.

There is obviously a sense of powerlessness in the face of a huge seemingly unstoppable destructive social and economic system and yet the opportunities for positive political action are constantly presented to the individual in their daily lives and if those opportunities are frequently grasped then you are contributing to a tide of positive change that could be unstoppable.  When it comes to us the ordinary folk on the ground many mickle goes to make a muckle, or many a small thing goes to make a big thing.  The important thing is not to walk away from an issue.  As individuals we can be politically active in a small way or a large way but the important thing is,… is to be politically active.

Of  course one might ask what right and qualifications has an IT Teacher, who dabbles in the digital arts got when it comes to making grandiose statements about the future of the human race ?   but then that’s exactly what all of us need to do.  Mr and Mrs Small needs to get an opinion, get wise and get motivated.