To Remake The World
Something Earth-Changing is Afoot Among Civil Society
I have given nearly one thousand talks about the environment in the past fifteen years, and after every speech a smaller crowd gathered to talk, ask questions, and exchange business cards. The people offering their cards were working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. They were from the nonprofit and nongovernmental world, also known as civil society. They looked after rivers and bays, educated consumers about sustainable agriculture, retrofitted houses with solar panels, lobbied state legislatures about pollution, fought against corporate-weighted trade policies, worked to green inner cities, or taught children about the environment. Quite simply, they were trying to safeguard nature and ensure justice.
After being on the road for a week or two, I would return with a couple hundred cards stuffed into various pockets. I would lay them out on the table in my kitchen, read the names, look at the logos, envisage the missions, and marvel at what groups do on behalf of others. Later, I would put them into drawers or paper bags, keepsakes of the journey. I couldn’t throw them away.
Over the years the cards mounted into the thousands, and whenever I glanced at the bags in my closet, I kept coming back to one question: did anyone know how many groups there were? At first, this was a matter of curiosity, but it slowly grew into a hunch that something larger was afoot, a significant social movement that was eluding the radar of mainstream culture.
I began to count. I looked at government records for different countries and, using various methods to approximate the number of environmental and social justice groups from tax census data, I initially estimated that there were thirty thousand environmental organizations strung around the globe; when I added social justice and indigenous organizations, the number exceeded one hundred thousand. I then researched past social movements to see if there were any equal in scale and scope, but I couldn’t find anything. The more I probed, the more I unearthed, and the numbers continued to climb. In trying to pick up a stone, I found the exposed tip of a geological formation. I discovered lists, indexes, and small databases specific to certain sectors or geographic areas, but no set of data came close to describing the movement’s breadth. Extrapolating from the records being accessed, I realized that the initial estimate of a hundred thousand organizations was off by at least a factor of ten. I now believe there are over one million organizations working toward ecological sustainability and social justice. Maybe two.
By conventional definition, this is not a movement. Movements have leaders and ideologies. You join movements, study tracts, and identify yourself with a group. You read the biography of the founder(s) or listen to them perorate on tape or in person. Movements have followers, but this movement doesn’t work that way. It is dispersed, inchoate, and fiercely independent. There is no manifesto or doctrine, no authority to check with.
I sought a name for it, but there isn’t one.
Historically, social movements have arisen primarily because of injustice, inequalities, and corruption. Those woes remain legion, but a new condition exists that has no precedent: the planet has a life-threatening disease that is marked by massive ecological degradation and rapid climate change. It crossed my mind that perhaps I was seeing something organic, if not biologic. Rather than a movement in the conventional sense, is it a collective response to threat? Is it splintered for reasons that are innate to its purpose? Or is it simply disorganized? More questions followed. How does it function? How fast is it growing? How is it connected? Why is it largely ignored?
After spending years researching this phenomenon, including creating with my colleagues a global database of these organizations, I have come to these conclusions: this is the largest social movement in all of history, no one knows its scope, and how it functions is more mysterious than what meets the eye.
What does meet the eye is compelling: tens of millions of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.
CLAYTON THOMAS-MÜLLER SPEAKS to a community gathering of the Cree nation about waste sites on their native land in Northern Alberta, toxic lakes so big you can see them from outer space. Shi Lihong, founder of Wild China Films, makes documentaries with her husband on migrants displaced by construction of large dams. Rosalina Tuyuc Velásquez, a member of the Maya-Kaqchikel people, fights for full accountability for tens of thousands of people killed by death squads in Guatemala. Rodrigo Baggio retrieves discarded computers from New York, London, and Toronto and installs them in the favelas of Brazil, where he and his staff teach computer skills to poor children. Biologist Janine Benyus speaks to twelve hundred executives at a business forum in Queensland about biologically inspired industrial development. Paul Sykes, a volunteer for the National Audubon Society, completes his fifty-second Christmas Bird Count in Little Creek, Virginia, joining fifty thousand other people who tally 70 million birds on one day. Sumita Dasgupta leads students, engineers, journalists, farmers, and Adivasis (tribal people) on a ten-day trek through Gujarat exploring the rebirth of ancient rainwater harvesting and catchment systems that bring life back to drought-prone areas of India. Silas Kpanan’Ayoung Siakor, who exposed links between the genocidal policies of former president Charles Taylor and illegal logging in Liberia, now creates certified, sustainable timber policies.
These eight, who may never meet and know one another, are part of a coalescence comprising hundreds of thousands of organizations with no center, codified beliefs, or charismatic leader. The movement grows and spreads in every city and country. Virtually every tribe, culture, language, and religion is part of it, from Mongolians to Uzbeks to Tamils. It is comprised of families in India, students in Australia, farmers in France, the landless in Brazil, the bananeras of Honduras, the “poors” of Durban, villagers in Irian Jaya, indigenous tribes of Bolivia, and housewives in Japan. Its leaders are farmers, zoologists, shoemakers, and poets.
The movement can’t be divided because it is atomized—small pieces loosely joined. It forms, gathers, and dissipates quickly. Many inside and out dismiss it as powerless, but it has been known to bring down governments, companies, and leaders through witnessing, informing, and massing.
The movement has three basic roots: the environmental and social justice movements, and indigenous cultures’ resistance to globalization—all of which are intertwining. It arises spontaneously from different economic sectors, cultures, regions, and cohorts, resulting in a global, classless, diverse, and embedded movement, spreading worldwide without exception. In a world grown too complex for constrictive ideologies, the very word movement may be too small, for it is the largest coming together of citizens in history.
There are research institutes, community development agencies, village- and citizen-based organizations, corporations, networks, faith-based groups, trusts, and foundations. They defend against corrupt politics and climate change, corporate predation and the death of the oceans, governmental indifference and pandemic poverty, industrial forestry and farming, depletion of soil and water.
Describing the breadth of the movement is like trying to hold the ocean in your hand. It is that large. When a part rises above the waterline, the iceberg beneath usually remains unseen. When Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize, the wire service stories didn’t mention the network of six thousand different women’s groups in Africa planting trees. When we hear about a chemical spill in a river, it is never mentioned that more than four thousand organizations in North America have adopted a river, creek, or stream. We read that organic agriculture is the fastest-growing sector of farming in America, Japan, Mexico, and Europe, but no connection is made to the more than three thousand organizations that educate farmers, customers, and legislators about sustainable agriculture.
This is the first time in history that a large social movement is not bound together by an “ism.” What binds it together is ideas, not ideologies. This unnamed movement’s big contribution is the absence of one big idea; in its stead it offers thousands of practical and useful ideas. In place of isms are processes, concerns, and compassion. The movement demonstrates a pliable, resonant, and generous side of humanity.
And it is impossible to pin down. Generalities are largely inaccurate. It is nonviolent, and grassroots; it has no bombs, armies, or helicopters. A charismatic male vertebrate is not in charge. The movement does not agree on everything nor will it ever, because that would be an ideology. But it shares a basic set of fundamental understandings about the Earth, how it functions, and the necessity of fairness and equity for all people partaking of the planet’s life-giving systems.
The promise of this unnamed movement is to offer solutions to what appear to be insoluble dilemmas: poverty, global climate change, terrorism, ecological degradation, polarization of income, loss of culture. It is not burdened with a syndrome of trying to save the world; it is trying to remake the world.
THERE IS FIERCENESS HERE. There is no other explanation for the raw courage and heart seen over and again in the people who march, speak, create, resist, and build. It is the fierceness of what it means to know we are human and want to survive.
This movement is relentless and unafraid. It cannot be mollified, pacified, or suppressed. There can be no Berlin Wall moment, no treaty-signing, no morning to awaken when the superpowers agree to stand down. The movement will continue to take myriad forms. It will not rest. There will be no Marx, Alexander, or Kennedy. No book can explain it, no person can represent it, no words can encompass it, because the movement is the breathing, sentient testament of the living world.
And I believe it will prevail. I don’t mean defeat, conquer, or cause harm to someone else. And I don’t tender the claim in an oracular sense. I mean the thinking that informs the movement’s goal—to create a just society conducive to life on Earth—will reign. It will soon suffuse and permeate most institutions. But before then, it will change a sufficient number of people so as to begin the reversal of centuries of frenzied self-destruction.
Inspiration is not garnered from litanies of what is flawed; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. Healing the wounds of the Earth and its people does not require saintliness or a political party. It is not a liberal or conservative activity. It is a sacred act.
Paul Hawken is an entrepreneur and social activist living in California. His article in this issue is adapted from Blessed Unrest, to be published by Viking Press and used by permission.
© 2007 Orion Magazine
There is also an enemy, and it is just as amorphous, and it has the advantage of a common objective: profit. There is a chuckling consensus among the enemy that a centerless, undefined, unled, undeclared movement is no movement at all, and that its successes will always be trivial in the one-sided contest for the planet.
Pressure groups bring down governments but do not change the representative system that eventually corrupts them. To do that as Gravel sez, government has to not only be FOR the people and OF the people, but BY the people. The change has to come from within.
The point is not to “bring down governments”-but to build up from the roots organizations which are creative forces in there own right.Widespread learned helplessness is a losing game- how would you know what you could do unless you said yes? My guess is most people are internally their own worst enemies…defeated not so much by external forces though formidable but by there own internal incoherances and invisible foes. A world of defeated people would make an external tyranny inevitable. Its time to step up-were not wimpy or defeated!
http://wiserearth.org/
Hi Paul (& all) ~
re: Local~Global Civil Society
consult >
“Global Civil Society”
2001–
annual encyclopedias:
realities & pro-active commentaries.
London School of Economics
www.lse.ac.uk
Sometimes when it looks as though no one is in charge, the reality is that everyone is in charge.
www.raycarlson.com
Only time will tell . . . But as quoted above . . . The “Profit” motive seems to prevail . . . It’s a nice view but you need to look at the whole picture and “Corporate Profit” continues to corrupt. When the EXXON shareholders vote to cut their profits life will begin to look better. Stay tuned for the announcement . . .
The Stockmarket and Stockholders are certainly an enemy of the people. The laws of our country make it illegal to ‘do the right thing’ when profit is at risk. Privately held companies are often no better…but at least there is a chance the humans owning them have a heart. Corporations on the other hand seem to have the compassion of snakes.
CAN WE PLEASE STOP BLOWING UP THE WORLD FOR ONE FRICKEN DAY??? sheesh……….
I just wonder what it will take to overcome the “PEP Syndrome” (Politics, Economics and Power)of Industry and Governments. Here in Australia we also have a plethora of various environmental groups, but even within those groups they seem to all to be quite insular, and in many cases can not even agree with each other. We also have a Government that, even at this point in time, does not believe in Global Warming as a seriuos threat to this planet. Our Government believes in “Sustainability”…Coal, Oil, Gas and yes..now Nuclear…..oh yes these are all sustainable? So long as the majority of the worlds citizens are prepared to be lemmings, remain ignorant and uneducated, those in the world that hold the power will remain to do so. If any person is concerned about an issue, then do something about it; If you are not concerned…do nothing. Unfortunately, here in Australia probably well over 80%of the population….does nothing.
I wish I had the faith left in me to believe that things might truly change for the better, but I fear that they shall only worsen, no matter what we do. Yes, when it comes to our ultimate fate, I am pessimistic. I am glad I’ve no children, to have to worry about what they would endure in the future, in their lives. I find relief, sometimes, in my multiple list of diseases (Hypertension, Diabetes, HIV, [lungs: COPD, ILS], [heart: CHF, BVP, TVP, LVH, RVH], and I have to wear oxygen 24 hours-a-day) because I know that my time here, is shortened by these things, and I shall not have to endure these wretched things in my 60’s, 70’s, onward, probably. (I am 49.)
What an encouraging development you have identified, Paul. I think you could increase your census figures dramatically if you also recognized writers, journalists, columnists, bloggers and people of that ilk who are daily working with transformative ideas that underpin or inspire the activists, and also gradually erode the rote beliefs that keep mainstream culture going with a continual drip of facts and different interpretations of facts. While not part of non-governmental organisations as such, they play a big part in this non-movement that I want to call “viral” except that that sounds more like a disease than the cure. On the subject of viral, as in “viral marketing”, there are also interesting commercial developments made possible by the internet these days, in which it is possible for content to be published and marketed without a by-your-leave from a publishing house or record company. That’s another way in which control leaks away from the corporate establishment.
Yes, “the game is afoot” and we are it. I am independent and have quality intentions. You and I can take what exists and reshape it’s flow to satisfiy a many faceted drive within. Profit or not, doing it with Love is what matters. One on one, one at a time, no concern for fame or empire. Everything has it’s place and as such creates the impetus for the next something.
Fed Up
What do you mean?
Whoever reads this. Please downlaod Google Earth and look at the human fingerprint across the midwest states. There is hardly any terrain left that has not been permanently damaged. Check out states around Iowa from about 20 miles up. Mother earth looks like a worn-out, tatooed ol’ rag.
Thanks Paul for the optimism. It’s wonderful to see a person with your background and notoriety saying that we are in the great turning, and that you believe we will make it. That’s good news and inspires me with the needed energy to keep on keeping on.
I’m looking forward to your new book.
Profit as an end in itself is self destructive, because it has no moral compass, and so cannot see where it is hitting up against it’s limits. Its vastly more profitable for profit to be used as a means to a greater end with a moral compass. Meaning and purpose are restored and they are far more competetive than meaninglessness and purposelessness. Profit is like a hollow skeleton without these.
Andrew,
Look up permaculture and other ecological agriculture. We haven’t got to permanent damage yet on Mother Earth.
Mr. Hawken says “Inspiration is not garnered from litanies of what is flawed…” How true. A clear set of fair rules can stop the endless chatter of mere complaints about how bad things are.
We need a really new Constitution that embodies the values of progressive thought. Impeachment of our political criminal hypocrites is fine, but let’s move on and make our political and corporate criminal “persons” legally accountable to real persons for their antisocial behavior. Now they get a free ride from the judicial stooges who are “following the law”.
CELEBRATE!!!
Organically, it grows. Quietly, it transforms. Lovingly, it shapes. Intensely, it endures.
Joyfully, I celebrate hope.
I can’t wait to see how it manifests when the growth coalesces more visibly for all to see.
Thanks for a wonderful article Paul. It’s inspiring to hear these stories from all over the world. I am filled with hope. Perhaps even business is beginning to see that only by embracing sustainable practices will they survive…will we all survive. I found this article today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/business/yourmoney/06fourth.html
Also, check out the book Cultural Creatives (I personally really like that name for the movement) - there is a lot of interesting info about these folks working on making the world a better place. The movement is huge but it is not reflected by the dominant culture’s mass media, so it’s easy to feel isolated. As it grows it will begin to be reflected more and more. Till then, thank goodness for the web and places like Commondreams.
And thank-you to all the millions of people who are working to create a new world. You are the real heros.
Sure, hope Springs eternal, and it’s been magnificent to permaculture around my dwelling lately, but I’m with Fed Up on the bombs. We’re all playing activated depleted uranium roulette.
Yes, I know, the threat from an ACTIVATED depleted uranium molecule is a lot less then the threat from the depletion of life force from the biosphere due to the overall effects of nuclear waste, so don’t worry - be happy.
This un-named and un-lead movement, didn’t alot of it’s memebers make a ruckus in February of 2003? Isn’t it time they danced in the streets again?
Every guy
grab a girl,
do the impeachment dance
and thrill the world!
Yes, it is great that so many groups are working to save humanity from itself. We are the enemy and the cancer of the planet and we can only turn things around by lowering our numbers through rational birth control and lessen consumption by a little austeriry— or we can allow death control to become dominant. We appear to prefer the latter given the lack of demand for the former by citizens like Mr. Hawkins and others who ignore overpopulation as the driver of our environmental predicament.
We certainly have been warned about our current ecological crisis. Ken Boulding was one of many who warned, but few listened. This poem was written as I graduated from high school, over fifty years ago. I didn’t read it until 1972. It cleverly and artfully summarizes our environmental predicament-long before Silent Spring and The Population Bomb caught the attention of some. Read, enjoy, lament and pass it on.
***************************************
Conservationist’s Lament
By Kenneth Boulding
In: Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, 1956.
University of Chicago Press, p. 1087
The world is finite, resources are scarce,
Things are bad and will be worse.
Coal is burned and gas exploded,
Forests cut and soils eroded.
Wells are dry and air’s polluted,
Dust in blowing, trees uprooted,
Oil is going, ores depleted,
Drains receive what is excreted.
Land is sinking, seas are rising,
Man is far too enterprising,
Fire will rage with Man to fan it,
Soon we’ll have a plundered planet.
People breed like fertile rabbits,
People have disgusting habits.
Moral: The evolutionary plan went astray by evolving Man.
“Two paths lie before us. One leads to death,the other to life. If we choose the first path… we in effect become allies of death, and in everything we do our attachment to life will weaken; our vision, blinded to the abyss that has opened at our feet, will dim and grow confused; our will discouraged by the thought of trying to build on such a precarious foundation anything that is meant to last, will slacken; and we will sink into stupefication, as though we were gradually weaning ourselves from life in preparation for the end. On the other hand, if w reject our doom, and bend our efforts toward survival…. then the anesthetic fog will lift;our vision, no longer straining not to see the obvious, will sharpen; our will, finding secure ground to build on,will be restored; and we will take full and clear possession of life again. One day- and it is hard to believe that it will not be soon- we will make our choice.”
Jonathan Schell “The Fate of the Earth
It’s a shame Kenneth Boulding apparently didn’t travel beyond his negativity. Yes, people do wasteful, destructive things; yet, people have some worthwhile traits as well. There are all sorts of cultures, like the Mayans that Hawken mentions, that live in a way that would have people laughing at Boulding’s cynicism. Also, much of the destructive behavior of our species is being directed by forces that are manipulating the general public, instilling some of those “digusting habits.”
We are not “far to enterprising,” the problem is that enterprises that elites favor are being imposed upon us. While worthwhile enterprises are being marginalized.
That’s part of the beauty of Hawken’s piece. It reveals some very radical good news.
I’m going to be posting it on various message boards. If I get the opportunity, I’ll mention it on talk radio.
By the way, Hawken understands quite well the pressures six billion people put on the planet.
He’s just pointing out the varied approaches people are taking to address a wide range of issues. Betsy Rosenberg is doing the same with her radio show http://www.ecotalk.net
I left out an “o” in “far too enterprising.”
Yes hope lies within, but the danger is that this time we have to override our own self, everything that had manifested itself on our path through history. We stumbled from one foolishness into the next, not analysing why this or that happened, but washed, pushed and lured into the next tomorrow, with its social traps where ‘making money’ became our mission and questions couldn’t be asked. We followed what we believed was asked of us… and now we see that greed - our most powerful but underestimated of instincts - is driving our way of life, caused illnesses from stress, driven 24/7 lifes… and we didn’t lose our time and strength alone, we lost our connection to each other as well, parents and children, couples and neighbours.
As I said once before, we followed a 2.500 years old projection, but we took it as a prophesy and the danger is, many are exited, expecting soon the destruction of our world it was hard work to reach that level and they expect to be rewarded for the damage they did to the planet and each other, yes, a new heaven and a new earth is waiting, and we have the weapons to hasten the process. Shouldn’t we have made sure that the projection was seen as a warning how NOT to proceed?
But hope lies within, and most of these organizations who work towards solutions will find themselves often ignored, or they spreach to the converted. As the article said, there is an undercurrent growing and ready when the dream-world collapses and the reality is laid bare.
listen to the voices from within…
Where does it say that our fate is pre-ordained? The end of the arc of our evolution is in our own hands. i suspect it follows a well beaten path, and I’m sure we are meant to become more godlike , in charge of our fate. We had to come to this point to choose.
Paul Hawken presents, in Blessed Unrest, a fascinating thesis that enjoys massive establishment backing:
1. There are tens of millions of people out there, maybe even more, who are deeply concerned by the deteriorating ecology.
2. All of these people are atomized, fragmented, and splintered, therefore, not subject to control by others.
3. That situation is just great because it discloses a deep form of human consciousness that in due time will change the world.
This is another explanation for the existing situation that makes the establishment very uncomfortable:
4. Tens of millions of people who are deeply concerned about anything but existing in an atomized, fragmented, and splintered state are, above all, powerless!
5. Atomized, fragmented, and splintered groups that are powerless just die, in simple evolutionary terms.
6. This situation, the empirical evidence discloses, evolves in significant part from an electronically wired but spiritually disconnected e-culture.
7. Some well known groups of human beings currently enjoy the illusion of being “free as a bird” just like the hunter-gatherers who roamed the earth 500,000 years ago, without a collective bond or settled place to call their own.
8. In a civilization with a population approaching 6,500,000,000, those who wish to live “free as a bird” may be defined as irresponsible by an enlightened society in pursuit of “a more perfect Union” which is what democracy is all about.
9. Tens of millions of deeply powerless, atomized and splintered people most likely belong to a “Lonely Nation,” as revealed by a stunning AP story published Aug 6, 2006, and these powerless people are easily manipulated by demagoguery, just like we all have been pushed around lately in a terrifying return to barbarity.
10. These deeply concerned people, who live “free as a bird” and think they are not subject to control by others, are dead wrong. They are not only controlled by demagoguery but helping to lead the whole human civilization right over the cliff.
11. The smart way to respond to the existing situation is not to stick our collective heads in the sand and pretend that everything is just great, but rather, to use our unique spiritual capacity to build the New Agora of Philanthropolis through circles of interlinked dialogue that can harness our collective wisdom and power!
12. Let’s all take the new high road! Top Ranked by GOOGLE: LOVERS OF DEMOCRACY
Rachel’s Democracy & Health News #909, May 31, 2007 http://www.precaution.org/lib/07/prn_response_to_remake_world.070529.htm
A RESPONSE TO PAUL HAWKEN’S ‘TO REMAKE THE WORLD’
[Rachel’s introduction: Activist and author Kate Davies responds to Paul Hawken about the nature and future of the worldwide social movement that has arisen in response to widespread ecological devastation and global warming.]
By Kate Davies
Hooray for Paul Hawken! His article “To Remake the World” in Rachel’s News #908 and his new book “Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw it Coming” are extremely timely and thought-provoking.
Hawken has put his finger on a global phenomenon that has been growing since the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle. Largely unacknowledged by the spotlight of media attention, a new social movement has been quietly gaining strength in the U.S. and internationally. In bringing it to light, Hawken has revealed a trend that is positive and hopeful at a time when these qualities are sorely needed in the world.
Although he has done an outstanding job of describing the new movement, several points call out for further exploration.
First, Hawken shies away from giving the new movement the full recognition of a name, calling it instead “this unnamed movement.” This is a little strange because it has already been given several names. My favorite is “the new progressive movement,” in homage to the U.S. Progressive Movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The new progressive movement embraces many of the same principles as its predecessor, including beliefs in truly democratic institutions and processes, efficient government and the elimination of corruption, social and economic justice, regulation of large corporations and monopolies, and environmental protection.
He also asserts that the new movement lacks many basic attributes of previous social movements, specifically an ideology, leaders, and internal organization. Let’s look at each of these in more detail.
Ideology
Hawken says the new movement does not have an ideology and its “big contribution is the absence of one big idea.” He is right — in a sense. The new movement does not impose a rigid article of faith on its members, but it is guided by one big, inspirational idea. Indeed, Hawken acknowledges as much in the article’s title.
The movement’s big, inspirational idea is that ordinary people, acting together, can “remake the world.” Collectively, empowered citizens can do more than just succeed on individual issues, like climate change or immigration. They can do more than just win legislative victories, like banning toxic flame retardants or protecting endangered species. The new movement is motivated by the transformative idea that by working together citizens can recreate the whole of society.
This is not a new concept. It is the same one that stimulated the birth of this country. But it is an idea that most Americans seem to have forgotten of late. In today’s social and political climate, the thought that ordinary people can shape society — rather than just relying on politicians, corporate leaders and economists — is truly radical. This may not be “ideology” in the sense that Hawken uses the word, but it is a “big idea” that motivates the entire movement.
In addition to this, there are four goals or aspirations that unite much of the movement:
** Creating an open, participatory and fully accountable democracy;
** Social and economic justice;
** Sustainability for people and the planet; and
** Health and wellbeing for all.
Most members of the new movement are committed to all these goals, even if they work on only one. Collectively, they provide an inspiring and world-changing ideology, especially when combined with the idea that empowered citizens really can remake society.
Leaders
Hawken states that the new movement has few recognizable leaders. He says: “Its leaders are farmers, zoologists, shoemakers, and poets.” In short, there is no Martin Luther King Jr. or Mahatma Gandhi to look up to and venerate.
Going one step further, I would say that the un-acclaimed leaders of the new movement exemplify new types of leadership. Transcending traditional concepts of charismatic and authoritative leadership, they are extremely low key and modest. They are people who emerge in response to specific situations and then relinquish their role when circumstances change. And they are people who serve a group rather than impose their will upon it.
The new movement is not alone in embodying new types of leadership. Many organizations are now experimenting with different approaches. Indeed, innovative ways of thinking about leadership have become very fashionable lately. Many authors, including Ronald Heifetz, Peter Senge and Meg Wheatley, have advocated many innovative ideas, such as:
** Seeing leadership as a process of relationship, rather than control;
** Recognizing that there are many different types of leaders;
** Thinking about leadership from a systems perspective; and
** Focusing on the adaptive challenges of long term change, rather than imposing immediate technical fixes.
They highlight that the concept of leadership itself is changing. So it should not be surprising that the leaders of the emerging movement are different from those of previous movements.
Internal Organization
Hawken asserts that the new movement does not have any internal organization, saying: “It forms, gathers and dissipates quickly,” an organic process that is “dispersed, inchoate, and fiercely independent.”
This is true, but the idea that the emerging movement is more of a loose network than a coherent organization is not new. In early 2004, Gideon Rosenblatt, Executive Director of ONE/Northwest, published a paper called “Movement as Network: Connecting People and Organizations in the Environmental Movement.” In it, Rosenblatt made the point that the strength of the environmental movement is the countless links between people and organizations, rather than the people or the organizations themselves.
Although the “movement as network” idea espoused by Hawken and Rosenblatt has much to commend it, social movements need at least some internal organization. Without any lasting internal structures, it can be difficult to sustain the long-term political momentum needed to successfully confront the entrenched power elites.
So what types of structures would be helpful? There are many candidates including policy “think tanks” to facilitate strategic planning, national or regional groups to help local ones mobilize the public, research units to provide information, educational institutions to provide training and support, groups with expertise in communications, and last but not least, organizations with fundraising experience.
Beyond “To Remake the World” and “Blessed Unrest”
The next step beyond Paul Hawken’s article and book is to ask: “How can we build the new movement?” The answer may determine not only the success of the movement itself but also whether it can truly “remake the world.”
I believe that the emerging movement needs to deepen its understanding of what it takes to achieve systemic social change. This will require a greater understanding of the culture it wants to transform and a more strategic approach to advance progressive change.
Understanding Culture
Many members of the new movement are natural activists — me included. By this, I mean we want to identify problems and solve them. We want to fix what’s wrong with the world! Our strengths lie in targeting specific issues and promoting solutions.
But this emphasis on particular problems means that we pay less attention to the cultural origins that cause the problems we seek to correct. Developing an in-depth understanding of the fundamental economic, political and social forces that shape western culture is essential to identify the leverage points for change. If the new movement does not have a comprehensive knowledge of the culture in which it operates, how can it hope to intervene effectively?
This is challenging because issues are usually represented separately from each other by the media and other mainstream social institutions. Unemployment is portrayed as a different issue from racism. Racism is framed independently of environmental quality. Environmental quality is described without any connection to the economy. This fragmentation makes the public perceive individual issues in isolation from one another and prevents them from seeing the common cultural origins that connect different issues.
A Strategic Approach to Progressive Change
Activists’ usual emphasis on immediate solutions also means that the new movement pays less attention to strategies for long term success. As a result, it is relatively unskilled at achieving lasting, resilient change. Although the emerging movement is good at winning battles, it needs a better understanding of the strategies necessary to win the war.
Developing a strategic approach to progressive change will require knowledge of how social change actually happens. So how can the new movement acquire such knowledge?
1. One key source of information is previous movements, such as the civil rights, anti-Vietnam War, and women’s movements. These and other movements have not yet been adequately studied for what they can teach the new movement about progressive social change.
2. Current thinking about the process of social change provides another source. Ideas about social constructivism will be particularly relevant.
3. A third source is adult learning theory. Much work has already been done on the relationship between learning and change that will be helpful.
In summary, the emerging movement could learn a lot about the process of progressive social change that will enable it to be more strategic.
Closing Comment
Paul Hawken’s article and book make an important contribution to progressive social change. They describe what has previously been an unnoticed, but widespread, movement and in doing they so make it much more visible.
But Hawken’s work is double-edged. At the same time as he describes the new movement, he asserts that it is fundamentally indescribable, saying: “No book can explain it, no person can represent it, no words can encompass it.” This remark runs the risk of being more poetic than helpful.
Indeed, on the basis of these words, Hawken’s readers may question the existence of a movement at all. If it cannot be explained, is it in fact real? If it cannot be represented, does it actually exist? If it cannot be encompassed, is it really a single entity? I fear that Hawken’s dualistic representation of the movement could dilute its significance and effectiveness. It also threatens to undermine his central thesis — that there is a new global movement for progressive social change. Hawken’s true gift is to help us all see just how real this movement is — real enough “to remake the world.”
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Kate Davies is Core Faculty in the Center for Creative Change at Antioch University Seattle. She is currently working on a book called “Making Change: Ideas, Values and Strategies for Building the New Progressive Movement.” E mail: kdavies@antiochsea.edu