The Great Turning
Page 40
Eighty-three percent of Americans consider religion to be important or very important in their lives, which makes the opening of a serious dialogue on political values within the various branches of America’s faith community a development of major significance. Rather than simply accepting the received wisdom of religious leaders, people of faith all across the country find themselves challenged to examine critically their personal beliefs and values in relation to their political responsibilities.
Mixing religion and politics can be frightening when undertaken by extremists intent on establishing a theocratic state to impose their particular religious doctrines on others. It is quite another thing when it 326involves people of faith engaging in a broad and open ecumenical discourse on moral issues and the responsibilities of citizenship. Given the widespread corruption of U.S. political institutions, a spiritually grounded politics devoted to respectful discourse, the peaceful resolution of conflict, justice for all people, and the stewardship of life is a timely idea.
Freed from Empire’s cultural trance, Cultural and Spiritual Creatives are walking away from Empire to join with one another in creating liberated cultural spaces within which to experiment with the partnership cultures and institutions of Earth Community.
The outcome of the struggle between Empire and Earth Community ultimately turns on the politics of culture. If a culture of Empire prevails, Empire wins and ours will be the time of the Great Unraveling. If a culture of Earth Community prevails, Earth Community wins and ours will be the time of the Great Turning. The enormous institutional power at the command of Empire notwithstanding, polling data suggest that Earth Community holds a substantial prospective advantage.
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CHAPTER 20
Building a Political Majority
Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations.
The Great Law of Peace, Constitution of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Nation
The state of the world is most visible in the state of its children.
Raffi Cavoukian, singer, author, founder of Child Honoring
Few contemporary nations seem more divided politically than the United States. Beyond the partisan rancor, however, polling data point to a broad consensus on core values and suggest that if the institutions of governmental and corporate power were accountable to the public will, the United States would be pursuing very different policies both domestically and internationally. These institutions have been so at odds for so long with the core values and interests of the nation that most people have given up hope of any change. The residual frustration, however, runs high and represents a powerful latent political force.
There is near universal agreement among adult Americans (83 percent) that as a society the United States focuses on the wrong priorities.1 Specifically, polling data affirm that the substantial majority of Americans share a desire for strong families and communities, a healthy environment, and high-quality health care and education for all. They are likewise concerned about the unaccountable power of corporations and government, and they prefer to live in a world that puts people ahead of profits, spiritual values ahead of financial values, and international cooperation ahead of international domination.
These are the values of the true political center most everywhere in the world. That center is composed of people who, irrespective of party 328affiliation, want a politics based on principle, seek real solutions to real problems, and believe government should be accountable and serve the common good. In the United States, as in the world, the defining concerns of the center reveal a deep longing to restore the sense of human connection found in the life of healthy families and communities and reflect a natural desire to support our children in their happy and healthful development.
It is on the foundation of this shared concern for children, family, and community that a majoritarian constituency for Earth Community will be built. It is here that the political extremists of the New Right are most vulnerable, because their policies constitute nothing less than a war against children, families, and communities.
CULTURAL POLITICS
As I noted in chapter 4, Empire holds the edge in institutional power, but Earth Community holds the winning edge in the moral power of an authentic living culture. In chapter 2, I framed the cultural politics of the Great Turning as a contest between the lower and higher orders of human consciousness for the swing vote of the Socialized Consciousness of the Good Citizen.
Recall that the Magical Consciousness of the Fantasizers and the Imperial Consciousness of the Power Seekers represent the lower orders of human consciousness. The Cultural and Spiritual Consciousness of the Cultural and Spiritual Creatives represent the higher orders. The human future turns on the question of whether the prevailing cultural values and worldview that shape the understanding of the swing majority are those of Empire or those of Earth Community. (See figure 2.1)
What the New Right Knows
In the United States, the competition for the Socialized Consciousness has been a one-sided contest, because few Cultural and Spiritual Creatives recognize the nature and implications of cultural politics. While the New Right focused on a relatively unified effort to frame and communicate cultural stories to win the swing vote of the Good Citizens who play by the rules and values defined by the prevailing culture, progressives fragmented into countless interest groups promoting fragmented policy 329agendas based on appeals to logic and conscience. As control of the defining cultural stories gave the New Right a growing political edge, progressives found themselves increasingly on the defensive, limited to efforts to stall or moderate the New Right’s agenda.
U.S. progressives began to realize they were missing something important only after the 2004 U.S. presidential election, when pundits reported on the basis of exit polls that “moral values” had been the deciding factor that returned to power the most extremist and, by many definitions, least moral and least family-friendly imperial regime in memory. Progressives have since been awakening to the significance of the New Right’s mastery of cultural politics and the significance of the swing majority of Good Citizens.
The New Right originally spoke of the “Silent Majority” and claimed to be its voice. Then, realizing that silence does not win elections and legislative battles, the New Right changed the label to the “Moral Majority” and called on Good Citizens to raise their voices in a call for national political morality. Working through churches and the media, the New Right defined morality in terms of issues like abortion and gay marriage, called them family values, and tapped into the near universal concern for the well-being of children and families to mobilize a political majority behind an anti-children, anti-family economic agenda.
Plutocrats and neocons care little about family values, however such values might be defined, but find it useful to emphasize issues like abortion and gay marriage to draw attention away from the economic issues about which they care a great deal. This clever political stroke enabled them to build electoral support for politicians aligned behind the real agenda of monetary concentration and elite imperial rule.
What Progressives Must Learn
If Earth Community is to prevail, progressives must learn to win in the arena of cultural politics. Win that struggle, and electoral and legislative victories will follow naturally. A key to success is to recognize that the different orders of human consciousness operate from different world-views and differ in their capacities for compassion and understanding. Messages easily understood by a higher order of consciousness may seem illogical or even absurd to a lower order.
Appealing to Power Seekers to recognize the moral hypocrisy of their actions is an exercise in futility, because the Imperial Consciousness 330lacks the emotional intelligence required to see itself through the eyes of the victims of its actions. It is far less of a stretch, however, for those of a Socialized Consciousness to recognize the hypocrisy, because they already possess
the capacity for empathy, even though they may not yet have become practiced in applying that capacity beyond the circle of members of their own identity group.
Each of us, irrespective of the order of consciousness from which we normally function, is subject to competing pulls toward the values and worldview of those orders of consciousness that lie above and below our own. The Socialized Consciousness is pivotal in this regard as it has the ability to swing in the direction of either Empire or Earth Community—depending on the relative strength of the cultural pull. Earth Community enjoys the ultimate advantage, because the natural human drive—if not blocked—is to grow in capacity and understanding and to connect with ever expanding circles of life. Political extremists must engage in manipulation and deception to thwart this natural impulse. Cultural and Spiritual Creatives need only encourage and support it.
The Cultural and Spiritual orders of consciousness are the natural state of the mature adult consciousness, unless systematically suppressed by Empire. As noted in chapter 4, the circumstances of our time are producing a steady increase in the numbers of Cultural and Spiritual Creatives. It is within our means, should we choose to do so, to make the Cultural Consciousness the adult norm, with a majority achieving a Spiritual Consciousness by late middle age.
Compelling, unifying stories that speak to the potentials of the mature human consciousness are essential to the work of birthing Earth Community. Progressive movements should give substantial priority to the development and sharing of those stories, which provide a unifying rationale for our work and the narrative tools needed to turn the prevailing culture to Earth Community. Such stories become all the more compelling when supported by living demonstrations of the generative power of cooperative partnerships.
Bear in mind that cultural change does not take place simultaneously everywhere. It begins with people joining to create new cultural spaces. These spaces gradually grow and link to create yet larger spaces. As the spaces grow, they express and make more visible the opportunities of partnership and thereby facilitate the cultural and spiritual awakening of others. 331
FOUNDATIONS OF A POLITICAL CONSENSUS
The New Right’s divide-and-conquer imperial politics obscures the reality of what is actually a broad consensus on the importance of strong families and communities, environmental health, international cooperation, and democracy. If our attention as a nation and as a species were focused on the state of our children rather than the growth in our stock portfolios, our children would be healthy, our communities strong, and we would be on the path to the Great Turning rather than to the Great Unraveling.
It is instructive to look at what Americans are telling national pollsters about their concerns and values, as it suggests that a desire to strengthen the human connections of family and community and to secure a positive future for our children may be the most politically potent issue of our time.
Strong Families and Communities
Eighty-three percent of Americans believe that we need to rebuild our neighborhoods and small communities and fear that family life is declining.2 Ninety-three percent agree that we are too focused on working and making money and not focused enough on family and community. Eighty-six percent agree that we are too focused on getting what we want now and not focused enough on the needs of future generations.3 Eighty-seven percent of adult Americans think “advertising and marketing aimed at kids today make children and teenagers too materialistic,” and 70 percent feel advertising “has a negative effect on their values and world view.” Seventy-eight percent believe “marketing and advertising put too much pressure on children to buy things that are too expensive, unhealthy, or unnecessary.”4
Our children agree. A poll of kids aged nine through fourteen commissioned by the Center for the New American Dream reports that 90 percent said friends and family are “way more important” than the things money can buy. Fifty-seven percent would rather spend time doing something fun with mom or dad than go shopping at the mall. Sixty-three percent would like their mom or dad to have a job that gave them more time to do fun things together. Only 13 percent wished their parents made more money. Seventy-five percent are worried that advertising that tries to get kids to buy things causes trouble between kids and parents.5 332
Strong majorities of Americans also believe that education and health are community as well as individual issues and that they merit a community commitment in support of families and children. More than four out of five Americans consider the state of education (86 percent) and health care (82 percent) to be very important.6 Sixty-nine percent favor increasing federal spending for education.7 Seventy-nine percent believe it is more important to assure health care coverage for all than to cut taxes.8
Healthy Environment
The health and future of our children depend on a healthy environment. Nearly nine out of ten U.S. adults (87 percent) believe we need to treat the planet as a living system and that we should have more respect and reverence for nature. Nearly three out of four (74 percent) are concerned that pollution may destroy farmlands, forests, and seas.9 More than four out of five (85 percent) believe that the possibility of global warming should be treated as a serious problem.10 We strongly agree on the importance of setting higher emissions and pollution standards for business and industry (81 percent), spending more government money on developing solar and wind power (79 percent), and being more vigorous in enforcing federal environmental regulations (77 percent).11
Two-thirds majorities are prepared to make lifestyle changes to improve environmental health. More than two in three would like to see a return to a simpler way of life with less emphasis on consumption and wealth (68 percent).12 Sixty-six percent agree that it is a good idea to work fewer hours and spend less money, and 48 percent of us report already having voluntarily made changes in our lives that result in making less money.13
International Cooperation
Children are best served by a world of laws in which disputes are settled peacefully by negotiation and compromise. Seventy-six percent of Americans reject the idea that the United States should play the role of world police officer, and 80 percent feel it is playing that role more than it should be. Ninety-four percent believe that the best way to fight terrorism is to work through the United Nations to strengthen international laws against terrorism and to make sure UN members enforce them.14 Substantial majorities of Americans agree that the United States 333should participate in the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (87 percent), the Ottawa Treaty to ban land mines (80 percent), the International Criminal Court (76 percent), and the Kyoto Protocol on climate change (71 percent).15
More than two out of three (71 percent) believe that our dependence on oil leads to conflicts and wars with other countries and believe it is better to deal with our dependence on oil by conserving energy (83 percent). Only a small minority (8 percent) prefers using military power to maintain access to oil in the Middle East and other strategic regions.16
Real Democracy
One might well wonder why there is such an enormous gap between what people want and what a presumably democratic political system is delivering. Substantial majorities of adults correctly recognize that this reflects the lack of accountability of power.
Nearly three out of four Americans (72 percent) believe corporations have too much power over too many aspects of American life.17 Clearly distinguishing between big and small businesses, 74 percent say big companies have too much influence over government policy and politicians; 82 percent say small business has too little.18 Eighty-eight percent distrust corporate executives, and 90 percent want new corporate regulations and tougher enforcement of existing laws.19 Only 4 percent believe that America is best served when corporations pursue only one goal—making the most profit for their shareholders.20 Ninety-five percent believe corporations should sacrifice some profit for the sake of making things better for their workers and communities.21
Because of the excessive influence over government by corporations
and other powerful special interests, only 27 percent of Americans trust the government to do what is right most of the time.22 Only 37 percent believe that government has a positive impact on their lives. Only 35 percent feel that ordinary people like themselves have any influence on what government does.23 Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) believe that government is pretty much run by a few big interests.24
The large number of respondents (83 percent) who believe that government can have a positive impact25 on their lives suggests that most people recognize that the issue is accountability and that they are not rejecting government per se. People generally feel more connected to their local governments (51 percent) than to the federal government (33 334percent).26 Most Americans have very little confidence in any of the major institutional concentrations of power, whether it be the executive branch of the federal government (23 percent), the press (15 percent), organized labor (15 percent), the Congress (13 percent), or major companies (12 percent).27