Democracy 3.0: The Wise Democracy Project
This third and final installment of our Democracy 3.0 series introduces a project that integrates three dimensions of governance: power, participation, and wisdom. In the first essay two weeks ago, I asked: What design principles will allow for a transition from representative democracy (2.0) into something incorporating the best aspects of a liberal society . . .?
The Wise Democracy Project provides such “design principles.”
Like a fractal, in which intersecting patterns are self-similar at small to large scales, the lessons from The Wise Democracy Project, launched by Tom Atlee and Martin Rausch, are applicable not only within politics but also in family life, organizations, and interpersonal relationships. They represent the power-participation-wisdom nexus through Venn diagrams. For instance, the current balance of the trio would likely be as follows:
In the above, power—an ability to implement decisions—predominates. A more evenly distributed mix looks like this:
In this case, the concerns and voices of more citizens are included in the process of implementing decisions, as more people participate in democratic life. Wisdom involves the quality of decisions, adding a dimension of collective intelligence that incorporates the whole of nature, culture, and the social without losing sight of the individual.
But Atlee and Rausch ask: what would it look like “if POWER were more wholesome, participatory and wise; if PARTICIPATION were more inclusive, wise, and empowered; and if the outcomes of political activity arose from collective WISDOM that we more comprehensive, participatory and effective?” Their answer:
The Wisdom Dimension
Regular readers of this blog should sense a concordance between the framing of the ideas above and Jazz Leadership Project principles such as Shared Leadership and Ensemble Mindset, where the many and the one, and the one and the many collaborate and swing with flow and finesse. Such ideals are far from easy to achieve, but when we hear and experience jazz at the highest levels, we can glimpse, feel, hear, and see the possibility of enacting such democratic grace.
To do so, however, will require wisdom, not often mentioned when discussing democracy—or, for that matter, when considering much else these days. On the Wise Democracy Project website, which includes a much fuller detailing of the model, with a pattern language and explanatory essays, the project’s initiators explore wisdom in these terms:
Wisdom is deep insight serving our ability to generate long-term broad benefits. It usually derives from cumulative experience, well-considered knowledge, compassionate understanding and/or transcendent realization.
Wisdom can be individual and/or collective, human and/or natural. It expands the exercise of intelligence to embrace greater realities, increasing our ability to take into account what needs to be taken into account for long-term broad benefits.
Among the most potent sources of collective wisdom are
the cumulative experience of nature and humanity,
ongoing feedback from people and reality,
expanded spiritual and systemic awareness,
liberating our full human capacities and caring, and
generative interactions among diverse people and perspectives.
Pattern Language Example
As a prime enabler of the evolution of human culture, language describes, evokes, and creates reality. That’s why the language we use to envision Democracy 3.0 is essential. In a variation on the idea of a “pattern language” as devised by architect Christopher Alexander, the initiators and supporters of the Wise Democracy Project have devised a word cloud within the three-dimensions outlined above.
(To download and review, click the image and access the pdf version.)
This brief introduction to The Wise Democracy Project is just an inkling of its true depth and vision. For more, explore here.
I conclude the Democracy 3.0 series with an invitation:
On the 24th and 25th of October, The American Sephardi Federation, the Jazz Leadership Project and the Combat Antisemitism Movement will hold its inaugural event to combat racism and antisemitism by exploring and celebrating Albert Murray's vision of "Omni-American" culture, including that culture's great democratic gift to the world, jazz music, and pushing back against racial essentialism in all its forms. The event seeks to build a better American future on the foundations of a substantive, "Omni-American" cultural collaboration between Black and Jewish Americans. To register for the free event, and to see the illustrious list of speakers, go here.