​​Harvesting Pad 5: Ben Levi
​​Part of "DandDTrans," a community of inquiry and action regarding the role that dialogue and deliberation can play in addressing the mega-crises of our time
​​Image courtesy of www.NewStories.org
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​​Ben Levi
​​ben@dialogue.org
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  • ​​What you gained:  What new insights, challenges, ideas, inquiries, or actions came up for you from your participation this past month? What possibilities have opened up or been further reinforced?  
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  • ​​What you experienced: How did you feel or change at different points in this process? Which processes did you participate in? Which were new to you? For processes you’ve experienced before, what was it like doing them online? What worked for you, and why? What didn’t? How might you use or change these processes on another occasion? What about the web tools used? Maestro? Hackpads? Zoom (if you experienced that)? Any others?
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  • ​​What next: What are you doing, will do or might do as related at least in part to the question that brought us together and/or as a result of what we have done together? Who else would (might) you involve? 
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​My DandDTrans "Story"

​​On December 15, 2104 I attended a webinar put on by Otto Sharmer and David Korten, and through that became involved in this DandDTrans endeavor for the month of January 2015 as one of the core team members. During that Dec. 15 webinar I heard a meme put out by David Korten, Living Human Living Earth. In my 15 years working with Spiral Dynamics   ntegral, the idea of a super-ordinate goal is one that we teach in our programs. It comes out of the work of Muzafir Sharif in the 1960s as an attempt to go beyond group conflict, identifying a goal that each party in the conflict wants, but that none can do on their own. This is a powerful idea that deserved some delving into, and so part of what I brought to this DandDTrans experiment was a desire to dialogue about this meme, Living Human Living Earth, as a potential superordinate goal that we all want, but that no one can do all themselves. 
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​​"Without a vision, the people perish." This proverb from the Old Testament is an expression of the (Spiral Dynamics) Blue value system, and speaks to the power of a coherent intention that can provide not only direction, but hope. While I understand why some people may see a super-ordinate goal as "patriarchal", I would offer that they need to understand the importance of all of the value systems as necessary, in healthy expressions, for the continued evolution of human consciousness. We are entering the age of "both-and", of "transcend-and-include", and starting to evolve out of an "either/or" mental model which, while serving humankind up until quite recently to distinguish between things, is no longer helpful in promoting a unified interconnected view of the world, as it continues to promote separateness, which is an old paradigm that needs to be transcended if we are to realize the inseparability of everything and everyone.
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​​I wanted to create containers to have conversations around this theme, and with the support of the core team, offered a series of virtual online Bohm Dialogues around this and any other topics that wished to emerge in that container, which is designed to invite a "flow of meaning" to happen within a group of participants. 
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​​I was curious why the whole idea of a superordinate goal, as well as a Living Human Living Earth meme, generated only lukewarm support among DandDTrans participants, and in fact was resisted by many whom I shared it with. I heard responses such as "it's not something we're told to do, it's something we all discover for ourselves." And "it sounds patriarchal," etc. Needless to say, I was saddened by these responses from seemingly like-minded individuals, for if I couldn't enroll them in a larger vision such as Living Human Living Earth, then it would be even less likely that people who operate from a different level of consciousness would be enrolled in such an idea. 
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​​So that's the "content" aspect of my DandDTrans experience for the month. In terms of "process," I was very pleased to be able to support this group in holding ten public conversations, as well as numerous other virtual meeting and gatherings, meshing together various technologies such as Maestro Social Webinar, Zoom, and hackpad. The dialogues that I participated in showed me that it was possible to create a virtual container for "flow of meaning" to emerge (though by no means was it certain), and it also showed me that other forms of conversation (World Cafe and Open Space) could also happen virtually and produce experiences for participants that they considered worthwhile. I also made a number of new connections with people that I'm sure will continue to germinate into the future, though it is not clear yet as to what those actual expressions will be. 
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​​I look forward to seeing what the harvest team synthesizes out of this series of gatherings and hackpad artifacts, and whether or not a superordinate goal idea emerges as one of the more insightful themes that the collective found useful. In the meantime, I want to thank everyone who coordinated and participated in this series of online experiments and to express my gratitude for being part of it.
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​​Lastly, I wanted to share a link from The Climate Leader on Reinforcing Feedback Loops, as it explains the power of reinforcing ideas and expressions around change, etc. that is pertinent to expanding this DandDTrans effort: 
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​Comments by Others on this Story

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​​Thanks for the link, Ben. I'll check it out.
​​Just to let you know, I have kept thinking about your favorite meme. It isn't new to me, I've encountered it other places (not sure where)... if the Spores Project thrives, I wondered about incorporating your meme. Is there already a Twitter hashtag for it? #LHLE ? Just checked. Nope.
​​Meanwhile, I'd keep the lukewarm feedback fresh in mind. It may not be the meme itself that people resist, but the manner of insisting.
​​Thanks for your support of this endeavor!  (Steph Jo, 2/4/15)
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​​One superordinate-type goal for me to play with is To co-create a thriving local and world economy that loves all children of all species for all time [Mark Spain 5 Feb 2015]
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​Ben L's response (6 Feb 2015)
​​Thank you both for your comments. Stephanie, I'd like to inquire as to whether your experience was that the Living Human Living Earth superordinate goal came across as a "manner of insisting" from me. I was attempting to be conscious of doing it only when it connected with what another person wrote or said... in that sense I was feeling like I was practicing "Yes, and " from the Groupworks deck. Did you have an experience otherwise from me? I appreciate the feedback. This meme is only a couple months old for me, so I'm still in the "jazzed" phase (and hope I stay that way!)
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​​And Mark, thanks for your thoughts... Bill McDonough is one of my heroes, and the "meme" attributed to him is one of my favorites. In fact it fully supports a Living Human Living Earth superordinate goal (to the extent that loving all the children of all the species could result in some serious over-population issues). This brings up something I'm recognizing that I'd appreciate your feedback on, and that is, that a superordinate goal isn't attributed to any one person... it's everyone's. And at the same time, it is a personal goal as well... to live a Living Human Living Earth life. 
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​​The leverage, it seems to me, is to reinforce it with a "manifesto" (which I'm planning on crowdsourcing) to eventually impact change that will start slowly, then build in a reinforcing feedback loop that will have, as one of its elements, systemic transformation (amongst many other elements as well... "transcending and including." This was an interesting article I came across:   http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Political-Party . 
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​​Another way to reinforce the meme is to interview people and have them tell their stories about what a Living Human Living Earth means to them. Everybody has stories to tell. I also see the importance of these virtual kinds of practice fields, beta-testing tools like these... see how they "mesh" together (like Ben R did with Maestro, Zoom and Hackpad) This is where I see Dialogue and the processes we practiced in January as representing one emerging medium to foster the relationships that connect globally, and act locally. And when we're all going in the same direction and have cohesion (which the status quo does in spades, because it's got all the money, and thus controls all of the levers of the "common knowledge" story), we can slow that loop down, and strengthen a Living Human Living Earth.
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​​Sorry Steph if this sounds preachy... I just can't help myself <grin>.

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​[Tom Atlee, 2/6/2015]  
​​I think many people share the LHLE superordinate ideal (I think of it more of an ideal than a goal, as it is never "reached" but is more of a horizon that we continually strive towards for fuller realization of the ideal, like "democracy" or "equality"].  But they don't necessarily use those words, that phrase, to hold the ideal.  This is where resources like CoDigital.com - a crowdsourcing choice-creating-and-prioritization program - could be used to seek the most appealing expression of the idea among hundreds or thousands of people.  I think the experience of "preachy-ness" comes from advocating an expression of something people deeply feel but have different, personal ways of experiencing or expressing.  "I prefer MY way of talking about this thing [that we share]."   Your problem is that the LHLE phrase resonates very powerfully at that level FOR YOU, and you find it puzzling why it doesn't so resonate with others (who haven't been exposed to the materials or activities that have accompanied that meme).  An important question is how vital it is to establish a shared expression of an essential meme that is already shared but expressed in hundreds of diverse ways.                

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​ ​@Chris Smerald​ 2-7
​​ I found the idea of superordinate goals interesting, but in a generalised sense. Thinking of goals larger than ourselves tied up with recognizing the need for others feels important and real. It was the single superordinate goal metaphor I struggled with. I think more of many having complementary larger than self goals. Supporting others' goals in feedback with others' activities helping ones own. Goals themselves feeding back with each other. Something more dynamic than a fixed transcendent goal. Superordinate is perhaps more  powerful in the form "superordinate families of goals" and collaborative efforts helping them emerge, but with give and take.

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​​@Griet Hellinckx​  2-7
​​What if we assumed that "Living Human, Living Earth" is already encoded in everyone's Heart and DNA? Then our aim could be to help people uncover this inner longing and knowing, and help them to align it with their thoughts, words and actions. We would look at what hinders them individually and collectively to live a life according to this motto.

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​Ben Levi Feb 7
​​Great feedback! Thanks everyone. I have spent 15 years learning and teaching Spiral Dynamics Integral, which has as one of its basic tenets to be aware of not only my own "center of gravity" (CoG) value system, but also the CoG of others with whom I am interacting, or attempting to influence (e.g. to be enrolled in a Living Human Living Earth superordinate goal). So I try to listen from others' value systems, so I can align what I'm saying with where their understanding is at. I'm understanding the feedback as being about LHLE being a 'single' superordinate goal, rather than a "family" of goals, and how it's expressed in multitudes of ways. I Think of this goal as a direction to align towards, a guiding star with which to align all the personal goals people have, to overcome the divisiveness that seems to be one of the factors keeping the system from transforming. Every day I take in dozens of media sources about how to transform society, etc., and I listen carefully to the underlying message being proposed, and ask myself, "would this align with the Living Human Living Earth superordinate goal?" Inevitably, the answer is 'yes.' That's what I'm trying to foster... the conscious alignment of all of the personal goals/visions under a superordinate goal we all want, and the conscious connection that we're all heading toward the same thing, no matter if my personal expression is quite different from yours. I'm going for mass-alignment here... and the key being that it's not "Ben Levi's" Living Human Livng Earth goal that someone needs to subsume their personal goal in... it's a common goal that I hope everyone can feel aligns their personal goal with one that the collective wants as well. 

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​​@Chris Smerald​ 2-7
​​Reading your comments makes me think of the question: is the right goal a destination or the establishment of a process? "alignment of all of the personal goals/visions ..." or the way in which we need to learn to do that and all become aligners. I can sort of see your meta-goal idea though as Something deeper which unifies those goals of others.

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​Ben Levi Feb 8
​​Great question Chris. A goal, in my thinking, is a meme... an idea in consciousness that replicates itself across a brain, and a collective of brains. Like "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..." One of the things I like about Living Human Living Earth, is that it is both a "destination" (iin the sense of experiencing it in one's being), and a process; in that we can use it as a "flow" toward or away from -- both externally (Earth), as well as internally (Human). The meme itself implies both, because a Living Human would want to optimize my happiness in alignment with Living Earth being happy. It seems like Living Human Living Earth operates on a whole bunch of levels, all of which can reinforce each other... and it's something that, if I put it in my mouth, chew it, and swallow it, it feels good in my tummy (one form of decision-making). As to how that "alignment" happens, I think "incentives" play a big part on the process. From systems thinking, "structure influences behavior". The structure of incentives influence people to behave a certain way (as in "adapt"). If the incentives are designed right, alignment becomes the "path of least resistance" as it were. There will still be resistance, of course... conflict will always be present (in fact, healthy conflict is welcome)... but think of the possibilities of shifting our priorities, through the political process, to prioritize a Living Human Living Earth manifesto of things we'd like to change across the board... incentivizing such things as: reducing fossil fuel use and increasing sustainable energy; reducing military spending; increasing free education; creating a living salary (not just a living wage); shifting from ego to eco... etc. etc. It covers a whole lot of transformation, on a whole lot of levels... thus a superordinate goal. At this point, I think it needs to be this all-encompassing... everything needs to change.
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​Mark Spain 9 Feb
​​Maybe another superordinate-type goal is to learn how to think and act as wisely as possible together?
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