World History Primer: Governance, Prosperity and Service in the next millenium

Under the overlay of oligarchies, plutocracies, monarchies and anarchies which obsess historians, there was, at the level of the vast, sparsely populated countryside of the World's Old Cultures, Consensal Governance with its many diversities and variations. There was little paper-shuffling. No computer-assisted bureaucracies manned remote but powerful Control & Command Centers (CCCs). Consensal Governance was human scale. It focused on equilibriums, not equalities.

The change from local consensual governance to commanding and controlling CCCs first occurred in the geographical harshness of tribally attenuated, pagan Europe. To neutralize the marauding local looter-aggrressors, the tyrannical alliance of the Fiefs and the The Church scaled up Governance. The affairs of the populace began to be affected by Power siezed and vested in their remotes CCCs. It took a while for the fermenting upheavals to culminate in insurrections, beheadings, revolutions and, finally, the general acceptance of Majority Governance, aka, the "Lesser Evil."

After this, however, Colonial Greed + Industrial Enterprise + The Zeal To Protect The (so-called) Rights & Freedoms from those remote Fiefs-&-Church CCCs, over-individualized the people, tempting them away from the Responsibilities and Disciplines inherent to living under local Consensal Governance. Enterprise, Politics and Bureaucrythen helped give larger-than-human-scale Lesser Evils in Europe a spin which, in effect, progressively internationalized its Regional Plunder-&-Protection Rackets which cunningly legitimized themselves under Majority Governance Guises. Greek "roots' were "located' to support the notion that "to govern' meant "to control and steer" and fancy social contracts were constitutionalized to hoodwink the people in the interest of the club-&-boardroom manipulators.

Families, communities and academia, instead of producing socially-skilled, self-disciplined citizens, began churning out rainbow-chasing taxpayers, jobbers, entitlement-jockeys and "escape artists" adept at rights-agitation while winking at their social responsibilities. Meanwhile, nominal governors of these European Rackets which had, by then, spawned across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, and were cracked up to be "Representatives of The People" or otherwise, had only hero/martyr paradigms to establish their man-made Rule-of-Law at these large, inhuman scales. The audacious--and scientifically now shown as fallacious--presumptions were
(a) Nature was "Wild' It, therefore, needed to be conquored and tamed.
(b) Natural man was a "Savage' who must be schooled, civilized and "saved," and
(c) God & Creation were imnherently chaotic calling for Order & Organization.

Under a hallucinatory paranoia of Progress and Development, predaition and destruction were prosecuted world-wide with arrogant expedition. Strip mines wounded the Land; its forests were "cleared" into oblivion. Rivers damned by dams. Mountains, blown apart. The Oceans were emptied of their teeming life to become sloship waste-dumps. Even the Air was ceaselessly incinerated by constant injecting of toxic-pollutants. As a crowning example of DoubleSpeak, Anti-bio(tics} were heralded as Life-sustainers. All that the hoary heritage of humankind had held sacred and in reverance was trashed and trivialized under the motto:

If it moves, shoot it down. If it doesn't cut it down.

More fat to the fire, these Euro/US micro-macro "management" examples became models for the new "nations" of these World-Shepards.

Recent histories are packed with "leaders' who successfully committed hero/martyr follies--and by those who tried and failed in correcting those of their flamboyant predecessors. Majority Governance cannot be scaled up any further without scaling up its unacceptable and unsustainable evils, too, to create worldwide amity, stability and prosperity. Localized Consensal Governance, aided by zero-cost, on-tap and non-judgmental, globally inclusive, nondiscriminatory, cooperative and relevant communication, now appear to be a more realistic alternative. For this, notions of prosperity and value based on (a) gun-running (b) Purveying of Planet-inimical techno-fantasies and (c) mindless, expensive and inefficient patterns of consumption--these need to be urgently jettisoned.

Prosper(ity) isn't derived from a Shakespearean character, nor does "Government' have Greek roots. The Sanskrit "Paraspar" is approximated by "mutual' while "Guru + mantra" suggests an advisory function in Statecraft. For advice to catalytically and sustainably function in the desired direction of Wellbeing for All, carrot-&-stick games, latently threatening "messages" and exhibitions of techno-destructive prowess are counterproductive. One needs only, say the ancients, the moral force of true, patient and loving care which is transparently motivated by an equation which puts "Self" at the bottom of the heap where it really belongs. In fact, that is precisely what Sarva (Everyone) + Sva (Sel) or Sarvasva from which "Service" is derived means.

--Excerpt from a letter Vyom wrote to "educate a friend." This segment was entitled, "a one-page primer of world-history for relevance in Governance, Prosperity and Service in the 3rd millenium A.D."

A Primer of Recent Human History

Under the overlay of oligarchies, plutocracies, monarchies (OPM) and anarchies which obsess historians, there was, at the level of the vast and populated countryside of the world’s old cultures, Consensual Governance with many localized diversities and variations. There was little paper-shuffling. No computer-assisted bureaucracies wielded remote but powerful Command-&-Control Centers (CCCs). Consensual Governance was human scale. It focused on equilibriums, not equalities.

The change first occurred in the geographical harshness of tribally attenuated, pagan Europe. To neutralize the marauding local aggressions, the tyrannical alliance of the fiefs and the Church scaled up Governance so that the affairs of the populace began to be affected by Power seized and vested in remote CCCs. It took a while for the consequent ferment and upheaval to culminate in beheadings, revolution and the general acceptance of Majority Governance, a.k.a., ‘Lesser Evil’.

After this, however, colonial greed plus industrial enterprise, plus the zeal to protect from those CCCs, the intellectualized notions of ‘Rights & Freedoms’ over-individualized the people. This tempted community-members away from the responsibilities and self-disciplines inherent under local Consensual Governance. Bureaucracies, politics and (for profit) enterprise gave larger-than-human-scale ‘Lesser Evils’ in Europe a spin, which, in imitation of previous bully-oppressors, in effect, progressively internationalized regional plunder-&-protection rackets. Families, communities and academia - instead of producing skilled, socially disciplined citizens - began churning out rainbow-chasing taxpayers, hedonist jobbers, entitlement jockeys and over-consuming escape artists.

Meanwhile, nominal ‘governors’ of these regional rackets, whether ‘representative’ or otherwise, had only the hero/martyr OPM paradigm-guidelines to establish - in opposition to the corpus of conventions, traditions and folk wisdom - man-made Rule of Law at these large, inhuman scales. The audacious – and now scientifically proven as fallacious – presumptions were:

(a) Nature was ‘wild’ and needed to conquered and tamed.
(b) Natural man was a ‘savage’ who must be schooled and civilized.
(c) God and his/her/its creation was inherently chaotic and lawless; it needed to be ordered and organized.

Under this hallucinatory paranoia of ‘Progress & Development’, predation and destruction were prosecuted with arrogant expedition: Strip mines wounded the land; its forests cleared into oblivion. Dams squeeze-damned rivers. Mountains were blown apart; the oceans were emptied of life and converted into grounds for dumping waste. Even the air was injected with toxic pollutants. All that had been held in reverence by the heritage of humankind was trashed and trivialized. More fat to the fire, these regional Euro-USian micro-macro management examples became desirable ‘management’ models for the new nations emerging in those old, old consensual cultures.

Recent histories are packed by leaders who successfully committed their hero/martyr follies and by those who tried and failed in correcting them. It’s doubtful if Majority Governance and its Rule of Law, under any preferred politically correct nomenclature, can really be scaled up any further to create amity, stability, and prosperity worldwide.

Diversities-&-variations-respecting Consensual Governance, aided by non-governing global communication, appears to be a more realistic alternative for the next Christian Millennium. For this, notions of prosperity based upon excessive, inefficient and unnecessary production-&-consumption, purveying of techno-fantasies inimical to our species and gun-running must be jettisoned with extreme urgency.

‘Prosperity’ isn’t derived from a Shakespearean character and ‘Government’ doesn’t have Greek ‘helmsmanship’ roots. The Sanskrit ‘paraspar’ is approximated by ‘mutual’ while ‘Gûrû+mantra’ suggests an advisory function. For advice to catalytically function sustainably in the desired direction, carrot & stick games, latently threatening ‘messages’, and exhibitions of technological prowess are counterproductive; one needs only, say the ancients, the moral force of loving care which is transparently motivated by an equation that keeps ‘self’ at the bottom of the heap. In fact that is what ‘Sarva’ (everyone) + ‘Sva’ (self) – from which ‘Service’ is derived – means.

—This is an edited version of the document that was snail-mailed, August 30, 1997, to President Bill Clinton