Conversations that make a difference

Don't be deceived by this seemingly innocent word, "conversations". The conversations that will now extend and continue our initiative are where the real action, and the real fun, will begin.

If you, like us, consider another news about Donald Trump or a terrorist threat to be no news at all (why give those people the publicity they don't deserve; why spread their messages, why give them the power...), then you might be thirsting for some real and new and really good news. These conversations are designed to not only provide real news, but also to create news. And also and most importantly, they will also engage you and all of us in creating the good news, so we'll no longer be passive observers of the de-volution of our public sphere, but participants in co-creating a whole new one.

This new kind of news that will emerge in the new commons will not be a single bit boring; on the contrary! Just think, to name an example, of the news that there's been a huge and exotic invisible animal omnipresent in our lecture halls, in our media news and in our conversations. Present yet unseen in our university labs and auditoriums; present in both our concern about the "global issues" and in our lack of such concern; present in our media reports and in our coffee house conversations misdirected by those reports, where this sensationally spectacular creature that so much wants to be seen was so consistently ignored!

Every century in history had its challenges and its opportunities, which were often only seen from a historical distance. The 19th century changed our industry, family, culture and values beyond recognition. The 20th century accelerated this change, and led to an accelerated or "exponential" growth of our important variables. The 20th century also created the knowledge by which the nature of our new situation could be understood – and handled – in entirely new ways. Yet we remained caught up in the paradigm that the 19th century left us in, tangled up in the subtle power relationships and institutionalized practices and values by which we are made unable to see and grow beyond it. Recall once again the image of Galilei in prison. Today no Inquisition, no imprisonment and even no censorship is required. As Italo Calvino observed already while it was still the printed text alone that was competing for our attention, the overabundance of our unstructured information will do just as well – and probably better.

When in Federation through Images we talked about the mirror existing at every university, we may have made it seem like an entrance to something – to an academic underground perhaps, or an underworld. You may now perceive the mirror as an exit – from an academic and more generally creative reality where our creativity is confined to updating an outdated paradigm, to an incomparably freer and yet more responsible and responsive one – where we are empowered to see and to change this paradigm. And where we will begin to evolve culturally and socially in an entirely new way and new direction.

This new news that we are about to bring to the forefront and develop further in conversations will of course have entirely new heroes. Pierre Bourdieu, for example, whose talents brought him from a village in the Pyrenees to the forefront of the French intelligentsia. Who understood how the society really functions by observing the Algerian war and the transformation of the Kabyle traditional society in the late 1950s; and understanding the power relationships that shape our society in a new way, and our evolution. Or Buddhadasa, Thailand's enlightened monk and scholar, who understood that at the core of the teachings of the Buddha – and the essence of all world religions – was an insight about ourselves from which an entirely new set of values, and a new way of evolving, most naturally follows. We will then easily see how this worst kept secret in the history of mankind was rediscovered throughout history – and then efficiently erased from our collective awareness and memory by the very de-volutionary dynamics that Bourdieu wrote about. We will then easily understand the vision and the contribution of Douglas Engelbart, who perceived how "digital technology" could enable us to develop "a super new nervous system to upgrade our collective social organisms" – and developed both the technological and the organizational details. And why this vision was ignored. It will be plain why Erich Jantsch brought the scientists together to develop our society's new "headlights and steering and braking controls"; and lobbied at our leading universities that they take up the leadership role in streamlining our new phase of evolution. It will give our attention and our esteem to so many other known or unknown true heroes of our era.

The nature of our conversations

The first thing that must be said about these conversations is it's not "only talking" that we are talking about.