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FutureShapers Monthly #117
Bridging Wisdom
& Practice for a Better Tomorrow
emailed
free each month from www.Renesch.com
The written work included here is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial 2.5 License.
APRIL 2008
In this issue:
1. Newsbits
2. April Editorial: "The New Emancipation Proclamation"
3. Preview: Next Month's Editorial
4. Quote of the Month – Arlin Adams
5. Hot Link of the Month
6. Want to Blog?
7. Click and Play of the Month
1.NEWSBITS
Global Mind Change Video
Global MindShift has a short video clip out using the recorded voice of Willis Harman (1918-1997) and adding graphics. Pretty powerful even after more than ten years! See
There are over 1,983,980 definitions of Leadership and Leadership Characteristics on the internet. Here are 3 that we found to be Profound.” It is nice to be recognized.
2. APRIL EDITORIAL
The New
Emancipation Proclamation
by John Renesch
When
Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, he set the wheels
in motion to make slavery and indentured servitude illegal. It still took
some time to establish new laws to follow up the two executive orders that came
from the White House. The Proclamation became the law of the land when the
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed two years
later, officially abolishing and prohibiting slavery.
Reproduction of the Emancipation Proclamation
courtesy of Wikipedia
Today
we have a new kind of slavery. Many of our citizens have become indentured
servants to corporate cultures, community traditions, long-standing practices
and genealogical or ethnical behaviors. People belong to multiple cultures from
their family and ethnic heritage, education and community influences, industry
and corporate practices, gender and religious adaptations, and many, many more.
Like Gulliver tied down by Lilliputians, we all have dozens and dozens of these
“strings” tugging at us, each having some influence on our everyday actions and
decisions.
These
strings of practice, tradition, habit, ways of doing things, expectations and
even language are systems. They are manmade ostensibly to better serve the
people who created them. They are products of the human mind, initially
intended to benefit us. One example is the family unit which allows its members
- particularly its newest members - to survive. Some of the systems to which we
belong have differing degrees of influence on us. Families, obviously, can be
huge influences for better or worse. Many systems are more functional than
others. An industry was formed as different business owners and practitioners
sought common ground to improve what they did. Companies were formed to better
serve customers, reduce prices and/or leverage human capital. Governments were
created to provide for the common welfare of the community. Schools were
started so education could be more readily available to more children. Here are
a few examples of some systems which we allow to influence us today:
Books we read
Careers, professions, jobs
Communities
Companions/peers/friends
Education at all levels
Ethnicity
Family
Food and diet
Government
Hobbies
Laws to which we are subject
Love relationships
Media we take in
Mentors
Movies we watch
Music we listen to
Philosophy we subscribe to
Politics in which we participate
Religion, spiritual practice
Role models
Technology of all sorts
And
there are only a few! Each of us is probably part of dozens of systems, maybe
more. And each of these systems has subsystems that influence us so there could
be hundreds of systems tugging at our every thought and deed. For the most
part, we are unaware of this influence. We make thousands of choices every day,
seldom knowing why. If these systems are all functional and healthy, make our
lives richer and easier, contribute positively to the well-being of our
community (be it our family, our neighborhood, city, country or world) then
great! But what if these systems having so much influence on us are less than
healthy, less than fully functional. What if they are actually toxic or doing
us harm?
Our
systems have evolved over the generations since our forefathers and foremothers
started them. Mostly, they evolved without much thought for what they were
becoming. Most of the changes that occurred in these systems were matters of
convenience, sometimes selfishly injected by people with power in the system
who manipulated it to their advantage. Sometimes systems changed for a reason
that has since vanished and is no longer pertinent. As a rule, no one watchdog
has been tracking all these social systems over the generations to monitor
their efficacy, their functionality. Basically, no one has been consistently
caretaking these important influencers on which we rely for so much.
The
scary news is most of the social systems on which we all rely and take for
granted have devolved into slave masters. Many people, particularly in the
Western industrialized economies, are finding themselves in servitude to the
systems created to serve them, such as technology!
People
don’t say this, as a rule, however. They complain about being so busy while
continuing to get busier. They may complain about any number of things or they
may simply ask their doctor for an anti-depressant so they’ll feel better. They
can hardly be expected to examine the systems to which they belong when they
don’t even know they are there!
Emancipation
from insidious systems cannot take place until 1. we learning to recognize
systems dysfunction and 2. we become more aware of the various systems
affecting us. We don’t have to abandon our systems or leave them. We merely are
seeking liberation from their negative influences through awareness and
consciousness. Once we have learned how they behave and what influences they’ve
had on our lives, we will be empowered to do something about liberating
ourselves. Then we can choose freedom over servitude, conscious liberation over
unconscious subjugation.
_______________________________________________________
3. NEXT MONTH'S EDITORIAL: "Living in a Tabloid Headspace"
4. QUOTE OF THE MONTH:
“Be
ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” – attributed to a
Pennsylvania judge named Arlin Adams
5. HOT LINK OF THE MONTH:
International Museum of Women was originally
founded as the Women's Heritage Museum in 1985. In 1997, in response to growing
support, the Board began developing plans for a major museum in San Francisco
and changed its name.
6. WANT TO BLOG?
My blog - "Exploring the Better Future" - is located at the Global Dialogues Center; take a look and post your comments. I'd love to hear from some of you subscribers!
7. "CLICK & PLAY" OF THE MONTH: (see Audio and Videos)
John Renesch teleseminar on "Beyond Reasonable Leadership" for IONS Shift (60 minutes)
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KEYNOTES THAT MAKE YOU THINK!
John delivers "keynotes that make you think" for corporations, associations and conferences, conventions and corporate retreats (see www.Renesch.com) .
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********* End of FutureShapers Monthly #117 **********
