Peace debate 16 Dec 2010

A far from peaceful debate, though with slightly more convergence around barriers to peace than we saw regarding desirability or actions for peace.

There were clearly different schools of thought - the peaceniks and the economists for one.

The most strongly supported statements throughout the discussion was about the challenge of peace (less appealing than polarity):

• It brings focus to be against something. A sense of unity. Easier to agree on what we hate than what we love

Building on the earlier statement: 

• Polarity give us a feeling of safety or of "righteousness" it is clearer to see what one's stands for.

Guest participants
As a new feature we had "guest" participants - relevant quotes from a range of well known people. Not all of them went down well, but top performers were

• "When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others." Peace Pilgrim
• "Without conflict, there is no progress or change." Marx
• “As I have said, the first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself... Great peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility.” Nelson Mandela
• “If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.” Dalai Lama

And these views were reflected in our conclusions at the end of the debate:

• more than ever we need leaders who are able to move the crowd in an ethical way
• funny he we talk about world peace and yet our own peace over Xmas is a challenge :)
• I like the comment that peace requires "material and cultural equilibrium"  bit this may be the start of a possible solution!

Barriers to peace - religion, poverty and ignorance

Before we got there though, we considered why peace is so elusive - what gets in our way?

• Religion was an early suspect: Or power struggles USE religious beliefs to generate loyalty
• And poverty: how can you feel peace in your heart when you are hungry every day
• Lack of guidance: Who teaches children about peace? parents, schoolteachers, priests, etc: - not many of them
• And greed: We don't want to be equal, we are greedy to be better off than average. So we encroach on each other

Personal actions

As usual, at the end of the debate we considered the actions we could take personally. In the course of the discussion, some developed an appetite for peace action:

• There is still time to do something for peace in 2010! 15 more days!
• Support charities working for peace!
• In the home / workplace / community / traffic jam I might try to notice when I'm taking a polarity position instead of a wholeness one
• make peace with one of my enemies
• I am buying peace as my xmas presents

Click here to join the next discussion Jan 20th 4pm Home and Homelessness

NOTE: Any comment in italics is verbatim from one of our participants and attracted support from others. Those in bold are supported by the majority

Thurs Nov 18th: Freedom

Do you feel free? What does it mean to you at a personal and global level? This was the question we debated in November's Thinking Tank. (All statements in italics are verbatim contributions, statements in bold had majority support)


The most agreed upon statement was

• There are enough examples of very unfree countries & peoples.

So we did agree that there were undesirable restrictions on freedom 

• Not everyone who should be free is!
• Freedom is unequally distributed

and some desirable restrictions?

• I wouldn't like my kids to have total freedom
• Not everybody can be trusted - political leaders prove this again and again 

The unfree


Restrictions on freedom are concentrated into certain groups or areas

• Poor and/or uneducated people are by definition not free at all though this was qualified by another participant: You can be poor yet free or unfree.
• Europe is too free though this was also challenged How can anywhere be too free? and There are different types of not being free: in africa or south america you can have a dictator or totalitary  system but in europe we don't have freedom of thinking anymore: media controls a lot!
• in some countries in particular, people live under oppression and do not have any freedoms

Downsides of freedom

Achieving a freer world is not necessarily quick or easy. We cannot assume those without freedom (as we perceive it) will jump at it

• The first time I let my chickens out of their cage they ran back into it. They were afraid of freedom. But now they run straight to the cage door in the morning so I can let them out. Freedom may not be immediately easy but we can learn to appreciate it

Choice and responsibility were key themes

• Too many options and too many choices are the downside of more freedom
• more responsibility and uncertainty
• Freedom is also a bit of a responsibility. It is easier to stay on the railtrack than have every possible future to choose from!

And the answer?

• Freedom needs to be sustained by values
• Everybody who is committed to a common set of rules can be trusted with freedom
• Freedom is not freedom to do all as you please !!

We considered how a freeer world would look

• More countries would be ruled by a set of laws freely choosen by their people, ensuring more freedom
• Leaders everywhere respect human rights, the freedom of speech
• We feel free to take a stand and make even a small difference
• We respect others, society, the rules, liberty doesn't mean to do anything you want
• First teach what it is I am sure in some countries people would do worse if they were more free

What and Why do YOU dream?

Einstein allegedly first encountered his theory of relativity in a dream. And interpreting dreams is gaining in popularity. What did we think? Hocus pocus or a brilliant resource?


Our discussion ranged across both types of dreams - the ones we have when we are asleep and our hopes and aspirations.


Dream Big

"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. 
Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. 
Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. 
Impossible is potential. 
Impossible is temporary. 
Impossible is nothing."
— Muhammad Ali


Muhammad Ali did not take part in our discussion, but some of our comments were along similar lines. 

• If we stop dreaming we stop evolving
• on aeroplanes, all that clear blue sky allows me to think differently and dream bigger
• I'm a dreamer because it's a way for evasion and creation

However in general, there was much more diversity of view when it came to our "hopes and dreams" than when we discussed the value of dreaming while asleep.

Sweet dreams
On the value of our dreams while we sleep, of the 20 Floating Thoughts (those of the 145 statements made that achieved support in this Thinking Tank) the strongest was

• a place to see what it would be like to live quantum mechanics where time and space are inconsequential
• dreaming I like: moments of drifting and solving problems in an unexpected way
• I learned from an old boss to write down problems .. so they are on the night-time subconscious thinking list
• keeping my mind at peace
• there is no limit to possibilities

We talked a little about lucid dreams, though not everybody was familiar with the concept ("in simplest terms, a dream in which one is aware that one is dreaming. Lucid dreaming has been researched scientifically, and its existence is well established")

And we had some observations about times when dreams feel less helpful, alerting us to our anxieties

• there is the dreaming I do not like which is the production of long lists of issues to manage the next day
• I hate it when I think I'm coping well then have a stress-filled dream of bureaucracy and missed trains
• people think you are not working (dreaming is not always recognised as valuable)

June results: Is it a beautiful game?

The debate was certainly split into two teams - those who felt soccer was a corrupt, money obsessed, scandal ridden waste of time and those who had experience of community soccer giving benefits and opportunities to everyone, no matter their background.


Half the group said they hated soccer or found it boring and a further 17% were neutral. Only a third enjoyed it.


The highest level of agreement was about how to make soccer more useful in society with the top statement (getting 100% support)

• have a % that professional teams have to donate to community sport charities

The most significant problem according to the Thinking Tank is

• the enormous amount of money involved: there is room for bribing, for buying and selling players at astronomical figures

And the greatest benefit:

• It can teach young people about teamwork, about awareness, about winning and losing

May results: and all that jazz

In this month’s debate we considered the role and value of music at a personal, community and global level. We had higher than usual convergence on this topic with lots of statements achieving 80-100% support. Some of these are included below.

The strongest level of agreement was at a personal level:
"music helps me to warm up moments of joy, allows me to dance... and once in a while to start dreaming, thinking..."


We also shared views on the impact music can have on a group
As a mood shaper...

My feeling is that it can create a collective sense, a collective feeling, a sense of connection with others, & a range of emotions
... at a subtle level
it works on a more subconscious level than speech - on a more emotive level
for general and specific good
Many studies have been done on using music to help autistic patients and also those with Alzheimers
We've become so 'addicted' to information (esp written) that maybe we've forgotten the power of music to connect?


Feel the power
The discussion served as a useful reminder to us all about how we can incorporate music into our lives
This debate made me thing of the power of music and that I should use it more often
I have been inspired to seek out music I used to love not just rely on the radio


We concurred on the need for music to be used more widely, especially live music for its powerful potential to affect the people who hear it
Many musicians are taking their music to places that normally don't see live musicians
some songs lyrics do influence the world.
Reminding us of connection, diversity, leraning more about other cultures through music, maybe its a more universal communications process than language
In multicultural communities, sharing traditional music and learning from each other could be a great way to develop appreciation / understanding of other ways of life

April 2010: voting with hand on heart? Values in politics

As election fever sweeps the UK, we considered the role of VALUES for politicians. Do they have any? What should they be? Are they more important than the leaders' wives' shoes? 


Top 3 most strongly supported statements
Need: to acknowledge that people are human and follow their self-interest, so mechanisms need to be put into place to hold politicians accountable.
Need: start recruiting the right people into politics, looking ,ore into schools etc and changing it at the grass roots
Need: consistency - politicians standing up for what they say and behaving accordingly


The value of values
There was widespread consensus that values are critically important as a guiding light. 90% voted them as having considerable influence in their voting decisions.
Values drive behaviour and give a good indication of longer term actions vs short term ones
let's say the vast majority of politicians believe in social progress...what is the problem why do they cave in on their values and why do they lose their moral compass?


Top values we want from our political parties
100% of the group voted in favour of integrity, connectedness, transparency, wisdom and vision
Runners up (>70% support) were courage, responsibility, reform, listening, decisiveness, innovation, ambition and charisma.
In our poll when participants were forced to choose only one "most important" value, connectedness and courage took over 60% of the votes between them. 


Making it happen
There was a shared concern about menu driven political campaigns: There is a risk that polls drive values and every party just reiterates the right buzz words without really espousing them as VALUES


We considered how to impact on politics - can we encourage out politicians to live by these values?
We can make it clear that we need them to be like this
We need to take more responsibility for the country we want to live in. we need to care about each other and to help each other - we need to lead locally in order to get leaders nationally
We could each write to our politicians saying we had a debate and this was the conclusion and can they demonstrate how they stack up against this criteria to earn our vote.


For the full list of synthetrons email us


Next debate "And all that jazz" 4pm (UK time) May 20th. Has music ever stirred your soul or made your heart beat faster? Does it encourage creativity in the workplace or is it just a distraction? Are we making full use of music beyond the obvious domain of the performance space or i-pod? What can we all learn from musicians to be better citizens / entrepreneurs / teams / ... ?

Democracy - Down and Dirty. Results

Results from our debate on Thursday 18th Mar.

We debated the issue of democracy and how to bring it closer to the people. The most strongly supported statements are shown below (all bullets are verbatim statements which achieved at least 70% support from the group)

IMPROVING DEMOCRACY

• it would be an improvement if rulers stay in touch with citizens at all times
• [politicians need] direct connection with citizens and their wishes
• There should be large-scale online discussions on every important topic. Politicians and experts would have to discuss the results in open debates.
• the principle is worth preserving, but how it works in practice should be improved
• Give citizen points for engagement. Encourage participation at all levels

VALUE OF DEMOCRACY

• freedom to choose our rulers
• it means to me to be able to influence how the country is run
• democracy guarantees human rights in a way that other political systems do not

APPETITE FOR INTERACTIVE DEMOCRACY 
On average the group were prepared to vote monthly on issues. Here are some of their reasons

• depends an careful selection of issues only important ones
• I'd be much more interested in voting on issues than for political parties, none of whom wholly represent my views
• more direct influence in decision and policy making

This word picture shows the recurring words - the size is an indication of how much they were mentioned / supported.

Vote with your feet (and your fingers) make a valid contribution by joining our next live social brainstorm on Thurs 15th April. More details comong soon.