[Springboard] Dialogue on the Future

Fri May 30 19:38:04 EDT 2008

Dear David

I did read it and have several interpretations which are different from his.  This ended up a lot longer than I planned but I will send it anyway. 

With respect, Larry

1) The war in Iraq
When the radicals are in charge, Islam attacks Western civilization  I found this comment ironic since the reason we attacked Iraq was the radicals were in charge in the US.  I agree Iraq Iran and Afghanistan are critical symbols to the reality of our world. I have not got an insight into a way to move that would shift the destructive pattern we are in though I do remember a conversation with Jean Watts several years ago about spiral dynamics and memes of consciousness - she felt this might give a hint as to a productive way to approach the situation.  I see very little sign of "winning" and a lot that we are creating more and more hatred. The Bush push for democracy in which every election highlights that the will of the people is with radical communities who have learned to serve the needs of the people and not with "pro west" organizations that appear to be primarily self-serving.  At the same time in my work in Bangladesh I have experienced the pain of young women trying to be both Muslims and creative thinkers. What is the "both and" option?  We do not need to be naive but we also need to figure out how to move forward in a way that builds a new society not destroys everyone. 

2) The emergence of China
The business model of cheaper in China is coming to an end with the resource shortage driving up costs and inflation of prices and expectations within China.  His point about the protests is true but their is also a strong sense of nationalism how will these two contrasting trends will play out I don't know.  

The recent earthquake highlighted 2 things, many of the buildings that fell were schools and with the one child policy this makes for a much bigger tragedy, add to that they died because of government corruption in building schools and it is going to bring even more pressure on the government to change and provide more local accountability.  

Within 10 years the first generation of the "one child" will begin assuming responsibility for their parents in retirement - for the wealthy this will be an issue but for the middle class and the poor this will be crippling and demand dramatic structural changes. During the winter when many of the workers were stranded because of snow they decided not to go back to work but to develop businesses at home - this change a difficult labor shortage to a chronic one.  

Historically China response has been to have warlords rise and society fall apart while pretending to be one great nation.

>From another perspective I have been working in China several times a year for the past 8 years and have found that almost every person is trying to learn and apply as much as they can - to adapt and integrate at every moment.  I have also seen just below the surface is a very strong survival urge - a sense that this could all go away tomorrow - which often leads to actions that can be very destructive in the short term. What are the implications on the changes coming there I do not know.

3) Shifting Demographics
I think his images here are the ones I have the most difficulty with because he assumes the way we are operating our current society is the way life is and must continue - whereas I believe we are in a time of social transformation and figuring our what the new form of society is. Retirement and being taken care of is a concept that has been true for how long?  Retirement historically meant "about to die," for most societies the assumption has always been you worked until you could not and then your kids or grandkids cared for you in the period until death.  "Post-Modern" society has tried to change that image but perhaps we were a bit hasty.

In my experience Japan is not shutting down but it is realizing the future is not going to be like the past and many people are trying hard to avoid that realization.  Many others are exploring from their own cultural perspective how to develop and live differently and in many cases more authentically.  The question of how to reform society based on the new reality is very strong and will be represented strongly in the conference we have coming up because the old answers do not work and the old questions do not seem to help much either.  Perhaps Japan and other countries in Asia have an edge to helping the US and Europe ask this question of a different way.  In Taiwan because of the influx of soldiers after World War 2 it grayed earlier than it should have.  Now those soldiers are mostly dead and the dropping birthrate etc. is kicking in but much of the elders structure is already created partly by Taiwanese Culture and family practice and partly by the huge bubble of people just about the same age that arrived on the island and forced the system to serve them.

We need to develop another way rather than import people to pretend they are the children we are no longer having, especially since many of the new arrivals are "infected" by the same development process if they have access to education and they too have fewer children in successive generations and refuse to left out of society.  So it is merely delaying by a generation or two the need to develop a new operating .  I would ask his question of how does society deal with this demographic shift in another way - are we dying out or living differently?

4) Restructuring American (and world) business)
In its own way this is the most difficult trend of all because it is so easy for people to fall through the cracks and it gets blamed on economic reality - no benefits etc.  His assumptions of the way the system will benefit everyone does not seem to reflect reality - however I do think his image of what is coming is relatively accurate - so how do we respond on an individual, community and social basis when the family, the government and our company no longer represents a consistent social framework?  We began working with Scott Peck's work on community building and dialogue about 15 years ago and with a concept call Communities of Practice,  The Springboard dialogue is such a community - the means a group of people who choose to be together to explore and learn - a family by choice rather than by biology.  While I do not believe the family is dead I do believe that families too are becoming Communities of choice. 

This trend has two facets that concern me deeply: 
Organizational irresponsibility -  What Peter Senge called "tragedy of the commons" which means because it belongs to no one it is used until destroyed unless you can bring the destruction to awareness and develop other options.  With the fragmentation of organizations the destruction, abuse and irresponsibility of corporations becomes even more difficult to monitor and impact.

Second is the disenfranchisement of individuals - the 3rd and 4th arena will affect these dramatically - what are the options for community in our society of the future?

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: cdzoll at comcast.net 
  To: Springboard Dialogue 
  Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2008 07:55
  Subject: Re: [Springboard] Dialogue on the Future

  If you read the article, I think you will figure out what my questions are...it was quite damning of the Japanese. David
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Larry Philbrook 
    To: Springboard Dialogue 
    Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 4:13 PM
    Subject: Re: [Springboard] Dialogue on the Future

    Bill - Take your time I am glad to hear your voice

    David Z - I am glad to share my take although both Japanese and Chinese are very complex and dynamic societies at this point.  I am enjoying working in both.  In fact i am in Tainan today and off to Osaka on Monday.  Do you have specific questions?

    With respect, Larry
      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: Bill Bailey 
      To: 'Springboard Dialogue' 
      Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2008 03:48
      Subject: Re: [Springboard] Dialogue on the Future

      Larry there are several things I would like to say in response to your questions. I cannot get to it till later this week, but keep me in the loop. You will hear from me soon.

      G&P, your old friend and colleague,

      Bill Bailey

      Bill Bailey

      -----Original Message-----
      From: springboard-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:springboard-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Bill Bailey
      Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 2:10 PM
      To: 'Springboard Dialogue'
      Subject: Re: [Springboard] Dialogue on the Future

      Larry there are several things I would like to say in response to your questions. I cannot get to it till later this week, but keep me in the loop. You will hear from me soon.

      G&P, your old friend and colleague,

      Bill Bailey

      -----Original Message-----
      From: springboard-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:springboard-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Larry Philbrook
      Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 5:10 AM
      To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
      Subject: [Springboard] Dialogue on the Future

      Dear Colleagues and Friends

      I have been thinking a lot about the future lately.  I have been in Taiwan 17 years and am still enjoying myself and learning a lot but I also see my role as changing - many more of our colleagues are fully capable facilitators and wise mentors for the next generation so what is my role?  The past year I have been asked to work in 9 countries besides Taiwan and each offered a great opportunity for me to learn and interchange with new cultures and great people.  I am doing my best to make no assumptions and to continue to go with the flow of what life is offering me.  

      As many of you know my organization, the Institute of Cultural Affairs, will be doing our 7th global conference in Japan. This represents 28 years of conversation about what is going on in the world.  I am trying to figure out what the critical questions are that need to be asked and who might be people to involve in the conversation.  Below you will see the official context from the website if you want to read it you can. I thought I would share my questions and see if anyone else wants to share either in this dialogue on or offline. 

      1)    I have been seeing a lot of negative signs the last several years – signs of hopelessness like Iraq and perhaps the final destruction of the myth of America as the good guys - What are signs of hope for you in the world today? 

      2)    Despite the enormous efforts made each year to address the world’s persistent development challenges, the international community can point to only incremental impact on the status quo. Why?  What is going wrong or right with societal and community transformation?

      3)    What are the critical questions that it would be worth having a group research and discuss in depth?

      I figure if I am asking others to venture their answers the least I can do is give it a try so here are my current thoughts:

      1.    What are signs of hope for you in the world today? 

      ·         For me a sign of hope is that the choice for the democratic candidate for president in the US is between a black man and a woman – both seen as strong and viable

      ·         For me a sign of hope is some of the youth I am working with in Hong Kong who are trying to figure out how to be young, Chinese and in transformative relationships

      ·         I connected with a group call the Generative Change Community (GCC) who are supporting the use of dialogue in deep conflict situations like the southern Philippines – adding the concept of dialogue before decision-making to deepened the trust and build community.

      2.    Why? What is going wrong or right with societal and community transformation?

      ·         I see the business of development as being a major driver – one of my colleagues was talking about working with an NGO and no one wants to talk about the costs they have because it will reveal how much their operation overheads eat into the donations this is even in internal conversations – How do we build viable development models based on real costs without getting caught by the same profit motive of the private sector?

      ·         Value based NGO’s have learned that they can use development to convert people to their belief system which has long term consequences on the communities and individuals involved this shows up a lot in madrassah movement and Christians teaching English in China - At what point is service for the needs of others and at what point service to my own vision of how others should be?

      ·        Development that is tided more to the givers needs than the communities - wheat growing in Africa because that was the technology - cash crops over food because of the need to pay debts to donor countries

      3.    What are the critical questions that it would be worth having a group research and discuss in depth?

      ·         The economics of today and tomorrow are driving the poor to be poorer and the rich to be dramatically richer – expectation of return of investments of 10+ % is very destructive – How do we shift the context of more more more?

      ·         Healing has become a business how do we return to healing as a vocation - levels of stress and cancer grow every year - we have begun to have diseases of the poor countries and diseases of the developed countries.  One way to know if you are becoming developed is the increase in cases of certain types of cancer.

      ·         How is facilitation a transformational role in organizational and individual development? What is the edge today in facilitation?

      Just a few thoughts

      With respect, Larry

      --------------------------------------------------------------

      My name is Larry Philbrook 

      I am with the ICA in Taiwan – I have been with the ICA since 1970 based in 6 nations and have worked in more than 30.  I have worked in community development since 1968 and with organizational change since 1984.

      I am happily married to Evelyn Kurihara Philbrook and we have two wonderful children Lela and Lloyd both of whom are now in Chicago.

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      GLOBAL CONFERENCE ICA International Unlocking the potential to create a new world together

      “Despite the enormous efforts made each year to address the world’s persistent development challenges, the international community can point to only incremental impact on the status quo. As a result, many have called for a paradigm shift, in order to usher in a new era of holistic social change. 

      The Institute of Cultural Affairs International’s 7th Global Conference on Human Development: Unlocking the Potential to Create a New World Together will serve as a launching pad for realizing the paradigm shift needed to overcome our deepest human development challenges. Breakthrough is possible only through a comprehensive, integrated approach, which facilitates the exchange of information and collaboration across disciplines and areas of interest. 

      The 7th Global Conference will take place over five days, from 17-21 November 2008 in Takayama, Japan, and will include more than 1000 participants. It will bring together key stakeholders from civil society, government, and the private sector to explore our most pressing human development challenges and design groundbreaking approaches to resolving them. By bringing together peoples from the various sectors, as well as different fields within each sector, a tremendous opportunity for partnership is achieved. To guarantee the productive engagement of all participants, facilitators will be engaged to guide the conference process. “

      The Central Challenges for this Global Conference are： 

      1.  The Effective Governance and Protection of Human Rights

      2.  Persistence of Poverty

      3.  Environmental Degradation and Climate Change

      4.  Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods

      5.  Violent Conflict and Social Disintegration

      6.  Access to Heathcare and Preventing the Spread of Diseases

      7.  Literacy and Education

      8.  Consumerism and Over-Consumption

      9.  Disconnectedness and Barriers to Engagement

      10. Private Sector Collaboration

      http://ica-international.org/global-conference/index.html

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