[Dialogue] The Evolution of Governance

[KroegerD at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/26/06 9:25:44 AM Central Daylight Time,  
wellmindmn at earthlink.net writes:

The  Evolution of Governance

The environmental crises brought on by our  microscopic ancestors nearly 
destroyed them - but they found a way out,  and we can, too
by Elisabet Sahtouris

What sort of governance makes  sense in a complex global society? To 
consider that, we go back into deep  time, before humans, before 
dinosaurs or insects, to a time when our  microbial ancestors faced a 
global environmental crises of their own  making.

Telling the story is Elisabet Sahtouris, Ph.D, an  American/Greek 
evolutionary biologist, ecologist, futurist, consultant,  and author of 
GAIA: The Human Journey from Chaos to Cosmos. She is a  founding member 
of WISNet, the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network, a  member of the 
Earth Parliament and of the Women's International Policy  Action 
Committee on Environment and Development, among others.

In  studying the Earth's evolution, the most fascinating story I know is 
that  of ancient beings who created an incredibly complex lifestyle, 
rife with  technological successes such as electric motors, nuclear 
energy, DNA  recombination and worldwide information systems. They also 
produced - and  solved - devastating environmental and social crises and 
provided a wealth  of lessons we would do well to consider.

This was not a Von Daniken  scenario; the beings were not from outer 
space. They were our own minute  but prolific forebears: ancient 
bacteria. In one of his popular science  essays, Lewis Thomas, observing 
that the myriad of mitochondria in each of  our own cells are 
descendants of these bacteria, suggested that we may be  huge taxis they 
invented to get around in safely.

>From whatever  perspective we choose to define our relationship with 
them, it is clear we  have now created the same crises they did some two 
billion years ago.  Further, we are struggling to find the very 
solutions they arrived at -  solutions that made our own evolution 
possible and that could now improve  the prospects of our own far 
distant progeny, not to mention our more  immediate future.

I owe my understanding of this remarkable tale to  microbiologist Lynn 
Margulis, whose painstaking scientific sleuthing  traced real events of 
a few billion years ago (see IC #34, page 18). The  bacteria's 
remarkable technologies (all of which still exist among today's  
free-living bacteria) include the electric motor drive, which  
functioned by the attachment of a flagellum to a disk rotating in a  
magnetic field; the stockpiling of uranium in their colonies, perhaps  
to keep warm; and their worldwide communications and information  
system, based on the ability to exchange (recombine) DNA with each  
other.

Yet, like ourselves, with our own versions of such wondrous  
technologies, the ancient bacteria got themselves deeper and deeper  
into crisis by pursuing win/lose economics based on the reckless  
exploitation of nature and each other.

The amazing and  inspirational part of the story is that entirely 
without benefit of  brains, these nigh invisible yet highly inventive 
little creatures  reorganized their destructively competitive lifestyle 
into one of creative  cooperation.

Their crisis came about when food supplies were exhausted  and 
relatively hi-tech respiring bacteria ("breathers" with electric motor  
drives) invaded larger more passive fermenting bacteria ("bubblers") to  
eat their insides out - a process I have called bacterial colonialism  
or imperialism. The invaders multiplied within these colonies until  
their resources were exhausted and all parties died. No doubt this  
happened countless times before they learned cooperation.

Somewhere  along the line, the bloated bags of bacteria also included  
photosynthesizers, "bluegreens," which could replenish food supplies if  
the motoring breathers would push the enterprise up toward a lighter  
part of the primeval sea. Perhaps it was this lifesaving use of solar  
energy that initiated the shift to cooperation.

In any case,  bubblers, bluegreens, and breathers eventually contributed 
their unique  capabilities to the common task of building a workable 
society. In time,  each donated some of their "personal" DNA to the 
central resource library  and information hub that became the nucleus of 
their collective  enterprise: the huge (by bacterial standards) 
nucleated cells of which our  own bodies and those of all Earth beings 
other than bacteria are  composed.

This process of uniting disparate and competitive entities  into a 
cooperative whole was repeated when nucleated cells aggregated into  
multi-celled creatures. Once these biological "governments" evolved,  
they continued to function beautifully. What nature's healthy bodies  
and ecosystems exemplify are beautifully unified democracies of  
diversity, organized by locally productive and mutually cooperative  
"bioregions," and coordinated by a centralized service government. The  
underlying and overriding motive is toward healthy production and  
consumption for all.

We humans, like the bacteria of old, have  produced a major crisis. But 
humanity, like other living systems, is  resilient and creative under 
stress. And we have the further advantage  that we can see how other 
living systems have evolved and survived, and  gain clues as to what we 
are doing dysfunctionally and what could set us  on a path of viability.

To watch the world through the broad lens of an  evolutionary biologist 
is to see signs of hope in many directions.  Everywhere I look, people 
are "getting" the principles of living systems -  they are recognizing 
that we cannot separate science, politics, economics,  religion, art and 
education any longer.

At the Earth Summit in Rio  last year, I told the tale of the ancient 
bacteria to my fellow "Wisdom  Keepers," a group organized by Hanne 
Strong. I added that I'd long  wondered exactly how the ancient bacteria 
did it, and that I was now  extremely privileged to see the same process 
first hand, as witness and as  participant.

However poorly reported in our media, most participants I  spoke with 
felt the gathering was a critical event in the reorganization  of 
humanity from a competitive, win/lose lifestyle to a worldwide,  
cooperative venture. Clearly, those involved in the people's summits,  
not the official proceedings, were leading the way.

The image of  humanity reorganizing itself from a chaotic mass to a new 
order was  especially vivid from the sound stage of the huge concert 
held on Flamengo  Beach under a brilliant eclipsing moon on our final 
night in  Rio.

Looking out over the vast crowd on the beach, I watched circles  form 
spontaneously in dance, then dissolve as others formed. Lines of  people 
appeared and wove their way through the mass; great roars of  approval 
greeted every proposal for a better world that was broadcast from  the 
nuclear sound stage.




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Subject: [NSP_MN] The Evolution of Governance
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