Globa1 Priors Council, JE, Ecumenical Institute,
Chicago August 26, 1974
The historians tell us that the Marshallese were able to travel
over a million square miles of ocean from island to island with
no other navigational devise than a "stick chart" and
no other clues than listening to the sound of the waves as they
hit the bottom of their outrigger canoes. The stick chart used
tiny shells to represent islands and straight and curved sticks
which denoted the perennial currents and the wave motion from
island to island.
One of our resident oceanographers described to me the physics
of wave motion. There are swells in the ocean that perennially
traverse long distances in straight lines; whenever they hit an
island, they are diverted into secondary waves and go off at angles.
If you know that general flow, you can travel and tell where you
are. Before the Marshallese began making charts of sticks and
shells, a Master Navigator would simply draw the grid on the sand.
The person who was about to take the trip would duplicate it,
and then the Master would erase them both and draw it once more.
The apprentice was to duplicate the grid one more time without
looking at the original. If he succeeded, he could go ahead and
take the trip. If not, he went home.
Listening for the waves of history is what we have been about
as a revolutionary body during the past few months. This task
is important for several reasons. It allows us to distinguish
between the ripples, the currents and the waves. The ripples are
surface disturbances. Currents have to do with what we normally
call trends, where water moves over long distance in a particular
direction. But waves are something else again. They are swells.
They don't have anything directly to do with the movement of the
water or the surface disturbances. They are where the power is.
There are several characteristics of an historical wave. First,
it is objective, not interpretative. It is what the interpretations
interpret. It is the going-onness that the Lord has put
into history. Our resident oceanographer tells me that nobody
really knows where waves come from or what causes them. Likewise,
these waves of history are just there and nobody knows their origin
or cause. Secondly, a wave is sociological, not psychological.
It is what our psyches are responding to: the objective givenness
that is in society. When you name one, very often it sounds obvious.
One of my colleagues said a clue to recognizing a wave is that
when it is named, your heart "soars like a hawk."
Riding a wave is different from flying a kite. When you fly a
kite, you just determine which way the wind is blowing, and that
tells you what you have to-do. Such a procedure is a liberal approach
to social change or social analysis: determine which way the wind
is blowing, and be directed by that alone. The problem is that
this approach is ineffective. It simply doesn't work. What we
are after is not based on the assumption that a trend must be
followed rigidly. Trends have to be taken into account, but, are
made to be bent, particularly by revolutionary bodies. Perceiving
the wave, and standing in relation to it, allows you to be effective
in bending the trend.
Discerning the waves is the route to effectiveness. For example,
the early Church discerned that the wave of the future had to
do with the collapse; had to do with the Roman Empire. That fact
was perceived quite early. The Apocalypse of John paints that
wave in very graphic detail: Rome is presented as the Whore of
Babylon, riding on a sevenheaded beast and its fall is presented
with great rejoicing. Perception of this wave allowed people not
to be sucked into the particular currents of each emperor's program
or persecution. It released them to respond to that wave.
When that wave hit the beach, some two or three hundred years
later, and anarchy prevailed in Rome, there was one group of people
that had a common ideology, discipline, and organization, which
were to mitigate the anarchy and keep civilization going, to keep
the roads open and the aqueducts flowing. This group was the Church.
They called the head man of the Church "Pontifex Maximus,"
which means, literally translated, Chief Bridgebuilder. This was
not a theological epithet, but a sociological description of a
people who decided to serve civilization by being clear about
where the waves are. Discerning a wave is the way to be effective
in service to the world.
Discerning a wave is hard. In the opening rituals of the guilds
this summer; we used a quotation, the gist of which was, "I
don't know who discovered water, but it certainly wasn't a fish."
Discerning a wave takes distance. Yet we are all in it so much
it's difficult to see a wave. Our research on the social process
triangles and the Other World screens gives a perspective on which
to stand as we begin to look at events and currents to see the
waves.
Discerning a wave smacks of prophecy and prophecy is risky business.
Suppose you are wrong. You stand there responding to a wave that
doesn't come along. At the very least, you will look silly. The
Bible is caustic in its critiques of false prophets: "They
did not have an eye to discern what in fact was going on."
With these genera1 observations and disclaimers, I would like
to lay out what seems to me to be the waves of our time, as they
were discerned this summer. The waves of our time have to do with
a radical upheaval in our society, a collapsing of the old an
a bringing into being of the new in virtually every social arena.
I want to name the eight great waves of our time in four groups
of two. If this comes out rational, that is probably the first
clue that we have not got it yet. There is something extra-rational
about this sort of work.
1) The maturation of the economic dynamic. The economic sector
has grown to mammoth size and complexity. In the process it has
grasped its social responsibility. By maturation, I mean not simply
growth in size , but an assumption of responsibility for the social
process
2) The emergence of an effective global cadre dynamic. The creation
of the global cadre, the invisible college dynamic, or "
the League" has shifted in such a way as to include the business
community. It is no longer restricted, as we used to think about
it, to the intellectual or ecclesiastical community, but involves
business.
3) Political upheaval. The political sector is a boiling cauldron
as we are discovering the inadequacy of virtually every known
form of polity now accessible to us.
4) The emergence of local man. Local man is now insisting on engaging
himself in the decisionmaking process.
5) Concern with ecology. Man has radically altered the balance
of nature is such a way that human life on this planet is threatened.
6) Technological revolution. The world now possesses skills and
methods for resolving problems that heretofore have
been considered an unalterable part of the human predicament.
7) The transparentization of time. Mundane and secular events
have become the locus ~ Mystery.
8) Emergence of a global culture. The global village has become
an operating reality, no longer simply the image of the idealist,
as transportation and communication bridge the gulf that formerly
separated nations and Urgroups.
Regarding the maturation of the economic dynamic, it seems to
me that our category of "Economic tyrant" as a description
of the imbalances of the social processes is no longer either
appropriate or accurate. It is not strategically appropriate for
obvious reasons of authorization, but it is not even accurate
these days. The economic dynamic has to be sure, grown to mammoth
size and complexity. The inflation which is touching everyone
on the globe is largely a result of that growth. Business Week
notes that we do not have an economic theory that takes into account
the complexity of our situation. All our formulas for predicting
and manipulating the economic process simply do not work.
In the midst of that global struggle, the economic dynamic is
becoming socially responsible. When you look through magazine
advertisements, various art forms or significant quotes, that
we could use on the walls around here, stand out. And your heart
soars like a hawk. Then you see down in the bottom right hand
corner, "AtlanticRichfield," or "IBM,"
or "Conoco" or "Exxon." Companies are taking
pains to present themselves as socially responsible groups. I
think we have to acknowledge that they are becoming just that.
This social responsibility does not have to do. in the first instance.
With philanthropy. We learned in the '60's how much you can count
on philanthropy. But the factof the matter is that in this
complex world, the economic dynamic must, for its own self-protection,
take account of the political situation. The political and the
cultural have become the concern of the business and industry.
In one sense, it's encouraging that the most powerful and influential
dynamic in the world has decided to take responsibility for society
at large. The methods of such responsibility have become the question.
The wave of the emerging global cadre has to do, again, with those
people within the business sector who are the sensitive and responsive
ones. Anybody who has done LENS marketing could name people who
are genuinely responsible and collegial. The other day somebody
was passing around a book written by a former Chairman of the
Board of the Bank of America, called, The Future Without Shock.
You might not want to suggest that it contained the most thorough
or profound analysis, but one chapter in it sounds like a lecture
from the Movement on the economic imbalance in our society today
and some of its social consequences. People like that exist today
in the business structures. Our LENS marketers have found there
is a global network of sensitive and responsive businessmen ready
to move. One might say the global cadre is teetering on the brink
of effectivity.
The wave of the political upheaval hardly needs any grounding
at all. It runs the gamut of society, not just among nations.
The other night, in a private threeminute brainstorm, I
was able to list eighteen major governments that have undergone
traumatic crisis in the last two years. Each one of these is attended
by unique ripples or currents, but the scope of it suggests that
there is a wave there. Carrying this turmoil to the absurd extreme,
there is a struggle in the state of Alaska over the location of
the state capital. It is now in Juneau, which is a very small
town in the panhandle. There is a movement on to get the capital
moved to Anchorage. But there is also a movement among the populace
of Juneau to keep it there. They launched a statewide campaign
to keep the capital in Juneau and locate the headquarters of the
state campaign in Anchorage.
That is an absurd extreme, but this struggle of the political
sector dynamic to bring order to our present society is going
on wherever you turn. It takes a number of forms. There are places
in the world that are moving towards nationalism and places moving
toward internationalism. Yet you sense in both of those movements,
an attempt to create a form which will allow for participation
in a global community with diversity. Our current forms were not
made for such a social reality. This wave of political upheaval
is likely to continue.
In some relationship to this wave is the wave of the emergence
of local man as an effective political force. In this country,
it has been manifested through the effectiveness of the opinion
poll. The struggle in this country over the presidency of Mr.
Nixon had to do with conflict among the three pressure points
of the political dynamic: Legislative Consensus, Bureaucratic
Systems, and Knowledge Access. That is, it had to do with Congress,
the Administration, and the press. Knowledge access, or that process
which shapes and molds and expresses indeed, the public opinion,
has been extremely effective here.
In the emergence of local man, "dissatisfaction" is
not a strong enough word for the cries from minority groups
they are demands for an effective voice. You could to around the
world listing the various minority revolutions in process. The
point is there is a determination on the part of local man to
have a say in the decisions that affect his life.
On the other hand, you have to say that mass rule is the synonym
for anarchy. The form coming into being is not going to be some
kind of "doyourownthingism."
It must be a channel that effectively allows local man to participate.
I am not talking only about nations, for this goes on also within
the economic community. We were talking to an industrialist in
Australia who was describing some of his labormanagement
problems. The demand from labor was for a voice in the policies
of the company. So they devised a system whereby management would
consult with labor in workshop groups. They even crossed department
heads so that you would not be talking to your superior, but across
department lines. This industrialist had just come from a session
and was radically shaken. He said there had been a sixhour
session of griping and no constructive presentation. The question
is how? What is the new form of democracy that will effectively
take the voice of local men and weave them together into an operating
consensus that works. Local man is no longer content to acquiesce
in the decisions of some representative bureaucracy. He is determined
to have a direct voice in the formation of the policy.
Regarding the concern with ecology, all you have to do is walk
outside and take a deep breath, or go upstairs and try to see
the lake today, to realize that we have a problem with the balances
of nature. It was announced on the news this morning that the
world now has twentyseven days' supply of food. That is
the extent of the reserve. We are tremendously dependent on this
year's crop coming in well. What new relationship to nature has
to be devised in our time? If we are in danger of famine, there
has to be more than highmileage auto engines and public
transportation and smokestackfiltering devices. Something
more radical is required.
Wherever we have been on LENS teaching trips, we find people listing
pollution and population as major concerns. The issue has to do
with the balance of nature. We have conquered nature in our time
but the victim has come back and is threatening to overtake the
conqueror.
A parallel to this wave is the technological revolution of the
Twentieth Century. The midpoint of the inventions humanity has
made throughout history is the year 1957. As much has been invented
since then as was invented throughout history before. Another
dimension of this wave is illustrated by an article in Saturday
Review :World, talking about the technological revolution.
"I shall tell you not of Einstein or penicillin, the miraculous
laser or even the computers that outmagic Aladdin's lamp.
I ask you merely to glance around the room you are now in, or
stroll around your home, and note the marvels with which human
ingenuity has, in half a century, enriched our lives.
"I put it to you that neither the Pharaohs nor Montezuma,
neither Croesus nor J.P. Morgan nor the mighty Manchus dreamed
of such wonders as even the unrich among us take for granted.
"Do you own a hi-fi? What shah or sultan of the past could
hear what you hear? Pompeii could not be enthralled by Mozart;
Queen Victoria would have adored Richard Rogers; and the profligate
czars were bereft of Heifetz and Casals, My Fair Lady and Guys
and Dolls.
"Zippers. My God, zippers! And aluminum foil. Dry cleaning.
Kleenex. Spray paints. Staplers. Air conditioners
why, we have conquered hell itself.
"You may sniff that all this is sheer surface, trivia ripped
out of the fearful tragedies half a century has spawned. Sniff
away. I am grateful to be alive now, heir to such splendors and
comforts and miracles as the world of man could not offer men
before."
One would not want to be Utopian about it; it is also technology
that has created our problems, particularly in ecology. A doctor
commented to me a few weeks ago that pneumonia used to take care
of the elders, but now pneumonia is easily curable, we have the
problem of how they are to be cared for. The Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists has printed on its cover a "doomsday clock"
which has had a hand reading twelve minutes to twelve. Two weeks
ago, they moved it up to nine minutes to twelve. Technology is
not an unmixed blessing. But it is not going to go away. It is
an objective, sociological wave.
Concerning the Transparentization of Time, in our era, the mundane
has become the locus of the Mystery. On a dock in Sydney, there
was a Japanese fishing boat tied up to the dock. An old Australian
man stood looking at it, shaking his head and saying to himself,
"It don't make sense. It just don't make sense. Thirty years
ago I was killing them and they was killing us. Now here he is
in my town." Historically it makes perfectly good sense;
but that is not what that man was experiencing. It was sheer wonder
and mystery that breaks through in the midst of the mundane.
I suspect that religious symbols, these days, have more power
than they have had in the last half century, to dramatize and
express the wonder in the midst of daily experience. One of the
best spirit conversations that I have been part of lately had
to do with working on social methods for the LENS seminar. We
were talking about the process of indicative battleplanning. In
that two hour conversation, all 144 states of being of the Other
World were just blazing. My warning buzzer was going on: "Watch
out, you'll incinerate any moment." There was fire and transparency
there, as we began to sniff the possibility of effectively engaging
society
Not much needs to be said about the emergence of a global culture.
The event that clinched it, was the picture of the earth sent
back from the moon. All of a sudden, we were able to see the oneness
that is earth. When you talk about globality in a LENS seminar
today, nobody blinks Even six months ago, people blinked twice.
Now globality is an operating assumption. Its manifestations are
obvious. English can get you around anywhere in the world. Most
airports look alike. We are coming up with a global culture.
The oil crisis made it apparent that this culture is a necessity
and not simply gift. The interdependence of the world was dramatized
there very vividly. Whatever form that global culture takes, it
will be a unity in the midst of diversity. I suspect we will have
to deal with a counterwave for the recovery of one's cultural
heritage in the midst of a global community.
Let me touch briefly on the implications of these waves. First,
resurgence is not a time for relaxation. Resurgence is a very
critical, urgent and dangerous time. When human passion is loose,
the capacity for destructiveness is at least equal to the capacity
for creativity. Secondly, this is a penultimate time. It is unlikely
that we will live to see the final fruits of our efforts. One
might look at the history of Egypt a century or so before they
built the pyramids, for an analogous period to ours. What was
going on there? How were they discerning the trends? What was
the wave that manifested itself a century later in the pyramids?
What was going on a century or so before the Renaissance?
The book of Revelations holds a clue to such time periods. The
People of God in the early centuries lived off their eschatological
vision of what was coming, but not likely to be manifest in their
lifetime What would it mean for us to recover the dynamic of living
out of our perception of the wave that was one day going to break.
Our task would be enabling that wave to do its work creatively.
There was an essay in Time recently, about the type of leadership
required for our time. It was in apparent contradiction of much
of what I have just said, but it observed that these are times
in which we do not need great visionaries, for people have the
vision. We need strategists. In our terminology, that would mean
tactical thinkers, those people with not only the vision but the
method and the moxy to implement that vision.
John Epps
August 26, 1974