An e-co-existential community

An e-co-existential community
Davi Windholz

A lot has been said about the influence of scientific-technological development in the areas of computing and mass communication- television, internet, cell phones. Also a lot has been said about the processes of socialization with the decline of the educational system, of the place, i.e. of the lack of places, of the pluralist family in the life of the young people and of the nefast influence of the media, advertisement and marketing over the moral and behavioral formation of the youth nowadays. The brutal capitalism together with globalization leads to total lost of identity of the young today, at local level, that is to say, at the referential of his or her specific culture and environment, starting to adopt universal rules, behaviours and values, creating a huge gap in his or her world, dehumanizing him or herself and becoming instead of a human being a consumer being.

In 2004 a small group of psychologists, decided to shut their clinics, once they believe(d) the infirmity and neurosis are rather in western society than in the individual himself. 30% of the adult world is being medicated with some anti-depressive, more than 20% of children with Retalin, only 25% of the children feel comfortable at school, 38% of couples get divorced (the number is even higher in couples who have been married for up to 7 years), diseases such as cancer, heart attacks, diabetes and others are directly related to our way of life and to a disease industry (medicines, doctors, hospitals) that generates billions of dollars a year. Excessive obesity is supported by the food industry through advertisement addressed directly to children since his/her first years of life, also generating billions of dollars a year.


We could go one exemplifying with more and more data about the deterioration of the social, educational, cultural systems, the shift from social well-being politics to aggressive and brutal politics aiming consumption and having marketing as the main socializing factor, even invading spaces, until now forbidden, such as schools, universities and educational centres (the spelling books in the poor areas of N.Y. were replaced by hornbooks from Coca-Cola. Nike sponsors all sport fields in poor neighbourhood schools, where its logo figures in the centre of the field and in all available places – just as one example. And they would say they are supporting education and a bankrupted educational system!!)
And we have not yet mentioned the alcohol, gamble, drugs (and other addictions) industries that are a link between the world of normative values (the central economical system), the political world (democratic governments) and the world of anti-normative values (mafia and crime world). All globalized, industrial and consumption system joins providing to consumers “bread and circuses”. At the 2008 World Economic Forum, Bill Gates announced to be against brutal capitalism, because it generates billions of poor people without purchasing power. His criticism is then, not to the human state of the people, but to the fact that, due to capitalism, we are losing two- three billions of potential consumers. So, we have to improve capitalism in order to improve consumption!

Joining the ecological factor to the dehumanization and globalization factors, we complete the picture of the brutal capitalist world in which we live nowadays. Logically, worried about the globe, source of raw material to the production of consumption good, the capitalist world searches for solutions to keep the level of consumption or, even better, increase it. But the solution to a more ecological world is not consuming differently, but consuming less, what goes totally against the interests of the economical-political elites of the western world.


In the globalized world it becomes almost impossible to identify the sources of power, being them, certainly above and outside political system, which, in the end, turns out to be the stage of the puppets of the dominant elites, the true sources of power. Even in a country like Israel with a minimum size of 20000 square kilometers, for 7 million inhabitants to move a campaign for federal deputy or first minister, an economical power that only the new “feudal lords” can afford is necessary, imposing like this, a clear relation between political power and economical power. So, in order to get a change, the fighting arena must no longer be the central political system and start to be the attempt to create an alternative, parallel system, in which those who do not accept the present system abandon it. This system is the “alternative society”.

We do not want to fight against the current system, because we do not have strength and power enough to do so. We do not intend to destroy it, because we do not want to use strength, fear and death as means of change but we can not silence for our beings do not allow us. Thus, what is left is to search for an alternative, creative solution, that maybe, with time, may gain more strength and impact than the other “non- solutions”.

An e-co-existential society

We need to create a system in which the human being, humanity and environment respect each other mutually, without imposing one upon another or establishing that one is superior or more important than the other. A symbiotic relation among individual, collective and environment will make possible a re-humanization of the human being and western civilization.

The e-co-existential society is based in the first instance on the existence of the individual as unique and special.

The individual possesses genetically, through his DNA, a unique formation, different from any other human being. His intelligence profile, also unique, allows him/her to have unique and specific experiences. Experiences are everything the individual goes through and are incorporated to his being through his/her unique cerebral system, absorbed in matrices in emotional and rational ways, completely different from any other human being. Therefore, the idea of an ideal standard of human being is no longer valid.
I exist. I am what I am. But only with dialogue, reflection with the other, I become aware of my being. I begin to know what I am. I have a unique identity. In this dialogue I gain conscience of my being, of my limits, my scope of life.

This way, community starts to be a mean for the individuals. It becomes their dialogic structure. The dialogue among individuals is realised in the meeting among the individuals of the community, of the minian in Judaism (it is necessary to gather ten people to pray, that is, to talk to G~d), in the circle, in Indian culture (the Indians need the circle to discuss about their fears and fantasies), etc.

This community has no meaning by its own. It is purpose is to enable the dialogue and growth of its members, to be the mirror of self-knowledge, of consciousness-raising of the human being, of existence. The coexistence.
But the community, the coexistence will not have a meaning, if the human being, through communitarian civilization, is not able to e-coexist with his environment. That is, with the whole creation of the universe, interacting with it and through it, being defined as a human civilization. This will be the e-coexistence based on a relationship of love for the other and for the environment, believing we are part of a unity superior to everything and everyone, in which every part has the same importance of the whole.



The current belief, that is to say, the existential fear, the necessity of survival, lead us to act through the system of fight- run away, practically obliging us to destroy the others and the environment, believing like this in our survival as individuals. However, in a paradoxical way, the individual destroying the community, another being or species will be destroying him/herself and the possibility of not only existing as a human, but as a human BEING. Not only of surviving life but of really living it.
The e-coexistent community will be a model that will enable the dialogue of the individual with him/herself, with the other, with the environment, becoming conscious of his/her existence in a relation of love. It will enable the human being, the individual, to leave the cycle of fear and anger, survival system and interact with the world, in a process of growth as an individual, human being, his/her community, human civilization, environment, the globe and cosmos.
In this case, on this way, we will have to search for a new form of being a community, thanking what civilization has offered us so far, but aware that this way has come to an end and that we have to fight against our fear of the unknown and new, in the quest of humanization of the modern world. So, the base of an e-coexistential community would be unique. The respect to the e-coexistence of all cosmos, in other words, the right of every individual to be unique, different, capable of developing all his/her potentiality. The knowledge that this individual is not conscious of him/herself without the dialogue with other beings, humans and non-humans. The recognition that each individual has a purpose in this world, as well as any other species or matter and its destruction means the destruction of this chain in which each bond has its function, be the bond human, animal, vegetable, or be it cosmic.






The e-co-existential practice

The practical proposal of a new social-communitarian model has to be a response to an ill society and the anguishes of the individual, rehumanizing him or her as individual, abandoning the consumer being for a human being. On the other hand, this proposal must not be a return to the “caveman”.

Civilization developed in a spiral way. In spite of our anguishes and the feeling that something evil is in the air, the world is much better than in the times of the cavemen, than in the Middle Age or even the beginning of the XX century. Therefore, the practical responses must not be a return to the past, but instead, a creative search for new ideas, part based on the past, part original and unknown up to today.

The e-co-existentialist practice has to be such that as much as at individual level as at a community or communication among communities level, it can be done. We can not depend on a practice that will be realized only when we “take over”. Power will come after thousands of human beings at individual or communitarian level practise the e-coexistentialism.
The practice limits itself to two basic principles that will enable all the others to be realised- the minimalist economy and the decentralization of political and economical power.
The base of the capitalist system is the belief that progress means consumption that means more production of goods that means progress that means happiness. Buy and be happy. But this formula is a total failure. Consumption has brought neither progress nor happiness. Not even to the elite has it brought the expected happiness.



More than 30% of American adults take anti-depressives and more than 60% are addicted to some form of alienation (flight). If we consider TV and internet as processes of escape and alienation we could say that more than 80% of American population is somehow alienated from its context. In other words, even to the most consumer society of the world this practice did not bring happiness. We would not even have to comment that in most of the world, Asia, Africa and South America this practice does not even exist. The market and consumption system widens not only to material goods but also to work, time, space, leisure, etc…Since we are young we are taught to consume our lives.

Inverting this principle at an individual level will be the first step to the changing process. Minimalist consumption. Critical. Consuming only what we really need. Through an educational, critical and dialogic process, trying to understand at a personal level what this minimum consumption means. No one will impose on anyone what to buy. This should be an internal individual process. Redefining our identity and through it, redefining our consumption. Assuming this principle as individuals, we transform all the system of our society. Consuming less means needing less money, working less, having more free time, time for the ourselves, for the children, for the partner, for the community, etc…It means to transform work in a mean not an end. It will be no longer the main factor in our identities. We must search for new formulas to define our identities; Consuming the minimum and critical, means to analyse our consumption balancing the price with the others and the environment, means consuming e-co-existentially.






In order to consume minimalistically, as a community, we have to create a support system. This support system will be based on micro and second-hand economy. In other words, the support to local, communitarian or inter-communitarian and regional economy. Eliminating the chains. Boycotting them. A micro-economy, part of which may be ruled by principles of exchange. A second-hand economy, through trade centres of second-hand products.

The capitalist system has convinced us that it is cheaper to throw away and buy a new one, exactly by the consumption incentive. Second-hand means opposing to this principle. In this case, we will create a new-old profession; the technological craftsman. Second-hand centres will renovate fabrics, furniture, appliances, construction material, cars, etc…A lot of questions are in the air and we still do not have the answers. But we can clearly visualise the micro-economy in the food, preventive medicine, clothing, furniture and primary consumer goods sectors including simple electrical appliances, education and culture. How the micro-economy would be in high-tech products or in regional or national scope sectors, we still do not have the answers. But if we start the process where it can be done, the answers will come with time. We will become more experienced and wise in relation to a new economy. The “human being economy”. In this economy, there is no place for the manipulative advertisement and marketing, whose goal is to sell more and more. This system will be replaced by a conscientious propaganda, that will state the individual necessities, giving him/her the ability of analysis and decision making, concerning his/her individual consumption.






Taking into account that our system is coexistential and without imposing a socialist-igualitarian ideology, there will be also a change in the relation employer-employee. A more human relation, fairer, more cooperative. The profit will no longer be the ultimate goal of economy even of micro-economy. A new economical system as such, will then decentralize the economy, weakening the power of an economical elite, decorrupting the system.

In the same way, the decentralization of political power is necessary. Power corrupts and its centralization creates mistaken and unilateral priorities based only on the interests of the dominant classes and it does not matter with which ideology they have taken power. Once in power they begin to act under independent dynamic, excluding all those who do not belong to them. This way, the first step would be giving back the power of decision to the individuals and the communities. Each community will have the power to decide what suits them better, based on an internal decision process in which only the members of this community have the right to decide. The individual is responsible for his life. He/she returns from total alienation in which he lives nowadays, even inside a democratic system and starts to act and influence his life.

An e-co-existential society will be a conglomerate of communities joined through a net of communication. Each community will create his own system of decision making, based on principles of equality of rights. The net of communities will comprise a Forum, Parliament, which through its representatives will discuss problems concerning all sectors of life. This Parliament will not be given the power of the decision, instead only the power of orientation. Based on the proposals, each community will decide what suits it better. This way, the centralization of political power and the possibility of domination of a community over another will be avoided.


We define community as any form of gathering of individuals around a common interest. This community can be physical-geographic, placed on a physical-geographic limit, can be functional, centralized around a communitarian centre or virtual, placed on an internet forum, as long as it has a physical contact at some point.

The aim of this community is the mutual support and growth of the individuals belonging to it. The individuals may join around a community for ethnical, religious, political-ideological, economical, sexual, ideological identity, work, leisure or other motives. Any community will have the right to be part of the Parliament, as long as it accepts the principle of pluralism, accepting and respecting the distinct forms of being of the other communities.

We can accept a monolithical community, as long as it accepts the way of life of another community without wanting to change it.

The minimalist economy and the decentralization of economical and political power will give the infrastructure so that the leisure, culture, education, public health, social well-being, ecological and other sectors may be a practical translation to e-coexistential philosophy. We will shift from a system centered in economy and work to a system centered in human potential development and well-being. Its identity will be defined specially for its acting in these fields and not in the professional field. However, the individual may find him/herself in his work. The role of community and the net of communities is to strengthen the individual through creation of an environment that reinforces and enables this individual to develop in the most free way possible.





The redefinition of our scope of life, being work as something secondary and less important in our conscious identities of human beings, will demand from us a redefinition of our targets, of our existential meaning. Understanding the reason of our existence, the search to fulfill the emptiness between birth and death, which nowadays, we occupy with work and consumption. This will be the main task of the new communities, coming up with new answers for the human being.

For many people, this article may seem another one about utopias, but we see individuals, groups and communities joining based on this very same principles, searching for a solution. They are hundreds and thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands. It is the beginning. We imagine that, at some point, these groups will join around a Parliament and give start to the process here described.
In order to reach this critical mass, we should start a process from ourselves, individuals. Each one that, reading this article, believes in its principles, can, “from here and now on”, give start to his/her own small revolution that, together with the start of other small revolutions will accomplish a great change. We call this process “Individual Action”, in which each one of us seeks to realise the maximum of solidary practice, to ourselves, to our families and our community. This individual action is a change of attitude, of action, at intra and interpersonal level, utilization of time, of material goods, review of the concept of work, leisure, consumption, happiness, success, etc.

As follows there is a guide to individual action. This is not a postulate, an axiom, but just a guideline so that each one can have a first referential and from there creates his/her own individual action, of his/her family or his/her community. We see this guide as an open one, in which each individual may be adding other actions, not thought here, that can help us in the quest of the so expected way to A MORE HUMAN, FAIR AND HAPPY WORLD!!!!

INDIVIDUAL ACTION


A lot of people agree with the principles previously raised, but they would always raise the questions: “-So, how do we do it in practice?”, “-From where do we start?”, “-What does solidary with myself, the others and the environment mean?”

This will be a guide of what to do and what not to do. A sort of solidary mitzvot, but without the principle of imposition. The realization of these mitzvot comes from somewhere very human, with love for life.

1. Me with myself
The first principle of individual action is to be well with oneself. To believe in, respect and love oneself. It is to understand that, as and individual, we are unique, with a special profile and we have the right to be and act as we wish. We are not slaves of the modern world, of the machines, of material goods, of time and space. On the contrary, we own all this and these instruments were created so that we can have a more human, more complete, more free life. Our realisation depends a lot more on the subjective view of being, than on the objective, materialistic view of having.

Understanding that we define ourselves our working and leisure time, our material level of comfort, our food, health, relationship, etc and not an external system that imposes the way and rhythm of life, through emotional manipulation.
In process of emotional intelligence we have defined 13 main factors.





2. Me with the others

If we want to create a solidary society, this solidarity has to have expression in our relationship with our life partners, such as the community we live in, the ones we work with, etc. Solidary society with solidary economy will not succeed in a society where there is no mutual respect between man and woman, parents and children, races, sexual differences (hetero and homosexuals), religious and laymen, etc. The mutual respect and the non-violence principle are the base of this relationship. The dialogue is its instrument.

3. Me with the world

The definition that we are part of the universe and we are not its superior lords, but simply another bond. The fact that we human beings have the capability of manipulating and modifying it for our own purposes, demands from us a responsibility and respect for the environment, reflected through our planned action.

This demands from us a daily ecological action, in a conscious and critical process of our actions and their consequences to the environment.

Avoid as much as possible day-by-day consumption of pollutant products, such as cleaning and hygiene material, disposable diapers, plastic shopping bags, needlessly wrapped products, private transportation, etc.

Separation of trash for recycling and work in the community so that can be realised.

Creation of communitarian gardens where children and adults work together building an ecological system for the production of communitarian consumption products (or, maybe, for those who, at the moment can not afford them).

Creation of ecological teams to develop the environment of the community, not depending on municipal authorities, humanizing the communitarian environment.

The incentive to minimalist consumption and reuse of material goods through exchange and second-hand centres.

As the example of “bicycle day”, the creation of projects of incentive to non-pollution of the environment.
In short, we become active and creative towards ecological action and communitarian projects development.

4. Minimalist consumption

Defining which material level we really need and aim, taking into account the consequences each one of the factors could have in the ecological action. Once defined, translate these concepts in practical figures, creating a critical spiral that once having the concrete figures defined, review if we can live with less material goods and so, redefine the figures. This process will take place in every material field of our lives: clothing, personal goods, electrical-appliances, cars, housing, etc…

Consuming the less possible, consuming to keep a minimum level of life comfort. Previously, we would buy a blouse, just because we liked it and could afford it. Today, before buying we ask ourselves if we really need it. Travelling in the Israeli summer, we immediately would turn the air-conditioner on. Today, we ask ourselves if we really need to do it or if we can just open the windows and bear the heat. We have realised that most of the times, actually, we could bear the heat, but turned on the air-conditioner only because of habit. We buy 2, 3, 4 TVs for our homes. Can’t we really live with just one? Do we need to change it for a new one every year?? Is it really the time to change our new car for a new one or are we just changing it because of the social pressure for status? We could go on with examples in the food area (how much food we eat because we are hungry and how much we eat out of greediness), medical (consuming medicines and going to doctors and hospitals in an exaggerated way, without having a critical view of this kind of cure and of the alternative ones- such as better nourishment, physical activities, emotional balance, less stress, etc…)

Each one of us will define his/her pattern of consumption. There is no single pattern. The important thing is the conscience, is to ask ourselves about the real necessity of consumption and not only buy out of impulse. Each one will determine when and how his/her consumption will be reduced.

5. Exchange market and second-hand market

This is a community process. At the moment we begin to create groups of individuals who adopt these principles, we will be able to start exchanging and second-hand centres. Nowadays, there are many examples of these centres, where people bring the goods (clothing, furniture, electrical appliances, etc) they do not need anymore and instead of throwing them away (as the present society stimulates), exchange or sell them for symbolic prices.

These centres have an extremely ecological, social and solidary importance. Through these centres we can reduce the production of new material goods avoiding modern rubbish, providing the economical possibility of those who, at the moment do not have the minimum purchase power. These centres recreate the craftsman’s job in many areas, where he/she would have as specialization the renovation of these goods. Finally, these centres would have a communitarian local focus, as a socializing and propagating process of the idea of individual action and solidary society.


6. Co-associative or cooperative economy

The incentive to working creativity will generate small business, micro-companies in all sectors of economy. Encouraging this micro-economy is to encourage local, communitarian economy. In order for it to succeed, we should support it, consuming its products and avoiding, as much as possible products from local, national and international chains. The small restaurant, the self-manufacturing clothing or food shop, etc

This trade will take place in small shops or in the exchange and second-hand centres.

Together with this, the principle of the non-exploitation of manpower. “The owner will not stop working and the employee will also be the owner of his product”. The more we adopt this principle, the closer we are going to be from a solidary economy. We are already building a system where our employees become cooperators. We are not sure about how to do it and how to define what is fair to pay them. But, just the fact that we are thinking about it and not only in the profits of our economical operations, makes us solidary people towards our employees. *

7. Solidary Society Education and Propagation/Propaganda

This is the main factor of all process. Through education, we will spread the idea, influencing the first circle around us, the family and then, the subsequent circles, the community, working team, friends etc…

We could extend the theme and dismember each one of the items, but our goal is to create a concise and practical manifesto that does not lose itself in abstractions and that is not an “action order”, but a direction of individual action, where each one, (exactly because it is an individual action), creates his or own action code.


Finally, we would like to ask everyone that has identified with what has been said here, to manifest this approval by placing a white ribbon in his/her car, briefcase, or any other way he or she believes he or she can propagate this idea. Be a changing agent and spread the idea and the manifesto in every possible way!


We would like to finish with the song by Geraldo Vandre:
“Come, let's go away because to wait is not to know he who knows, makes the time, does not wait for it to happen.”










“Gentle Cry” is an act of individual action to create a critical mass of human awareness raising so that it is possible to realise a great movement of social and ecological transformation.
“Gentle Cry” is an individual movement – collective, where each human being should assume a conscious attitude of performing individual actions in his or her daily routine. Individual actions in his/her family and communitarian environment, consuming less, supporting local micro-economy, being active as a member of a community and at the same time acting in a universal net, boycotting products whose manufactures do not comply with their social obligations, not consuming products that harm the environment, being a volunteer in activities of social action, participating in acts against wars and genocides, being active in the fight for human rights of the excluded, taking part in the demonstrations for justice and solidary economy.
Everyone who has identified with this movement should, as a way of manifesting his or her individual action place on his/her clothes, in his/her car, bicycle, bag, windows, a white ribbon with “Gentle Cry” written on it, making this “Gentle Cry” heard in every corner of our society.
Let us leave apathy and conformism! Be a changing agent! Be part of the critical mass and help propagating this idea in all possible means! (WAY?)
Let us paint the town and country streets with white ribbons acclaiming the great “Gentle Cry” for a social, solidary and ecological society!
Let us practice the “Gentle Cry” act, idealized by educator Paulo Freire, an act of raising awareness of the human beings, for a critical conscience of society as a form of transforming it and free us to create “A less evil world, less ugly, less authoritarian, more democratic, more human!”
“GENTLE CRY” MOVEMENT
For an individual action


Information:
“GENTLE CRY” MOVEMENT
For an individual action

Davi Windholz - http://www.blogger.com/kesher@netvision.net.il
Jayme Fucs Bar - http://www.blogger.com/jfucs@netvision.net.il%20