New Systems for New Times: Hospicing Outmoded Institutions and Midwifing New Ones

  A few months ago, I started a discussion at the Heartland Circle social network community suggesting we recognize that existing structures on which we have depended for governance and leadership have become dysfunctional and impotent, often becoming barriers to the very values they were created to champion. While many recognize this reality, we continue to pour our hopes and dreams into these calcified dinosaurs while expecting them to suddenly and responsibly respond. Stated another way, we keep doing the same things we’ve always done expecting different results. Does that sound familiar? 
 
Not only are our institutions not responding (the green summit in Copenhagen, politicians in Sacramento, response to Katrina, gridlock in Washington, etc.) they are heading down a path of further dysfunctionality (U.S. Supreme Court decision on corporations, losing the War on Drugs, a lasting Middle East peace, etc.). Yet we seemingly have no choices other than our existing institutions.
 
We send competent, well-intended  and good-hearted people into these hurricanes of dysfunction and watch them spit out by the system, chewed beyond recognition and often appearing to have been capitulated or compromised by the very system they were bent on changing. We send money and add our legitimacy giving these dysfunctional systems even more power despite their inability to break the gridlocks of their own muscularity, like weightlifters who cannot tie their own shoe laces. But worst of all, we waste our hopes and dreams on these broken systems.
 
The discussion started with declaring these institutions, the ones on whom we depend for leadership and governance as a society – locally, nationally and globally - outmoded, defunct, obsolete and illegitimate. Very revolutionary, you say? How can we begin imagining a responsive system, how can we even begin thinking about creating a fully-functional, responsible system of governance and leadership for our times, unless we park the existing archaic systems on the sidelines?
 
Having done this FIRST, we can now start imagining systems that are responsive to the needs of NOW. Once we begin we might want to borrow useful parts from the old systems, still parked on the sidelines. Parts may be salvageable. They deserve compassionate engagement for they have brought us thus far. But their time has past and we need to move on. This is where a hospice-like attitude is warranted.
 
Here some people get really nervous, for this is all new to us. We are creating anew, and new words may be needed, new reasoning will be needed, new structures will be needed. As the metaphor I’m used to using goes: we would be building the ship while still at sea. This is the “frothy field” of creation, not reformation, not even transformation. It is frothy in that it is unclear exactly what it will look like, a bit scary perhaps but also exciting.
 
With this frothy attitude, we can stop legitimizing the old (as in dysfunctional, archaic, outmoded, impotent and calcified) and start co-creating the new. This step requires an approach similar to mid-wifery; even though we aren’t sure exactly how to do it or what it will look like, we have faith that something meaningful will emerge. As Josh Groban sings in “Let Me Fly,”……”let me fall, let me fall…and let the ME I am becoming catch me.”

Terry Chapman sent me the picture below, after being on one of our Heartland calls. It was taken in Honduras shortly after Hurricane Mitch came through and ravaged the region. Thousands died and the economy was destroyed. And as you can see, when the flood waters receded, the river had moved! What was left behind was this bridge. It had survived the flooding but was now useless because it led to nowhere! This incredible visual can be compared to today’s institutions. Society has moved and our institutions aren’t very useful anymore!

When we engage in a conversation about creating new structures more appropriate to our times, a person who is very attached to the status quo might interpret it as revolution, even treason. Those who are benefiting from the dysfunction – the bureaucrats, politicians, pundits and wonks, some media and others – may feel threatened and start acting defensively or even nastily. Existing laws, which grew out of the existing systems, may have to be bent or even broken if new systems are to be created.

Those who engage in bringing forth a new system of institutions, a new paradigm, may be seen as traitors much like the early American colonists were seen by the British in the early 1770s. Similarly, being a “traitor” to the old system could mean being a “patriot” in the new.

An example right here in my part of the world is the building of a new bridge on the Oakland side of the the San Francisco Bay Bridge, totally bypassing the older structure which failed during the 1989 earthquake. The old is being bypassed and will ultimately be demolished once the new span is complete. The old section served the Bay Area well since the mid-1930s but it is time for it to be replaced, not further repaired or modified. We can do this with our institutions too. They served us well for a while but it is time for them to go now.


Watch a 60 Minutes video. To view the process of replacing the Eastern portion of the Bay Bridge click here.


[NOTE: For the next several months, I am hosting monthly conference calls exploring this process. If you are interested in joining the call send me an email at [email protected]]