We usually behave as if we are part of a machine - an orderly, linear, predictable world, in which buttons can be pushed to make things happen. And we tend to see ourselves as tiny cogs on this machine, which is being ‘driven’ by ‘somebody else’. This is a world of hierarchy, bureaucracy and control. From inside this worldview, those in ‘positions of power’ believe that by pushing the right buttons they can ‘drive the machine’ in a direction of their choosing, while others become observers, believing the real power is ‘up there’ and there is nothing they can do to influence what happens.
But this is deeply flawed because the real world just doesn’t work this way. We’re not cogs on a machine. We are participants in a complex, living system - a web of life. Far from separate, we are radically interdependent. Everything is connected to everything else, and everything affects everything else.

How you see the world matters. If you see yourself as a cog on a machine, you’ll believe that without status and power and weight you can’t affect or change things. But seeing yourself as a participant in the web of life is a very different view of the world.

In a web, all the threads matter equally. In a web, what’s important is the strength of the connections and the relationships. There is no hierarchy in a web, and no one is ‘on top’. Power is everywhere.

When people begin to see themselves as participants in the web of life, they come together and act together, and their power together becomes a force for change. This is the power of the network. It is the power that percolates up from the people, and ultimately transforms systems.

[To explore these issues further click here to down load an article entitled Systems & Power.pdf by Paula Downey] 

Living Democracy is part of a movement
Living Democracy is a hub. It is the glue that connects the many. Its role is to give visibility and presence to the wider movement for change already happening, and to enable more to happen by empowering people with a resource to take effective action. The intention of Living Democracy is to provide visibility and support for active citizenship and the growing movement for system change.

Living Democracy exists in the space between existing groups and campaigns, like the fluid between the joints that makes the body work more smoothly. Its role is to provide a resource and a tool that facilitates and supports the work of others.
Living Democracy reflects a new mindset that is emerging everywhere, in all walks of life. The old mindset of ‘us-and-them’ is out of date because so many people working within our formal institutions no longer believe our current system works. In order to change it, people on the ‘outside’ and on the ‘inside’ have to work together.
Living Democracy’s purpose and principles are supported by creative and visionary insiders, and creative and visionary outsiders. These people want to see change happen. They may be working inside establishment organisations, and need to be aware of the groundswell of public support for change to sustain them as they work for change internally. They may be working outside the formal system, and need to learn how to be more effective.

Their common enemy is the mindset of those who do not appreciate the significant problems created by our current system, and the apathy of those who feel they are too small to make a difference.
 
Wherever they are, they need to know they are not alone. They are part of what has now been called the largest and fastest growing movement on earth.
[link to Paul Hawkins quote]

"Blessed Unrest"
“Imagine a movement that has no centre, no codified beliefs, and no patriarch or charismatic leader. Imagine that it is comprised of between one and two million organisations. It can’t be schismatic because it is already divided, splintered, and atomised. It claims no special powers, no divine mandate. It arises and comes into being in small ways, like grass and rain.
Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than amass power, it seeks to dismantle and disperse the concentration of authority. Knowing it is weak, it creates innovative tactics to leverage its non-existent power. It can form, gather and dissipate quickly, without central leadership or command and control structures. It can bring down governments, companies and leaders, not by force, but only through witnessing, informing and massing. It can provide hope, support, meaning, and direction. Its power rests in its potential, not in overt force. The potential are the links and relationships that are ever present, and ever growing. What guides the movement is both mysterious and obvious....
... The movement does not agree on everything, nor will it ever, nor does it need to, but it shares a basic set of fundamental understandings about the Earth, how it functions, and the necessity of fairness and equity for all people in partaking of the planet’s life-giving systems...
... This is not merely the biggest movement on Earth, it may be the fastest growing. It doesn’t need to defeat anything. It merely needs to grow.”
 
 
 
Paul Hawkin, from his book ‘Blessed Unrest’ (2007, Viking/Penguin)