Conscious Choice: Things to Think On

May 1999 | Citizen at Large

Things to Think On

by Jay Walljasper

Despite constant reminder that we are living in a time of unbelievably bountiful information of all sorts from all over the globe, it seems to me that ideas are in short supply. Not some ideas — you hear plenty about the wonders of technology, market economics, and globalization. But the overall diversity and range of ideas today seems to be dwindling. Fewer new ways of looking at our problems get a hearing in public forums. Ideas that don’t fit with the grand designs of the capitalist, corporate, computerized status quo are simply overlooked by journalists, professors, economists, and politicians. That strikes me as dangerous. Just as in ecosystems, where diversity ensures survival, a society needs a broad range of thinking in order to make the best choices for its future. So, in the spirit of subverting the dominant paradigm, here are a few ideas I’ve been thinking about that you probably won’t find in the New York Times or the Economist.

Downsizing the United States

The American reaction to the break-up of the Soviet Union consisted mainly of self-congratulatory sermonizing about the superiority of our economic system. But the sudden and unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union should stand as a warning for us. The Soviet Union, like the United States, was a nation that equated bigness with greatness. Governing a land stretching from sea to sea is a massive operation, where key decisions affecting the lives of hundreds of millions are made by a few powerbrokers. It was a small coterie of party bosses who called the shots in the Soviet Union; in the U.S. it is a narrow set of corporate bosses. As merger mania eats its way through our economy, these faceless business executives are gaining more and more control over every aspect of American life — and like Communist Party officials, they run things on the basis of what’s best for them.

As the Soviet experiment proved, the more power is concentrated in the hands of a tiny group of people, the greater becomes the likelihood of political tyranny, economic inefficiency, and a general disregard for the quality of people’s lives. We are already seeing signs of this in the United States — corporate campaign contributions dictate the terms of our political debate, chain outlets crowd out vital independent businesses, and soulless strip-mall architecture spreads dreariness across the landscape.

But what can be done to prevent America from following the Soviet Union’s path toward a creaky, clanking, centralized system that eventually self-destructs in spasms of misery? The answer is to say no to bigness, including our own nation. We need to start dismantling the United States right now, before social conditions deteriorate to the point where it shatters all by itself. Dissolving the country into smaller, more efficient, and friendlier units is the best means of ensuring that basic choices affecting our communities remain with us and are not made by greedy and uninformed strangers thousands of miles away. Thomas Naylor and William H. Williamson, professors at Duke University, declare in Downsizing the U.S.A. (Wm. Eerdmans Publishing, 1997), "We believe the time has come to reconsider secession as a viable option for dealing with our own problems of big government, big military, big business, big labor, and big cities....Our states should be allowed to secede from the Union; megastates like California, Texas, and New York should be permitted to break up."

An independent New Mexico or Wisconsin or Pacific Northwest could retain its economic connections to the rest of the U.S., but gain the opportunity to steer its own clear course in many social and political matters. While outside corporations would still exert economic pressure, a government closer to the people would do a better job of standing up for its citizens’ interests than remote officials in Washington, D.C. And a small size is no barrier to prosperity — look at Switzerland, Denmark, and the Netherlands, all of which rank near the top of the global scale for per capita income and quality of life.

The Depaving Movement

Governor Tom McCall Park, nestled alongside the Willamette River in downtown Portland, Oregon, qualifies as one of the modern wonders of the world. Kids dodge in and out of a streaming water fountain, couples nuzzle as they stroll along the riverbank, families spread out blankets for sumptuous picnics — all in a spot once occupied by a four-lane highway.

Over the past 75 years roads have continually scarred the face of the world, stealing prime farmland, ruining natural scenery, and ripping apart vital neighborhoods. As much as one-third percent of the space in urban areas is buried under pavement. For years this was seen as the unfortunate price of progress, but now there is a new movement to reclaim the streets. People all over the world are working to create parks, playgrounds, trails, woods, neighborhoods, and farms out of land once reserved for cars. And it doesn’t stop at roads. Jan Lundberg, a former oil industry analyst who now directs the Alliance for a Paving Moratorium, tore up his driveway in Arcata, California, for a garden. Meanwhile back in Portland, just a few blocks from Tom McCall Park, you’ll find Pioneer Square: the pulsing heart of the city where musicians put on impromptu concerts, office workers eat brown bag lunches in the sunshine, kids gather to flirt and gossip — all in a spot once occupied by a parking garage.

Walking Parties

"Walking is the most powerful creative tool that I know," says creativity guru Julia Cameron, author of the best-selling The Artist’s Way. She points out that numerous great poets such as Blake, Rumi, Rilke, Whitman, Wordsworth, and Keats were all avid walkers.

The simple act of taking a walk can dramatically boost people’s sense of insight and understanding. There’s something about stretching your legs, breathing fresh air, and experiencing the passing landscape that stimulates the mind. A long stroll by yourself offers the perfect chance to reflect on the world around you as well as what’s going on inside your own head. And walking with other folks holds special potential for creating merriment, building friendships, and conceiving new ideas that would never come to you sitting in a chair. In 1982, Soviet and American negotiators struggling to hammer out an arms control treaty in Geneva, Switzerland, decided to take a walk together in the woods. They returned to the table with a joint plan on how to reduce the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Nicolas Albery of the Institute for Social Inventions, an English think tank that scouts the world for useful new ideas, organizes walking parties every Saturday — a healthier and more intellectually satisfying alternative to cocktail or dinner parties. "Normally there are between 4 and 17 of us, depending on the weather," he writes in The Book of Visions, a wonderful compendium of ideas from the institute. "We tend to walk about eight miles, stopping for lunch at a pub and having a cream tea somewhere afterwards. It is a wonderful day out, with the walking stimulating conversation and an anarchic spirit."

The Institute for Social Inventions itself represents the most amazing and important source of new ideas that I know. To find out more about them and their wonderful publications, write them at: 20 Heber Road, London nw2 6aa, U.K. or rhino@dial.pipex.com. For 17 pounds you can join and receive their latest publications.

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