Invitation to a Blogalog: Approaches to Poverty

You are cordially invited into a “blogalog.”

I've spoken in other posts and articles about the fundamental flaw in the way we currently address poverty. I've stated it simplistically: We are trying to solve a systemic problem non-systemically. Recently, My Work has led me to a few more fundamental flaws I'd like to explore with my blog community.

I’ll get the blogalog started by sharing a 30,000-foot view of why any of this is important. Join in by posting a comment! Then, with your participation, subsequent posts will explore the flaws in more detail as we go. You will likely have others to contribute. Will you play?

Who Cares?
The first question you might ask is: Who cares? Of all the things going on these days, why are fundamental flaws in our approach to poverty important?

Poverty impacts the health and well-being of every one of us, whether or not we have ever been poor ourselves. It is a central issue out of which many other global problems flow. These problems also touch every single one of us and in many cases, threaten our very survival. Make progress on poverty and the other issues begin to dissolve. Remove the obstruction of poverty and we open up the flow of energy, commerce, goodwill, and innovation needed to address the other issues. Besides, creating a world that works for all is frankly the only way to ensure humanity’s survival. I can’t think of a better reason to care, can you? I must admit I’m quite attached to the whole life thing. ☺

Though we like to think we are invincible as a species, we are not. I recently saw an analogy by Lester Milbrath that describes our extremely short and tenuous presence on the planet: If the history of the Earth is thought of as a yearlong movie, humans have been part of the movie for eleven minutes. Most of that time, we lived in harmony with nature, which was self-sustaining. More recently, in our attempt to dominate nature, we’ve built a civilization that cannot sustain itself. We’ve done this in the equivalent of two seconds in our yearlong movie.

Why is Understanding Fundamental Flaws Important?
Understanding the fundamental flaws in our current approach to poverty is important because when we understand what does not work, it gives us important information for creating something that will. In creating what will work to address poverty, we are creating a better future for us all. Judging from the increasing dissatisfaction we are expressing in the way things are as a society, it is apparent we are ready to begin creating that future.

They are important because they tell us we need to work in fundamentally different ways and take fundamentally different action. Of course, doing so can only come as a result of fundamentally different thinking.

What a difference two seconds can make in this next yearlong movie if we start creating our world that works for all by understanding what isn’t working. Hence, my focus on it now in blogland.

Fundamental Flaw: A Definition
When I say "flaw,” I don't mean we've done something "wrong." There is no blame here; we've always done the best we could with what we had at the time. The systems and structures we put in place over the years served the purpose and time in which they were created. We all know how radically different life is now than when they were established. Einstein, folks knowledgeable in Spiral Dynamics, and others have said we cannot solve problems with the same level of consciousness that created them. Within the flaws in our approach to poverty, we can see we’ve been trying to do that.

Also, by "fundamental," I mean just that: things of central importance, related to the whole, not the individual parts. There is tremendously valuable anti-poverty work going on in the individual parts (i.e. the individual sector- or level-based strategies). What I will be speaking of here are core things that significantly limit our collective efficacy as a whole. So, by “fundamental flaw,” I only mean that when we look at what we are doing now from a higher perspective, we can see there are FUNDAMENTAL things that do not serve the creation of a world that works for all.

Invitation into the "Great In-Betweenness"
So, here we are in what I call the “Great In-Betweenness.” We are between the old systems and structures that no longer work and the new ones to be created that will. The old ones, created by our past levels of consciousness, are not “wrong.” They simply don’t work any more. The new ones must be created by the emerging consciousness within us. This is the place inside each one of us that knows just how interconnected we all are. It's the place that knows that if we ourselves want to live in abundance, peace, and harmony, everyone must live in abundance, peace, and harmony.

A good first step from the old to the new is simply reflecting on what we’re doing now that is not in alignment with what we want. That's what this blogalog invitation is all about. I will be posting specific fundamental flaws for discussion as we go. I look forward to hearing from others interested in this work.