Wade's Wire

How can we be kinder and fairer? This constantly updated digital book explores this question.

The principal answer is to promote positive changes in every sector — social, personal, cultural, economic, environmental, and political. Changes that move in the same direction and reinforce each other in an upward spiral.

The hope is that these efforts will coalesce in a new, powerful grassroots movement that unifies the many forces cultivating a more compassionate society — including the civil rights, electoral reform, #MeToo, human rights, call-in, anti-war, environmental justice, climate action, union, living wage, police reform, holistic democracy, immigrant rights, gay liberation, human potential, and interfaith movements.

This website envisions how this movement might emerge. It presents a framework that might help a strong organizing committee of community leaders make it happen.

Whether or not this movement crystallizes, compassion-minded people can advance its goals informally. They can use ideas presented here to enhance their efforts and plant seeds for cultural change.

This site has grown out of collaborations with many associates. Now I sum up my conclusions and invite you to help improve them.

The movement envisioned here would correct root causes of personal and social problems. It would promote fundamental reform throughout society. It would establish new structures to empower the powerless and control the powerful. It would establish public policy reforms and nurture improvements in how people treat each other in their daily lives. It would encourage soulful conversations, self-examination, active listening, and mutual support for self-development. It would unify everyone in the compassionate humanity community — those individuals and organizations who relieve suffering and promote justice.

This movement would include a political component that would regularly mobilize massive numbers to demand new, compassionate public policies and, if necessary, engage in nonviolent civil disobedience to promote its goals.

Most compassion-minded people focus on single issues, help others cope and thrive, spread humane values with mutual dialogues, and vote for candidates who support policies that enhance the common good. These activists could complement their efforts with some simple, not terribly time-consuming, methods that would enhance their effectiveness.

Widespread fragmentation is a major problem. Many people are isolated. Some have only one or two people with whom they discuss personal problems. Others have none. A compassion-minded movement must address this and other personal and social issues.

Political campaigns focused on a particular issue fade when the issue is resolved. The next campaign must then build a new organization, which is time-consuming and results in costly delays. A unified force that moves from issue to issue could accomplish more together than its components can achieve alone.

Making explicit commitments, they could support each other with their personal growth and join with others to engage in unified political action. This site suggests some such tools.

What could be the unifying goal of this movement?
My associates and I crafted a one-sentence mission statement: to serve humanity, the environment, and life itself. This focus could unify a wide range of concerned individuals and organizations. You can post suggested amendments or alternatives on “Our Mission.”

What’s the primary problem we face? Agreement on the nature of our primary common problem could help unify the movement.

Our society trains everyone to climb social ladders, look down on, and try to dominate and exploit those below — and submit to those above. Our institutions, culture, and ourselves as individuals are woven together into a single, self-perpetuating social system — the Top-Down System.  You can suggest amendments or alternatives to this description on “Our Primary Problem.”

Hyper-individualistic conditioning is deeply embedded. People keep quiet, hold back, and fail to assert themselves in order to avoid negativity or boost their prospects for advancement. They button up, conform, and submit.

People compete for seats at the table, but there aren’t enough seats for everyone. When one person wins, another loses. As people calculate how to advance or protect their interests, they become overly concerned about what others think about them.

Society defines leadership as the ability to get others to do what the leader wants. Bitter power struggles tear apart organizations. Collaboration and mutual empowerment become difficult. Society inflames divisive impulses.

Societies need a stabilizing social system that holds them together. Destroying the Top-Down System is no solution. Neither is waiting for it to collapse. Instead, we can keep healthy traditions, improve society where we can, and create new structures to better achieve our mission.

We can reform the Top-Down System into a Bottom-Up System that nurtures individual and community empowerment throughout society. We can develop collaborative leadership and democratic hierarchies that enable workers and members to hold their leaders accountable to their commitments.

What shall we call this movement? My inclination is to call it the “systemic reform movement.” This phrase refers to our primary problem: the Top-Down System. Other options include the pro-democracy movement and the compassion movement. You can comment on “The Name.”

What methods shall we use to achieve our mission?
One key method is mutual support for self-development. Social and political activists can help each other become better human beings by controlling or unlearning impulses that fragment unity. Open confidential dialogue with trusted colleagues can be profoundly rewarding.

Unfortunately, however, honest self-examination often hurts. Self-exposure can be embarrassing. Even worse, others can use your admissions against you. The reluctance to pay the price required to grow more deeply is understandable.

To drop your mask, pause your routines, look below the surface, and consider how to better nurture your self-development is difficult and complicated. It’s tempting to stay on auto-pilot, go with the flow, conform to established norms, submit to expectations, and suppress your instincts and your desire to engage in right action. It’s easy to just seek comfort, enjoy life, deal with daily struggles, care for yourself and your family, do a little bit here and there to help people, and vote for your preferred candidate.

However, the need for holistic and systemic reform is overwhelming. The selfish pursuit of power and the willingness to defer to power, as promoted by the Top-Down System, weakens organizations. Dealing with these personal issues that affect interpersonal dynamics is essential if we are to reform our society fundamentally.

You can nurture personal growth alone, by yourself, in the privacy of your mind. You can discuss these issues with your significant other. You can discuss them with a therapist, counselor, or spiritual leader. However, it’s also helpful to engage with peers.

Discretion is advised. Total honesty would be foolish. Nevertheless, considerable personal growth is essential. Small teams composed of compassion-minded people could help with this effort.

Peer support is powerful and important. In fact, we may learn more from our peers than from parents and teachers. Mutual aid is usually informal, but formal structures, such as study, support, and prayer groups, can also help.

This book suggests many ways people can organize intentional activities to enhance personal and collective growth. A compassionate movement could use these methods to strengthen its activities and promote fairness, compassion, and democracy throughout society. My associates and I have experimented with some of these tools.

Based on these experiments, my primary suggestion at the moment is that at least once a month, movement members 1) open small team meetings with a moment of silence and 2) confidentially report on their recent efforts to undo or control the desire to dominate and the willingness to submit for personal gain. This shared experience could nurture a sense of community among those teams who use these tools.

You can suggest an alternative primary method with a comment on “The Primary Method”

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The movement envisioned here could unify the compassionate humanity community. Change in each arena is equally important. Improvement in one impacts the others. If these changes move in the same direction, they reinforce each other and integrate the outer and inner realms.

We compassion-minded people can celebrate our unique identities while also seeing ourselves as members of the human family. As global citizens, we can work together for our shared interests, live in harmony with nature, appreciate the invisible spirit that animates life, and promote holistic and systemic reform — reform that is holistic because it addresses the whole person and the whole society and systemic because it addresses the Top-Down System.

We can grow a kinder and fairer society. We must.

I suggest this desired direction for the sake of discussion. The organizers of a new movement would surely modify them, or start from scratch.

In the meantime, I welcome suggested improvements in these proposals as I regularly edit them. You can comment on the blog posts or email me.