Central inquiry: What makes for fruitful, satisfying
human interactions in relationships, groups and communities?
Forms of co-intelligence particularly useful in this field
(see Five Dimensions
of Co-Intelligence): The more collaborative intelligence people
exercise, the healthier their interactions will be.
Sample projects in this field: Individually and
collectively we can: Increase the quantity and quality of dialogue -- shared exploration towards
greater understanding, connection and potential. Deepen respect
for individual and group uniqueness. Develop empathy for each
other's needs, feelings, experiences and perspectives. Learn how
to use diversity creatively. Fathom the complexities of group
and relational dynamics, and increase our capacity to perceive
and deal with them. Develop shared leadership and the capacity
to generate higher forms of consensus -- not from compromise,
but from deeper shared understanding.
Comments: People can most readily see, understand
and apply co-intelligence in this field, where they directly experience
the quality of face-to-face interaction. This field is very developed:
Much is known about the collaborative dynamics of families, partnerships,
teams, tribes and other small groups. But long-term relationship-based
communities (and even families) have been undermined by encroachment
from the state,* the cult of individualism,** corporate power
and market economics. We need new relationship-based social forms
appropriate to our new situation. Much of the so-called "community
movement" is an effort to create these new forms. Collectively,
we are well equipped with knowledge and tools to proceed with
this project, but many of us are held back by an industrial culture
that leaves us with little time for community-building, makes
it hard to sustain commitments, and isolates us as consumers in
our separate cocoons. Liberating ourselves from these patterns
into real dialogue and community is one of our most important
tasks, as these (dialogue and community) are fundamental building
blocks of a co-intelligent society.
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* Sometimes this is as subtle as the fact the relationship of
citizens to their governments (through taxes, police, regulations,
welfare, etc.) is more substantive than their relationship to
their neighbors. Or it can be as blatant as New York city planners
wiping out whole communities for the building of highways (which,
in turn, help remove people from their communities) -- or a Canadian
government seeding free televisions into indigenous communities
to undermine their traditions, thereby reducing natives' resistance
to the mining of their land.
** Individuality -- human uniqueness -- is something positive
and important. However, like any good thing, it can be taken to
dysfunctional extremes. No culture can persist which believes
that individuality is the ultimate social reality -- that all
values boil down to benefits for individuals. Such a cult of individualism
is as dangerous as its opposite -- the cult of collectivism --
that we've seen practiced by state communism. We need balance
-- and perhaps even more importantly, synergy -- bet ween the
individual and the collective dimensions of life.