Cosmos & Destiny – Page 6 – Public Intelligence Blog

Single best book I have read in past five years

January 27, 2008

David Bornstein

I read a lot, almost totally non-fiction, and for the past several years, after accidentally becoming a top Amazon reviewer on the strength of 300 reviews lifted from the annotated bibliographies of my first two books, I have been dedicated, as a hobby, to reading in the service of the public. My goal in life at the age of 55, what I learned from this book is called an “encore career,” is to be intelligence officer to the five billion poor, and–I now realize from this book–to the social entrepreneurs that are changing the world on a scale and with a speed that governments cannot match.

This book blew my mind, literally. It has not altered my course, but it has dramatically accelerated my ability to make progress by illuminating a path I thought I would have to discover. This book is the first “map” of a completely new form of endeavor, profoundly individual in inspiration and global in scale, that of social entrepreneurship, not to be confused with non-profit or non-governmental, more traditional forms.

The author, apart from mapping examples (33, focused on education, health, protection, and access to electricity and technology), provides what I consider to be the single best preface/introduction I have ever read. Here are a few of the underlined bits:

+ hidden history unfolding
+ landscape of innovators
+ ratio of problem-focused information to solution-focused information is completely out of balance
+ reality distorted, people deprived of knowledge they could use
+ individual social entrepreneurs advancing systemic scalable solutions
+ new sector of social entrepreneurship now being taught, funded, and respected
+ two Nobel Peace Prizes (2004, 2006)–micro-finance now micro-everything
+ Ashoka, founded by Bill Drayton is the spine of the book
+ conceptual firewalls coming down, “whole brains” being used
+ influencing conventional businesses (going green, good) and governments (adopting unconventional education, kids teaching parents, etc)
+ “social entrepreneurs are uniquely suited to make headway on problems that have resisted considerable money and intelligence”
+ government are looking at problems from the outside, social entrepreneurs see problems–and solutions–from the inside
+ scale still a challenge, but coming
+ Students and local groups actively interested in hearing about this now
+ Students are leading the way, pushing for change in curriculums
+ optimism, hope, energy are being unleashed as never before–but not being properly mapped, reported, or appreciated outside small circles
+ new pathways being discovered every day in every place
+ changemakers far more numerous than any might have imagined
+ many levels of changemaker
+ charaqcterized by first-hand active engagement in reality
+ individuals driven to understand, and driven to remove shackles from others with shared knowledge (e.g. kids learning to fix pumps and spreading knowledge across villages with a speed and energy only quick-witten children could apply)
+ social entrepreneurship network now has sensors everywhere, millions of changemarkers, tens of thousands of organizations
+ far better mechanism to respond to needed than we have ever had before
+ decentralized and emergent force

BAD NEWS:
– not yet properly financed
– lacking holistic public intelligence for voluntary harmonization against the ten threats, with the twelve policies, with a special focus on the eight challengers. (Learn more at Earth Intelligence Network)
+ emphasis on metrics slows down the needed pace of funding for innovation

Core principles for social excellence (chapter twelve):
+ Putting Children in Charge
+ Enlisting “Barefoot” Professionals
+ Designing New Legal Frameworks for Environmental Reform
+ Helping Small Producers Capture Greater Profits
+ Linking Economic Development and Environmental Protection
+ Unleashing Resources in the Community You Are Serving
+ Linking the Citizen, Government, and Business Sectors for Comprehensive Solutions (this is where shared public intelligence and a shared Range of Gifts Table can harmonize disparate capabilities with a common interest in stabilization, reconstruction, humanitarian assistance, and relief)

The book ends with a superb resource section including the following headings for lists of one-line access points:
+ Resources for People Seeking Jobs and Volunteer Opportunities
+ Organizations that Identify and/or Support (or Invest in) Social Entrepreneurs
+ Management, Funding, and Networking Resources for Citizen Organizations
+ Academic-Based Resources
+ Resources for Funders
+ Resources for Businesspeople

The notes and index are totally professional.

I put this book down with one final note: WOW!!!

This is an Earth-changing book, an utterly brilliant, timely, ethical, wonderful piece of scholarship, journalism, vision and information sharing. I actually have tears in my eyes. This book is Ref A for saving the Earth seven generations into the future and beyond.

Other books that support this one, but this one is unique:
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World
Escaping the Matrix: How We the People can change the world
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)

See also the books I have written, helped edit, or published, including our forthcoming COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace, edited by Mark Tovey with 55 contributors. It will be on Amazon 1 March 2008, and is offered free online at Earth Intelligence Network.

In addition, I recommend the “52 Tough Questions” with transpartisan answers at Earth Intelligence Network, that address the ten high-level threats to humanity as identified by the UN study on “Creating a More Secure world” (free online and also sold via Amazon), the twelve policies that must be harmonized, and the eight challengers whom we must help avoid our mistakes of the past 100 years.

This book by David Bornstein could not have come into my life at a better time–the New York Times calls it a bible in the field, I consider it to be my inspiration for my encore career. Simply spectacular. AMAZING–not just the book, but every person and organization the book names and discusses. WOW!!!

2007/10/282011/01/09

Review: Thank God for Evolution–How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World

5 Star, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Culture, Research, Education (General), Environment (Solutions), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Religion & Politics of Religion, Truth & Reconciliation, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Michael Dowd

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful Bridge, Provokes Reflection

October 28, 2007

It was my good fortune to receive a copy of this book in galley form, and then again when published, because the author was scheduled to speak at one of my conferences. Having read a number of books on religion in politics (bad) and religion in diplomacy (good), as well as a number of books on science in isolation (bad) and science in relation to the humanities (good), I was most intrigued by this author's daring–and ultimately successful–endeavor to combine the accuracy of a scientific textbook with the inspiration of religious faith and gospel (good).

Yes, for some this may be a stretch, and some of it may annoy those who like their religion dressed in dogma and ritual and “no humor allowed,” but on balance I found this book totally worthwile. See others I recommend along these lines at the end of this review.

The author does not address, nor does he need to, the extremes of religion or of the politicization of science. Instead, he reconciles perspectives that have been allowed to claim they are in contradiction when in fact they are not. He builds bridges and makes important distinctions, such as between private and public revelation, facts as God's native tongue, and contrasting faith-based views on evolution.

The book is full of quotes from many of the most respected evolutionary thinkers of all time – both living and dead–as well as dozens of personal anecdotes. There is a separate list of Highlighted Stories, just after the Table of Contents.

Drawing on evolutionary brain science and evolutionary psychology, the author reframes and “makes real” traditional Christian concepts such as “Original Sin” and “The Fall”, but does so in a way that anyone, regardless of their religious or philosophical worldview, can embrace and benefit from. I am reminded of Conversations with God in that sense.

Part IV: “Evolutionary Spirituality” is a collection of exercises, practices, and “self-help” and “relationship-help” tools. Although I have not seen any other “self-help” books, this section struck me as provocative (of reflection) and therefore helpful to anyone.

Overall the author offers us all a “big picture” understanding of life's most important and persistent questions such as: “Where do we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here? How are we to live?”

The bottom line: this book addresses concerns many Christians have about evolution, yet also communicates a universal “gospel” (good news message) that will speak to people of all religious traditions, and even those hostile to religion.

From now on, no discussion of how science and religion or evolution and creation relate can ignore this book. The index is excellent, as are the concluding offerings, a “Who's Who” section and a Resources section.

The Complete Conversations with God (Boxed Set)
The Celestine Prophecy
Left Hand of God, The: Healing America's Political and Spiritual Crisis
Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge
The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik
Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction
To Govern Evolution: Further Adventures of the Political Animal

AA Mind the Gap — Vote and/or Comment on Review

2007/10/192009/10/17

Review: Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution

5 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Culture, Research, Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Future, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Superbly Crafted Primer on “The Next Step”

October 19, 2007

Steve McIntosh

My first note is: “the next step.”

The two Appendices are, in my view, a better starting place for the book as a whole.

The author synthesizes natural sciences, developmental psychology, political thought, philosophy, and spiritual traditions. I have a note later in the book on “this helps to understand the DNA of the body-mind-soul.”

The author tells us that integral philosophy can and should be used to design a world federation Constitution, and later on in the book tells us that philosophy should be the bridge between science and religion and later on suggests that philosophy, science, and spirituality (the opposite of rote religion) should retain their distinct values, and not be “blended” inappropriately.

The author is confident that a global self-governance network, while moving some powers up from the national level, will also result in moving many more powers *down* to the local and provincial levels, and this struck me as a point that needs to be developed further if we are to reunite the 27 secessionist movements in the US and the 5,000 secessionist and indigenous splinter groups around the world. That could be a second book in the making!

The author posits (and provides) a universal declaration of human rights, and suggests that tiered membership in a World Federation could start with the US, Europe, Australia, and Japan, and gradually absorb others who are at differing levels of consciousness.

If I had one criticism of the author's work, it is his ready confusion of American and European consciousness and the naked amorality of American policy-makers, including an abjectly dysfunctional and corrupt Congress, with the 50 million plus cultural creatives or the 80-110 million members whose parent organizations belong to Reuniting America. This needs more dissection and remediation.

He tells us that most institutions are artifacts, and this is consistent with the view in Conversations with God and other works about how religions as intermediaries have become false gods, while government and economic and media institutions have become corrupt and mis-representative.

The Wilburian distinction of the it, the I, and the we–nature, self, and culture–is helpful, and the author takes this a step further with his discussion of a cross-cultural spiral.

He provides superb tables and text describing each of the different levels of socio-cultural consciousness, and I now begin to see his view of how integral consciousness can embrace, welcome, and deconflict among differing levels of consciousness, including warrior consciousness among the Islamic fundamentalists, and the modernist and post-modernist consciousness of more developed societies (again, he neglects to address the sharp imbalance between the American people and their terribly retarded government).

He discusses cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence, and values intelligence, and stresses that science without values is not complete. He acknowledges E. O. Wilson's contribution of Consilience, but does not cite John … who gave us Voltaire's Bastards.

Importantly, he outlines how “what is truth” changes at each level of consciousness, and I find this to be among his most important insights. This is one of the author's most vital contributions, and one that future Administrations would do well to recognize: reality really is socially-constructed, and one must not only see reality as the other person sees it, but see it as a parallel universe that must be respected if one is to engage constructively.

The book works toward a conclusion by noting that integral politics transcends the schism between left and right, and here he cites Paul Ray's work reported out in 1995 on the distinctions in America between the traditionals, moderns, and cultural creatives. He says the degree of transcendence is determined by the scope of *inclusion* and that our challenge is to harmonize and integrate distinct cultures, not subdue them!

Integral consciousness finds *new* solutions via “vision-logic” centered in volition (good intention) rather than cognition, and this is very consistent with the spiritual literature that puts being (action) before planning (cognition). This is a 100-year path of value metabolism equal to the 100-year path since the last Enlightenment.

The author furthers my belief that religions should be rejected as we all adopt direct spiritual relationships with ourselves, others, our societies, and God expressed as the community of man. Beauty, truth, and goodness are the commonalities across cultures and consciousness, windows on the divine, and the place where we examine how values impact on evolution.

A rapid survey of past pioneers if offered:
* Hegel: dialectic of consciousness
* Bergson: intuition, unmediated knowledge
* Whitehead: philosophy as mediator between science and religion
* Teilhard de Chardin: evolutionary thresholds, physiosphere, biosphere, noosphere
* Gebster: coined term “integral consciousness”
* Baldwin: development psychology and genetic logic
* Graves: bio-psycho-social
* Habermas: founder of integral philosophy
* Wilbur: framer of integral philosophy, “big picture”
* McIntosh: need to distinguish, not blend, science, philosophy, spirituality

The author goes on to address the integral reality frame, the spiral of development, and the evolutionary goal of global (but not natural) governances. I was reminded of the “Salmon Nation” and wondered how species representation would play here.

VALUES are what link and nurture the inner and the outer, while making visible previously invisible structures of consciousness and culture across societies and civilizations.

Toward the end the author brings up the Koestner concept of holons, and the view that individual organisms and their social networks co-exist and help define one another in ways that cannot be isolated.

The bottom line: we are moving toward increased complexity and increased unity, and I would add that the author posits a new solution that addresses the reasons why complex societies collapse, when their institutional artifacts fail to rise to the higher consciousness and social network “community mind and soul” that is necessary to scale.

The general direction of truth is the way forward and the transcendent purpose, evolution is sacred (I am reminded of Michael Dowd).

My last comment: “WOW.”

2006/05/312009/12/04

Review: MGB Automotive Repair Manual–1962-1980 MGB Roadster and GT Coupe With 1798 CC (110 cu in Engine) (Haynes Manuals) (Paperback)

5 Star, Cosmos & Destiny

Absolutely Brilliant and Essential,

May 31, 2006

Chilton

This manual came with the 1964 MGB that I bought in Missoula, Montanta (western edge) and promptly drove across the country to Oakton, Virginia. The critics of this manual live on some other planet. This is the original repair manual, I could not live without it, and it is as historic as the MGB to which it pertains.

It can certainly be complemented by other books. The two that I chose and am very pleased with are the Original MGB with MGC and MGB GT V8 by Anders Ditlev Clausager, and the Haynes Restoration Manual MGB (2nd Edition). The first is NOT a restoration manual as it advertises itself to be. It is more like a coffee table book, a showroom “this is what perfect looks like” book. The second, by Lindsay Porter, is a really superior piece of work that brings complex photographic illustrations, detailed descriptions, and context. See my separate reviews of these latter two books. All three are essential.

The value of this book, the original MGB 19962-1980 guide, apart from its substance, is how well is conveys the idea that the MGB, the last and only car I have every been able to understand, was in fact intended as a racing sports car that could be both maintained and restored by its owner.

2006/05/312009/12/04

Review: Original MGB with MGC and MGB GT V8–The Restorer’s Guide to All Roadster and GT Models 1962-80 (Hardcover)

5 Star, Cosmos & Destiny

This is what perfect looks like–but not a real guide,

May 31, 2006

Anders Ditlev Clausager

This book is an absolute gem. It is a coffee table kind of book, with glorious detailed color photographs of the most extraordinary restored MGBs is the world. The book is inspirational and delightful in every possible way, and I could not do without it.

It is NOT, however, a restorer's guide other than in the iconic sense of showing what the final product looks like. The Haynes Restoration Manual MGB (2nd Edition) by Lindsay Porter, **combined with** the original Haynes MGB 1962 thu 1980 Automotive Repair Manual (“the green book”) is the way to go for actually studying up on the details of specific restoration projects. The black and white photographic essays and related text detail and diagrams are exactly what is needed to guide restoration.

Apart from the truly extraordinary photographs, this book also provides a detailed history of the car, both in a text form detailing changes within each model, year, and territorial type, and in a tabular form with engine and body numbers and a complete listing of all changes to the car over time. I mention this because “coffee table” book is meant to be a complement to the photographs, but I must also emphasize the extremely good detail that accompanies the photographs. It is, I venture to say, not possible to understand the history and development of the MGB, nor the deep affection that one can have for the car, without this particular book.

The three books together are essential. This book, the coffee table book, is both the beginning (inspiration) and the end (how close did I get). The Porter book is the meat, and the green book is the basic mechanics of it all.

2006/05/312009/12/04

Review: MGB Restoration Manual (Restoration Manuals) (Hardcover)

5 Star, Cosmos & Destiny

Essential Modern Middle Ground Book,

May 31, 2006

Lindsay Porter

This is NOT the foundation book for MGB maintenance and repair. That honor is still held by the Haynes MGB 1962 thru 1980 book published in the 1980's and often delivered as part of the “kit” to anyone buying an original MGB, as I just did.

This book, however, is a really superb rendition of modern guidance, with superb photographic essays of complex operations. Although it has a color cover, all of the photographs are in black and white. The book is a real build on top of a normal repair manual, with sections on history, buying (BUY THIS BOOK BEFORE YOU BUY AN MGB), and then bodywork, interior trim, mechanical, electrical, and so on.

The third book that I recommend is Anders Ditlev Clausager's “Original MGB With MGC and MGB GT V8.” This is a coffee table book, a “this is what perfect looks like,” and it is both inspirational and just plain delightful. I drove my 1964 MGB across the country in the four days after I bought it (at 2500 RPM most of the way, 65 mph, but on special stretches of Iowa, doing 4000 RPM for sustained periods) because I love this car as a sports drive, not a driveway show car. Still, it is really great to see what perfection without regard to long haul rallying looks like, and I could not do without all three books.

2003/09/132019/09/06

Review: The Unconquerable World–Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People

7 Star Top 1%, America (Anti-America), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Democracy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Future, History, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Public), Military & Pentagon Power, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Public Administration, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

7 Star Life Transformative Restores Faith, Non-Violent Restoration of People Power,

September 13, 2003

Jonathan Schell

Edit of 21 Dec 07 to add links

This book, together with William Geider's The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy, and Mark Hertsgaard's The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World, in one of three that I believe every American needs to read between now and November 2004.

Across 13 chapters in four parts, the author provides a balanced overview of historical philosophy and practice at both the national level “relations among nations” and the local level (“relations among beings”). His bottom line: that the separation of church and state, and the divorce of social responsibility from both state and corporate actions, have so corrupted the political and economic governance architectures as to make them pathologically dangerous.

His entire book discusses how people can come together, non-violently, to restore both their power over capital and over circumstances, and the social meaning and values that have been abandoned by “objective” corporations and governments.

The book has applicability to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places where the US is foolishly confusing military power with political power. As he says early on, it is the public *will* that must be gained, the public *consent* to a new order–in the absence of this, which certainly does not exist in either Iraq or Afghanistan, no amount of military power will be effective (to which I would add: and the cumulative effect of the financial and social cost of these military interventions without end will have a reverse political, economic, and social cost on the invader that may make the military action a self-inflicted wound of great proportions).

Across the book, the author examines three prevailing models for global relations: the universal empire model, the balance of power model, and the collective security model. He comes down overwhelmingly on the side of the latter as the only viable approach to current and future global stability and prosperity.

A quote from the middle of the book captures its thesis perfectly: “Violence is a method by which the ruthless few can subdue the passive many. Nonviolence is a means by which the active many can overcome the ruthless few.”

Taking off from the above, the author elaborates on three sub-themes:

First, that cooperative power is much greater, less expensive, and more lasting that coercive power.

Second, that capitalism today is a scourge on humanity, inflicting far greater damage–deaths, disease, poverty, etcetera–that military power, even the “shock and awe” power unleashed against Afghanistan and Iraq without public debate.

Third, and he draws heavily on Hannah Arendt, here a quote that should shame the current US Administration because it is so contradictory to their belief in “noble lies”–lies that Hitler and Goering would have admired. She says, “Power is actualized only where word and deed have not parted company, where words are not empty and deeds not brutal, where words are not used to veil intentions but to disclose realities, and deeds are not used to violate and destroy but to establish relations and create new realities.”

Toward the end of the book the author addresses the dysfunctionality of the current “absolute sovereignty” model and concludes that in an era of globalization, not only must the US respect regional and international sovereignty as an over-lapping authority, but that we must (as Richard Falk recommended in the 1970's) begin to recognize people's or nations as distinct entities with culturally-sovereign rights that over-lap the states within which the people's reside–this would certainly apply to the Kurds, spread across several states, and it should also apply to the Jews and to the Palestinians, among many others.

On the last page, he says that we have a choice between survival and annihilation. We can carry on with unilateral violence, or we the people can take back the power, change direction, and elect a government that believes in cooperative non-violence, the only path to survival that appears to the author, and to this reviewer, as viable.

This is a *very* important book, and it merits careful reading by every adult who wishes to leave their children a world of peace and prosperity. We can do better. What we are doing now is destructive in every sense of the word.

Category: Cosmos & Destiny

Review: How to Change the World–Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition

Review: Thank God for Evolution–How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World

Review: Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution

Review: MGB Automotive Repair Manual–1962-1980 MGB Roadster and GT Coupe With 1798 CC (110 cu in Engine) (Haynes Manuals) (Paperback)

Review: Original MGB with MGC and MGB GT V8–The Restorer’s Guide to All Roadster and GT Models 1962-80 (Hardcover)

Review: MGB Restoration Manual (Restoration Manuals) (Hardcover)

Review: The Unconquerable World–Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People