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THE FUJI DECLARATION IN ACTION:
POLITICS
Global Transformation, Fundamental Political And Social Change,
Constructive Political Innovation And Responsible Social
Sciences!

by Ferenc Miszlivetz and Jody Jensen© 2015 The Fuji Declarationwww.fujideclaration.org

GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION, FUNDAMENTAL POLITICAL AND
SOCIAL CHANGE, CONSTRUCTIVE POLITICAL INNOVATION ANDRESPONSIBLE SOCIAL SCIENCES
A study on practical steps toward creating a new civilization!

Ferenc Miszlivetz and Jody Jensen!
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A New Norm for a New Age: New Terminologies!

Scientists have recently begun to meet to discuss the possibility, or inevitability, ofaddressing the question as to whether it is time to call an end to the epoch we are presently living
in, the Holocene, and announce the arrival of the Anthropocene. This new geologic epoch (asoppose to 'periods’ which are longer, and 'ages’ which are shorter) is meant to signify humanity’s
imprint on the planet. This is highly controversial, especially since there is no common
understanding of the meaning of term ’Anthropocene’.

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The term ’Axial Age’ (Karl Jaspers) has also reappeared in attempts to denote that all over
the world, people are struggling to find new meaning in the very new conditions of existence as aresult of industrial, technical and communications revolutions. Existential needs for meaning andcomfort now require, some believe, a new spiritual revolution (Karen Armstrong), or a global
awakening (Michael Shacker) which envisions a paradigm shift from a mechanistic world view toa holistic world view.

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In another vocabulary, we live in the time of structural crisis, a “macroshift” (László
2001, 2008, 2009), or a systemic “bifurcation” and transition from one world system to another(Immanuel Wallerstein). Although we do not know what the new world system or structure will
look like, as individuals and collectives we can have more impact at this time, because we are notunder the constraints of the old or emerging new world system. Therefore, the age we live in ismore open to human intervention and creativity. As such a profound shift has no inevitable orpredictable outcome, it will be shaped by the totality of collective action (Wallerstein 2008). The
attempts to describe and analyse the morphology and the possible solutions to today’s global
crises have been numerous regarding institutions (Szentes 2006), civil society (Miszlivetz andJensen 2006 and 2013) and the construction of the supranational economic and political system(like the European Union, Miszlivetz 2012 and 2013, Miszlivetz and Jensen 2015). Calls for a“New Green Deal” are forthcoming at local, regional and global levels (Holland 2015).

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Karl Polányi in The Great Transformation, presented a set of interrelated and intertwined
phenomena. With extraordinary prescience, he warned that crisis would come. He rejected theidea that the market is "self-regulating" and can correct itself. There is no "invisible hand" such as
the market fundamentalists maintain, so there is nothing inevitable or "natural" about the way
markets work: they are always shaped by political decisions. These observations and© 2015 The Fuji Declaration! !

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propositions were for the most part rather neglected during the past decades and by the explicit ortacit consensus of both social scientists and political analysts. In most cases analysts deal witheach crisis as separate, isolated phenomena. This negligence and restricted perception (based
upon the paradigm of the sovereign nation state and doctrine of independent academic
disciplines) is greatly responsible for the present global turmoil which is at its heart a
civilizational crisis (Miszlivetz and Kaldor 1985, 2009).

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The concern lately of nation states, the EU and global multilateral organizations, has been
to minimize irrational panic in response to crises and it can be argued that this reveals adysfunctional pattern of thinking. The real challenge is not the particular crisis of thefinancial system which everyone talks about, but lies in the pattern of derivitive thinking that hassustained the system and denied its problematic nature all along. Is the sovereign debt crisis andits consequences for financial and political systems and societies an indicator of a dysfunctionalmode of thought in which we collectively participate today? Alternatively, can the crisis ofconfidence better be understood as a credibility crisis? A major danger is the current assumptionthat the only "confidence" that needs to be (re)built is defined by market terminology and not by
democratic terminology. Why are "solutions" only being dreamt up after a crisis has struck? Does
our way of thinking deny the existence of other systemic challenges and repress consideration ofpotential implications in other areas? Can a more vigilant analysis of the financial crisis as it
evolves, and the language used in "saving the system" help to develop a framework to analyze
emergent crises that have been subject to the same neglect through "derivative” and not"innovative” thinking.

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It is important to identify the systemic role of actors (states), instruments (financial
mechanisms and authorities), concepts and dynamics, as well as how long and short-term risk ismanaged in a context of fear, mistrust and a false notion of what has happened and why. The
question is whether more vigilant analysis of crises as they evolve, and the language used in"saving the system" can be used to develop a framework to analyze developing crisesthat have been subject to the same neglect through ‘derivative’ and not‘innovative’ thinking.

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One of the major negative results of this is the lack of responsibility taking for global ortransnational disasters by the dominant players and stakeholders – from national and regional
political leaders and institutions via institutions of knowledge creation and distribution including
eminent social scientists.1 Alternative voices are emerging, but the question is whether it is too
little, too late.

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This institutionalised irresponsibility and indifference surrounded by a tacit concensus
about dividedness as an unchangeable given is to a significant degree reponsible for undermining
E.g., the Euromemorandum group, The European Trade Union Confederation, the Manifesto of
Appalled Economists in France, the Be Outraged Manifesto constructed by an international groupof economists and social scientists, manifestations of the Occupy movements across Europe andthe US, etc.
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and emptying out democracies as well as for endangering the future of human existence on theplanet. The recent return of the nation state and accompanying nationalistic cliches and prejudiceswithin Europe and all around its borders resulted in the rise of rightwing and religious extremism,
populism and an increasing rejection of multiculturalism. Xenophobia, racism and anti-semitism
has been growing not only in the peripehries but also in the core countries of establisheddemocracies of affluent societies.

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One of the key challenges is the demand for new and innovative ways of thinking toresolve the threats to the sustainability of our social relations, environment and economies. New
knowledge is required by the social sciences to meet the demands of technological innovation,
management and public policy. New knowledge accumulation, or informational capital, would
include the important contribution of civil societies.

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Paradigm Shift!

Our whole world society appears to be following a distinct pattern that occurs very rarely
in history, one that has led in the past to total reinventions of the world within very shortperiods of time. In short, we are in the midst of a classic paradigm shift and are fast
approaching the tipping point of the whole process.
Shacker 2013: 31!

All of the present crises are connected by a mechanistic world view that has dominatedfor the past 300 years and endangered the environment and quality of life, societies andindividuals. In a mechanistic world view, we all become parts of the machine and mere objects.
The fatal flaw of a mechanistic world view is eloquently elaborated by Michael Shacker (2013) in
his work, Global Awakening, New Science and the 21st Century Enlightenment. Referring toWilliam Barret’s (1979), Illusion of Technique, he explains that the smooth operation of themachine becomes everything in the mind of the technician; and since there is no meaning that canbe derived from a machine, life becomes meaningless.
Our whole mechanistic society now reflects this meaningless and purposeless world view.
… The illusion of technique helps us understand this fatal flaw of mechanistic dogma andhow it fails to confront reality. In short, the lure of the machine outweighs the mounds ofscientific data showing the fragile interconnections of Earth and its biosphere. Social,environmental and health concerns are swept under the rug and ignored. The mechanistic
paradigm is thus dysfunctional at its core – so we find ourselves in the mechanistic
dilemma (Shacker 2013: 29-30).
He continues by addressing the necessity of “more-than-ordinary” thinking and action totranscend the mechanistic dilemma to extract the planet and humanity from its current precarious
situation.

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The crisis is further exacerbated by the collusion between big business and increasingly
nationalistic governments who, in order to maintain their power positions and monopolistic© 2015 The Fuji Declaration! !

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control of market forces, will not willingly relinquish their power positions. This is clearly seenin the increasing incidents of state violence by state sanctioned police forces against populations
that have arisen to protest against economic and social inequalities resulting from the crisis of theworld system, as well as aspirations for a more democratic politics of participation.

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What is common in these in many ways different old/new bubbling up movements andpolitical worldviews is the strong insistence to historic dividedness and cultural differences aswell as the complete lack or rejection of the holistic approach in dealing with grave social,political, and ecological problems. Threatened in their existence and legitimacy, old institutions,interest groups and other powerful global, regional and national stakeholders are keen to entrenchthemselves and fight one another to secure their interests and survival. The new wave ofdesintegration and self-isolation is a result of the failure of global and regional institutions suchas the UN, the WTO, the World Bank, the IMF or the European Union. Instead of contributing
globally and regionally to more democracy, equality, peace and human security, these institutions
themselves contribute to the survival of the old paradigm of unequal dividedness, onesided
dependency and manifold insecurity. Therefore, the New Norm should establish the perception of
oneness of the human race and with the planet on which we live. This means the acceptance andunderstanding of the inevitability of a holistic view of humankind, together with its self-createdinstitutions, markets, nationstates and means of violence. The vision and practice of a wisdom
based society (Falk 2013) that turns knowledge into organic and holistic practices has to replace
gradually the old paradigm of a knowledge-based society that was established on the premise andspecial historical understanding of fragmentation and un-alterable dividedness. Awareness ofincreasing interdependence in various spheres of our common existence is a slow process thatneeds to speed up. The discussion of the dynamics of interdependence, of those in the center andthose in the peripheries, needs to be translated into action, thus empowering communities throughknowledge and legitimation. In order to challenge existing power structures, organizing thosemarginalized groups and communities that have been historically left out into solid alliances atthe local level, such as women, racial-ethnic and religious minorities, gender and age-based
groups and indigenous populations, has increased over the past forty years (Wallerstein 2008),
but it has not been enough.

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From a Medieval World View to a Mechanistic World View to an Organic World View
Every world view needs to answer the fundamental questions of who we are, how we got
where we are and where we are going that are delivered in a new story or narrative frame. The
current crisis of world view requires a paradigm shift which will move humanity into a newworld system and mind-set. Paradigm shifts or “flips” have occured before, from the Medieval to
the Mechanistic world view via the Enlightenment, towards a future Organic worldview
according to Shacker (2013). The composite tables are provided here to review theseparadignamic shifts:!

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Table 1: Comparison of Medieval and Mechanistic World Views (Shacker 2013: 36)
Medieval World View

Mechanistic World View

God is responsible for all events on earth.

God or nature merely sets universe in motion,
natural law determines the rest; clockwork
universe of Newton.

God’s creation only 6000 years old.

Universe very old, Earth millions to billions
years old, formed by natural forces.

Two sets of laws: one for Earth, one forheaven.

One set of natural laws governs Earth and theuniverse.

Geocentric universe: Earth does not move.

Helocentric solar system: Earth orbits the sun.

King and nobility have devine right to rule.

The right to govern derives from the people;
kings are tyrants.

Medieval laws and value system designed toprotect the lands and power of kings, thearistocracy and the church.

Laws and values designed to provide liberty
and equality to all men, to protect the pursuitof happiness, and to derive power from thepeople in a democracy.

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Table 2: Comparison of Mechanistic and Organic World Views (Shacker 2013: 41).
Mechanistic World View

Organic World View

Limited mechanistic models underlie
traditional science and medicine and cannot
explain living systems adequately; ecological,
health and economic breakdowns.

Encompassing organic/biological models
underlie new-paradigm sciences from physics
to agriculture, medicine, technology,
economics, and psychology.

Clockwork universe, no purpose assigned tohumanity or universe; we live in a vast static
cosmos.

Complexity-centered universe and evolutionmeans we are always evolving to the nextlevel.

Anthropocentric universe; planet Earth treated Complexity-centered universe: planet Earth
as a non-living thing to be exploited.
shown to be a living system.
Newtonian physics limited to macroworld,
non-living things only.

New physics studies sub-atomic realm; law odorganics and other theories explain living
systems.

Time and space quantified.

Life, evolution, consciousness quantified andgiven meaning.

Studies objects and things as separate parts.

Studies the relationship between objects andthings© 2015 The Fuji Declaration! !

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Old paradigm culture based on oil,ultranationalism and militarism; huge military
budget, small foreign aid; top 1% owns 45%
of wealth.

Counterculture based on transition from oil,world peace and sustainable development;
increase foreign aid to $50 billion to stop
terrorism; new economics to eliminate
poverty.

Laws and values designed to protect the rights Laws and values designed to protect the rightsof men, especially corporations and men with of all, from women to blacks, gays and allproperty.
minorities, especially the poor and middle
class.
Belief that war has always been a part ofhuman nature.

War has been invented and can be transcended
in a future world of peace.

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If we look at the four stages of social transformation as outlined by Kuhn (1962), we see thatfirst of all, there is the emergence of an anomaly that contradicts the existing world view and newscience and philosophical concepts shock the existing world with radically new ideas to accountfor the anomaly. A revolutionary period ensues that upsets the stability of the system. The 1960s
have been represented as a precursor in terms of beliefs and behavior that underpins the
movement from one system to another. Perhaps, the discussions and analysis related to global
warming could be considered in the contemporary context as one of the focul points for the
emergence of radically new ideas related to humankind’s place in the world. The new sciences
and the study of micro-worlds (e.g., quantum physics, complexity and chaos theories, string
theory) confront the scientific world view with a new view of humankind’s role in the universe.

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Subsequently, the second phase can be described as the conservative backlash period that setsback the new paradigm with fundamentalist conservative and political counter-reactions. There isa paradigm resistence from old scientists and bitter paradigm wars are fought between the new
realities presented by the new world view, and the ideology and rhetoric of the old world view. In
the contemporary sense, the rise of the new right and conservative governments in the 1970s inreaction to the movements of the 1960s can be viewed in this context. At the same time,
anomalies and scandals related to the workings of the old world view mount and create pressure
on existing structures (large bail outs starting in 1984 of the Savings and Loan industry, invasionof Lebanon, rise of Sadam Hussein, neglect of AIDS and women’s rights, increasing
environmental catastrophes – Exxon Valdez, Chernobyl, Bhopal). These incidents and theunderlying neglect of addressing increasingly pressing social, political, economic andenvironmental issues, with adequate responses from institutons and authorities contibutes toundermining trust and belief in the system. They underscore that the mechanistic world view cannever solve the problems of its own making.

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What follows is an intensive phase that continues the polarized culture war between world
views. Again, it can take the form of regressive and reactionary governments (as in the US in the
1990s-2000s), and the increasing evidence of corporate world domination both in the economic© 2015 The Fuji Declaration! !

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and increasingly in political spheres where the ramifications of coporate-state collusion havedevastating consequences for democracy in both old and new democracies. New thinkers begin toconstruct and popularize a new narrative for the new era that explains the emergent anomalies.
The new narrative engages and activates societies that, once they reach a critical mass, provide
the tipping point for transformation to the new world view. In fact, our contemporary period is
also characterized by the greatest global mobilization of populations in opposition to perceived
systemic injustice endemic to the old world system and institutionalized political and economic
power relations. The Occupy movement and the breadth of its organization and impact is only
one example. Other organizing principles are discussed later in this chapter. But besides new
movements and new methods and forms of mobilization, new formulations are emerging andtaking shape in the areas of global education, integrative/holistic healthcare and medicine, and inregenerative regional planning. These new perspectives and strategies contribute to theformulation of the new narrative in science and societies and help to push the new paradigm
further forward. This phase encompasses basically the contemporary period from the early 1990s
until today.

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The last stage is the transformational phase. This is what is beginning today. In this phase newconflicts may arise, but also increasing solidarity/cohesion/one-ness at the local and global levels.
The old ideology, system and structure are replaced with the underlying precepts of the newworld view with its correspondent scientific models and changed sets of rules. This can takedecades to realize and could, in the present circumstances, as it is predicted, last up to 50 years.
This is when a regenerative revolution proposes new, alternative economic models, and newtechnological and social models replace the macro-economic machine models with organic/
regenerative/holistic development models based on the axiom of the interdependence of life
processes.

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Economic Consolidation and Disruption
Where there is great inequality, there is great injustice and where there is great injustice,there is the inevitability of instability.

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Marshall (2013)

After 2007, when the financial crisis surfaced, and in its aftermath, it became increasingly
clear that for a critical mass of world society existing economic and financial models wereseriously limited, oversimplistic and overconfident and actually helped to create the crisis. This is
a combination of opinions not from people who are skeptical of capitalism but who actually workat the heart of finance: a governor of the European Central Bank, and from the head of the U.K.
Financial Services Authority.

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What is implied in these opinions is that we do not understand the complexity orinterdependence of, for example, our economic systems that drive our modern societies. In
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that what looks like complex behavior from the outside is actually the result of a few simple rulesof interaction. To begin, therefore, to understand a system you need to look at the interactions.

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Complex systems have a unique characteristic that is called „emergence” which meansthat a system as a whole cannot be understood or predicted by examining the components of thesystem, because the system as a whole starts to reveal a particular behavior. Therefore, thewhole is literally more than the sum of individual parts.

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Networks also represent complex systems and the nodes in a network are its components
and the links are the interactions. Applying this analysis to economic networks is new and reveals
a surprising gap in the literature. The following analysis was originally presented in the work
entitled The Network of Global Corporate Control in 2011 (Vitali, Glattfelder, Battiston 2011).
Starting with a list of 43,060 TNCs identified according to the OECD definition,2 and taken froma sample of over 30 million economic actors contained in the Orbis 2007 database, they singled
out, for the first time, the network of all the ownership pathways originating from and pointing to
TNCs. The resulting TNC network included 600,508 nodes and 1,006,987 ownership ties.

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The center contains about 75% of all players, and in the center there is a tiny but
dominant core of highly interconnected companies. Although they only make up 36% of total
TNCs, they make up 95% of the total operating revenue of all TNCs.

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After computing network control, they found that global corporate control has a dominantcore of 147 firms radiating from the center. Each of these 147 firms own shares in one anotherand together they control 40% of the wealth in the TNC network. The top 737 shareholders havethe potential to collectively control 80% of the TNC’s value. Keep in mind the value of the
600,000 nodes of interconnections, and that these 737 top players make up 0.123%. These aremostly financial institutions based in the US and UK and together they have the collective
potential to control 40% of the TNC’s value.

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2

[TNCs] comprise companies and other entities established in more than one country and solinked that they may coordinate their operations in various ways, while one or more of these
entities may be able to exercise a significant influence over the activities of others, their degree of
autonomy within the enterprise may vary widely from one multinational enterprise to another.
Ownership may be private, state or mixed (OECD 2000).

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!
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Figure 1. Flow of Control (Vitali, Glattfelder, Battiston 2011: 4).

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This level of hyperconnection is dangerous because of the extremely high degree of control, andbecause the high degree of interconnectivity of the top players in the core could pose a significant
systemic risk to the global economy. Any kind of disturbance felt in the core would expand
exponentially like a virus to the other parts of the system.

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The study concludes not with a global conspiracy but rather likens this development withsuch biological structures such as fungus and weeds. The study concludes that the network is
probably the result of self-organization which is an emergent property and that the network
depends on the rules of interaction in the system. By ‘emergent property’ what is meant is that thesystem as a whole reveals behavior that can not be understood or predicted by looking at theindividual components of the system. In fact, the whole is literally to be understood as more than
the sum of all parts. Beyond the potential for catastrophic instability, the system reveals an
undeniable imbalance in terms of power and wealth. The study does not attempt to derive
implications in terms of inequality and increased potential of social unrest, nor in terms ofpolitical instability and costs to democratic representation and practise. In what follows, we will
endeavor to illustrate the consequences for politics, economies and societies of the anomalies thathave been identified in the old world view that have been elaborated so far.

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World of Resistance and Global Awakening!

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The worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge inherent in thephenomenon of global political awakening.
Brzezinski (2008)!

In 2014, Oxfam reported that the world’s 85 wealthiest individuals had a combined wealthequal to the collective wealth of the world’s 3.5 billion people, at USD 1.7 trillion. At the sametime, the global top 1% owns about half the world’s wealth at USD 110 trillion. Oxfam
commented:!

This massive concentration of economic resources in the hands of fewer people presents asignificant threat to inclusive political and economic systems … inevitably heighteningsocial tensions and increasing the risk of societal breakdown (Oxfam 2014).

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In 2005, Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote about a global awakening that is potentially sociallymassive and politically radicalizing. He clearly articulated that populations in the developingworld are awakening and stirring with unrest in response to a growing consciousness of social
injustice and political indignity. He argues that since the breakdown of the bipolar system which
pitted a Marxist/Communist ideological opposition to Western capitalist democracies, anideological vacuum emerged in terms of ideas that oppose the current world order. He argues thata ‘community of shared perceptions’ is being created by old and new technologies that transcend
national borders, challenge current nation state structures and existing global hierarchies. In a2010 speech to the Canadian International Council he spoke of a totally new reality in which“most people know what is generally going on … and are consciously aware of global inequities,
inequalities, lack of respect, exploitation”. He concludes that “Mankind is now politicallyawakened and stirring”. Years earlier he warned of a demographic time bomb of impatient andunemployed youth is just waiting to be triggered (Brzezinski 2005).

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Many sources are warning of increasing, and increasingly wide spread unrest. In 2011, theInternational Labour Organization warned that the unemployment resulting from the global
financial crisis threatens waves of unrest in both rich and poor countries, pointing out that 45 of
118 countries that were studied already saw rising unrest (particularly in the EU, Arab world andAsia).

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The Economist (2009 December, 2013 November) has frequently reported on increasing
global social unrest due to painful austerity measures, growing expectations from emerging
market middles classes, and revolts against dictatorships. The Economist Intelligence Unitestimates that 43% of the 150 countries it studied will be at high or very high risk of social unrestin 2014.

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A recent OECD publication states that “Income inequality has a ‘statistically significant
impact’ on economic growth,” where as the redistribution of wealth through taxes and social
benefits does not hamper economic growth. (OECD 2014). The report finds that in the 34 OECDmember states the gap between rich and poor has reached the highest level in 30 years; and therichest 10% in those member states earn 9.5 times as much on average as the poorest. In the© 2015 The Fuji Declaration! !

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1980s this ratio stood at 7:1. The only countries where inequality has fallen is in the economicallystressed Greece, and in Turkey where a new middle class continues to emerge. Emphasis in thereport was placed on the fact that lack of investment in education was a key factor in the rise of
inequality. The report found that fewer educational opportunities for disadvantaged individuals
had the effect of lowering social mobility and hampering skills development, thus reproducing
systemic poverty.

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The 2013 study of world protests by the Initiative for Policy Dialogue and FriedrichEbert-Stiftung New York outlined the following four main areas of grievance that sparked unrest
from the 2006-2013 period (Ortiz et al. 2013: 5):!

Economic Justice and Anti-Austerity

488 protests on issues related to reform of public
services, tax/fiscal justice, jobs/ higher wages/labor
conditions, inequality, poverty/low living standards,
agrarian/land reform, pension reform, high fuel andenergy prices, high food prices, and housing.

Failure of Political Representation and
Political Systems

376 protests on lack of real democracy;
corporate influence, deregulation and privatization;
corruption; failure to receive justice from the legal
system; transparency and accountability;
surveillance of citizens; and anti-war/militaryindustrial complex.

Global Justice311 protests were against the IMF and other
International Financial Institutions (IFIs), forenvironmental justice and the global commons, andagainst imperialism, free trade and the G20.

Rights of People

302 protests on ethnic/indigenous/racial rights; rightto the Commons (digital, land, cultural,
atmospheric); labor rights; women’s rights; right tofreedom of assembly/speech/press; religious issues;
rights of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered people(LGBT); immigrants’ rights; and prisoners’ rights. A
lesser number of protests focus on denying
rights to specific groups (eg. immigrants, gays).

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The report explains that although it appears that the demand for economic justice takes
precedence, the overwhelming demand was not for economic justice per se, “but for ’real
democracy’ … and frustration with politics as usual and a lack of trust in the existing politicalactors, left and right” [our emphasis]. This demand is seen in every type of political system,from authoritarian regines to representative democracies that are failing to listen and respond to
the needs and views of the people.
Protesting Failures of Political Representation/Political Systems by Region,© 2015 The Fuji Declaration! !

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2006-2013!
Source: world protests in media sources 2006-2013 as of July 31st 2013 (Ortiz et. al. 2013: 21)
The report forcefully concludes that!

… policy reforms will be insufficient if governments fail to guarantee democratic
participation and curtail the power of elites—not only in local and national governments
but in the institutions of global governance as well. Leaders and policymakers will only
invite further unrest if they fail to prioritize and act on the one demand raised in more of
the world’s protests between 2006 and 2013 than any other—the demand for real
democracy (Ortiz et al. 2013: 43).

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In addition to the insurrection that results from political invisibility and disempowerment,
unregulated capitalism is charged by these movements with creating wealth but not effectively
distributing it and that it takes no account of what it cannot commodify, neither the social
relationships of family and community nor the environment, which are vital to human wellbeing
and survival, and indeed to the functioning of the market itself. There has been a surprisingsustained character to global protests over time which could signal a new impetus for civil society
and demands for new social contracts between citizens and power holders. Dissenting groups
mobilize and form, submerge, and re-emerge in new, diverse and innovative morphologies.

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!

Even before the financial crisis broke out in 2008, research was being carried out on newsocial and economic justice and democratic movements worldwide that were very much under
the radar of the media. What was discovered was that something profound and pervasive wasoccurring in terms of social organization at the local, national, regional and international levels.
This could not be called a “movement” in conventional terms, because it did not coalesce arounda particular ideology or even topical focus. The world has become too complex for that today.
What amazed researchers was the breadth and scope of this new phenomenon on a scale neverseen before. Elements of this new formulation for activism extend to all parts of the globe; itcannot be divided because it is already atomized, although it shares a basic set of values
regarding our world, how it functions, and our role in it. These new social organizations are basedin environmental and social justice movements and movements of indigenous peoples andcultures, all of which are intertwined and interdependent.

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Not just the forms of organizational structures are changing, but also the underlying
values, especially as regards participatory democracy. The assertion “Nothing about us withoutus” is flourishing, increasing the voice of previously marginalized and excluded groups. This
could be the means and the medium for implementing a new path towards inclusion andtolerance, based on respect for individual cultures and the environment, and it has powerfulpotential.

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According to research, there may be as many as 114,000 international NGOS and,depending on the criteria, the Union of International Associations estimates about 65,000
international organizations operating at the global level today. This should be weighed against theestimates of 43,00 globally operating TNCs. Combined efforts, then of international NGOs andinternational organizations represent an enormous scope and potential power for change in termsof expertise, organization and activism. These estimates reveal an exponential increase since the1950s, and do not even reflect millions of local or national initiatives in the civil sector.

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Dunn (2005) argues that the reaction of popular forces against global corporate capitalism
and the ideology of neoliberalism is generating new constellations of ideas and new forms oforganization. What is happening now is the emergence of large transnationalized segments of the
popular classes who are using new information technologies to organize globally. There are
already clear and important initiatives, particulary emerging in civil society frames that are
making attempts to reinterpret the content of contemporary structured relations (between statesand societies; between business and states; between business and the societies within which they
operate). There is an increasing cooperation and collaboration within and across sectors ingeneral. This can be clearly seen in, for example, the Occupy Everything movements across theworld that are still emerging, submerging and reappearing in response to a broad spectrum of
threats and challenges. The World Social Forum, for instance, is an important arena for theorganization of global networks and parties that claim to represent the peoples of the Earth.

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what counts as political. There are certain moments in history when significant change ispossible, it is not a certainty, but a possibility. It is very difficult for any single act or national
response to actually set the “momentum” for change in motion. But when that historical wave
arrives, it can be guided. We are in one of those moments now.
Some of the most salient examples of alternatives and a new and rising global civil
consciousness and organization are presented here.

!

Occupy and Global Democracy Movements: In October 2011 a “United Global
Democracy Manifesto was produced over four months through consultation among groups,
activists and people's assemblies in countries such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Egypt,
Germany, India, Israel, Mexico, Palestine, Spain, Tunisia, Uruguay, and the US. In summary the
manifesto states that united in diversity, people demand global change, global democracy andglobal governance by the people. They call for a ’global regime change’ replacing the G8 withthe whole of humanity. They criticize undemocratic global institutions like the IMF, WTO, global
markets, multinational banks, the G8/G20, the European Central Bank and the UN security
council. They demand that the citizens of the world take control over the decisions that affecttheir lives, from the global to local.

!

Occupy Central (Hong Kong). The Umbrella Revolution: The ongoing pro-democracy
protests in Hong Kong have very specific local goals to achieve democracy but not in a broad
ideological sense. What they want explicitely relates to universal suffrage, elections,
reinterpretation of Hong Kong’s constitution by Beijing and the resignation of the current chief
executive. They do not claim to be a revolutionary movement.

!

Occupytogether. This is the internet face of the #occupy movement. The website frames
the international movement as by people with a variety of backgrounds and political beliefs who
feel change must come from the bottom-up, and not from distrusted political institutions. It aims
to fight back against the system that has allowed the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.
The main issues they address are corporate influence, corporate personhood, student debt,
wrongful foreclosures, too big to fail” banks, living minimum wage levels, and budget cuts.

!

The “New Abduction of Europe” Congress in Madrid (February-March 2014). The
Congress was intended to mark a turning point in the recent history of European andMediterranean social movements. It was to close the so-called “revolutionary” period (initiatedby the Arab Spring, the events of 2011 in Spain, Greece and other Southern European countries).
These were the countries who experienced the most social turmoil as a result of the economiccrisis. A new period of a pan-European coalition of “old” and “new” social movements, politicaland non-governmental organizations and public cultural institutions was to be initiated at theconference. This new coalition is aimed at a democratic and open Europe as an alternative to boththe market-oriented technocratic vision of the EU advocated by the Troika and the anti-European
trends associated with increasingly strong national tendencies.

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MORELIKEPEOPLE. Their recent publication (Anarchists in the Boardroom) calls forchanges in the way social movements organize today in order to be more in touch with the people© 2015 The Fuji Declaration! !

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and the cause they represent. At the same time, lessons have been learned from the use of social
media and technology from the new social movements that could improve impact and change theworld. The publication travels from worker-run factories, to Occupy encampments and nonviolent direct actions, and even to some forward-thinking companies. More like people activists
propose that social media and new technologies can help NGOs, charities, trade unions andvoluntary organisations to both stay relevant during the current period of transitions.

!

Indigenous Movements: The objective of most of these movements is to protect thesovereignty and control of land and resources. Indigenous peoples’ organizations recognize theneed to reach out to other movements and groups around the world because the nature of
globalization requires a global response. In Latin America, for instance, there has been a very
explicit effort of indigenous peoples to link with the environmental movement, and thecampesino movement, and other social movements. Their strategies involve legal action, i.e.
changing national laws and national constitutions, and using international law, direct action,
voicing their cause to the international arena as well as entering government. One fascinating andsuccessful group is the Pachamama Alliance begun among the Achuar people of Ecuador andPeru who began building a world alliance in 1995. The “Pachamama Alliance is a global
community that offers people the chance to learn, connect, engage, travel and cherish life for the
purpose of creating a sustainable future that works for all”.

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Food Safety and Food Sovereignty Movements: These groups typically address the WTO,
the World Bank, IMF, and multinational corporations like Monsanto and the roles they play inagricultural production, at the same time advocating the rights of peasants. One such group is theinternational movement Via Campesina. The movement operates in Asia, Africa, America andEurope and comprises and coordinates 148 organizations of small and medium sized agricultural
producers and workers, rural women and indigenous communities. The coalition of small
producer organizations from around the world operates programs of seed-sharing. They protect
seeds against Monsanto patents and against genetic modification.

!

Two other notable examples are the food sovereignty movement and the zero waste
movement. Both movements exhibit features where the traditional meets the globalized world.
They are locally driven but organize widely across the globe. The food sovereignty movement islargely comprised of small-families, peasants and landless farmers. Their activism fights against
the World Trade Organization and its role in agriculture, and the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund and their roles in destroying local agriculture through the spread of corporate
production.

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The proponents of the zero waste movement are trying to find ways to step outside theconsumption model of capitalist-produced goods. They are finding ways to regenerate what theyneed from what they have within their societies already, and thereby also produce cooperative
forms of income that foster community development and cohesion. They are international in theirreach and scope, and they are very clear and explicit in their analysis about the role ofcorporations and the international financial institutions in destroying their ways of life and lands.

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Alternative Economic Models: There is a growing list of economic alternatives tocapitalism which include the green economy, blue economy and the global Zeri network,
Buddhist economics (aims to clarify the harmful and beneficial range of human activities
involving production and consumption in order to enhance human ethical maturity), Muslim
economics (where taxation is imposed in order to reallocate resources to the needy in societies).
These models already exist and more alternative economic models are emerging with innovative
tools and frameworks, like the sharing (mesh) economy or the participatory economy.

!

Cultural Creatives – A Cultural Movement: The term was coined by Paul H. Ray andSherry Ruth Anderson (2000) in their famous book Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People
are Changing the World. Ever since the book’s publication, a self-awareness has formed ingroups that promote innovative, non-mainstream lifestyles outside the flows of global capital andthat now call themselves ‘cultural creatives’. They have web sites, as well as social media
presence, and the movement has grown into a ’subculture’, also known as LOHAS (Lifestyles of
Health and Sustainability). It aims to promote creative forms of capitalism and actively
participate in making a better world. It is estimated that in America more than 40 million identify
with the movement, and in Europe around 60-80 million people are involved with the cultural
creatives (www.elasticmind.ca/innerpreneur/index.php/cultural-creativity/).

!

It is a mentality as well as a way of setting up and conducting businesses and living anorganic life style. The attributes of being a culturally creative person are also formulated (seewebsite above) and its primary values are authenticity, social activism, idealism, globalism andecology, consciousness (feeling empathy and sympathy for others, understanding different
viewpoints, valuing personal experience), and personal growth. The collective awareness ofpeople advocating such values is not historically new, but the wide scale of this collective
identity, and the number of people it connects are rather unprecedented – even with the common
tendency that they are often isolated and not well-informed about each other.

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Although the number of alternatives to the current paradigm of neoliberalism may appear
small, it is important to know that their number is growing, and growing fast. They are not often
connected to a larger super-structure of a hierarchical movement and they are not always
articulated as anti-capitalist or anti-globalization. There has been a clear surge in attempts tocreate real alternatives. This is being done by stepping outside the current system of relations andcreating more fulfilling parallel micro-systems. This can also take the form of overcoming
obstacles to fulfill needs within the dominant system, or changing unjust structures altogether.

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Pathways to the Formulation of New Norms!

New norms cannot be achieved in a linear way via indoctrination, preaching or sanctions,especially not in a deeply divided world with a rapidly developing planetary or even cosmic
technology of destruction, surveillance and manipulation. During the consecutive waves of
democratization of the past century, new norms developed rather via open public discourse based
upon the evaluation of failed political, cultural and social practices and the increasingly
convincing moral, academic and artistic criticism of concerned citizens and the institutions run by© 2015 The Fuji Declaration! !

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them. It is impossible to forecast or prescribe the way a new discource or narrative will emerge
from the cacophony of the different movements, civil society networks, responsible academic
institutions and creative and courageous individuals. Their increasingly dense networks seem toguarantee, however, the creative chaos for an emerging global civil society. This global civilsociety is far from chrystallized; it exists rather in fragments and only expresses itself in sporadic
global and regional rallies (such as the World Social Forum, the European Social Forum) or
spontaneous solidarity actions. A more systematic and interrelated structuring of thesetransnational and local events, combined with an efficient methodology of collection anddissemination of documents, appeals and analyses, would have significant impact on global
public opinion. These are the embryonic seeds of transnational democracy. If their activities
would be coordinated and shared, they might more effectively act as the controllers of today’s
uncontrolled and nontransparent decision makers, holding them accountable for decisions that
determine our planet’s and humanity’s destiny in the long run.

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This path of global democratisation will not be easy, linear or rapid. It presupposes a newand complex perception of democracy, accountability and social responsibility from the side ofconcerned civil initiatives, movements and organisations. It also needs a new tacit consensus
based on a new set of social contracts. All actors first of all have to make themselves astransparent and accountable as they claim state authorities, multinational companies, global
financial and trade institutions should be. They also have to develop a new attitude and practice
towards horizontal (civil lateral) systematic cooperation. During the past 50 years there weremany forecasts, warnings, protests and one issue movements and crossborder initiatives todiscuss, influence and alter questions of public concern. These initiatives (professional,
intellectual or political) were largely ignored or quickly forgotten partly because they hurt theinterests of unaccountable global marketplayers, the mainstream media and public authorities,
and partly because of self-imposed isolation and narcissistic ideological divisions and theshortsightedness of civil organisations, NGOs and social movements. This attitude and noncooperative behaviour might change for the positive as the negative impacts of global challenges
and crises continue to accumulate. There will be fewer and fewer convincing and credibleanswers given by democratically elected governmnets for solving them.

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In a globalizing world of instant and constant communication the utilization of collectivesynergies is better suited to meeting the challenges than individual visions and pursuits. The
acceptance of constant change and intransigence must replace the compulsive desire forpermanence, which is only illusionary in any case. New frameworks and strategies need further
development to assist the confrontation and management of complex and interdependent crises ina coalition of stakeholders (governments, business and civil society).

!

Another path leading to changing norms is a fundamental restructuring of our educational
systems. We need holistic, inter-and transdisciplinary methods and interpretation of the growing
uncertainties, social, political and religious-cultural polarisation, ecological catastrophies,
unsustainability and amorality in the world today. We need a new appraoch to science andresearch that is embedded in, speaks to and is relevant for societies, not isolated in ivory towersof so-called objectivity. Compartmentalisation and fragmentation of ’knowledge’ into

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’disciplines’ and higher education kept under the control of national authorities fundamentally
hinders the development of the much needed new knowledge that might develop into collective
wisdom that serves the future of all humankind. We need completely new institutions withhorizontal and open structures that can be called Future-universities where the generation andaccumulation of knowledge serves the interests of local, regional and global societies, instead ofirresponsible and uncontrolled global political and market actors.

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Integrative Cognitive Tools: Towards One-ness in Scientific Analysis
For many years, Immanuel Wallerstein has written about the two cultures of scholarship,that is science and philosophy. The gulf between these two cultures of thought was deliberate anda clear product of 19th century thinking. Science was assigned the task of looking for truth; whilephilosphy and what become know more generally as the humanities (history, and later economics,sociology, and political science) was positioned to search for goodness. The progress of the last
200 years has tried to reunite the search for truth and the search for goodness under the label ofsocial science as it was established in the 19th century. Wallerstein observes, that rather thanreunifying these two cultures, social science has itself been torn apart by the dissonance between
the two searches.
Wallerstein recognizes two remarkable intellectual developments of the last two decadesthat constitute something and perhaps provide evidence of a process of overcoming the split of
the two cultures, and in the terms of this study, point towards a movement of one-ness inscientific analysis. The first is called complexity studies in the natural sciences, examples ofanalysis found in this paper; and the other is called cultural studies in the humanities. The reason
complexity studies was given that name is because reality is complex. It rejects the Newtonian
science (found in Table 2) that assumed that there were simple underlying formulas that
explained everything.3 “Complexity studies argues, rather, that all such formulae can at best be
partial, and at most explain the past, never the future” (Wallerstein 1997). The universe is filledwith ever evolving structures which reach points at which their equilibria can no longer bemaintained and bifurcation takes place where new paths are found and new orders established,
but we never know in advance what these new orders will be.
If physical scientists and mathematicians are now telling us that truth in their arena iscomplex, indeterminate, and dependent on an arrow of time, what does that mean forsocial scientists? For, it is clear that, of all systems in the universe, human social systems
are the most complex structures that exist, the ones with the briefest stable equilibria, theones with the most outside variables to take into account, the ones that are most difficult
to study (Wallerstein 1997).
Cultural studies do not study culture as such, but rather how, when and why they were
produced in the forms they were, and how they were and are received by others, and for what

3 “Einstein was unhappy that e=mc2 explained only half the universe. He was searching for theunified field theory that would in an equally simple equation explain everything” (Wallerstein1997).

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reasons. Thus, the study of cultural products has moved away from traditional humanities into therealm of the social sciences and the explanation of reality as a constructed reality.
With the move of natural science towards social sciences via complexity studies, and themove of humanities towards the social sciences via cultural studies, we are in the process ofovercoming the two cultures through the ’social scientization’ of knowledge that recognizes
reality as constructed. With this movement, we are in the process of overcoming the artificial
construction of hard and separate disciplines and are moving towards a unification of scientificand human endeavor, overcoming 19th century constraints, and providing the basis not only forholistic scientific enquiry, but for the basis of new, regenerative educational models.

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In academic scholarship (research as well as education), particularly in the social
sciences, there is an increasing recent tendency to try to bridge the fragmentary nature on
knowledge to create truly transdisciplinary methodologies. New methodology is needed that is
not tied to compartmentalized disciplinary categories that reflect and reproduce a mechanistic
world view. Knowledge produced through the cross-fertization of tools, information andmethodologies requires a new type of university that can aid in the production of a complex
understanding of contemporary global challenges.

!

In addition to Wallerstein, Christopher Chase Dunn (2005) and others repeatedly make theplea for the necessity to transform the social sciences and make them more global or
cosmopolitan (Beck and Sznaider 2006). They convincingly argue that there is a necessity torenew the dialogue within the social sciences between activism (as public sociology) andscholarship (as professional scientific sociology). The two should not be thought of exclusive
realms in conflict with each other, but rather as realms that are complementary and are thus
equally necessary (Dunn 2005). Since “contemporary social change can only be comprehended in
its world historical context,” Dunn emphasizes the importance of taking a more comprehensive,
global (and less nation-based, reductive) perspective as it yields a deeper and more accurate
understanding of the larger processes of an emergent global system. He develops a typology
borrowed from Michael Burawoy (2005) – i.e., professional, critical, policy, and public – that© 2015 The Fuji Declaration! !

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could be used to make the social sciences relevant, 4 applicable and accountable in describing
today’s complex global realities like the crisis of and challenges to neoliberalism andneoconservatism, and the dynamics of core and periphery. The responsibility of a global publicsocial science could be enormous in explaining global historical processes to people while
actively engaging with global civil society. Dunn maintains that the institutional boundaries
between contemporary social science disciplines are “annoying obstacles” to a scientificunderstanding of social reality as well as politically. Instead of abolishing the disciplines,
however, he proposes a more effective transdisciplinary approach for both professional andpublic sociologists, who know the basic theories and methods of several social science
disciplines.

!

He describes the following sub-fields for sociology as follows:• Global professional Social Science is a field that studies social realities on a global scale
incorporating the methodological tools and theoretical perspectives of various social
sciences.
• Global Critical Social Science is a field that critiques, deconstructs and reformulates
important global social science concepts (e.g. globalization) and global institutions andproposes critical ways of categorizing social forces, contradictions and antagonisms inways that are intended to be of use for transnational social movements (e.g. Hardt and
Negri 2004, Starr 2000).
• Global Policy Social Science is responsible for formulating global policies that plan ways
and strategies to cope with global economic, social and political forces (e.g. Global Policy
Institutes).

4 Burawoy’s typology is summarized by Ericson (2005: 365-366) as the following:

Professional knowledge refers to institutionally defined and regulated theories andmethods of sociology. Conceptual frameworks and methods are agreed upon. Scientificknowledge “[produces] theories that correspond to the empirical world” (Burawoy 2005: 276).
This he calls ‘mainstream sociology’ to differentiate it from critical sociology.
Critical sociology, on the other hand, “largely defines itself by its opposition toprofessional (‘mainstream’) sociology’ (Burawoy 2005: 269–70). It is driven by normative
frameworks and broader moral issues.
Policy knowledge is in the service of a client who defines a problem and asks thesociologist to help with solutions. It is judged by its practicality, effectiveness and usefulness tothe client in making policy interventions.
Public knowledge appeals to broader public audiences. The sociologist is a public
intellectual, communicating outside university contexts, especially in the media in public debates
and fora. This public knowledge, according to Burawoy, is based on a consensus about therelevance between sociologists and the public.
While Burawoy acknowledges the overlap and interdependence among the types ofknowledge, this can be better expressed as ‘antagonistic interdependence’ and each type ofknowledge as relatively discrete.

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• Global Public Social Science comprises social scientists who use their research skills andanalytic abilities to address global civil society and also serve transnational social
movements (e.g. teaching and writing textbooks for students). Many universities haveestablished interdisciplinary undergraduate majors in global studies (e.g. University ofCalifornia at Santa Barbara, The Global Studies Association, UCR Institute for Researchon World-Systems, The Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University).

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One of the drivers for a revolution in the social sciences and eduation is theconceptualization of a Future University. A Future University needs to be different in
fundamental ways from today’s obsolete, out-of-touch, and petrified institutions. New institions
should be ’learning’ and not just teaching institutions where the co-creation of knowledge istranslated into programs that promote self-reflection and self-correction, in systems, policies andsocieties. This way new knowledge hubs can steadily reconfigure their own capacities to include
new partners and methods to assess and address changing realities.

!

The social and natural sciences, as well as technical innovations, should also be socially
responsible. In the first place the question needs to be asked: does the research serve the interestsof societies and if so, in what ways will it be useful identifying and providing relevantalternatives for the solution to problems. The Future University:!

1) should not only be a teaching institution, but also a ‘learning institution’ that offers space,infrastucture and connectedness for creation and co-creation. The co-created, newknowledge produced and disseminated should be translated into developmental programs.
That way research is connected to practice directly contributing to social, institutional andecoonomic reforms and policies as well as to new, integrative and complex regional andcity development strategies;2) should benchmark social responsibility. The recent global crisis brought to the surface
legitimacy questions caused by the lack of social reponsibility in scientific research.
Academia should become one of the strongest stakeholders in finding alternatives to thenegative spirals and destructive tendencies of globalization. Researchers of humanities,
social sciences, natural sciences and technical innovation should ask the same questions
before starting a new project: does our research and if so in what way, contribute tofinding the proper answers to increasingly intertwined, complex problems and challenges;3) should be built upon the principles and methodologies of inter- and transdiciplinarity.
Divided knowledge undermines the solidarity of humanity and impedes development andachievement (UNESCO 2013). Complex problems caused by the pervasive global
transformation cannot be understood and therefore solved without a new complex andholistic approach and methodology. New visions of sustainability will not be provided bydivisive and one-sided scientific paradigms. This presupposes a move from multi- andinterdisciplinarity towards transdisciplinary thinking and research;© 2015 The Fuji Declaration! !

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4) should be open towards all of the decisive actors of the globalizing world such as global
and local market actors, including MNC-s and international financial institions,representatives and experts from local via national to regional and global governmental
institutions, as well as towards representatives of civil society and all forms of Media. The
representatives of these seemingly separate but de facto in many ways interconnected
spheres should be active participants of the new process of knowledge co-creation. An
institutionalized dialogue among these artificially separated spheres of production,
reproduction and interpretation might pave the way towards a new common language andvocabulary of the emerging global culture of problem solving. Looking for solutions tocommon global problems such as environmental crisis, poverty and growing social
polarization needs the broadest possible understanding, the details of which can only beprovided by the broadest spectrum of stakeholders. A conscious development – cocreation – of a new common language might also be an inevitable precondition for new global, regional and local social contracts;5) should be responsible for its own ‘human products’ – for that reason the walls andboundaries between different levels of institutionalized learning and teaching should be
eliminated. This open and integrative nature of Future Universities would guarantee theeffective, rapid and broad new knowledge dissemination to the spheres of culture, society,economy and politics. The broad, effective and rapid socialization of knowledge,
combined with guarantees of feedback mechanisms might be the base for the co-creationof a new widom based society.
6)!

Concluding Remarks: Towards a New Global Social Contract
It will not be easy to bring down the mental, political, and physical walls of division andseparation and replace them with a holistic view and requisite behaviors. In our our deeply
divided world, the ideology and practice of ’absolute sovereignty’ and the security of states (andnot societies) still dominates the realm of politics. Democracy is restricted to certain spheres ofexistence and human activities within the geographical units called nation states. It does not exist
in institutionalised forms on global or regional/transnational levels. In political reality the idea of
equal nation states as independent actors possessing the same rights is overwritten by the rulecreated by the biggest and mightiest actors.

!

The cognitive sphere of this world is equally dominated by separation: knowledge
production and distribution is realized by so called ’disciplines’ which usually guarantee themaintenance of a fragmented and one-sided academic picture of the world. This is why
mainstream social sciences or academia as such has little to nothing relevant to say about thecomplexity, nature and potential impacts and consequences of damaging and intertwined
processes we usually call ’crisis’. In fact we are in the midst of a great global transformation
without adequate explanatory and intellectual tools. Nation state authorities are themselves
having trouble understanding the complexities of their own positions and potentials of bothconflict and cooperation. All these creates a dangerous and fragile Weltzustand in a world
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economic, financial, and political institutions. The world system is unbalanced and reached thephase of bifurcation.

!

There are, however serious signs of fundamental change both in the functioning of theworld system and in the way of thinking about it and analyzing it. Since the breakout of the
global crisis in 2007, there is an identifiable new set of social and polical movements, protests,
networks and individual initiatives that are formulating the core of a democratic global civilsociety. Revolutionary developments in ICT, the very new phenomena of social media, gives
space for entirely new versions of self-mobilization, expression and the sharing of opinions andfor transnational, regional or global deliberation. This new family of anti-systemic players is not
yet chrystallized but is gaining a new level of self-awareness, self-understanding and selfconfidence. Their criticism has reached the official sphere of dominating institutions; their new
vocabulary and narrative is more and more often echoed from international institutions such as
the IMF or the World Bank and their representatives. In other words, we are witnessing a
cognitive revolution whose outcome is yet unpredictable. Powerholders and opinionmakers havean increasingly hard job to maintain the ideological, intellectual and institutional pillars of the oldworld order. The new paradigm of a possibly more democratic and just future world order canalready be identified in the thinking, behaviour, networking, and associations of the new players.

!

We can and should make efforts towards re-unifying or integrating artifically separated
elements of the whole (one-ness) in the different spheres at one and the same time:
In our cognitive sphere of existence representatives and believers of complex and integrated
thinking can pursue inter- and transdisciplinary research projects and re-configure existing
institutions such as universities and research institutes accordingly or simply create new ones likethe one we call the Future University. A new ethical base for social sciences is emerging
worldwide and has begun to seriously influence academic discourse within international
institutions such as UNESCO and the UN. For institutions under nationstate surveillance, a
breakthrough seems take longer and be more troublesome, but cracks can be identified in thewalls of old and obsolete knowledge factories as well. The need for new thinking and acting is
growing worldwide. The concept of the Future University could integrate the fragments of these
conscious or often unintended efforts of redefining the meaning and role of knowledge, academic
research and scientific innovation in our lives.

!

In the sphere of real politics and action the changes are more obvious and dramatic. Fromthe late 1970 s the world has wittnessed the emergence of new social movements, civil society
networks, protest and resistance against dictatorships and authoritarian rule. The new way of
thinking and strategy of civil society was based on nonviolence and open, rational, and continous
dialogue with authorities representing power systems. This new civil culture of self-mobilization
has reached a global dimension and global consciousness today. Strenghtening networks of civil
initiatives, movements and organizations can pursue public dialouge with global players if theyfind the right strategies of cooperation and coalition building and withold their narcissisticindividualistic attitudes. On the basis of this new thiniking and acting, complex and global
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levels. This might lead us towards the notion of species consciousness that binds us all together
with the other life forms on the planet we share.

!

How we have used and abused the Earth’s physical resources in the pursuit of economic
performance and profit at the expense of ethical values and societal and environmental well-beingis the narrative of our societies that explains how we got to where we are today. We need to reengage with our capacity to wonder by intuiting the resonance of a world alive with energy and arelentless spirit of creativity. A world of instant global communication, where time and place are
no longer central, is a world less suited to individual visionaries and more to the synergy ofcollective action. The new narrative expalining who we are and why we are here is in themaking. It has been proposed that humanity is finally reaching the level of concsiousness.
Scientists are studying the effects of our combined consciousness in, for example, the Global
Consciousness Project. They say that “Large scale group consciousness has effects in thephysical world. Knowing this, we can intentionally work toward a brighter, more conscious
future”. The construction of a new narrative to take us into the future requires the input of each ofus, and the time for action is now.

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