PART 5— Global Action Paralysis Caused by a Global Intimacy Disorder
By: Dr. Marc Gafni
Tags: Government, Globalization, New Politics, Politics, Democracy

The Intimacy Formula

This intimacy formula or equation is the core equation underlying the new constitution of the Declaration of Interdependence. It is the formula that constitutes the very structure of Reality itself.

Intimacy= shared identity, in the context of relative otherness x mutuality of recognition x mutuality of pathos x mutuality of value x mutuality of purpose.

The core of intimacy is shared identity in the context of relative otherness. If we only have an identity as a nation-state, we don’t have a shared identity. Our identity has to be, I’m a global citizen. I’m not just ethnocentric, I’m world-centric. This means I don’t just act for my own sake. I don’t just act for my family. I don’t just act for my nation. I act for the sake of the whole.

“I am a Global Citizen. I act for the sake of the whole.”

Mutuality of recognition means that we recognize each other as global citizens. So for example when we’re worried about tens of thousands of people starving in Ethiopia, it means we recognize those people. We recognize them and we don’t turn away.

We recognize that in Ethiopia, at this moment, there’s massive suffering and we place our attention there. That’s mutuality of recognition.

Mutuality of pathos means that we feel it and we raise a hue and a cry. It’s not okay and I can’t go about my day when that’s happening in Ethiopia. I can’t do business as usual when boats of refugees are sinking all over the Mediterranean Sea and there are no countries in Europe willing to organize and take those people.

We have a mutuality of pathos, which means that we feel each other.

Mutuality of value means that as global citizens, we have the shared grammar of value, that what unites us is greater than that which divides us.

Mutuality of purpose means we have a shared purpose in creating a world more beautiful world than we can possibly imagine. We have a shared purpose in creating a world that’s unimaginably gorgeous in which we’re participating together in the Evolution of Love. That’s what we need. That’s where we’re going. None of that is available through only a nation-state.

Only a Shared Global Story Creates Global Intimacy

Step one is to realize that all our problems are global, not local [for more on this take a quick look at our earlier conversation]. Step two is that in order to solve global issues, we need global coherence. How do we create global coherence? We create global coherence by healing the Global Intimacy Disorder.

And how do we do that? We do that by generating a shared identity with mutualities of recognition, pathos, value, and purpose.

Here is the key principle: Intimacy generates coherence.

To understand this, let’s take a look at a couple for a second. How do you get coherence in a couple? Whether it’s two friends, a husband and a wife, a brother, and a sister. How do you get coherence? You get coherence when there’s a sense of shared intimacy. Intimacy emerges from a shared story and that shared story is based on a shared value.

We only have intimacy, when there is a shared story based on shared values. We only have a genuine sense of intimacy based on a shared story, when we have mutualities of recognition, pathos, value, and purpose. That kind of intimacy generates the capacity to do shared sensemaking. And shared sense making then generates the possibility of global coherence.

What we need in the world today is a shared story. We need a common story.

But it has to be a shared story of value not just at the human level but with all of Reality.

We need to realize — and this is a huge sentence that we have talked about before — that the Intimacy Formula applies all the way down and all the way up the evolutionary chain. The same definition of intimacy operates in the atomic and molecular worlds as does in the biosphere and in the human self-reflective world. This tells us that we are part of the same One World, the same One Love, the same One Heart.