Councils of Wise Persons / All Win Think Tanks with Heart

Introduction

Councils of Wise Persons are forming. These focus on developing solutions to global problems along all win lines. They consist of people from the grass roots who meet regularly to apply the all-win principle to both problems in their everyday lives as well as to issues of global concern. Their objective is to master the all win principle and to be able to make all-win decisions which allow all parties to act to their own advantage without harming others. The problem solving process deals with issues from factual, emotional and spiritual perspectives.

Here is a brief description of the process:

All-Win Think Tanks

The All-Win Principle: Premise
Everything is interconnected both in Nature and within humanity. Here our traffic and communications systems, national economies, politics, etc. are globally interconnected. It is therefore in our common interest to find ways of relating where all feel safe and fulfilled without harming other people or our environment..

Getting from All/Lose to All-Win: All-Win Think Tanks
Acting at the expense of others, or win/lose relationships tend to create ill-will and conflict, whereby all lose. When we give others the space and encouragement to develop their full potential, we all win. People feel happy, benevolent, and wish others to feel fulfilled, too. Here all win.

Think tanks are ways of practicing all-win relationships. They take conflict situations and find ways in which all parties can come into their own, work together in ways that benefit all concerned and develop structures that support all-win relationships.

An All-Win Think Tank consists of a group of people who meet (regularly) to practice the art of all-win relating, using problems from the personal or professional lives of participants or items (for instance from the news). Some specialize on global issues encountered by Nations working together at the UN and provide Governments and the UN with the solutions they come up with.

How Do They Work?

The group meets regularly, chooses a problem and finds an all-win solution. Here are some steps:

1. Create an atmosphere of connection and peaceful reflection, using music or a brief period of quiet to enable the group to think intelligently together. Suggest that all retain the atmosphere of inner quiet whenever they speak. This makes it possible to be in touch with even violent emotions without being overpowered by them.

2. Choose a problem/conflict to work on.

3. Explore everything you know about the topic

a. First all the facts you can find out

b. Then how each party experiences the conflict from their perspective. You will want to see whether you can, as it were, creep into each ones skin in turn. Here are some questions you can ask yourself for each party in turn:

i. How do I experience the conflict from within this party's experience?

ii. What hurts? What am I, as this person, specifically afraid of? What feels good?

iii. What do I, as this person, need or wish to gain from this situation?

iv. What can I, as this person, contribute, which concessions can I make

c. Continue this exploration, until all-win solutions present themselves.

d. Write down the issue the group has dealt with together with the solution(s) found

4. Send this to the All-Win Network to be passed on (in anonymous form) shared with others.

5. Send another copy to the parties to the conflict if appropriate.

Objectives of All-Win Think Tanks

- Gain valuable practice all-win relating - Making all-win solutions available to those who can use them - Supporting government at all levels, including the UN to develop all-win solutions - Create a worldwide network of think tanks which act like a global brain.

A Network of Councils of Wise Persons

As more Councils of Wise Persons form within NGOs and among private citizens the plan is to keep these Councils abreast of any specific challenges Governments encounter during their problem solving meetings at the United Nations.

This can be done as follows: When Governments meet at the UN to come to grips with a specific topic, NGO representatives (a.o. of the Association of World Citizens and any others who wish to be involved) attend the Government meetings with the express intention of helping to generate all-win solutions to the issues being dealt with.

When a difficult challenge is encountered, the NGO representatives transmit the details to the Councils of Wise Persons via the Internet (whichever ones choose to be on standby). Any all-win solutions the Councils are able to find are then communicated back via the Internet and the NGO representatives at the UN and to the Governments.

The Internet allows the communication between such Councils of Wiser Presons, their NGO reprsentatives meeting with the Governments within the UN and the Governments themselves to be almost instantaneous. In this way, there can be a close cooperation and sharing of expertise between ordinary citizens and governments as they pull together to solve our common problems.

A Consultative Democracy

Such collaboration between "ordinary" citizens and Governments at the United Nations can be called a "consultative democracy" and enables citizens to help govern their own world. Such a consultative democracy also places the expertise of the man and woman at the grass roots at the disposal of all the world's Governements at the very moment when they can best use such support.

This is bound to increase the goodwill between people and their governments at a time when this is bitterly needed. Once all-win solutions have been adopted and more people feel identified with the solutions, it will be much easier to ensure that both Governments and citizens abide by the agreements many have help make together.

A Global Brain

From an evolutionary context, such a consultative democracy can be looked upon as a global brain, whereby the UN (coordinator of global thinking and action) is seen as the brain itself, the Internet the nervous system and the Councils of Wise Persons the nerve centers which communicate with the rest of the body of humanity.

Assistance in Setting Up Councils of Wise Persons

Since this particular form of Council of Wise Persons was suggested in Samenzwering Samenspel, a number of such groups have been been formed to deal with specific problems. Now in the Netherlands a group is developing a manual and a training to help groups get started. For information, contact info@allwinnetwork.

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