Awakening the Double Wisdom
of Civilizations
From What
is Enlightenment? November-December 2004 issue
By Duane
Elgin
Although many recognize that an individual can be conscious
of him or her self, we seldom consider whether a whole society can be conscious
of itself. Certainly at moments of great tragedy or great
triumph there seems to be a capacity for millions of autonomous individuals
be conscious of themselves as a singular collective. For example, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated,
virtually an entire nation went into mourning. For a period of several days, a whole country
paused and, together, people acknowledged the passing of their leader. Another moment of shared knowing occurred with
the first lunar landing. For a few
hours, much of the world paused to watch the first humans walk on the moon.
In recent times, the terrorist strike on the
The power of each of these events was not only in the sense of tragedy or triumph experienced by each person, but also in the awareness that this personal experience was being shared simultaneously by millions, even billions, of other persons. Clearly, a civilization can be conscious of itself and, in the example of the moon landing, nearly the entire species was aware that it was passing through an historic moment in its evolution.
By
mobilizing the enabling tools of mass communication, I believe the awakening
of our collective consciousness at the scale of community, nation, and the
planet will soon become a normal part of our lives and a powerful force in
our social evolution. The reason is that the human family is being
challenged to awaken to an emerging whole-systems crisis that threatens our
future with powerful trends ranging from global climate change and unsustainable
economic growth, to diminished agricultural productivity, the depletion of
cheap oil, a growing chasm between the rich and poor, the extinction of species,
and growing terrorism. Within the next
several decades, citizens of developed nations in particular will be pressed
to awaken to the actual condition of the Earth and to make profound changes
in our manner of living, consuming and working in support of a sustainable
future.
To
realize this pattern shift toward a life-affirming future in a voluntary manner,
hundreds of millions of persons will be called to act in conscious cooperation
with one another. Can we accomplish this leap to a new level and
capacity in our collective consciousness?
In my estimation: Absolutely yes! I
believe that our core evolutionary potential as a species lies largely unnoticed
in the scientific name that we have given to ourselves as a species. Technically, our name is not simply homo sapiens
or “wise humans;” instead, we are homo sapiens sapiens or “doubly wise humans.”
In other words, where animals have the capacity “to know,” humans have
the capacity “to know that we know.”
Personal
reflection refers to seeing ourselves in the mirror of consciousness and to
observe the unfolding of our lives. By analogy, social reflection refers to seeing
ourselves in the mirror of collective consciousness by using tools such as
television and the Internet. It is important to recall that it was television
that enabled people to share in the large-scale, collective experiences described
earlier. We were all looking through
the window of television at the assassination of JFK, the landing on the moon,
and the collapse of the
The bottom line is this: I
believe that if we are to take practical steps to awaken our society, then
citizens must make their voices heard in creating a more reflective and responsive
television environment. Although many in the “consciousness community”
have turned away from television in disgust, the reality is that both in the
The world is now several decades into the communications era and it is time for a mainstream social movement and politics concerned with media consciousness. Our evolving use of these powerful technologies is not keeping pace with our deteriorating planetary conditions. We are losing the race between awakening and catastrophe. I believe the core challenge of this generation is to mobilize our extraordinary tools of local to global connection to consciously communicate our way into a sustainable and meaningful future. It is time for citizens to take back the public’s airwaves for purposes of mature dialogue about our common future and to create a politics of consciousness that mobilizes our capacity for collective reflection and conversation. It is time to awaken the double wisdom of civilizations.
Duane
Elgin is an author, speaker, educator, and
activist for media accountability. His
personal website is www.awakeningearth.org
and contains his writings as well as information about his upcoming talks,
telecourses, and workshops. Duane is
also the co-founder of the non-profit organization Our Media Voice; see: www.ourmediavoice.org