Being Ready to Help Guide the Collapsing Society
Someone: I’d like to hear you talk about the goals of the Community and how you see things going.
Tim Jackins: My version of the goals of the RC Community is to get this set of tools in everybody’s hands. That’s ultimately what we want—that all people understand discharge well enough that their progress is up to them1 in a new sense. That they have the tools and understanding and can figure out how to have the sessions they need.
That won’t be the end of struggle, but it will be a crucial point—when people have a picture that they can get rid of the confusions; that there aren’t real conflicts between us (there are lots of challenges, but they’re not between us—they are challenges for us collectively); and that we can assist each other in ending our confusions so that we can move forward.
Before that, I want all of us in RC to get in shape2 and think things through enough that we can help guide the apparently rapidly approaching collapse of our society. I think many people think well enough now to provide leadership, but not enough of them have gotten through their timidities. All of us in this room think very good thoughts, and we don’t tell them to anybody most of the time. We are secretive, not just quiet. We’re secretive about a lot of things we know that nobody else knows. That doesn’t work well, though we may be able to get away with it3 up to the point of a crisis.
But at a point of crisis, somebody has to step forward and lay out his or her best thinking. It doesn’t even have to be exactly right. He or she just has to show others that people can think about things so that other people dare to try to think. Of course, because we have the chance to discharge and can listen to other people, the odds are that we will have fairly good policies. It is useful for somebody to say out loud good policies, wherever they come from. The policies don’t have to be ours, but we have to recognize them and say them out loud. That’s the essence of leadership—to collect good thoughts about things and present them in a way that everybody can hear.
Leadership is vital, and, as near as I can tell,4 it works because of one crucial factor—that people recognize good ideas even before they have them themselves. Before they’re in shape to have their own, they can recognize a good idea and latch on to it. People can recognize someone who thinks. Even if they don’t agree with the person, they can recognize a mind that is trying to work and is not just parroting old restimulating non-functional solutions. There are a lot of minds here that think well, but a lot of them are awfully timid, and, as I said, we can get away with it. But there will be points, as this society collapses, when it will be far better if our best thoughts are out in the open.
The collapse appears to be nearby. It’s clear that the forces of money have the power to drive governments, like those of Greece and others, into bankruptcy. They are more powerful than governments. Attempts are being made to hold things together. There are struggles between industrial capital and financial capital. Things may get patched together for another two, five, ten years. Maybe. It’s so unstable it’s unpredictable, but it can’t be sustained. It’s getting wilder and wilder. But that’s a minor aside.
It can feel like doom and despair, but there is something to say about that. This system is going to fall down. It’s all going to fall down. And that’s a good thing. We wish there were some easy, gentle way (or maybe even that it didn’t have to happen), but large systems don’t change like that. If there were enough people who could think well enough, it might be possible, but we’re a little short at the moment. We’re a little behind. I figure if we had five million people who thought as well as you do, who knew RC as well as you do, and who were only half as timid as you are, that would be enough to actually cushion and guide things. That would mean that each of those five million would have to lead about fourteen hundred people. Could you lead fourteen hundred people? Yes, you probably could. Would you be scared the whole time? Yes, you probably would be. But somebody has to think, and then that person has to put his or her thinking out there.
As I said, we don’t have to be right. Our great strength is not in being right about everything. We’re not. Our strength is in knowing how to get our minds thinking better and better and knowing how to help other people do the same. That alone is enough to propel things forward.
1. Up to them means under their control.
2. In this context, get in shape means recover our real selves.
3. Get away with it means escape the repercussions from it.
4. Tell means perceive.