Leaf Circle
The individual, besides being extremely vulnerable alone in the world, starts off completely helpless. In order to survive, he will need a support structure, a group.
We cannot survive as individuals, nor can we survive as autonomous beings. We are dependent on huge support from the communities that surround us, including the "lesser" beings—the animals, insects, birds, virii, bacteria, fungi, etc... As the family support structure has been reduced to two, we now have to build a more diverse support structure, our "spiritual" families. Those with whom we share a vision of the future of humanity—not necessarily cultural, social, racial or other, connection. These are what I refer to as "affinity groups", or "circles of friends" for support and cooperation.
Circles
These circles will consist of a group of members who are willing to co-operate in supporting and sustaining one another. They must be physically close enough to be able to do so. This group will meet and co-ordinate this support structure.
At regular intervals this group meets, or as necessary. In the first stage, they compile a list of the group members needs and wants. This they then prioritise. Once they have this list, they then consider whether they, as a group, are able to deal with any of the items on the list. If they are able to, then they should. Thus they end up with a list of needs, most of which they do not have the resources or expertise to manage.
One of these members are designated as a parent. This role can be flexible, and any of the members can assume it. This parent will then gather at a certain date/time with a "parent" group. This consists of the parents of a collection of such affinity groups. Here you can delve deeper into the details. For now, it is just the concept that I am trying to share.
Each parent will have a list of needs that have been compiled by his/her group that his group is unable to manage or complete. These lists are then combined, till this group will have a list that spans all the groups of which they are representatives. They then discuss this list and see if their combined resources are able to handle any of the items on the list. Those that they are able to they should, and these are removed from the list. Those that they are unable to, one of the members, designated as a parent, will then meet with similar parents of a collection of groups.
Each will have his/her list, and will the process will be repeated. This will continue until the last group of parents, which we refer to as the root of the tree, or the "inner" circle. This group will now sit with all the network wide issues that have not been able to be handled by any component of the network.
This is a recursive method of decision making, that is driven from the bottom up.
Perhaps an effective way would be to group the citizens in small peer groups of 10 [+/-2][1]
This circle could form the basic unit. This has a number of advantages. It would collectivise the voices, enough to reduce the amount of white noise. Generally, the excesses/prejudices would either be smoothed out, or become very apparent. The irrelevant could be weeded out easily before issues are made more "public".
From this unit, a web, a communications and sharing network can be created. If this circle can deal with the issues it encounters, then it is required (even obligated) to deal with them, and not bother the rest. If the group cannot, then it asks for help from the next layered circle, which is connected to 10 or so other circles, which then increases the reach of their request to 100 or so other people. The members of this inner circle is made up of 1 (or 2) members of each of the connected groups—forming a seed.
- Bottom-Up: The impulse from below has to be the dynamic flow of decisions. The needs are expressed from the lowest level and move upwards accordingly. The upper levels facilitate the needs of the people, who form the beginning, the source of all flow. Otherwise the flow has been subverted and diverted for only a select group or groups.
Proxies or Shadows
Not to make things too complex, but each circle, which consists of 10 or so active members, will have a shadow circle which consist of passive members. Each person in the group will have a proxy, so that the onus of the requirements of each circle is not too heavy on any one person. It will also take into account couples, and thus not require both of them to attend every meeting. So, the actual circle could consist of up to 24 members, 12 of them active, and 12 passive. Both members can attend or participate in any way they desire.
Footnotes
Twelve (12) has been shown to be maximum amount for efficient meetings. ↩︎