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Welcome to our web site!
At present we have only two members, Aurora Mendia and me, Ray Anderson. We currently live in Wichita, Kansas. We are doing our best to function as the nucleus and model of an alternative social, economic, and political order that we call The Social Order for the Promotion of Creative Interchange. We currently envision the future of this social order as being an ever-expanding network of socio-economic units, each having no more than six adult members who range in age from the twenties to the eighties, and who live and work together under the same roof.
We are looking for a few new members for our unit, people who
experience themselves as having an acute and largely unmet sense of need for two things:
1. To function as and to be valued as "persons," as centers of original thought and feeling regarding the possible courses of action arising out of their highly interdependent social, economic, and political relationships.
2. To be a part of an effort to help the races, classes, and nations of the world to resolve their differences without having to resort to any form of rewards and punishments, any form of manipulation or coercion.
Do you fit this description? ___Yes ___No If your answer is "no," there is no need to read any further. We recognize as prospective members only those who fit this description.
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Membership in this social order is based on evidence of a commitment to resolve whatever differences arise among us by using only the following standard and method:
Our standard: Good is whatever promotes "creative interchange." (See our definition in the next paragraph.) Evil is whatever blocks or hinders it.
Our method for resolving differences: Listing all the possible courses of action of which we are aware and then selecting the one that we all wholeheartedly agree is more likely to meet our standard.
By "creative interchange" we refer only to the kind of interchange that goes on between people that includes each of the following subevents:
a. The emerging of insight into and appreciation for what the other person is trying to communicate, no matter how much in error s/he may be perceived to be.
b. The integrating of the views and values of the other in such a way that one's previous views and values are modified, one sees the world in a different way.
c. The expanding of the range and depth of what one can understand and appreciate.
d. The widening and deepening, among those who participate, of the ability to understand one another's thoughts and to feel one another's feelings, to correct and criticize one another understandingly and constructively. It also includes the widening and the deepening of the ability and will to co-operate in conserving the good of life achieved to date and in providing the conditions for its increase.
To help you be more fully aware of what we mean by creative interchange, we want to call to your attention that starting when you were first born, creative interchange is the kind of experience you underwent that created within you all your present vocabulary, all that you presently understand and appreciate, all your present values, your mind, your appreciable world, and your ability to function as a human being.
Although creative interchange involves talking and listening, it is essentially an event operating beyond human control in the same way that the digestive process operates beyond human control. It is not something people can do. They cannot make it happen. They can only seek to discover and provide the conditions that facilitate or promote its occurrence, the most important of which is the joining together with others in mutual accountability for making the promotion of creative interchange their ruling and guiding concern.
It is our belief that creative interchange is demonstrably the creative source of human existence and wellbeing. More importantly, it is our belief that to the extent that people enter into and honor a commitment to each other to make the promotion of creative interchange their ruling and guiding concern, it has the power to do the following. It can enable them to live as social, economic, and political equals in relationships of mutual caring and sharing. It can help them to fulfill all their basic human needs in a way far surpassing any other. (We refer to such needs as survival and a sense of ultimate meaning, belonging, freedom, power, and fun.) It can also enable them to be completely open and honest with each other regarding the way they value the possible courses of action arising out of their life together.
We will recognize you as an associate member just as soon as you have demonstrated to our satisfaction that we can depend on you to resolve whatever differences may arise among us solely on the following basis: after listing all the possibilities of which we are aware, selecting that one that we all wholeheartedly agree is more likely to promote creative interchange. This involves our refraining from taking any action on any matter we are considering until we are all in wholehearted agreement. It involves our each being willing to immediately make an issue of anything going on among us that we believe hinders or might hinder our undergoing more or less continuous transformation by creative interchange. It involves having no other rules or procedures in place until we all agree to them. It involves functioning as fellow-members of an action-oriented, decision-making body in which each member is willing to take equal responsibility for everything that happens in our life together.
We take about a year before moving someone from an associate to full member status. During this year the ownership of savings and major investments are not shared. Neither is the decision as to who shall be recognized either as an associate or full member.
If you would like to have an opportunity to try out living with us in the way just described, we urge you to contact us immediately to arrange a time for a visit to our unit.
Thank you very much.
Ray Anderson
Our email address: ourgreatestproblem@lycos.com
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