13 Steps for Long Term Culture Change

The Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative (www.cpcsi.org ) provides research and analysis for critical challenge alerts, and research and support for collaborative problem solving and community education initiatives which seek to maximize citizen participation, and accelerate solution-oriented activity.

The “13 Steps for Long Term Culture Change”paper (78 pages; May, 2017) being introduced here is the second Summary Paper from The Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative. The first CPCS Initiative Summary Paper was “Recalibrating Our Moral Compasses: to resolve unprecedented challe...(85 pages; June, 2015, updated July, 2016).

The “13 Step…” paper--

A. --has an 8 page introduction which includes the following sections:

In that “Convergence of Critical Challenges Alert”
The “Convergence of Critical Challenges”
Unprecedented Challenges + Serious Blind Spots + Most Complex Cultural Landscapes Ever Created on Earth = “Way Beyond” Uncharted Territory
The Four Part “Constellation of Initiatives” Approach in the CPCS Initiative Summary Paper
The Down-To-Earth Practical Value of Wisdom
All the “little events” in everyday community life can have a positive and cumulative effect
Surely, there will be work to do….;

B. --provides an overview of the following 13 steps

1. “Community Good News Networks”
2. “Community Faith Mentoring Networks”
3. “Spiritual Friendships”
4. “Interfaith Peace Vigils”
5. “Recalibrating Our Moral Compasses (ROMC) Surveys”
6. “Community Visioning Initiatives”
7. “Neighborhood Learning Centers”
8. “Spiritually Responsible Investing”
9. “Ecological Sustainability/Permaculture/Ecovillages”
10. “Appropriate Technology”
11. “Food Sovereignty/Food Waste/Local Food Councils/Community Supported Agriculture”
12. “Local Currency”
13. “Neighbor to Neighbor Community Education (NTNCE) Projects”

[Special Note: In addition to the overviews of the 13 Steps, a summary statement, three related fields of activity [from a list of “125 Related Fields of Activity” (also at the CPCS Initiative webpage for archived IPCR Initiative documents at https://www.cpcsi.org/about-the-ipcr-initiative.html )] and one sample question (from various IPCR and CPCS documents) are included with each step, as examples of starting points for workshop discussion.]

C. --has an appendix which includes a 2 page challenge assessment (“Unprecedented Challenges Ahead—February 2017”), and a 4 page piece titled “30 Propositions and Premises which make up the Foundation of The CPCS Initiative”

D. --has a 13 page “Notes and Source References” section

The ten most critical challenges identified by this writer:

1) Global warming and reducing carbon emissions
2) A marginalization of the treasured wisdom associated with religious, spiritual, and moral traditions
3) Cultures of violence, greed, corruption, and overindulgence
4) The end of the Fossil Fuel Era
5) The increasing world population and its implications relating to widespread resource depletion
6) Current trends indicate that we are creating more and more “urban agglomerations”--(megacities with a population of more than 1 million people--more than 400)—and almost all megacities are running massive “ecological deficits”
7) Global inequities and the tragic cycles of malnutrition, disease, and death
8) Significant progress towards positive tipping points for the other challenges cited in this list will almost certainly make it impossible for the U.S., and many other countries, to resolve unprecedented public debt
9) Deterioration of trust/confidence in institutions responsible for guiding public discourse—and the related loss of social and spiritual cohesion
10) Sorting out what are real challenges and what are sound and practical solutions is becoming more and more difficult—People who are not sufficiently informed about critical issues are everywhere, and they are investing their time, energy, and money—voting—all the time.

This writer believes that--at this most critical time in the history of life on Planet Earth--we have an urgent need to make unprecedented progress towards resolving timeless shortcomings of human nature—even though such shortcomings are perceived as so much a part of who we are that most of us accept such as inevitable. Thus, the uncharted territory we thought we were in to achieve carbon neutral economies might be more accurately described as “way beyond” uncharted. There should be no one who has any doubts: there is no culture or association of societies that ever existed on planet Earth which has had to resolve the kind of challenges the next few generations of people will have to resolve.

It is the complexity of succeeding in integrating wisdom and compassion into the everyday circumstances of community life--at this critical time when wisdom and compassion are so urgently needed--which has persuaded this writer to make what contributions he can, by sharing the documents and resources he has created as a part of building The Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative (at www.cpcsi.org ).

This “13 Step” document can create, and/or contribute to, many positive multiplier effects--and assist with accelerating solution-oriented activity at this most critical time. I urge readers of this message to make use of this “13 Step” resource.

Stefan Pasti
June, 2017