[Dialogue] "Emergence" and "Leaderless Revolutions"

[R Williams]

(I'm sharing with the listserv this latest installment of a running conversation that Lee Early and I have been having for the last, well, several years really.  For a couple of days we've been talking about "emergence," Paul Hawken's "mini-movements" and the "leaderless revolution."  Those who know Lee and me beyond casual acquaintance may well decide to hit "delete" at the outset.  Otherwise, please do join in the conversation.  It's neither private nor personal.)
 
Lee,
 
I know you hate it when I quote books too much, and I'm sure my propensity to "appeal to authority" in this way is just a manifestation of my own insecurity, but let me try one more.  Think of this in the context of Paul Hawken's thousands of mini-movements, although it's not a Hawken quote:
 
"If individuals begin...to act themselves to produce desired political results, cooperating and negotiating directly with others affected--then a new dispensation will emerge, something that we may not yet be able to describe.  This is the phenomenon of 'emergence,' a key characteristic of complexity: that from the combined actions of many agents, acting according to their own microcosmic preferences and values, a new condition may emerge from the bottom up, almost unconsciously, and certainly without imposition by government, god or anyone else."  (my underlining)
 
I have been hearing and tossing around the word "emergence" for some time but had never associated it with complexity theory.  This quote is from The Leaderless Revolution, and is probably an apt description, 150 pages in, of what author Carne Ross is pointing to with that phrase.  Here's my paraphrase of Ross's "emergence" of a "leaderless revolution"--something that happens that, over time, brings about significant, lasting change, without any particular person(s) or group(s) being "in charge" and without any obvious, predictable or planned "cause and effect" sequence of events, but which, if it comes, always comes spontaneously from the bottom up.
 
Please give me your considered response to what this guy is saying, with perhaps an emphasis on the possible practical implications for people who still want to get something done in this world.  This ought to be right in our wheel house.  He's talking about how we can overcome being victimized by all these economic and political entities who purport to be acting on behalf of "the people" but who in fact are too isolated and insulated to know what people want or need--which raises the question, "On whose behalf are they acting?"
 
Randy

"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires."
-Martin Buber (adapted)
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