.png "English"){kind=small}
Not in all communities, but in many communities, there is a growing sense of confusion, frustration, and even anger in America, and it takes its form at the street level upon which most Americans live their lives. The confusion is larger than what any one mind can grasp. It races like a dark shadow ahead of us into our futures, and most of us sense that we can do little more than try to ignore it. Situations which seem too complex to understand remain obscure. We don’t want even to talk about them because we don’t want to feel responsible for thinking about them. We impulsively sense that some will win, and others will lose, and that our tightest circle of like-minded spirits is our greatest hope for weathering the storm. Fundamentalism, of both the civic and the spiritual form, holds us in its grasp this way. Along with the confusion comes the fracturing. Each church that strengthens its identity unavoidably secures its boundaries. Each labor union that speaks for the special advantages of its own members unavoidably speaks against those of different unions, or those who are not within a union. Each special interest that raises its voice in an appeal for relief masks appeals from other special interests. And each culture, pressed upon by the unspoken mandates for convergence toward a greater cultural norm, senses the loss of its traditions and sets its heels to resist the pull for change. The ideal of “We-The-People” collides with the felt reality of the “Them-and-Us.” We cannot be one people if we cannot think, and then also feel, as one people. But where does this thinking happen? No one can do it for us if we do not participate ourselves. How can we think through the gathering complexities together?
For the emergence of a Demosensual [R]evolutionary Eutopia in the twenty-first century, we ought to transcend the totalitarian, elitist approaches of political, financial, and societal policies and the obsolete social design methods, with innovative democratic practices, that will enable citizens from all walks of life, in participating in meaningful, authentic, demosensual dialogue. This chapter is inspired by the foundation for a locally based, but globally connected capability that transcends the conventional approach of Systems Science and marks the emergence of a new epoch for engaging stakeholders in social design practices. Demoscopio Center of the Science of Dialogic Design, Innovation and Entrepreneurship has been officially approved and adopted by the City Council of the Municipality of Heraklion, which is the capital of the Greek island of Crete, and a historical and culturally sensitive center, since the Minoan era. It is the culmination of 50 years of work of visionary systems thinkers, such as Harold Lasswell, Hasan Ozbekhan, John N. Warfield, and Alexander N. Christakis. Demoscopio is the contemporary reenactment of the Ancient Athenian Agora of the fifth-century B.C, with advanced technological and methodological means. It represents an innovative way to talk the walk, and walk the talk! It is the [r]evolutionary scientific implementation of the complementarity among the “Three Phases of Science” for fostering cooperation, enhancing communication, and activating social networking among citizens, innovators, and entrepreneurs. It offers the opportunity for co-designing resolutions for complex issues, through evolutionary learning and applications of the Science of Dialogic Design. It is the innovation for innovations, entrepreneurial development, democratic eutopia, for thinking globally, [inter]acting locally and making an impact glocally.
