It is also easy to understand why our children of The Village Charter School are deprived of the “Participative Governance Experience.” They live in a “Monochromatic Landscape.” Their only real contact with government is with the police who conduct the “revolving door” where 85 percent of their fathers and brothers are “spun” between the community and prison. To the kids, everyone looks the same and acts the same—cops and criminals. And they create the same havoc when they appear! Government is not a response to problems but a stimulus to crises!

Again, my early learning from my father gave me the experience of “Participative Governance.” He viewed governance in both a responsive and initiative way. The most dramatic view of his initiative was when his union was out on strike. Two busloads of “strikebreakers” or “goons” as Dad called them were sent from Pennsylvania to break the picket line and, thus, the strike. Dad simply invited the mayor and council from his town to appear at this early morning confrontation. They did—with police—and the “strikebreakers” were escorted back to their busses without incident. Dad later claimed that this governmental action “had saved those Pennsylvania boys’ lives.” He knew the potential for violence of his waterfront union men.

My personal experiences were not nearly as dramatic—although a lot more productive. Here again, I turn to experiences involved in saving communities. In Springfield, the mayor and council ruled the minorities by what Senator Moynihan called “benign neglect.” With all the conditions for violence detailed in the Kerner Commission Report, we set about to create a “Shadow Government.” Created by “The Real People’s Congress,” this government served from “womb-to-tomb” in both the private, public, and all community sectors. The sources of its initiatives were in the minds and souls of the participants—majority as well as minority. The community mission was proactive: to empower people to live, learn, and work productively in the community. We “skilled” them instead of killing them. There was no violence! Springfield was declared “The Springfield Miracle.” Later on, it became the theme on which Michael Dukakis based his presidential campaign: “The Massachusetts Miracle!”

Perhaps my most electrifying initiative experience in Participative Governance was before the War in Iraq. I was urgently concerned with the “After-Shocks” of the war because, while there was an “end-game” to the war, there was no “beginning-game” to peace. From everything I knew, the peace initiatives would fall to insurgency because no Cultural Relating was built into the planning. My friend, Rob Owen, spent much political capital to get me in front of key members of the National Security Council. While I failed to influence the direction of the planning, I did succeed in expressing my rights as an American citizen. Moreover, I am given to understand that some members now read my books in order to understand the basic question: “How did he know it would turn out this way?” It’s simple: For every crisis, it is critical to relate to all of the people affected by the outcomes as well as all of the people affecting the outcomes.

So these are my experiences in Participative Governance or should I say “Initiative Governance.” They begin with the assumption that “We the People” are the constitutionally-mandated policy-makers. They culminate in the responsibilities for the lives of the people we represent and serve.

The children in our Village Charter School have an excuse for their deficits in experiencing Participative Governance. And they are paying for it with their lives! We do not! So we must empower them.

What about your experiences in the second critical principle of “The American Experience?” Where did your American journey carry you?

It is easy to understand why our children of The Village Charter School are deprived of the “Cultural Relating Experience.” They live in a “Unicultural Society:” 100 percent black, mothers on welfare, fathers “on leave.” In a recent crisis, eight of 88 mothers showed up for an urgent meeting concerning the future of their eighth grade children: whether to protest the “capping” of the Charter School’s promised ninth grade or to send them on to the violence-prone Chester Upland Public High School.

One in eleven mothers!

No fathers! Ever!

“Cultural Relating” is the cornerstone of all civilization. The most extensive research tells us that it is the pre-potent source of effect in all of the accomplishments of American Civilization. Indeed, it is the necessary but not sufficient condition of “The American Experience.”

“The American Experience” transforms us from the raw material of controlled and dependent human resources into the finished products of free and interdependent human capital. Because I believe fervently in this process, I will share my own experience in Cultural Relating.

First of all, I was a product of the cultural relating of my parents: my German emigrant mother and my American Celtic-Indian father. In other words, I was there at the genesis of my Cultural Relating experience.

When two cultures merge to produce progeny, they generate a third culture made up of the benefits and values of the two cultures. Is not America the story of cultural relating?

Secondly, my earliest experiences involved observing my parents facilitative way of relating to each other as well as to their children and members of their extended family. Most of all, from early adolescence, I studied my father’s relationships with his “men.” As a leader of an independent chemical industry labor union on the New Jersey waterfront, my father related democratically to his 3,500 war-time members. “What would you like to do?” he asked. And together, they proceeded to process the mission and goals and plans of their precious independent union. In other words, I was the beneficiary of extraordinary modeling in sharp relief of the Cultural Relating Experience.

Later on, when by happenstance I became President of the Student Council at my ethnically diverse high school, I fell back upon this learning from modeling. Instructed by the administration’s consultant to the Council of the necessity to employ “Roberts Rules of Order” at all times, I relied upon Dad’s principles to accomplish the same cultural relating mission as my father. I asked for a motion to suspend “Roberts’ Orders” and we voted to do so for the remainder of the school year. Then I asked, “What would you like to do with your time in school?” We installed “Robert’s Process” and went on to a remarkably productive year, installing among other things the first music system playing “our music” in the cafeteria, as we ushered in the first generation of “teenagers” at the beginning of the 1950s.

Thirdly, all of this seemed in preparation for my later work in “Saving Springfield” in the 1960s and 1970s: Called upon by the powers-that-be to save a community that had been surrounded and held hostage by the growing minority population in Springfield, Massachusetts, we initiated a process labeled “Community Resource Development.” Relying upon the same Cultural Relating Process that was modeled by my father, we instructed Andy Griffin, a community leader, to attempt to meet with everyone in the black and brown communities to ask this question: “What would you like to do with the rest of your life?” He asked and they answered intelligently, “We want to be empowered to be every place that impacts us!” We embarked on a remarkably successful Community Resource Development program.

So these are my experiences in Cultural Relating. They gave voice to the experiences of different cultures. They related cultures and classes through communication. They proved to be the difference between success and failure. Everything was possible with relating. Nothing was possible without it. They made “We the People” live. We empowered the people to become policy-makers in designing their own changeable destinies.

The children in our Village Charter School have an excuse for their deficits in experiencing Cultural Relating. We do not! So we must empower them.

What about your experiences in this first critical principle of “The American Experience?” Where did your American journey carry you?

I had occasion recently to keynote the opening day of an inner-city charter school, Chester Village Charter School in Pennsylvania. As I walked among the teachers and parents of the 100 percent African-American children, I said the following:

“We are going to dedicate ourselves to giving these children ‘the American Experience’.”

Immediately, a highly-respected lead-teacher asked:

“What is ‘The American Experience’?”

I answered straightforwardly:

“1. Cultural Relating,

2. Participative Governance,

3. Entrepreneurial Enterprise.”

Cultural relating has to do with the relationships within, between, and among classes and cultures. While some Americans have had this experience, none of the children in this school have had it. None have ever been related to as valued members of the community. This is because most are members of a huge underclass of disenfranchised people.

Participative governance has to do with the relationships within, between, and among individuals and their governance. Again, while a dwindling number of Americans have been involved in their governance, none of these children has had this experience. Their authoritarian command-and-control governance simply gives the orders that they follow. While they are impacted by governance, they never impact it with input or feedback.

Entrepreneurial enterprise has to do with the relationships within, between, and among businesses and individuals. Once again, while a dwindling number of Americans has been involved in entrepreneurial businesses, none of these children are even aware of the role of business in the community. They are simply imposed upon—they never influence anything of legal entrepreneurial significance.

Cultural Relating!

Participative Governance!

Entrepreneurial Enterprise!

These are the ingredients of “The American Experience.” They are validated by our personal experience in our everyday lives.

Moreover, these ingredients are validated by extensive research relating them to “The Pillars of Civilization:”

• Cultural Relating → Peace
• Participative Governance → Participation
• Entrepreneurial Enterprise → Prosperity

While these experiences have been available to some of us, they are not to others. For our children at Chester Village Charter School, the implications are clear. If they have not had these experiences, they do not know what we are proposing.

But what about the rest of us? Have we had “The American Experience?” If we did, why do we persevere in distorting this experience? Witness the following distorted perception of our candidates for president:

• In the name of Cultural Relating, we designate other human beings as “aliens” and we seek to build walls to keep them out—until we need them to build the walls?!
• In the name of Participative Governance, we seek to impress our will upon others as if consensus rules and the rest are fools!
• In the name of Free Enterprise, we encourage “consumptivity” rather than “productivity” as we shape ourselves into “the bloated host” of conspiratorial multinational corporations and parasitic monolithic societies!

If we comprehend “The American Experience,” then why are we so “alienated” from it?

Dear Parents:

We were so proud of you. Whether you fought in foreign lands or worked on the home front, you delivered America from its “darkest hours.” You collaborated and survived “The Great Depression.” You related interdependently and won “The Great War to End All Wars.” You were our heroes.

You impacted us in our formative years with your confidence, your initiative, and your embrace. It was not long after the war before we saw you in your full glory.

The men from The Suburban Civic and Social Club came to us kids with a proposal to form a baseball team to compete in the City League and then the County League. We were eager. After a few days of practice, Mr. Messina, Mr. Pecina, and Mr. Crowley came to me with a proposition: “You manage the team and we’ll support you.”

I now understand the foundation of this initiative. As “Citizen-Soldiers,” they had learned how often their “out-of-touch” officers were wrong. Their proactivity launched me on a lifelong career of “player-coach.” I had my first lesson in “Cultural Relating.”

Later on, others from the Club took the initiative of inviting the young people as well as the older members to political presentations and debates, not unlike those we witness today. The Haskills, the Koehlers, the Meyers were all of the same persuasion regarding the education of the kids: “It’s pay me now or pay me later!”

Again, I understand this first-generation American attitude toward their Democratic Government and its Constitutional Foundation. Their attentiveness committed us all to political membership in “Participative Governance.”

Still later, the Christiani brothers from the neighborhood invited the young people to participate in the economy by managing paper-routes. For responsibilities for delivering more than 100 papers over a square-mile district, we received $3.50 a week, much of which we spent at the Sunnyside Sweet Shop that the Christianis ran. But we learned so much more than we earned about baseball, girls, and life: “Take two and hit to right!” This was Nick’s answer to all of these questions. In addition to introducing us to the facts of life, these generous men introduced us to “Free Enterprise Systems” that empowered us throughout our lives.

When we asked you “How come they are so good to us?”, you answered “Because they are patriots!”

When we began to retort, “But we thought you had to be…,” you interjected a life-long commandment: “You don’t have to be a soldier to be a patriot!”

We owe a profound debt of gratitude and love to you. You were the models and agents for our development. Mostly, you were first-generation Americans who believed in “The American Dream” and passed it on to us in terms of “The American Experience.”

In this regard, we have good news and bad news. For more than 50 years, we have grown and prospered with these “American Commandments” imprinted in our frontal lobes: relating, participating, enterprising.

Now, today, we are faltering under the burden of the complexity of our times. We have leaders who do not even remember these commandments. To be sure, we have candidates for president who want to rewrite our U.S. Constitution to emphasize their exclusive ideologies. Thank God, you did not!

We just wanted to drop you a line in case you are not watching us to tell you that we need you again! We need your commandments! We need your generosity! We need your embrace!

We are all “Forgotten Americans” because everyone talks and no one listens; because everyone dictates and no one participates; because everyone hesitates but no one generates!

We will not be forgotten if we remember each other and the patriots and why we cobbled this “Great Nation” together, and the “Great Freedoms” it has yielded.

Two centuries, three decades, and two years ago, our forebears made a promise. They declared “America” to be “Free and Independent States.” Born of the spiritual inspiration of privileged minds like Adams, Washington and Jefferson, and anointed by the perspiration of nameless peasant backs, America affirmed that all of her people are created equal: among their inalienable rights are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” She insured the promise with a Constitution, making “We the People” constitutionally-mandated policy-makers. She saw her family divided in a bloody Civil War and heard Lincoln reaffirm the promise: “That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth.”

With these words, Dr. Robert R. Carkhuff (Bob) addressed 10,000 people in New Orleans in 1974. His now-classic address has been modified for July 4, 2008 for freedomblog.com. Print, download and read a copy of this speech (PDF). Below is the bold conclusion of The Promise of America that lives today.

“And when it comes to be, as ever, that we, too, cease to exist, let us pass on the promise inscribed that those who passed it to us knew why they died. And that we, the promised, knew why we lived!”

Thanks for signing on. I’d love to hear your comments. Look out for our special series on Modern Patriots starting next week.

Happy 4th.

-Bob-

The two Democratic candidates for president are committed to the socialist policies of the Great Depression Years: Distributing or re-distributing wealth without even the slightest reference to wealth generation. They have no understanding of The American Experience.

The Republican candidate has committed his candidacy to American success in Iraq and “The Oil Wars.” How about this, Senator: Reconstituting the best of America’s mighty legacy? We might label this, “The Thinking Wars.”

We began our exploration with a graphic of “The Generativity Platform” (see Figure 7). Generativity is the only stimulus package for the development of American Civilization for the following reasons:

1. Europe and the rest of our competitors have already labeled us “The Failed Experiment” for our retrogression from world leadership.
2. Instead of recognizing the Binary Code as a developmental stage of processing (e.g., S–O–R Discriminative Learning), American leaders and scientists have stupidly bet our future on the “binary code of processing” rather than generative thinking.
3. The Asians are incredulous at our playing a “pat hand” with which we knowingly empower them with the schematic branching systems of the languages to which they were born.

Figure 7. The Generativity Platform π Global Capital Development

Secondly, the Generativity Mission and its derivative goals are “architecturally defined” which makes them “actionable.” Relatedly, their objectives are “operationally defined” which makes them “achievable.”

Moreover, there are many New Capital Development Processes to transform the raw resources into finished capital:

New Capital Development Processes

Another way of summarizing The Generativity Mission is in terms of the individual performance on the primary conditions of The American Experience:

In this equation, the effects of Cultural Relating, Participative Governance, and Entrepreneurial Economics multiply each other to generate The Pillars of Freedom: Peace, Participation, Prosperity.

On the other hand, there are the “Nay-Sayers” who constitute “depressor variables” in all growth equations:

• Through the profound stupidity of this political administration in endorsing totalitarian Multinational Corporations rather than “Entrepreneurial-driven Capitalistic Businesses”…
• Through the myopic vision of the business leaders who have cut down and out the research part of The R & D model that gave us generative positioning and leadership in the world…
• Through the dependent reactivity of the community leaders and their minions who have ceased to view the community as the fundamental unit in wealth generation…
• Through the bureaucratic lies of the educational leaders who have “spun” retarding experiences as facilitative ones…
• Through our retarded abandonment of “The Promise of an Evolving America” as articulated in the vision of our “Founding Fathers”…

For these and all other “depressor variables” in “God’s Equation for Continuous Change and Gain,” do we humbly repent our sins against our Human Potential.

We commit ourselves to the Actualization of our Potential in the great multitude of Human Endeavors: Individual, Organizational, Marketplace, Community-, Freedom-, Nation-, and Global Village-Building.

We rededicate ourselves to a new and elevated vision of “The Cities on the Hill.”

Let us solemnly resolve—on the lives of our children and grandchildren—that “The Promisors” who came before us will now know why they died and that we, “The Promised,” will now know why we live.

Otherwise, “The Promisors” would have died in vain.

And the Freedoms of those who follow will die of “Empty Promises!”

The fifth most important plank in the presidential platform is the Continuous Nation-Building Function of governance:

5. Nation-Building must be dedicated internally and externally to advancing civilization to meet the changing conditions of our human and ecological environment.

For America, this means building upon the Standards of The Prosperous Community to empower a Freedom Culture and elevate the exchanges of our Free Enterprise Marketplace (see Figure 6). It means Freedom-Building to generate Nation-Building.

Figure 6. Nation-Building

As may be noted, Nation-Building “nests” Freedom-Building that, in turn, “houses” Community-Building as follows:

• Homes generate Mechanical Capital Development or mCD.
• Schools generate Information Capital Development or ICD.
• Colleges generate Human Capital Development or HCD.
• Governance generates Organization Capital Development or OCD.
• Business generates Marketplace Capital Development or MCD.

Community-Building provides Community Capital Development or CCD as the foundation for Freedom-Building.

Where CCD is a product of networks of Community Components, Freedom-Building is a product of Networks of CCD. Together, these networks of CCD generate increasingly elevated levels of Freedom Capital Development or FCD:

• Cultural Relating at the highest levels of collaboration and interdependency.
• Participative Governance at the highest levels of representation and enlightenment.
• Free Enterprise at the highest levels of capitalism and entrepreneurism.

Freedom-Building provides the foundation for Nation-Building: Nation Capital Development or NCD.

Where FCD is a product of networks of CCD, Nation-Building is a product of Networks of FCD. Together, these networks of FCD generate increasingly elevated levels of Nation Capital Development or NCD:

• Peace as a function of Interdependency-driven Cultural Relating;
• Participation as a function of Enlightenment-driven Participative Governance;
• Prosperity as a function of Entrepreneurial-driven Free Enterprise.

Nation-Building provides the foundation for Global Capital Development or GCD.

In summary, Nation-Building is dedicated to continuous Community-, Freedom-, and Nation-Building in the global village and its marketplace. The ongoing function of American governance is global leadership by accomplishing The Generativity Mission.

The fourth most important plank in the presidential platform is producing generations of generative thinkers:

4. Generative Thinkers must be dedicated to thinking outside the box and creating new ideas.

For America, this means building upon the authoritarian Standards of Learning (SOL) systems and elevating up to the freeing Generative Thinking Systems (see Figure 5). It means building upon Probabilities Schools to implement Possibilities Schools which culminate in Freedom Schools.

Figure 5. Generative Thinking Model

As may be noted, The Generative Thinker is a product of both Human Capital Development or HCD and Information Capital Development or ICD. The HCD Functions emphasize developmental and cumulative processing systems:

• S–R Conditioned Responding
• S–O–R Discriminative Learning
• S–P–R Generative Thinking
• S–OP–R Generative Organizational Processing
• S–MP–R Generative Marketplace Processing

Clearly, the higher levels of Generative Thinking build upon the lower levels of conditioning and learning.

In turn, The ICD Functions emphasize developmental and cumulative levels of Information Representing:

• S1 – Sentences or Concepts
• S2 – Systems or Operations
• S3 – Schematics or Dimensionality
• S4 – Social Schematics or Vectorial Images
• S5 – Spatial or Phenomenal and Changeable Images

Once again, the higher order representations of information build upon the lower levels of sentences or conceptual information.

It is only in interrelating () the differentiated levels of HCD and ICD that we generate new and more productive ideas. In other words, it is when HCD and ICD relate interdependently and synergistically that they think generatively.

The institutions that convert the raw materials of human and information resources into HCD and ICD may be identified as follows:

• Probabilities Schools emphasizing S–R Conditioned Responding;
• Possibilities Schools emphasizing S–O–R Discriminative Learning;
• Freedom Schools emphasizing S–P–R Generative Thinking.

Clearly, the overwhelming numbers of our schools are Probabilities Schools. A rare few operate as Possibilities Schools. So far, none exist as true Freedom Schools.

In summary, The Generative Thinkers are dedicated to thinking “outside the box” to create new and more productive ideas. In this manner, they implement the Productive Organizations and the Prosperous Communities to accomplish The Generativity Mission.

The third most important plank in the presidential platform is organizing to process interdependently:

3. The Productive Organization must be dedicated to interdependent processing within, between, and among all units and people.

For America, this means abandonment of the totalitarian Multinational Model and the return to The Entrepreneurially-Driven Free Enterprise Model that generates and integrates New Capital Development or NCD Systems at all levels of The Productive Organization (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. The Productive Organization

As may be noted, The Productive Organization follows the principles of Possibilities Science:

• Lower-order NCD Systems are nested in higher-order systems.
• Lower-order NCD Systems are encoded by higher-order systems.
• Lower-order NCD Systems may be rotated to higher-order functions.

As may also be noted, all NCD Systems emphasize developmental and cumulative levels of processing:

• mCD or Mechanical Tooling Systems emphasize S–R Conditioned Responding Systems.
• ICD or Information Modeling Systems emphasize S–O–R Discriminative Learning Systems.
• HCD or Human Processing Systems emphasize S–P–R Generative Thinking Systems.
• OCD or Organizational Alignment Systems emphasize S–OP–R Generative Organizational Processing Systems.
• MCD or Marketplace Positioning Systems emphasize S–MP–R Generative Marketplace Processing Systems.

Again, all lower-order NCD Systems are nested in higher-order systems.

In summary, The Interdependent Organization is dedicated to the Prosperity Mission of The Possibilities Community; e.g., Cultural Relating empowering the Peace that enables Participative Governance to accomplish The Free Enterprise Functions.

The second most important plank in the presidential platform emphasizes a return to Community Development as the basic mechanism for implementing Generative Economic Positioning:

2. The Prosperous Community must be dedicated to the entrepreneurial generation of self-sustaining prosperity, participation, and peace.

Community Enterprise is the basic mechanism for solving community problems and achieving community goals through generating Prosperity. As may be noted, The Prosperous Community processes interdependently (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. The Prosperous Community

In turn, each component of The Prosperous Community contributes synergistically to the others’ growth:

• The homes and neighborhoods prepare the human potential.
• The schools and training empower the learners to discriminate information resources.
• The colleges and technologies empower the human and information capital as generative processors.
• The government and services generate the organizational processes in which the human and information capital are applied.
• The business and industry generate the marketplace processes that “capitalize” upon the organizational, human, and information capital.

In this context, each component of The Prosperous Community emphasizes processing systems which are developmental and cumulative:

• Homes — S–R Conditioned Responding;
• Schools — S–O–R Discriminative Learning;
• Colleges — S–P–R Generative Thinking;
• Governance — S–OP–R Generative Organizational Processing;
• Business — S–MP–R Generative Marketplace Processing.

In summary, The Prosperous Communities are dedicated to the Generative Economic Mission of The American Enterprise Model. Cultural Relating empowers the Peace that enables the Participative Government to accomplish the Free Enterprise Economic Mission.