Hardly anyone manages to go through their formative years without society pressing them to “have a plan,” “know where you’re going,” “plan ahead,” “get ahead,” “save up,” “save time,” “set goals.” As a question it’s “what do you want to accomplish?,” “how are you going to get there?,” “when are you going to achieve this?” If you’re lucky you get these at least in the interrogative. But even if some are certainly valid questions in and of themselves, we can also reasonably say, if we give it some thought, that they tend to individualize all aims in life, separating both individuals from one another and decontextualizing the aims as if they existed in a vacuum outside of broader society. They also have a not-so-small blind spot – in context they take for granted that we are solely to fit into existing roles in current society and its institutions. This not only implies that society is the way it is, has always been and will always be – and that’s it – but that the values and institutions that form the foundations of society and the way we think or don’t think about them are to be left unexamined and untouched. Naturally, it follows that we are not to think about vision for a better world, let alone undertake investigations of what that better society might look like, what we might really want, or consider any logical outgrowths of our values into institutions. 

These are surely not the kinds of tendencies we want to leave to the next generations. So, do these kinds of deficits in thinking have anything to do with the adverse outcomes we see in the world today?

Whoever we are, and whether in individual or collective terms, these points beg a lot  more questions. Particularly, though, but not limited to, if we are considering the shape our reigning institutions are in today in the world and whether we deem it worthy to intervene to make them better. 

Working people. Students. Parents. Teachers. Renters. Social workers. Nurses. Faith leaders. Writers. Artists. Musicians. Professors. Activists. Organizers. Those participating or wanting to participate in demonstrations. Those at school. At work. Why engage? What are we really aiming to achieve? What the hell do we mean by achievement? By actual change? Is change possible or even imaginable? What changes would improve things? What about lasting change? What’s hard work and what’s it for? What’s efficiency and what’s it for? Motivation and commitment to what and why?

How would those changes align with our collective values? What the hell are our values? Most of them we know we’ve got in common. Are those values borne out in the society we see around us and in the structures of our day to day lives? If no – plainly not – then.. why not? What established bodies and structures in society – in our families, schools, workplaces, unions, movements, economies, governments – deny those values, or even prevent imagining let alone implementation of them? Conversely, which values on investigation manifest themselves logically into the institutions we don’t want around us? And what’s the use of having the values that on the other hand do stand up to examination if they’re only given lip-service in society?

Have we thought through the worth of not only today’s institutions in society but those current and traditional values ourselves, or just passively accepted their implications machine-like, as AI responses do according to pattern recognition? If so, what does that say about the state of our educational institutions, our cynicism, much less common orthodoxy?

Students, parents, teachers. Everybody. How can we avoid passing on deadly cynicism to the current youth before it’s too late? What does it mean to be cynical particularly in the face of what’s in front of us today? What is education for? How should it be carried out? Do we want our youth and the next generation only absorbing but not intervening? If the values we hope the youth of today will embody as adults – and that they and the following generations can teach us – are unfounded in today’s societal institutions and outcomes, what is our responsibility as regards those institutions and the assumptions and concepts which underlie them? Why does it seem, by the way, that the more power one has and the closer one is to it, the more one is inclined to support its dictates and doctrine at the expense of the values we all share?

Enough questions. But these questions, and many, many more, lead us to a fundamental examination of the implications of society’s reigning institutions, and to contest the worthiness of those institutions themselves. 

If we’re interested in changes, let alone fundamental change, if we count as among our primary responsibilities to regenerate things, that renewal in all things wouldn’t just be a nice thing but a prerequisite to staving off disaster never mind big change or progress, if we think that we’ll have difficulty avoiding the worst much less providing worthy analysis or education, still less win big gains, come up with viable strategies to do so, or stimulate a mutual sense of lasting individual and collective agency, then together it would be to our collective benefit to engage in the process of coming up with visions in the here and now of a better society for the short and long term. 

What will placing an emphasis on vision accomplish? What are the implications of this focus?

Before getting to that, just one more thing. We might keep in mind that we’ve got centuries of major gains, sometimes revolutionary in nature. A whole range of civic institutions won – governments, parliaments, laws, civil, labor, gender and other rights as well as public advocacy organizations of every color, even international in nature – supposedly meant to uphold peace, security, prosperity, equality etc for all. And beyond that an incalculable number of activist organizations, institutionally recognized and not, who prioritize education, organizing, tactics and strategy who charge themselves with holding those institutions to account. But one look at societal outcomes and one knows a lot is badly missing and adrift. At the core of that something may be the capacity to envision a society in which our collective values are manifested into institutions that not only work for all but in turn continually reinforce the values and concepts that we want played out. 

The focus of a more substantial part of our efforts on evoking, sharing and presenting vision, while fighting day to day against current ills might provide a more favorable and effective alternative to solely focusing all of our efforts on fighting those ills from a defensive posture. The latter approach is by and large the current one, regrettably. Instead, we not only can but must walk and chew gum. 

If we do begin emphasizing vision, we’re already taking a big step. We’re extending beyond a defining characteristic of popular movements, particularly over recent generations, in taking on that defensive stance. Moreover, we’re extending our own sense of agency and appealing to others’ agency. Yes, attention to vision signifies a concrete, pro-active rejection of the inequities of the status quo, but what’s more is it’s a reflection of the awareness that we need to be consistently seeking to transcend any status quo. Without that search, we give all our agency away to power centers on every scale. Atrophy ensues. 

If placing emphasis on shared vision means an appeal to others’ agency – a concept not given sufficient attention or even outright warped in society and in movements – it also signifies that we are not solely interested in individual growth or catharsis. There is no emphasis on shared vision if there is no belief in others. And no belief in others means no solidarity, meaning no vision can be had. The belief in others finally affirms our awareness that we all have an innate drive towards more liberation and empowerment, otherwise realizing visions is impossible and the exercise becomes intellectual twiddling of the thumbs. 

So emphasis on shared vision also reinforces a belief in a better future and a recognition that losing is simply not an option, particularly in the face of what’s in front of us today. It opens up more space for needed hope and inspiration to seep in. That should in turn strengthen determination, since the tendency towards vision further lends itself more compatibly to enabling us to collectively develop strategies to realize the vision. A look around and one sees there is a need for far more willingness to work alongside the infinitely disparate groups, organizations, movements and individuals that make up the whole spectrum of those fighting for a better world. Emphasizing shared vision of a desired future can help in this regard, indeed it may be key. 

If we engage in the process of inclusive developing vision and the strategies to get there, and do so in a flexible manner, we undermine some of the ways in which limiting ourselves to analysis of current events, solely single-issue focus and even disagreement over some values in and of themselves can work to further divide us. Stressing shared vision – what we collectively want – allows us at every turn to reframe and repurpose our diverse efforts, including strategizing, in order to get at underlying, festering cynicism and division. It can erode this cynicism by reorienting a positive approach to the way we speak, write, work with others, make reading choices and so on, which further reinforces shared values. It gives us direction, as well as a positive springboard that inspires and motivates attainment of the vision.  On this note, and to paraphrase what activist Bridget Meehan relates, highlighting vision can overcome a fear of the unknown, and provide a way to transcend burnout and defeatism. 

Instead of solely parting from the horrifying news of the day to reach broader areas of the population – often counterproductive – highlighting shared vision can inspire positively by instead departing from what we want. Further, it can cut across tenuous lines – “right,” “left,” activist, non-activist, anarchist, “conservative,” liberal, socialist, young, old, gender, ethnicity, geography etc. – in the urging of shared values to provide its basis. Values by and large we already tend to share but perhaps haven’t explored in ways which reveal the institutions those values lead to. Emphasizing vision gives us this opportunity to transcend sectors of the population to get the participation without which necessary changes in society would be unimaginable.  

Further, exploring and elaborating on those values not only reveals to us what’s missing in our current institutions in a more penetrating and comprehensive way, but allows us to continue to refine the concepts and institutions borne out of those values. It affords us the opportunity for a different level of understanding of current conditions, non-cynically and flexibly. “It provides clarity through contrast,” as Michael Albert, co-developer of participatory economics with Robin Hahnel, portrays the role of vision. We should seek to have these values borne out by laying out a vision which motivates, inspires and helps to impede sectarianism. The process of developing and exploring vision can do that by recontextualizing the gains already made in society, illuminating cynicism and hypocrisy in current orthodoxy and institutions, escaping a sense of rampant and cynical inevitability and giving us a model to judge the present against. At the least. It could also do much more.

As indispensable as the focus on values is, is it enough? The aforementioned institutions that the exploration of values reveals needs serious attention as well. If we don’t also envision the concepts and institutions that follow logically out of our flexible and flexibly shared values, we may well have run a very valuable exercise in raising consciousness to an extent, however we’ll remain in the milquetoast area of many sectors of society who claim to uphold these values but whose economic, political, cultural and other institutions not only don’t realize these values but in many cases fundamentally subvert them. We see this today emphatically in, among other areas, the economic realm regarding assumptions centered around markets – efficiency, productivity, equity, costs, range of options, flexibility and more. 

Therefore, if we’re interested in developing a shared vision for the future we want – as well as to illuminate present deficiencies – what’s to differentiate our engagement in this from what emanates from current and past society on vision? How can we offer something up which could correct deep societal ills and ensure our values are manifested? Current and past societal visions and institutions claimed to have done it, many even have values we’d share.

There are at least a few ways in which we could distinguish a serious envisioning of a society that produces our desired outcomes from what’s projected by current mainstream institutions and theorists. 

One is that previously stated actual elaboration on current shared values – taken for granted but not often explored – in what they mean for us individually and collectively in critical areas of society, as well as how the institutions we instead envision actually contain roles that reproduce behavior in line with these values. We all agree on justice, honesty, integrity, responsibility, accountability, commitment, creativity, empathy, generosity and many others. How do these translate into more refined values and deeper but more applicable concepts that could give us institutions that fulfill them? If we engage in these questions we’re on the road to differentiating our vision from what currently is recognized.

Flowing logically out of this question, we might ask and illuminate what areas of society allow for its most basic functioning and whose purposes, whose tasks, may be most in need of improved or even fully replaced institutions. They’d be areas to apply our shared values and see if current institutions fulfill them and, what’s more, how those newly envisioned institutions would work both internally as well as together with other envisioned institutions emanating out of other shared values. This is envisioning, by and large, not currently carried out on any substantial scale today. It’s also envisioning where our concrete proposals for new institutions are based directly on set shared values elaborated on in a participatory manner. We’re not, on the contrary, making proposals to fulfill any existing ideology, doctrine, paradigm, law, convention or assumption. 

Underlying all of society’s range of institutions are values containing assumptions that need to be confronted, whether we agree with the values on the surface or not. Again, are these values translating into concepts and institutions which are leading to favorable outcomes in the world today? One area among many where we might get a resounding “no” on that question and which has not been duly attended to in past and current envisioning and institutions is the economy. We might hear from several sectors that we need to apply democracy to the economy to finally get it to work. That point seems to need major attention and the question can be approached by developing and applying our shared values to the kind of economic outcomes we want for society. It will be hard, on this question, to avoid once again calling into question the fundamental nature of markets and their effects on all of society, let alone the economy. Like all of the questions brought forth by engaging in vision, one in no way need be an “expert” to give a minute’s thought based on individual and collective experiences and engage in the invaluable introspection needed to come to flexible shared values which will likely run counter to, in this instance, the way a market functions. And then to envision and outline ensuing institutions which fulfill those values. To engage in vision, by the way, might be one way to reveal in the first place why this search specifically for better institutions is not an exercise in daydreaming, but rather crucial to our hopes and prospects as a society.

The values undergirding a desired economy are likely going to be those which also fundamentally inform those other principal areas of society such as politics, community, culture, family, international relations and our relation to the environment, among others. Encompassing societal vision of this sort is also in need of attention, to say the least, and this is yet another aspect which would distinguish newly developed visions from those of the past. Underneath all of these areas of society lie crucially needed vision for shared values concerning interrelations, decision-making, range of options, common responsibilities and welfare, remuneration, applicability of values and many others. All crucial and interconnected. Do any of these transcend the others?

So calling for vibrant vision means being explicit about what we want for a better society we’re in desperate need of. Critical questions to begin any of these discussions might be, for instance, not only what our concerns are but what is it that we’re looking for?

We’re not drawing up a manifesto all must adhere to. Quite the contrary. Nor are we foolishly overextending into a future we can’t know by drawing up exhaustively detailed master plans. Even if we could, which we can’t, that would be absurdly counterproductive. We’re appealing rather to everyone’s innate inclination to empathy, to do better not just for self and to our own intuitive sense of deficit and defeat in society without that very search for vision. Based on this, we’re evoking key elements of values, concepts and institutions, while always remaining open to refining our views. In the process of envisioning, we might also get a deeper sense of the value of education, cynicism and agency. Likewise, we’re not just getting at the insidious essence of power and the servility it invokes, we’re looking to elucidate how we might transcend it through our own concrete proposals. Ultimately, by stressing vision we’re intending to elevate meaningful participation, without which, again, realizing visions is just a dream. 

We often find teachers asking young children in school to come up with, as children as predisposed to, their own visual creations of how they envision their beautiful, desired world to be. Is there any reason for that kind of activity to end at such a young age? Maybe it would be to our benefit, well beyond elementary school, to ask ourselves collectively the same questions and act on them. After all, we’ve got certain sizeable responsibilities not only to each other but to the generations to follow, particularly in this moment. 

---