Editing New World Alliance (section)

== A "transformational" politics ==
{{quote box|width=35%|quote="The 10 Goals of the New World Alliance: 1. A politics of hope; 2. A politics of healing; 3. A politics of rediscovery; 4. A politics of human growth; 5. A politics of ecology; 6. A politics of participation; 7. A politics of appropriate scale; 8. A politics of globalism; 9. A politics of technological creativity; 10. A politics of spirituality."|source=– New World Alliance, "Introductory Brochure," 1980.<ref name=Real>Mark Satin, ''New Age Politics: Our Only'' Real ''Alternative'', Lorian Press, 2015, pp.&nbsp;196–97 (quoting the Alliance's brochure).  {{ISBN|978-0-936878-80-5}}.</ref>|style=padding:8px}}

After the political turmoil of the 1960s, many writers and activists began searching for a new political perspective that would give special weight to such topics as consciousness change, ecology, decentralization of power, and global cooperation.<ref>Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson, ''[[The Cultural Creatives|The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World]]'', Harmony Books / Random House, 2000, chaps. 6–7. {{ISBN|978-0-609-60467-0}}.</ref><ref>[[Theodore Roszak (scholar)|Theodore Roszak]], ''Person / Planet: The Creative Disintegration of Industrial Society'', Anchor Press / Doubleday, 1978, chaps. 1–2.  {{ISBN|978-0-385-00063-5}}.</ref>  Some called the emerging new perspective "transformational."<ref>[[Willis Harman]], ''An Incomplete Guide to the Future'', W. W. Norton & Company, 1979, chap.&nbsp;2 ("A Transformation Ahead?").  {{ISBN|978-0-393-95006-9}}.</ref><ref>[[George Leonard]], ''The Transformation: A Guide to the Inevitable Changes in Humankind'', Delacorte Press / Dell Publishing Co., 1972.  {{ISBN|978-0-385-29075-3}}</ref>

=== Naming the Alliance's politics  ===
The New World Alliance has been described by many terms other than transformational – among them, [[Paradigm shift|new paradigm]],<ref>Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson, ''Spiritual Politics: Changing the World from the Inside Out'', Ballantine Books, 1994, p.&nbsp;70. {{ISBN|978-0-345-36983-3}}.</ref> [[Marilyn Ferguson|Aquarian Conspiracy]],<ref name=Olson>Bob Olson with Marilyn Saunders, interviewer, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20180711021842/http://www.ahpweb.org/images/stories/archive_pdfs/1980/December1980.pdf The New World Alliance: Toward a Transformational Politics]", ''AHP Newsletter'', December 1980, pp.&nbsp;14–16.  A publication of the [[Association for Humanistic Psychology]].</ref>{{refn|The reference is to Marilyn Ferguson's book ''The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s''.<ref name=Ferguson>Marilyn Ferguson, ''The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s'', Jeremy P. Tarcher Inc., 1980.  {{ISBN|978-0-87477-191-6}}.</ref>  Of the seven "Related books of interest" listed in Ferguson's chapter on politics,<ref>Ferguson, ''Aquarian'', p.&nbsp;434.</ref> two were by members of the Alliance's Governing Council,<ref name=Ogilvy>James Ogilvy, ''Many Dimensional Man: Decentralizing Self, Society, and the Sacred'', Oxford University Press, 1977.  {{ISBN|978-0-19-502231-5}}.</ref><ref name=Satin>Mark Satin, ''New Age Politics: Healing Self and Society'', Delta Books / Dell Publishing Co., 1979.  {{ISBN|978-0-440-55700-5}}.</ref> and a third was by a founding sponsor of the Alliance's newsletter.<ref name=Vasconcellos>John Vasconcellos, ''A Liberating Vision: Politics for Growing Humans'', Impact Publishers, 1979.  {{ISBN|978-0-915166-17-6}}.</ref>|group=nb}} [[New Age]]-oriented,<ref name=Wells>Alison Wells and Stanley Commons, "Moving Politics With Spirit (And Greyhound)," ''New Realities'' magazine, June–July 1979, pp.&nbsp;23–25.  The authors are identified as journal editor and executive director, respectively, of Self Determination, a California-wide organization advocating personal and political change.</ref>{{refn|Self Determination was characterized as an exemplary transformational political organization in Marilyn Ferguson's book ''The Aquarian Conspiracy''.  According to Ferguson, it was founded in 1976 by California state assemblyman [[John Vasconcellos]] and other politicians and citizens to encourage Californians to take responsibility for their lives.<ref name=Self />|group=nb}} postliberal,<ref>Mark Satin, ''New Options for America: The Second American Experiment Has Begun'', The Press at California State University, Fresno, 1991, p.&nbsp;6.  {{ISBN|978-0-8093-1794-3}}.</ref> post-socialist,<ref name=Middle>Mark Satin, ''Radical Middle: The Politics We Need Now'', Westview Press and Basic Books, 2004, p.&nbsp;29.  {{ISBN|978-0-8133-4190-3}}.</ref> and [[Green politics|Green]].<ref name=Parkin>Sara Parkin, ''Green Parties: An International Guide'', Heretic Books Ltd., 1989, p.&nbsp;294. {{ISBN|978-0-946097-27-2}}.</ref>  A [[Libertarianism|libertarian]] magazine found the Alliance's newsletter to be "surprisingly libertarian,"<ref>Robert Poole, Jr. and Christine Dorffi, "[https://archive.org/details/sim_reason_1981-11_13_7/page/20/mode/2up?q=new+age+budget+biting+robert+poole+jr+and+christine+dorffi New Age Budget Biting]," ''[[Reason (magazine)|Reason: Free Minds and Free Markets]]'', vol. 13, issue no. 7 (November 1981), p.&nbsp;20.</ref> and a book about [[radical centrism]] characterized the Alliance as radical centrist.<ref name=Ivor>Satin, ''Radical'', pp.&nbsp;187–88.</ref>

However, "transformational" has been the term most frequently used to describe the Alliance's politics, both by political scientists<ref name=Stein>Arthur Stein, ''Seeds of the Seventies: Values, Work, and Commitment in Post-Vietnam America'', University Press of New England, 1985, pp.&nbsp;134–38. {{ISBN|978-0-87451-343-1}}.  The author is identified as a political scientist at [[University of Rhode Island]].</ref><ref name=Preface>"Preface: Paths to Transformational Politics," in Stephen Woolpert, Christa Daryl Slaton, and Edward W. Schwerin, eds., ''Transformational Politics: Theory, Study, and Practice'', State University of New York Press, 1998, p.&nbsp;ix.  {{ISBN|978-0-7914-3945-6}}. The lead editor is identified as a political scientist at [[Saint Mary's College of California]].</ref> and by the Alliance itself.  For example, an article from the Alliance's chairperson was entitled "The New World Alliance: Toward a Transformational Politics,"<ref name=Olson /> and the Alliance's political platform is entitled "A Transformation Platform: The Dialogue Begins."<ref name=Paulson />

=== Describing the Alliance's politics  ===

[[File:JGordonMeltonCover.png|thumb |upright=0.7 |right |alt=Kindly looking older man with white hair and goatee. | Academic [[J. Gordon Melton]] said the Alliance attempted to combine left- and right-wing perspectives.]]

Many attempts have been made to describe the Alliance's approach to transformational politics.  Cultural critic Annie Gottlieb interviewed an Alliance member who said its goal was "to embody a new holistic vision of politics in America."<ref name=Gottlieb>Annie Gottlieb, ''Do You Believe in Magic?: Bringing the Sixties Back Home'', Simon & Schuster, 1987, p.&nbsp;153 (quoting Marc Sarkady). {{ISBN|978-0-671-66050-5}}.  Note that the pagination in the Times Books / Random House edition of this book is different.</ref>  Futurists Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps said the Alliance was attempting to introduce values into politics that had traditionally been outside it.<ref name=Lipnack>Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps, ''Networking: The First Report and Directory'', Doubleday, 1982, pp.&nbsp;107–08. {{ISBN|978-0-385-18121-1}}.</ref>  British Green activist [[Sara Parkin]] named some of those values, including "healing," "rediscovery," and "spirituality."<ref name=Parkin />  Scholar [[J. Gordon Melton]] and his colleagues focused on the Alliance's commitment to combining supposed opposites – left and right, personal and political.<ref name=Melton>J. Gordon Melton, Jerome Clark, and Aidan A. Kelly, ''New Age Encyclopedia'', Gale Research, Inc., 1990, p.&nbsp;324.  ISSN 1047-2746.  ISSN retrieved April 1, 2016.</ref>  Citing the ancient Greek concept of [[Paideia]], Alliance chair Bob Olson told an interviewer that the Alliance wanted to build a society where every institution was geared to developing people's abilities and potentials.<ref name=Olson />

Political theorists [[Corinne McLaughlin]] and Gordon Davidson identified what they felt was a defining passage in one Alliance document:
<blockquote>Politics is the way we live our lives. It is not just running for office.  It is the way we treat each other, as individuals, as groups, as government.  It is the way we treat our environment.  It is the way we treat ourselves.<ref>McLaughlin, ''Spiritual'', p.&nbsp;70 (quoting a New World Alliance document).</ref></blockquote>

Arthur Stein, a political scientist at [[University of Rhode Island]], pointed to another passage in an Alliance document:
<blockquote>The NWA seeks to break away from the old quarrels of "left against right" and help create a new consensus based on our heartfelt needs.  It emphasizes personal growth – and nurturing others – rather than indiscriminate material growth.  It advocates "human scale" institutions that function with human consideration and social responsibilities.  It draws on the social movements of the recent past for new values like ecological responsibility, self-realization and planetary cooperation and sharing.  It draws on our conservative heritage for values such as personal responsibility, self-reliance, thrift, neighborliness and community.  It draws from the liberal traditions a commitment to human and civil rights, economic equity and social justice.  We call this synthesis "New World" politics.<ref>Stein, ''Seeds'', p.&nbsp;135 (quoting a New World Alliance document).</ref></blockquote>

Author [[Kirkpatrick Sale]] observed that the Alliance's newsletter boiled its definition of transformational politics down to a phrase – "the reconceptualization of politics along human growth, decentralist, and world order lines."<ref name=Sale>Kirkpatrick Sale, "Kirkpatrick Sale's Letter from America", ''[[Resurgence & Ecologist|Resurgence]]'' magazine, vol. 89, November–December 1981, p.&nbsp;6.</ref>  "As sorry a mouthful of rhetoric as that is," Sale concluded, "that's roughly what this 'transformational' idea is all about."<ref name=Sale />{{refn|In an anthology from 1998, in an attempt to delineate the transformational politics concept, [[Auburn University]] political scientist Christa Slaton listed nine authors: [[Fritjof Capra]] (for ''The Tao of Physics'' and ''The Turning Point''), [[Marilyn Ferguson]] (for ''The Aquarian Conspiracy''), [[Betty Friedan]] (''The Feminine Mystique''), [[Hazel Henderson]] (''The Politics of the Solar Age''), [[John Naisbitt]] (''Megatrends''), [[Mark Satin]] (''New Age Politics''), [[E. F. Schumacher]] (''Small Is Beautiful''), and [[Alvin Toffler|Alvin and Heidi Toffler]] (''Future Shock'' and ''The Third Wave'').<ref>Christa Daryl Slaton, "An Overview of the Emerging Political Paradigm: A Web of Transformational Theories," in Woolpert et al., eds., ''Transformational'', cited above, p.&nbsp;11.</ref>|group=nb}}