DOTS Loves Democracy
DOTS begins with the view that truly democratic forms bend toward justice.
We consider a vibrant, engaged and informed citizenry our best hope.
We Chalk in Peace
DOTS is non-violent.
We consider love, trust, courage and community the bedrock of democracy and the indispensable foundation for tackling wicked problems.
We seek to disrupt prevailing norms and provoke new thinking, but our objective is to nurture.
All Crises Matter
Crises occur at different scales and manifest subjectively.
DOTS believes it a folly to suggest ‘my crisis is more important than your crisis’.
Rather, DOTS is concerned with exploring the ways in which our crises relate, and in finding common cause.
We embrace systems thinking and seeks systemic solutions.
We are a ‘movement of movements’.
Imagination is more precious than property
It is a crime that 1% of the global population control 44% of the world’s ‘wealth’.
This insufferable fact undermines the legitimacy of property rights, for starters.
DOTS reclaims the commons.
Drop the Optical Delusion
Neoliberalism demands a perception of the ‘self’ as entirely atomised.
This disempowering fiction is at odds with hard science, psychology, lived experience and all great spiritual traditions.
But it is at the heart of neoliberal ideology.
DOTS insists this optical delusion simply does not cut it any more.
In our interdependent world it is now obvious that our personal wellbeing is circumscribed by the wellbeing of ‘others’.
From this it follows that care for others and for the Earth is, in fact, enlightened self-interest.
This view is not so radical.
What is radical is our departure from this truth via an entrenched cultural pattern of escalating division, extraction, exploitation and atomisation.
DOTS believes enlightened self interest is, in fact, common to all struggles for justice and all efforts toward a world imbued with love.
We believe we need a new understanding of ‘the self’ that fully recognises and celebrates humanity’s profound interdependence and inherent altruism.
We put forward ‘MWe’ – a cute neologism that integrates and honours both ‘me’ and ‘we’ – as a sufficient meme around which a new and transformative common sense of enlightened self-interest might coalesce.
Freedom is a feature not a bug
From children chalking rainbows on sidewalks to students chalking walls in Hong Kong, DOTS aims to provide a framework inclusive enough and resonant enough for everyone and everything.
DOTS does not seek to control the message. Rather, it seeks to:
Our strategy rests on the belief that truly democratic forms bend toward justice.
To a large extent, the medium is the message. And it’s your message.
A New Common Sense
Neoliberalism, the dominant ‘common sense‘ of recent decades, no longer serves – for many, it never did.
A new common sense must emerge, capable of fully supplanting the existing system and its omnicidal logic of extraction, exploitation, atomisation and greed.
Our new common sense must emerge through democratic, inclusive and engaging dialogue.
DOTS puts forward ‘the self’ as a framework expansive enough, meaningful enough and resonant enough to encompass and integrate all our most urgent concerns and our highest aspirations.
Yearning by Doing
A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.
DOTS encourages learning by doing and considers effort at least as meaningful as outcome.
