
From the _1993 Rainbow Guide_


		_Transformational Roles in a New Society_

	(excerpted from The Sane Alternative: A Choice of Futures)

	To understand yourself and others, and what you are doing
together we have included the following. The roles and interactions
with one another in the coming years as we positively shape the
process of transforming our present society into a sane, humane,
ecological one are:

	1. People whose aim and skill is to speed the breakdown of the
old system by helping to make it inoperable and destroying its
credibility. 
	Theirs is a demolition role.

	2. People who oppose proposals for change which would lead
society in a hyper-expansionist or authoritarian direction. These
include opponents of the spread of nuclear energy. 
	Theirs is an opposition role.

	3. People who are trying to improve the old system by
introducing changes which will make it better and stronger; their aim
is to avert the breakdown of the old but they may only ease the
transformation toward the new. 
	Theirs is a reforming role.

	4. People who are creating and developing the growth points
for a new society. 
	Theirs is a construction role.

	5. People who aim to liberate themselves and other people from
thier dependence on the existing system. 
	Theirs is a liberating role. [duh]
	
	6. People who are working to ensure that the old system breaks
down as painlessly as possible for everyone who is dependent on it.
They are managing the collapse. 
	Theirs is a decolonizing role.

	7. People who as liberators or decolonizers are helping other
people take more control over their own lives. 
	Theirs is an enabling role.

	8. People who are changing their personal way of life and
helping other people to change their own so that their lives will be
more consistent with a sane, humane, ecological future. 
	Theirs is a lifestyle role.
	
	9. People who are exploring and communicating new concepts of
power, wealth, work, growth, learning, healing and so on, appropriate
to a sane, humane, ecological society; they are the paradigm shifters,
the ideological revolutionaries. 
	Theirs is a metaphysical reconstruction role.

	10. People who recognize that all these different sorts of
people will contribute positively to the transformation of society,
and who are working to make sure that the transformation, though
polycentric, is a widely understood, widely shared process of
conscious evolutionary change. 
	Theirs is a strategic role.

[and of course...]
	
	11. People who refuse to countenance the breakdown of the old
system and its replacement by a new one; they will try to supress the
activities of the people listed in the previous section. 
	Theirs is a reactionary role.
	
	12. People who, having themselves failed in their own attempts
to change society in one way or another, are confident that no one
else will succeed, and anxious that they should not.
	Theirs is the pessimistic and cynical role.

	13. People who are humble observers of what is happening; they
enjoy talking about it, writing about it and scoring points off one
another but they don't want to take part. They can be helpful or
unhelpful. 
	Theirs is an academic role.

	14. And finally, people who just want to get on with their own
lives. 
	Theirs is the routine practitioners' role.

	This stuff may also apply to your loving relations and
friendships. See to it that you are not one of the types you don't
want to be.
