We could see on the field different forms of state constellated: monarchy, oligarchy, state of law, free state, communism, totalitarianism, dictatorship, democracy, technocracy, autonomous republic, humanism and later… a new, completely unknown form of state.
It became possible during Jan Jacob Stam’s societal constellations in Groningen this week, where I asked the question: I often hear, that the concept of democracy is coming to the end. In my country of origin (Russia) we don’t even come close to democracy. So probably we could skip the democracy and start to think about a new form of state?
Jan Jacob: “We can see that all forms of state are completely equivalent so there is not any form of state that claims a central position. They all make something possible and hold something back. As they are all in service of statics. Although totalitarianism, dictatorship and oligarchy have more energy”.
Then, a representative of a new form of ordering was invited. A new form of order that can exist in families, organisations, and in society as a state form.
While looking at this new form of ordering and feeling it’s quality, the following words came out: it is beyond polarities, young, sparkling, beckoning perspective, potency, in service, uniting. It was indeed very attractive and difficult for me to believe that people are able to build something like this one day.
When Jan Jacob took the representative for a new state form, he took a person who earlier was representative of “what democracy is a solution for”. Later I realised, that this new form must have roots in democracy.
Jan Jacob: “The path to new forms of state is through the recognition of that, what existing forms are the solution for”.
Bellow is a list of solutions offered by different forms of state that we’ve heard from representatives.
totalitarianism - solution for chaos and despair;
free state - to be apart of limiting beliefs;
the principal of humanism - to be apart from religion;
communism - protection from inequality;
rechtsstaat - solution for bestowing dignity and bodily integrity, freedom;
dictatorship - solution for the blindness of the people;
democracy - for liberty and equality;
autonome republiek - solution for not to be uncontrollably large;
technocracy - solution for ambiguity and uncertainty;
monarchy - solution to protect borders and bloodline;
oligarchy - for the true nature of men.
Comment of Jan Jacob Stam to this post: Yes, it was very special to facilitate this constellation. Thank you Maya for your courage to bring this type of issues. My mouth dropped when I saw how equivalent all these state forms are.
An eye-opener was to ask each state form to ask to find a symbol for: ‘for what are we a solution?’. Very insightful and it gave each state form a kind of dignity and understanding. Regardless the consequences of the behavior of its members.
The second element we asked each state-form to connect with, is ‘That, what we never will give up’. We couldn’t go into harvesting this part. The richness of ‘What are we a solution for’ was already so much. But I do suppose you can get a sense for this second question.
Also the state form beyond these all was good to see and sense.
Later on I realized these state forms are actually ‘organizing forms’ and can be applied to much smaller systems. Innerly I imagined how I would have been as a totalitarian father, a state of justice father, a technocratic father, a democratic father: really fun to do and see, sense what the meaning of each one could be.
And I started allready to elaborate this for organizations…. There are so many more forms of organizing possible then those well known…
Maya van der Heijdt - Vasilyeva
17 of December 2022
