Primary Functions.
1. To develop unbiased public opinion research;
2. To provide a public media subscribership to the public so that citizens can more directly participate in how the decisions that are made by their public executives — that create the future they will have to live out.
The overarching intention of EMANATION is to facilitate free and unbiased public dialogue between citizens, “the public”, and their public executives, “the government.” The effectiveness of EM as a facilitator of that public dialogue is dependent upon remaining neutral, and unaffiliated with special interests, non-partisan, and non-position oriented toward any social, political, or economic topic or issue.
“EMANATION” is a nom de guerre for the operating organization for the program of “the emanation process”, which encompasses the synergism of EMANATION and its subordinate organizations. The emanation process provides a non-invasive, non-aligned scaling-up of public participation in the democratic dialogue between the public and their government. It oversees public opinion research concerning local, state, and national public issues; statistical analysis, interpretation, and publication of results; operation of an Internet Public Media subscribership (EM21); and issue education for past and contemporary issues.
Philosophy. The best government is government by the governed, who must be well educated and informed. Such citizens in rational concert with their governments are best able to direct the course of their own public affairs for the advancement and sustainability of themselves, their families, communities, states, regions, nation, and civilization.
Ethics. Emanation as an organization, and responsible for its performance in a participatory democracy, must not give deference or preference to any one citizen, group of citizens, or corporation over all other citizens, but must continue to give each citizen equal access, rights, privileges, opportunities, and protections to become sustainable. Above all, it must respect the fundamental rights of equality that have proven themselves sufficient to promote the welfare of a nation of individuals and give example for other evolving democracies.
5a. Public Opinion Survey Research. EMANATION’S primary function is to measure public opinion through statistical social research: Random sampling of citizens and public executives to identify significant public issues; developing non-position educational information concerning significant public issues; sharing the results of those random sample surveys; develop and provide education materials to EM21 Internet subscribers; developing questionnaires for its subscribership to assess subscriber opinions and preferences regarding those public issues; developing and sharing data analysis and interpretations with subscribers, public executives, and media; followed by asking subscribers for their preferences to the options available to the resolution of those issues.
- Unbiased arguments are best served using neutraleducational materials concerning those public issues, and that dispassionately examines the various sides of argumentation of those issues; while also pointing out the potential consequences of the various sides. Emanation, as a facilitator of fair and open public dialogue, provides unbiased articles, research materials, and Internet links that discuss the various aspects of public issues.
5b. EM21 — An Internet “Public Media” Subscribership
The intention of EM21 is to provide subscribers with a non-aligned, unbiased site to learn about public issues without a political agenda other than expanding the influence of citizens to participate more directly in their governance. A significant pivotal necessity of EMANATION’s effectiveness is to use of subscriber’s collective demographic data to make statistical projections onto similar but larger populations.
EM21 members have the options of using both the statistical information and non-position oriented educational materials for those issues developed by Emanation along with the socially sustainably validated materials from I4HS Library to provide a rational argument in the public dialogue for movement toward social stability and social sustainability.
EM21 options for networking. As with social media, subscribers of EM21 can network with others who are interested in the same public issues. Those networks could then form into blocs of public opinion that are measurable by EMANATION. Obviously, subscribers within those blocs can link to the I4HS Library to discover validated designs, moral validations, and suggestions for policy analysis and policy formulation concerning those issues. If no designs are available, EM21 subscribers could contact Social Sustainability Teams through the Team Internet System (TIS) to develop socially sustainable designs or moral validations concerning those public issues.
Relationship Between Emanation And I4HS —
Both organizations offer the public a source of interested but unaffiliated facilitation within the context of social evolution, social progress; and, offer non-positioned, validated social options for the resolution of those issues; and, unbiased educational information that discusses various perspectives on those issues.
The interaction of both systems results in a societal Type II learning system. Combined, they provide constructive input to users and public executives, with ongoing measurable public sentiment. The desired outcome is that greater wisdom is accumulated to make wiser decisions, knowing what supports successes while being fully aware of what causes policy failures.
EMANATION will use many of the resources of the I4HS Library as the activities of I4HS and EMANATION will almost always involve three topic areas: social-societal, governmental-political, and financial-economic. The Library’s research teams will be primarily interested in these three areas for historic and contemporary materials that contribute to social sustainability to those areas; as well as validated findings from hundreds of local community social sustainability design teams.
I4HS, through its Library and Training programs, provides Emanation with 1) a base of wisdom from historic sources and contemporary social research sources for the development of unbiased, non-partisan information and data to develop unbiased, non-judgmental, and non-partisan articles about contemporary public issues. 2) I4HS provides a training function to local community design teams that choose to initiate work on developing socially sustainable designs as solutions to those public issues.
I4HS and Emanation Combined. The Institute empowers and enables local citizens in hundreds of local Social Sustainability Teams to design socially sustainable social processes, organizations, and social policies, while EM21 facilitates public discussion of those public issues.
Answering “What works?” then becomes a bottom-up political and social process of moving communities and whole national societies toward social sustainability. “What works?” can only be answered by hundreds, thousands, of local Design Teams in democratic nations using the ageless values of social sustainability that have supported the sustainability of our species for tens of thousands of years, and that have empowered us to thrive as a species. These values support ongoing social stability and also create social and cultural evolution leading to social sustainability. “What works?” becomes very visible within a maturing democracy when democratic processes and democratic institutions are designed to become sustainable social institutions.