The desire to achieve complexity will have limited value as long as it held by separate individuals, each nurturing it in the privacy of his or her own consciousness. It must be shared to become effective. Only a community of individuals sharing similar convictions can generate the feedback that confirms each individual’s private belief. Sine ecclesia, went the old saying, nulla religio. Or, “There can be no religion without a church”. But this is not just true of religion. Science could not survive without a community sharing scientific values. Moral systems do not continue unless individuals subscribe to a common set of ethics. Values are so ephemeral that they require the joint psychic input of a group to retain their hold on each person’s attention. They may be created by individuals, but they must be maintained by a collectivity. 

For this reason, we will need to develop a community that shares a belief in the evolution of complexity-something on the order of a Fellowship of the Future, a group of kindred spirits dedicated to supporting trends that move in the direction of greater harmony and greater individuation, and to opposing the encroachments of chaos as well as conformity. Political parties are based on values developed hundreds of years ago, when the systemic interdependence of the planet and its resources was not yet understood. Religions express the wisdom of previous centuries. Special-interest groups often focus on important but isolated issues. To face the third millennium with confidence we must join together in a community of shared belief about the future. 

Another Toynbee, the British historian who wrote extensively about the rise and fall of the great civilizations, believed that a vital culture is always the product of a “creative minority”. For instance, if people around the world respected the United States of America it is not because of its wealth, not even its advanced technology, but because of the conception of a free and humane representative government hammered out by a few white European males (now dead) in earnest dialogue with one another over the course of many years, more than two centuries ago. Similarly, the glory of Renaissance Florence was not a product of the masses, but the conscious achievement of a few dozen merchant banking families bent on developing an international financial network and on making their city the most beautiful in the land. When we speak of Pharaonic Egypt, Han China, Athens, Rome, or nineteenth century Paris, what we are referring to are unique human systems shaped by relatively small minorities with unusual skills and individual visions. 

To point this out nowadays would seem elitist. But creative minorities do sometimes arise from the least advantaged strata of the population; their achievement is due, at least initially, to personal commitment and merit rather than to inherited status or economic advantage. For instance, the disciples and apostles responsible for the spread of Christianity were fishermen, tax collectors, and other insignificant members of a backward province of the Roman Empire. Science is definitively an elitist domain; a small creative minority sets the agenda and determines priorities. So are the arts. Yet both science and the arts tend to be meritocracies, where the most able individuals emerge and prosper. To oppose “elitist” interpretations of history is tantamount to trying to deny individual differences among people; it may be a politically correct attitude at certain times, but it does not support the facts very well. 

Also, to recognize that it is small groups who give history its peculiar texture does not mean endorsing this fact in every case. Individual leaders like Napoleon, small elite groups like the Bolshevik cadres in Russia arise out of and contribute to the differentiation of social systems. Unless they also achieve social integration in the process, however, their efforts do not lead to greater complexity; in fact, they can be very destructive. Societal integration---the great religious unification of early Christianity, the tide of Islamic conversions, the nationalist movements of the last century---are by definition mass phenomena, bringing together people from all walks of life. Yet here, too, such movements begin with visionary individuals and small groups: the Buddha and his disciples, Christ and the twelve apostles, Cavour, Kossuth, and Bismarck. 

I do not intend to debate here whether creative minorities are autonomous agents of social transformation or simply the tools of much larger historical forces. The fact is that, one way or another, they are necessary to spark new ideas, and to nurture new institutions into being. The question is, how can they do so today? There is no recipe for establishing a nucleus of social change, but there are many models to draw from, ranging from the alter ative lifestyle communes popular a few decades ago, to special-interest groups like the Sierra Club. They all involve individuals who grow tired of the same routines, who are dissatisfied with the status quo, and who then get together with a few like-minded people and try a number of solutions until one works out. More often than not the attempt fails, but generally those who have committed themselves to an ideal of change do not regret their efforts even when they do not succeed. 

A simple example concerning education, and one with which I am personally acquainted, is the creation of key School in Indianapolis, Indiana. This K-7 public school was founded by eight teachers who had been working in Indianapolis schools for many years, and who saw many more dull and drab years stretching ahead of them if they remained at their jobs. They were all dedicated to teaching children, but they felt that the constraints of the system made it increasingly difficult for them to do their work with enthusiasm and conviction. 

Instead of resigning themselves to “reality”, transferring out to private schools or to the more affluent suburbs, these eight teachers decided to start a radical reform project. As a first step, they agreed to bring themselves up to date on the most recent thinking on educational innovation. For over a year, each teacher spent much of her free time reading, and then presented what she had learned to her colleagues in formal evening workshops they organized at one another’s homes. As a result of this preparation, the group decided to use Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences---that education should deal not only with words and numbers, but also with sounds, colors, movement, and feelings---as a basis for their intended school reform. 

Once the overall conceptual direction was agreed upon, the group visited as many already existing innovative schools as the funds allowed. They applied and got grants for traveling, and different teachers went to different schools around the country learning about their goals and methodologies. The information thus gathered by individual members was again shared with the group as a whole. The next phase consisted in drawing up a plan for a school that would function within the public school system, but that would be much freer---yet at the same time more unified---than schools usually are. In addition, the school was willing to accept every child who applied, provided the parents were ready to make some small sacrifices of time and comfort in order to facilitate the child’s attendance. 

Finally the group had to convince the schools’ superintendent and the educational bureaucracy of the soundness of their plans. After many discussions and some painful compromises the teachers were given the go-ahead by the authorities. The superintendent, who, despite many practical difficulties, had been supportive of the initiative all along, found an old building, had it renovated, and the teachers of the new Key School were in business. 

Each teacher invested many years of voluntary work in the planning and execution of the Key School. They felt somewhat guilty about diverting so much time away from their families to make this educational dream come true. They explained to their families that the sacrifice was worth the future gain that would come when the children themselves would be able to attend the ideal school their mothers were designing. 

The entire enterprise almost collapsed when, before opening day, so many prospective students had applied that the district authorities insisted a lottery should be used for admission, and no exceptions made---and then it turned out that none of the eight teachers’ own children were selected by the draft. Imagine working for nearly four years on a plan that would benefit education and your own family, and then finding out that your children were to be excluded from the advantages you spent so much effort fighting for. Despite this disappointment the teachers persevered, and the new school has been a great success. Visitors are constantly impressed by the air of joyful, purposeful activity in hallways and classrooms. One rarely sees bored child or a listless adult anywhere; teachers and pupils are involved together in an exciting learning adventure. 

The Key School, a small project, is not perfect, and it is possible that it may fold at any time. Nevertheless, even this modest success story shows that it is possible to change the system if a few individuals get together resolved to make a difference. And fortunately there are many other schools, businesses, and enterprises that, like the Key School, are determined to make things better than they are now. The best hope for the future is not in huge government programs, in presidential promises, and complicated bureaucracies. Of course, we need federal resources to implement large-scale programs such as Head Start or initiative zones in the inner cities. But it is from the grass roots, where enthusiasm and commitment are strongest, that new solutions are likely to emerge. 

The problem with individual initiatives like the Key School is that they tend to be fragmented and specialized, and they rarely attain enough momentum to have an effect beyond the immediate range of individuals who participate in them. So how can the energy and imagination of people like you and me be harnessed more effectively to direct the course of evolution? It seems that two goals must be accomplished above all else. First, we need to find ways of organizing interested individuals into functional groups. This will allow creative minorities to gather the necessary information and skills to make change possible, and then to organize themselves into effective political forces. And second, we need common goals and values to focus the energy thus generated into the direction of increasing complexity.