Reflections on the System

Reflections on the System
Wade Lee Hudson

Human beings are torn between the impulse to cooperate and the impulse to dominate. Cooperation is deeper, stronger, and more primal, but society inflames the instinct to dominate. It distorts superficial differences, establishes power hierarchies throughout society, and inculcates assumptions of essential superiority and inferiority — beliefs that become central to personal and collective identity.

Problems

Individuals reinforce the System with their daily actions, like when they pay a sales tax, buy a cheap product made under oppressive conditions, have judgmental gut reactions to others, assume moral superiority, disrespect and fail to understand particular groups, accept unearned advantages over others, want to gain more advantages even though others will suffer as a result, scapegoat one individual or a group of individuals by blaming them for our problems, forget that if we the people united we could fix many of our most pressing problems, or become most concerned about “what’s in it for me and my family?” In these and other ways, people collaborate with and reinforce the System.

Everyone shares responsibility and is part of the problem. No one is innocent and everyone is a victim. When people assume an essential superiority, in contrast to a particular difference, they reinforce the System.

Our primary problem is not any one individual or any one group. Factions compete for primacy and supplant one another or shift the balance of power from time to time, as actions cause reactions and policies breed blowback. The players change but the game remains the same. Our primary problem is the System, which inflames the desire to dominate.

Racism is an example of systemic domination. Another example is when people blame individuals, groups, or nations for their distress, rather than target the underlying social system. Yet another is when they make harsh judgments about people who disagree with them and divide into ideological tribes. The personal desire to dominate is reproduced in social and political structures that inflame this desire. This divisiveness undermines the potential for national unity, which is necessary for sustained transformation. 

Elitist, authoritarian collectivism maximizes security while undermining individual achievement, creativity, and self-determination, as has happened in Communist regimes. Elitist, hyper-competitive, selfish individualism produces great insecurity while undermining compassion and community, as has happened in America, where the System has promoted fear, hate, domination, and submission. 

Intersecting top-down hierarchies permeate society. Human worth is ranked based on skin color, gender, income, occupation, degree of schooling, physical appearance, able-bodiedness, age, accent, country of origin, and other factors. Some of these criteria are inherited and others can be gained or lost.

Individual identity is multiple, not monolithic. As powerful as race is in America, economic factors are also powerful. In the 2016 presidential election, for example, most whites with a college education or higher, who are relatively secure economically, voted against Donald Trump. On the other hand, Trump appealed to other whites by provoking race-based fears. And at various times and places in American history, class solidarity has prevailed over racial divisions.

Solutions

The crises we face call for a new, massive, united grassroots movement. The frame suggested here is a “holistic democracy movement” that addresses the whole person, the whole society, and the underlying social system, transcends oppressive domination, establishes new democratic social structures, and promotes cooperation rooted in a profound respect for everyone’s essential equality.

Neither the personal, social, cultural, economic, environmental, nor political are more important or comes first. Holistic, systemic transformation must be both inside/out and outside/in, simultaneously.

So long as the economy is win-lose, so long as your success is based on others’ failure, efforts to transform society with personal growth alone will fail. The threat of deprivation will divide the population. Establishing economic security for all is essential.

So long as power is top-down, to protect human and civil rights and establish more political democracy, it will be necessary to mobilize enough power to change laws, while staying open to possible reconciliation later. Merely trying to change hearts and minds, though important, is not sufficient.

We can set aside the notion that one person must always be in charge. Rather, we can establish new democratic hierarchies that empower people to hold accountable their managers, supervisors, and executives.

Catastrophes awaken humanity’s higher angels and inspire people to engage in acts of compassion. These crises often expose systemic injustice and lead many concerned individuals to seek justice with fundamental reforms. But once the crisis passes, old habits often return, divisions deepen, and structures —how society organizes itself — remain unchanged. 

The mutual support that nurtures widespread, profound recognition of individual responsibility for social conditions can help crystallize a lasting society-wide commitment to justice — as demonstrated by Germany, Rwanda, and South Africa. Recent progress concerning drunk driving, domestic violence, and sexual harassment indicates major change is possible.

Some Scandanavian countries have balanced the tension between cooperation and domination rather well, though imperfectly. By improving on their examples, industrialized societies can be further democratized and humanized. Humanity can provide comprehensive security for all, and compassionate communities can nurture co-equal partnerships and self-empowerment.

Widespread personal growth is not adequate. As Magee insists, personal and interpersonal problems like racism call us to “collectively organize structural change…. We cannot have racial justice in a society in which...other forms of social injustice reign.” We must change oppressive personal habits and at the same time change public policies and restructure institutions.

These mutually reinforcing efforts can produce a synergy that’s greater than any one effort alone. A proactive, solution-oriented focus on winnable goals offers an alternative to reactive, problem-oriented scapegoating—and offers more opportunity for helping to sustain compassionate movements over the long haul. 

Then we can better act without being motivated by the desire to hurt, exploit, or control others, or disrespect them. This commitment requires affirming human dignity and establishing real democracy throughout society, including at home. Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza reported at an Aspen Institute forum about a woman who told her, “I don't control the channel changer in my house,” which prompted Garza to comment, “I've got to change conditions in my house.”

Understanding the drive to dominate will make it easier to undo racism, value all Black people as equal human beings, value all people as equal human beings, and establish the Beloved Community rooted in a decent, meaningful life for all, filled with co-equal partnerships and comprehensive security.

This security can include the negative freedom from the threats of poverty, institutional oppression, and interpersonal oppression, and the positive freedom to be all we can be without oppressing and disrespecting others. Establishing democratic equality, with special attention to the empowerment of disadvantaged people, will lead the way to solving many social ills.

Unless we learn to value everyone’s essential equality, if and when systemic racism is eliminated, society will find some other scapegoat. Or perhaps Blacks will become equally able to rise up through the ranks of elitism and become equal-opportunity exploiters of those who are less powerful.

Garcia urges humanity “to evolve to a higher level of maturity.” To achieve this goal, he declares “humanity must overcome our deep insecurities” and learn “how to apply knowledge sustainably, to know themselves….” He also argues: “Reflection and courage, not fear, blame, consumption, and circus, will point humanity again towards the essential dimensions of human dignity, human agency, and a more mature global culture to better manage those systems…. We need to reincorporate into our worldview the biological sphere—the human, the living, the environment….[and nurture] increased trust and respect among and within nations while enacting greater oversight…. Globalization is calling people to adopt a new paradigm… a revolution in the mind’s and the heart’s eye in which every human being is responsible and is allowed to create and contribute to progress…. Diverse cultures pursuing a common set of ideals...will inspire wonder,… [affirm] human dignity and ‘decent respect for the opinions of mankind’...[and] make life worthwhile, rather than focusing on metrics such as GDP. “

In The Spiritual Activist: Practices to Transform Your Life, Your Work, and Your World, Claudia Horwitz declares: “As we develop spiritual and reflective practices within the context of our personal lives and the pursuit of social change, we create a more solid and secure foundation for a new world…. It takes courage to face the world with compassionate attention, to be candid about the injustices we understand, and to probe those we do not. We try, stumble, and try again. Consciousness is a daily walk.”

Speaking to both political and spiritual communities, adrienne maree brown, in Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, argues: “If the goal was to increase the love, rather than winning or dominating a constant opponent, I think we could actually imagine liberation from constant oppression.”

In his “The Human Crisis” lecture, Camus said: “People can only really live if they believe they have something in common, something that brings them together…. To maintain this communication, men [need] to be free, since a master and a slave have nothing in common….  Put politics back in its true place, a secondary one. We need not furnish the world with a political or moral gospel or catechism. The great misfortune of our time is precisely that politics pretends to provide us with a catechism, with a complete philosophy, and sometimes even with rules for loving. But the role of politics is to keep things in order, and not to regulate our inner problems…. All other efforts, however admirable, that rely on power and domination can only mutilate men and women more grievously.… If the features of this crisis are the will to power, terror, the replacement of real man by political and historical man, the reign of abstraction and fatality, and solitude without a future, then these are the features we have to change to resolve this crisis.”

This holistic perspective involves respecting nature. Attempts to dominate the ecosphere are as doomed to failure in the long run as are attempts to dominate humans. The more humans objectify and exploit the environment, the more Mother Nature will return the favor. If humans do not operate in harmony with both their own fundamental, cooperative nature and the natural order of the universe, which seeks ever-increasing harmonious complexity, this disharmony proves destructive. Holistic transformation rooted in cooperation and harmony produces positive feedback loops to everyone’s benefit. Humility is called for in every arena.

With widespread agreement about what is fair and sustainable, the social reconstruction of reality is possible. Ordinary individuals can start where they are, make their relationships more cooperative, and unite with others to reshape the human condition — with humility, always remembering that every effort is an experiment that requires asking questions constantly. Then we can make history and transform the System.

NOTE

“Most white Americans avoid neighborhoods that are more than 30 percent Black or Hispanic” — Voters Seem to Think Biden Is the ‘Law and Order’ Candidate, Thomas B. Edsall