Reflections on Social Dynamics

By Wade Lee Hudson

Powerful forces have been reducing human beings to disposable tools. People compete ever more fiercely in an unpredictable world. “Rugged individuals” deny their dependence on others. Driven by economic insecurities and resentments, these forces threaten to tear the world apart. Today’s America has become increasingly shallow, selfish, dehumanized, and impersonal.

Co-equal relationships are not the norm. Authority figures — both recognized and self-appointed — parent, teach, boss, supervise, instruct, direct, lead, train, coach, dominate, co-opt, imprison, punish, coerce, persuade, help, approve, praise, defeat, control, condescend, demonize, scapegoat, manipulate, recruit, exploit, enslave, abuse, dehumanize, guide, patronize, infantilize, lecture, mansplain, and heal. Most of these hierarchical relationships are more oppressive than they need be.

Americans often demonstrate kindness, but self-centeredness prevails. One or two individuals monopolize most group discussions. Conversations are typically a series of monologues, with people telling stories about the past, gossiping, or lecturing. Active listening, which includes asking followup questions, is rare. “Yes, the same thing happened to me” followed by the respondent’s own story about himself seems to be the most frequent form of empathy. College students today are about forty percent less empathetic than they were twenty or thirty years ago. Taller people are more likely to dominate. Talking loudly, interrupting, and talking longer and faster are signs of dominance. Nonverbal messages such as leaning forward, using gestures, and touching others physically also indicate dominance. Submissive people prefer to interact with dominant people, and dominant people prefer to interact with submissive people. When a male-female couple is asked a question, the male usually answers.

These patterns affect us at our core and shape our identity. We constantly score ourselves on some scale and compare ourselves to others. We generally don’t treat others as individuals who are equal in the eyes of God. We assume someone must be King of the Hill. As Stanley declared in A Streetcar Named Desire, husbands have believed “I am the King around here, so don’t forget it!” The title of the 1950s sitcom “Father Knows Best” has been a common message.

Though these beliefs are weakening, they persist. The New York Times reports: “The sociologists Joanna Pepin and David Cotter find that the proportion of young people holding egalitarian views about gender relationships rose steadily from 1977 to the mid-1990s but has fallen since. In 1994, only 42 percent of high school seniors agreed that the best family was one where the man was the main income earner and the woman took care of the home. But in 2014, 58 percent of seniors said they preferred that arrangement.”[

Climbing a ladder of success is the focus of life for most Americans. When meeting someone new, one of the first questions usually asked is: “What work do you do?” The answer influences how people react — whether they feel equal, superior, or inferior. Holding or not holding a college degree is particularly important.

The American Dream promises that hard work will lead to upward mobility, prosperity, and social status. Faith in the Dream fosters the belief that those who don't succeed are deficient in some fundamental way. Lack of success indicates moral failure. Those higher up look down on those below and are domineering when they interact with them. And those lower down tend to admire or worship those higher up — unless they’re resentful and rebel.

Children, students, and workers traditionally submit to parents, teachers, and bosses in order to gain approval or success. These dominant-submissive relationships are often rational. They may be necessary to keep a job. When decisions must be made quickly, someone must have the authority to make it. And one recent study found that most marriages included a dominant partner (24% of whom were women) and concluded that such arrangements are a practical way to minimize time-consuming conflict. Power differences are often understandable.

But when dominate-or-submit in one arena becomes a habit that carries over into other arenas it can be problematic, as reflected in the title of a large conference convened by the Esalen Institute in the 1970s: “Spiritual and Therapeutic Tyranny: The Willingness to Submit.” The dominate-or-submit habit leads to assumptions that someone must always be in charge. Leaders set the vision for organizations and define what can be discussed. Leadership is defined as the ability to mobilize followers. The traditional definition of leadership assumes that leaders are those who can mobilize followers to do what the leader wants to do. These leaders, and those who want to become leaders, assume they have the answer. They don’t really respect those who hold different opinions. “Most leaders die with their mouths open,” said Ronald Heifetz.

Overall, at school, work, and home, Americans generally either dominate or submit more than they engage in equal relationships. Most people spend most of their time in dominant-submissive relationships, which becomes a habit. Egalitarian relationships can be difficult to sustain even when it’s desired by all participants.

These habits are also reflected in how people treat members of other groups. Messages from early childhood produce subconscious biases that favor ingroups and discriminate against outgroups. As a result, lighter-skinned people of color are treated differently than those who are darker-skinned. Coastal elites are condescending toward “flyover country” and rural residents blame “city slickers” for their problems. To protect their job or advance their career, women have submitted to sexual harassment. With their paternalism, social service organizations disempower clients. People who hold the power to punish, such as police, prison guards, and military personnel, often abuse their power, especially if it conforms to expectations from above. America assumes it must “lead” the world. Schools are becoming more authoritarian. And our politics are becoming more judgmental.

The rhetoric of meritocracy — the claim that individuals are rewarded based on ability — is used to justify these patterns. But wealth, status, and power are largely inherited. Families pass on their advantages to their children. Most adults are roughly in the same socioeconomic class as their parents. This social inheritance of wealth and power has replaced biological inheritance.

The System has seduced almost everyone into this pursuit of upward mobility. Even non-materialistic social workers and political activists engage in ego-driven power games. The personal identities of individuals depend on their social rank. Mutual respect among collaborators who treat each other as equals takes a back seat to gaining status and power.

The System rationalizes oppression by promoting individualism — the doctrine that the interests of the individual are most important. The mantra of the modern age is “What’s in it for me?” The ego is king. Even children become extensions of their parents’ ego, to be molded in their parents’ image.

Social Isolation

The result is growing isolation. One recent study asked participants to list the names of people with whom they had discussed "important matters" over the previous six months. About fifty percent listed only one name. The average number of such confidantes had decreased from three to two over the previous twenty-five years. The number of people who report feeling lonely has increased from twenty to forty percent since the 1980s. Almost half of all meals are eaten alone. The average American now spends less than four minutes a day — twenty-four hours a year — participating in organized social events. Social isolation greatly increases the odds for getting sick, suffering cognitive deficits, or dying prematurely. And as isolation undermines the habit of collaborating with neighbors to solve problems, the social environment creates “the natural habitat not just of heroin but of that next young killer now planning to roam a school corridor,” as Sam Quinones wrote.

This pattern is aggravated by mobile phones. The Internet helps people connect in certain ways, but it also encourages us to drift into silos. It takes more time to write a message than it does to read one, so people spend more time expressing themselves than listening. That pattern carries over into real life, where it nudges people to withdraw from others. They spend so much time looking at screens they lose the satisfaction of simultaneous shared experience and fail to develop the social skills needed to resolve conflict. Soulful, mutual dialogue is becoming rarer. People get stuck on a superficial level of self-awareness and self-interest.

Scapegoating

A common manifestation of individualism is scapegoating — in relationships, families, the workplace, and society at large. But the problem is the System — not any one individual or any one group. Scapegoating the 1% or any other group is a form of individualism. It reduces the group to a unit and blames it. Externalizing blame is a diversion, a simplification, a way to avoid dealing with complexity. In any system, causes are interwoven and influence one another. Scapegoating evades personal responsibility.

We can hold specific individuals accountable for specific actions. We might even punish them or put them in jail. But it’s wrong to exaggerate their responsibility, treat them cruelly, or dehumanize them. To do so neglects the importance of other factors, including our individual responsibility for helping to perpetuate the System. Everyone’s a pawn. Even top-level administrators are easily replaced.

When it’s fueled by anger, scapegoating leads to demonizing. Opponents become enemies. Judgments become judgmental. We project onto others weaknesses we hold within ourselves but fail to face. Rather than acknowledge our own responsibility, we criticize others harshly and place excessive blame on their shoulders.

The scapegoat becomes a devil we must defeat by any means necessary. Winning becomes everything. The end justifies the means. An enemy of our enemy is a friend. We divide the world into good guys and bad guys. We fail to be the change we seek.  

People who are frustrated take out their anger on handy punching bags, inflame threats, and amplify fears. Political activists are prone to blame the President, the other political party, Wall Street, “liberal elites,” “irredeemable deplorables,” “Washington,” or other handy targets.

These judgmental attacks reinforce the System. They neglect the social context, overlook the fact that everyone is a victim, and exaggerate the responsibility of individuals. Scapegoating diverts energy from the pursuit of meaningful structural reforms and undermines the unity needed for positive, proactive change. Crushing individuals will not transform the System.

The System exaggerates “winning” and encourages everyone to constantly climb social ladders, assume moral (or spiritual) superiority, and dominate those below when they can and submit when they cannot. The desire to dominate — be the leader, be top-dog, be superior — becomes society’s driving force.

Class

The California Gold Rush in 1849 and the introduction of mass advertising to pay for newspapers in the mid-19th century inflamed the passion for upward mobility. First published in 1913, for decades the comic strip “Keeping Up with the Joneses” popularized the importance of accumulating material goods as a benchmark for superiority and inferiority relative to others. The strip’s title summed up the spirit of the new American Dream. The Christian Church preached the Prosperity Gospel to rationalize this materialism.

In Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class, Barbara Ehrenreich defines the middle class “as all those people whose economic and social status is based on education” and identifies their common characteristics:
1) They must work for a living. 2) Their professional and managerial occupations are like Middle Age guilds — ”they are open, for the most part, only to people who have completed a lengthy education and attained certain credentials.” 3) They earn upper-middle incomes. 4) They use “consumption to establish [their] status, especially relative to the working class” — based on a particular ”lifestyle and tastes.” 

Ehrenreich analyzes the arrogance of the middle class with precision. She places middle-class “self-consciousness as an elite” at the heart of this dynamic. Commodities indicate status, telling us “who is worth knowing and who may be safely neglected,” or who should be considered equal, fellow citizens.  “And even when they are in our presence, we tend to screen out the ‘unimportant’ people: busboys, messengers, nurse’s aides, ticket agents, secretaries.”

Even during our time of mass communication, “a kind of language barrier divides the classes. From the vantage point of the professional middle class, those ‘below’ do not speak clearly, or intelligibly, or interestingly…. Since ordinary speech does not aspire to universality and does not hide the speaker in a gauze of impersonal rhetoric, it is easily dismissed as limited and ‘anecdotal.’” 

These assumptions of superiority are built on a shaky foundation. Ehrenreich reports that the middle class is not only afraid of a downward economic slide but also has “a fear of inner weakness, of growing soft, of failing to strive, of losing discipline and will…[and] falling into hedonism and self-indulgence.” They constantly have to prove themselves — to others and to themselves.

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg addresses how the American Dream has been based on assumptions of moral superiority. She writes, “Rationalizing economic inequality has been an unconscious part of the national credo; poverty has been naturalized, often seen as something beyond human control…. The poor were not only described as waste, but as inferior animal stocks too.”

Isenberg traces how the American class system, which is “directed by the top one percent and supported by a contented middle class,” is rooted in British notions. The national identity has been based on these beliefs about the supposedly “stagnant, expendable bottom layers of society.” This history is alive. “Even now,” Isenberg writes, “the notion of a broad and supple middle class functions as a mighty balm, a smoke screen. We cling to the comfort of the middle class, forgetting that there can’t be a middle class without a lower.” This class stratification is justified with claims that the poor are either genetically inferior or hopelessly ill-bred.

Negative judgments toward those considered inferior are often expressed with violent language — such as the N-word and “Go get a job, bum” — or violent behavior, as with domestic violence or corporeal punishment. Violent language is hurled at others with name-calling, judgmental labels, and scapegoating. This pattern operates in families, workplaces, community organizations, interpersonal relationships, and throughout society. This verbal violence often provokes a violent response, resulting in a downward spiral. As physical violence breeds physical violence, violent language breeds violent language.

Robert W. Fuller coined the term “ranksim” to describe the rationale that has been used to justify various forms of social domination. He writes, “Rankism is an assertion of superiority. It typically takes the form of putting others down. It’s what ‘Somebodies’ do to ‘nobodies. Or, more precisely, it is what people who think they’re Somebodies do to people they take for nobodies.”

Examples he cites include racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, classism, homophobia, ableism, colonialism, bullying, sexual harassment, and child abuse. Fuller says the purpose of rankism is to “handicap or eliminate the competition, [so] we improve our chances of coming away with the spoils.” With rankism, we “institutionalize and normalize predation.... Fixing the game is the real reason for rankism.” 

As divisions based on income and status become more blatant and rigid, tensions intensify. Voting patterns differ dramatically according to whether or not people have college degrees. Many of the “elite” who have degrees look down on those who don’t, and those who don’t have a degree feel humiliated and resentful — so they form alliances with politicians who attack and are attacked by the elites. “An enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The intensity of this conflict leads to irrational thinking on all sides.

But meritocracy’s traditional, exaggerated emphasis on cutthroat upward mobility is producing blowback — unintended negative consequences that undermine its credibility. As schools “teach to the test” and middle-class parents invest in extra-curricular activities to prep their children to get into better schools, there’s a surplus of well-schooled students applying for a limited number of slots. Then those who graduate with impressive credentials compete for a limited number of good jobs in urban areas that have rapidly increasing living costs. Moreover, their lives often lack meaning and they have little or no rewarding sense of community.

The Solution

When I asked Rhonda Magee about the price we must pay to trust each other as James Baldwin envisioned, and asked if it involves dissolving our identity as a “superior” person who should dominate, she commented, “Yes. So true. I think another trap is thinking that all of the work is personal, to be seen through an individualism lens. Our fears are shaped in part by environments in which we live, by systemic vulnerabilities that reinforce separation and the sense of needing to live in a defended way. This kind of vulnerability is easier to write about that to live. Being in connected community helps, but so often these are grounded in identity.... Hence the enormity of the challenges we face.”

Interpersonal and intergroup domination is slowly fading. With many people, the defensiveness Magee references is decreasing and the ability and willingness to be vulnerable is increasing. Many families are more egalitarian. The movement against sexual harassment is encouraging women to be less submissive. Men are learning to be less domineering. Many businesses are more horizontal. And racism, sexism, homophobia and other forms of oppression may be slowly diminishing.

Heart-to-Heart Dialog

One key to advancing this transformation is heart-to-heart communication. Located between the gut and the brain, the heart integrates emotions and thoughts. Communiating from the heart is respectful, mutual, open, and honest. When you fail to speak and listen from the heart, you diminish yourself and impede others.

Martin Buber’s influential 1923 masterpiece I and Thou challenged contemporary dehumanization. With society’s “I-It” attitude, Buber wrote, relationships ”can never be spoken with the whole being…. I perceive something. I am sensible of something. I imagine something. I will something. I feel something. I think something…. This and the like together establish the realm of It.” Other human beings “becomes an object among objects.”

In contrast, Buber’s “I-Thou” relationship involves spontaneous, honest, compassionate, equal, mutual dialogue that engages one’s “whole being,” during which each party is completely present, without reserve, and cares for the other unconditionally — communicating spontaneously from the heart. Buber affirms, “If I face a human being as my Thou, and say the primary word I-Thou to him, he is not a thing among things, and does not consist of things.” I-Thou relationships are characterized by dialogue and “total presentness,” with each participant being fully concerned for the other person. For Buber this “genuine contemplation” unlocks itself “in the mystery of mutual action.”

Simone Weil proposed a similar mode of self-transcendence. In her review of Sigrid Nunez’s novel What Are You Going Through, Merve Emre says the book is inspired by Weil’s “doctrine of attention.” She writes, “Each conversation the narrator has is an exercise in attention: an occasion for her to shed her sense of self and to wait to receive the being she is looking at, just as she is, in all her truth..” She then quotes Weil: “The capacity to give one’s attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing. The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him: ‘What are you going through?’ It is a recognition that the sufferer exists, not only as a unit in a collection, or a specimen from the social category labeled ‘unfortunate,’ but as a man, exactly like us, who was one day stamped with a special mark by affliction.”

In a similar vein, Yielbonzie Charles Johnson recommends communities whose members, without fear, practice “intimate direct action [rooted in] a genuine life…[and] uncircumscribed engagement in the world,”

This mutual support is both a means and an end. Peer learning and peer support are innate tendencies — potent, important aspects of collaborative problem-solving that are at the heart of holistic democracy. As anthropologists have observed, highly egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies allow their children to learn mainly from each other, This practice fosters independence, collaboration, and flexibility.

In a similar vein, some modern educators have been Inspired by Jean Piaget’s warning, “When you teach a child something, you take away forever his chance of discovering it for himself.” These educators enable children to spend ample time in multi-age peer groups without adult supervision or instruction. In these groups, they experiment with activities just beyond their skill level and learn from their peers by observing and receiving timely tips. The same lessons apply to adults. Learning is lifelong.

Life’s most important lessons are learned by interacting with peers who are trusted due to their similar shared experience. The power of example is a great teacher.

Though some knowledge is best imparted by experts and memorized, schools can help students learn to think for themselves. Media literacy programs, for instance, can teach how to identify false stories and which sources to trust. However, drawing on the work of Jan Jankowicz, Joshua Yaffa recommends that the best way to detect lies and disinformation in the public sphere “lies in crafting a society and a politics that are more responsive, credible, and just. Achieving that goal might require listening to those who are susceptible to disinformation, rather than mocking them and writing them off.”

When you encounter someone with a perspective that is dramatically different than yours, you can actively listen with great care, look for a “kernel of truth” with which you agree, and acknowledge that agreement — rather than immediately argue and try to persuade them on points of disagreement. Eventually, the other will likely ask you what you think, at which point you can try to articulate new points of possible agreement. Even if no agreement is found, at least the other may feel they’ve been listened to respectfully, which may lead them to reflect on your opinions later. And by listening carefully, you may learn something yourself.

Therapists, trainers, spiritual leaders, and community organizers can also use collaborative problem-solving to identify agreed on problems, think together, and co-discover solutions. Relying too heavily on top-down instruction, however, reinforces the System and its hierarchical assumption that essentially superior people are qualified to “teach” submissive students.

Power With

Like rebellious teenagers, radical libertarians claim individuals should always be free to do what they want so long as they don’t violate others’ liberty. This claim is based on the assumption that humans are primarily selfish. But cutthroat upward mobility suppresses humanity’s deepest nature, compassion.

Moreover, no individual is completely independent. Every individual is dependent on others for many of the benefits they receive. Families, communities, and societies must frequently constrain individual liberty for many legitimate reasons. Progressive taxation, for instance, is justified because it enables governments to promote the general welfare, which benefits everyone.

When humans peel away their masks and get to their core, they see their common humanity and seek to strengthen both self- and community empowerment. They realize that the more others thrive, the more they thrive. And they acknowledge a moral responsibility to value everyone’s essential equality and assure everyone the means to a dignified life — with both private- and public-sector support.  

Society can integrate the instinct to dominate and the instinct to cooperate by developing power-with rather than power-over. Power-with relies on order. Jazz musicians improvise within a structure. Activists channel outrage productively with a focus. Worker-owned cooperatives operate with democratic hierarchies. Individuals improve their lives without cheating, gloating, or exaggerating the value of their skills or forgetting their good fortune. Sports teams compete while remembering that how you play is most important. 

Nonviolent Communication

Howard Thurman wrote: “Anyone who permits another to determine the quality of his inner life gives into the hands of the other the key to his destiny. If a man knows precisely what he can do to you or what epithet he can hurl against you in order to make you lose your temper, your equilibrium, then he can always keep you under subjection.”

In the March 1862 The Christian Recorder, a publication of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, published the adage, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me.” This aphorism does not aim to avoid hurt feelings. It merely aims to avoid allowing words to break the target. 

At times, violent, judgmental words wash over you like water. At other times, they get under your skin, in which case you can acknowledge your feelings and still avoid responding in kind. You can try to honestly consider the merit of criticisms directed at you and if you see mistakes, resolve to avoid them in the future. You can work on yourself so violent words don’t break you. And when you respond, you can humbly do so with nonviolent language. 

Nonviolence as a way of life is critical. Nonviolence declines to reinforce cycles of violence. One nonviolent alternative is for targets of violent language to say, “When you said that, I felt….” and then articulate your feelings — rather than hurling labels at the speaker. This approach is specific, not generalized. 

Saying “you hurt my feelings” places total blame on the other, but “I felt hurt” leaves the door open for accepting some personal responsibility for your reaction. No one has complete control over their feelings, however, so sensitivity is called for in order to minimize hurt feelings. Nevertheless, individuals can work to minimize their vulnerability.

What matters most is behavior. When you bully someone, interfere with their liberty, or throw violent language at them, intervention is justified to stop your behavior. If you oppose taxation, society has the right to tax you anyway.

However, when others declare a belief, you can evaluate the truth of the statement without treating the other as an enemy or arguing about the speaker’s moral character. Criminals and others who commit immoral acts are human. They too are victims and worthy of our love. This approach is rooted in a humility that cautions against assuming you have all the answers or the right to call the shots. 

Trying to convert people with confrontation generally backfires. Even the use of words like “should” and “need” often provokes a reaction that moves people away from the affirmation. One alternative is to simply talk about your own sense of obligation. Another is to envision what “can” happen.

Undoing Racism

Hurtful language often affects race relations, a major social problem that needs to be fully addressed. In The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness, Rhonda V. Magee reports, “I often notice a lingering feeling that I might be in danger—that I could, at any time, be discounted, rejected, disrespected, injured, or even killed for no reason other than my perceived ‘blackness.’” Even if there’s no intent to hurt, these microaggressions can be hurtful.

Magee recommends developing the ability to respond with compassion. “The notion of ‘calling out’ microaggressions, for example, has given way to the idea of ‘calling in’ the offender into conversation about the harm that is being done, and to put it even more gently, as Canada-based therapist Tada Hozumi says, ‘calling to’ — calling ourselves to attention to such experiences, in a way that can promote healing. Rather than creating a sense of humiliation, we reach for understanding…. We seek to create spaces for acknowledgement and accountability, for learning and growing together that include mutual humility and compassion.” With this approach, Magee believes meditation and mindfulness offer tools “to confront injuries” and “let them go.” 

Most white people have gut reactions that reflect unconscious, or implicit, racial bias, and they have racist tendencies rooted in this bias, which can be reflected in unintentional discrimination, insensitive insults, or support for racist public policies. This bias can also lead white people to rationalize the unearned advantages they gain from being white and seek to preserve these advantages. 

How to undo or control this bias is the subject of considerable discussion, which often involves heated controversies. Daniel Bergner reports on research that has found that antiracism training “just may not work.” It may activate and reinforce stereotypes and provoke a backlash if white people feel they’re being coerced to conform. And “the messages of today’s antiracism training risk undermining the goal by depicting an overwhelmingly rigged society in which white people control nearly all the outcomes.” These results suggest the need for a careful approach to antiracism training.

In general, charging “you’re a racist” is justified only if the other acknowledges believing that a particular racial group is inherently inferior. Prospects for discussing the specific issue at hand are undermined by making these general accusations. Having racial bias, which is near universal, does not justify calling someone a racist.

However, if someone repeatedly, frequently targets a racial population with hostile, harsh, and inaccurate judgments, hurls slurs, and supports public policies that harm them, such actions contradict any verbal denial of a belief in innate inferiority. Calling that person a racist seems justified. Otherwise, alternative language such as “that belief reinforces racism” or “might unconscious bias be influencing your opinion on this matter?” can be more fruitful. 

Racism is a window into systemic domination. White people are not the problem. The problem is the System. Merely eliminating racial inequalities would not be sufficient. Having Black people equally represented on every rung of every social ladder — equal opportunity elitist domination — would be no solution. We need to address racism in a way that also addresses systemic domination.

Support Groups

In Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World, Tina Rosenberg reports that “from the affluent suburbs of Chicago to the impoverished shanties of rural India” peer support teams have helped smokers stop smoking, teens fight AIDS, worshippers deepen their faith, activists overthrow dictators, addicts overcome addictions, and students learn calculus.

Likewise, small circles of trusted allies could help one another undo society’s negative conditioning. Members could learn to become more compassionate, realize their potential more fully, avoid hate-filled scapegoating, stop being so mean to one another, and diminish discrimination. As they solidify these habits, they could spread them into the larger society.

To confess is at the heart of every religion. It’s the path to redemption, being reborn, becoming a new person — and essential to help organizations recognize mistakes and grow. Individuals can do a lot on their own — privately within their own minds — to promote self-development. But they can also support one another in this effort. Verbalizing to others helps people better understand their thoughts and feelings. And listening to others is often a learning experience. Inddividuals can accomplish more, and achieve deeper growth, by engaging in mutual support than they can acting alone.

Many historical examples illustrate the power of small, supportive groups. The disciples who followed Jesus were a group of twelve, and Christian house churches based on the “priesthood of all believers” have been potent for centuries. Many political organizations have used affinity groups, precinct-based teams, cells, neighborhood organizations, and other constellations. Book clubs, poker games, bowling leagues, gangs, various “posses,” and other such groups all provide informal support.

Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step programs have demonstrated the effectiveness of self-governing, self-perpetuating communities based on core principles and an easy-to-learn format that facilitates self-improvement without extensive training. In such programs, the willingness to openly, honestly admit mistakes is key to the healing process.

The True North Groups initiated in the corporate world by Bill George developed an open-ended approach. Rather than focus on a particular issue, such as substance abuse or Bible study, or training people on particular skills, those groups nurture deep intimacy by means of radical openness. Each participant can discuss anything.

Rather than focus on top-down training, support for personal transformation can rely on mutual, collaborative problem-solving — co-discovery and thinking together — that asks all participants: How can I be a better person, more compassionate, respectful, committed to relieving suffering, nonviolent in thought, word, and deed?

Political Activists

With that kind of open-ended approach, political activists committed to compassionate, systemic transformation could gather with other activists to support one another in their self-improvement. Activists, after all, are often as addicted to activism as twelve-step members are addicted to mind-altering substances. Activists could develop communities whose members set aside time to support one another — in an open, intimate manner — with both their efforts to become better human beings and their political efforts to help improve public policy.

Such teams could help political activists control counter-productive tendencies and become more effective. These social greenhouses could develop members’ ability to relate as equals — and strengthen their ability to help transform the world. And they could serve as examples that would inspire politically inactive people to become more active.

To the best of my knowledge, no such political community exists. Some organizations nurture both personal and political transformation informally —with natural, spontaneous mutual support. But as discussed above, intentional, explicit commitments and formal structures can nurture deeper growth and it seems there’s no organization that uses an easy-to-learn method for its members to set aside time to provide open-ended, intimate mutual support for self-improvement and political action.  Once such a method is established, a wide range of other groups could use it.

To maximize its effectiveness, any such project would need to avoid authoritarianism of the kind reflected in Chairman Mao’s reeducation program in China in the 1960s and social rehabilitation programs like Synanon in the Bay Area in the 1970s, which were based on vicious, judgmental “criticism-self-criticism.” One way to minimize authoritarianism is to borrow from the Harm Reduction model, which, instead of demanding total abstinence, asks individuals to define their own substance abuse goals. Another method is to have individuals simply report on their self-development efforts, with no “cross-talk” from others. Twelve-step programs take that approach.

In these ways, mutual support team members could help one another gradually loosen the System’s top-down conditioning and cultivate positive new habits to carry into the larger society. Bit by bit, they could liberate their inner hunter-gatherer, increase their self-knowledge, learn to relate as equals, and become more cooperative, peaceful, and playful. Undoing old habits often requires intentional effort. With dedication and the willingness to be vulnerable, all of us who seek a more compassionate society can move down that path.

A Network

Personal transformation is rarely a matter of sudden, total, irreversible conversion that happens in isolation. Rather, it’s a gradual, ongoing process. Individuals often fall back into old ways of operating. Two steps forward, one step back. Perfection, permanent salvation, and total enlightenment aren’t possible. But individuals can help each other do their best, knowing they’re “good enough” — and can be better. Pragmatic idealism is the wisest path.

Being open, honest, and vulnerable with close friends can be difficult. It’s easy to withdraw or focus on work, play, or superficial interactions. That reluctance may be especially true with political activists who are driven to reduce injustice. It seems to them there’s not a minute to waste and self-examination is self-indulgent navel gazing. But in the long run self-examination and mutual support can nurture self-improvement and enhance effectiveness. 

This approach could grow a network of mutual support teams whose members: endorse the same mission statement (such as the Holistic Democracy Declaration); commit themselves to become more compassionate individuals and more effective activists; report to one another about their efforts; meet occasionally with members from other teams in the network; and nurture a spirit of community within and between teams.

The monthly reports, which could be confidential, could begin with a minute or two of silence to enable members to reflect, meditate, or pray. Members would then respond to this question: “What are you feeling and thinking about your efforts with regard to our mission?” It would be clear that each member defines their own goals. There would be no pressure to correct any behavior. There might be no “cross-talk” or other interaction during those reports.

The only requirement would be the brief monthly report. Each member might report for only sixty seconds once a month. Reporting regularly could help hold members accountable to their commitments. Knowing they’d be asked to report, they’d be more conscious of their commitments during the month and more likely act on them.

Team members would, of course, support one another informally in many other ways. Feedback and advice could be offered informally after the support meeting. Additional meetings could be scheduled to go into specific issues more deeply. But all that would be optional.

Regardless of their political or religious perspective, different kinds of groups could join such a network. These groups include: a committee within an activist organization; a book club; a religious organization’s social action committee or Bible study group; a work group at a socially responsible business; a group whose members belong to various activist organizations or do their activism as unaffiliated individuals.

Many of these groups could also share a meal and socialize informally as a way for members to get to know one another more fully. Time permitting, larger organizational meetings could ask members to report briefly on their personal growth efforts as well as their activism during introductions. Organizations that belong could adopt official policies to encourage their members to support one another with their self-development. Residents of other countries could join the Network, endorse its mission statement, and form mutual support teams to advance it. Individuals who do not participate themselves might see the value for others and tell them about it.

The basic goal is simple: develop an easy-to-learn method that people could use to support one another in their personal and social change efforts — a method that could spread widely and quickly as did the twelve-step method — so everyone can more fully be all they can be.

Community Dialogs

Compassion-minded groups can also convene public educational events that rely more on introspection and peer learning than on top-down instruction. One such possibility is a “Community Dialog on Elitism: A Conversation About College Degrees.” This event would be sponsored by one or more organizations with the capacity to attract and involve both people with and without college degrees.

The dialog could open with the facilitator separating participants into two groups: those who have and do not have a college degree. Then, to those who do not, ask these questions: If most or all of your good friends don’t have a college degree, please raise your hand. If you believe most people should have a college degree, please raise your hand. If you feel that people with a degree look down on you because you don’t have one, please raise your hand. If you feel that you’re an inferior person because you don’t have a college degree, please raise your hand.

Then, to those who do have a college degree, ask: If you believe most people should have a college degree, please raise your hand. If most or all of your good friends have a college degree, please raise your hand. If you feel that most people with a degree look down on those who don’t, please raise your hand. If you yourself look down on those who don’t have a degree and feel you are superior, please raise your hand.

Then everyone re-convenes and the facilitator reports on the number who answered each question affirmatively. Then the participants break down into small groups with a mix of those with and without degrees. And the facilitator asks each individual without a degree to take up to three minutes to verbalize what they believe people with college degrees think about those who don’t. Then, what do they often not understand about people without college degrees? Those with degrees may ask clarifying, non-rhetorical questions, but otherwise they don’t respond to each individual at this time.

Then the facilitator asks those with degrees to take up to three minutes to verbalize what they believe people without college degrees think about those who do. Then, what do they often not understand about people with college degrees? Those without degrees may ask clarifying, non-rhetorical questions, but otherwise don’t respond to each individual at this time.

The facilitator then recognizes speakers for an open discussion with a time limit for each speaker. The group then selects a member who has no college degree to present a summary of their discussion to the plenary.

Transformation

During his eulogy to John Lewis, Barack Obama affirmed: “In all of us, there’s a longing to do what is right, that in all of us there’s a willingness to love all people and extend to them their God-given rights to dignity and respect. So many of us lose that sense. It’s taught out of us. We start feeling as if, in fact, we can’t afford to extend kindness or decency to other people, that we’re better off if we’re above other people and looking down on them. And so often that’s encouraged in our culture.”

The transformation of our society into compassionate, democratic, egalitarian communities requires undoing assumptions of superiority and inferiority and overcoming the temptation to dominate or submit. This effort requires being open, honest, and vulnerable with a disciplined commitment to Weil’s doctrine of attention and Buber’s I-Thou relationships.Fortunately, people in every institution are subverting the dominant patterns by pushing for cooperative partnerships.

At the core of this process is a new definition of leadership rooted in humility and respect for each others’ essential equality. With collaborative leadership, leaders help groups define the problem they want to solve and then facilitate the collective formulation of solutions. With this approach, any member can exercise leadership at any time by suggesting a solution that others affirm. Facilitators listen closely and follow the collective wisdom. Good leaders follow.

Families, schools, workplaces, health care providers, social service agencies, and other institutions are contributing to this transformation by nurturing equality and self- and community empowerment. Participatory partnerships that give every stakeholder a voice and rely on self-directed peer learning lead to positive growth for everyone.

This transformation is rooted in a moral affirmation that acknowledges the interdependence of all humanity and “a global solidarity that works for freedom and justice for all people,” as affirmed by the Black Lives Matter Global Network with its call for building “a beloved community that is bonded together through a beautiful struggle that is restorative, not depleting.”

This drive for egalitarian solidarity is primordial. The Bushmen in southern Africa had a ritual, “insulting the meat,” that helped them maintain their egalitarian society. When a hunter returned with a large kill, he’d be greeted with light-hearted, inaccurate insults about the quality of the kill or the level of his skill. It was a way to discourage the hunter from thinking too highly of himself. This commitment to egalitarianism offers an instructive lesson. Such methods that nurture humility benefit everyone.

Fuller writes: “It is not utopian to think that we might be able to give up putting people down.... For any reason. Period.... Indignity and humiliation have no place in human relations.... That is how humans are evolving behaviorally...until we reach an equilibrium characterized by equal dignity for all…. Rankism has become counterproductive.... Rankism stifles creativity, inhibits learning, and taxes productivity. Rankism causes unhappiness and illness. Rankism corrodes organizations and societies that condone it.... As we target rankism, we create a world of dignity for all, not just for some at the expense of others.” 

The world’s great religions have affirmed the moral commitment reflected in the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The Charter for Compassion synthesizes these multiple affirmations into its charter that has been signed by millions worldwide. Jacqueline Novogratz, Manifesto for a Moral Revolution author, has proposed an additional maxim: “Give more to the world than you take from it.” 

Novogratz believes we can “surround ourselves with others who can hold us and hold it, the work, on the days that we can’t.” We can hold a mirror to each other, show each other our value, and bear witness to our suffering rooted in shared dignity and mutual encouragement.

With this approach, open-ended mutual support for each other’s self-development can nurture holistic, systemic transformation. We don’t need to tell each other how to grow. We can trust each individual to define their own goals. But we can encourage each other to examine ourselves honestly and tap our deepest instinct — the instinct to be compassionate, respectful, and cooperative.

+++++

Other aspects of how individuals can engage with others to advance holistic and systemic transformation are addressed in in the Social Resources section.

Notes

Introduction

These communities reinforce innate compassion….
https://wade-hudson-dfnm.squarespace.com/blog-1/2020/7/14/compassion-resources

The Problem

Active listening, which includes asking followup questions, is rare.
"Tuning In: Improving Your Listening Skills," Wall Street Journal, July 22, 2014.

College students today are about forty percent less empathetic than they were twenty or thirty years ago.
"Empathy: College students don't have as much as they used to," Michigan News, May 27, 2010.

Taller people are more likely to dominate. Talking loudly, interrupting, and talking longer and faster are signs of dominance. Nonverbal messages such as leaning forward, using gestures, and touching others physically also indicate dominance.
Wikipedia, "Expressions of dominance," Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressions_of_dominance.

Submissive people prefer to interact with dominant people, and dominant people prefer to interact with submissive people.
Stulp, Gert, Abraham P. Buunk, Simon Verhulst, and Thomas V. Pollet, "Human Height Is Positively Related to Interpersonal Dominance in Dyadic Interactions," PLOS, Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4342156/.

Submissive people prefer to interact with dominant people, and dominant people prefer to interact with submissive people.

As Stanley declared
Retrieved from https://www.shmoop.com/streetcar-named-desire/society-class-quotes-3.html.

The New York Times reports:…
"Do Millennial Men Want Stay-at-Home Wives?", The New York Times, March 31, 2017.

Faith in the Dream…
Frank, Robert H., Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy. Also see "Why Luck Matters More Than You Might Think," The Atlantic, May 2016 and "Why the myth of a perfect meritocracy is so pernicious," Vox, Dec 15, 2017.

And one recent study found that most marriages….
"Are marriages stronger when one spouse is dominant?", The Telegraph, Feb 7, 2015.

But when dominate-or-submit in one arena becomes a habit….
Kripal, Jeffrey J., Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, 286-7.

Messages from early childhood produce subconscious bias.…
Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, "Implicit Bias Review 2015." Retrieved from http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/research/understanding-implicit-bias/.

As a result, lighter-skinned people of color….
"Study: lighter-skinned black and Hispanic people look smarter to white people," Vox, Feb 28, 2015.

Coastal elites are condescending….
"America is held hostage by flyover states," The Hill, Dec 12, 2016.

rural residents blame “city slickers”….
"Dangerous idiots: how the liberal media elite failed working-class Americans," The Guardian, Oct 13, 2016.

To protect their job or advance their career,
"12 Women Who Say Sexual Harassment Cost Them Their Careers," Time, Nov 15. 2017.

With their paternalism, social service organizations….
"The Challenge of Paternalism in Social Work," Social Work Today, January/February 2005.

People who hold the power to punish,
“The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment,” New Yorker, June 12, 2015.

America assumes it must “lead”….
"Why America Must Lead," The Catalyst, Winter 2016.

Many businesses are more horizontal.
 See https://www.holacracy.org/.

Schools are becoming more authoritarian….
Rutherford Insitute, "Transforming America’s Schools into Authoritarian Instruments of Compliance," Oct 7, 2013.

But wealth, status, and power are largely inherited….
"Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think," Scientific American, March 31, 2015.

Social Isolation

One recent study asked participants to list the names of people with whom they had discussed "important matters"….
"Close Friends Less Common Today, Study Finds," Live Science, Nov 4, 2011.

The number of people who report feeling lonely….
“How Social Isolation Is Killing Us,” The New York Times, December 22, 2016.

Almost half of all meals….
"We're eating more of our meals alone: Is that a bad thing?", Today.com, Aug. 25, 2015.

The average American now spends less than four minutes a day.….
Happiness Is Other People," The New York Times, Oct 27, 2017.

Social isolation greatly increases the odds for getting sick…. 
Steptoe, Andrew , Aparna Shankar, Panayotes Demakakos and Jane Wardle, "Social isolation, loneliness, and all-cause mortality in older men and women," Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1219686110.

And as isolation undermines the habit of collaborating with neighbors to solve problems,…
 “Guns and Opioids Are American Scourges Fueled by Availability,” The New York Times, Feb 24, 2018.

They spend so much time looking at screens….
"Why Access to Screens Is Lowering Kids' Social Skills," Time, Aug 21, 2014.

The Solution

When I asked Rhonda Magee….
Personal communication.

Heart-to-Heart Dialog

“When you teach a child something, you take away forever his chance of discovering it for himself.”
https://bingschool.stanford.edu/news/learning-each-other

as recommended by Joshua Yaffa
Believe It or Not, Joshua Yaffa, The New Yorker, September 14, 2020.

In her review of Sigrid Nunez’s novelhttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/14/the-injustices-of-aging

Class

Keeping Up with the Jones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses

Robert W. Fuller coined the term “ranksim” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankism

Undoing Racism

Daniel Bergner Daniel Bergner reports on research that has found that antiracism traininghttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/magazine/white-fragility-robin-diangelo.html

Support Groups

In Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World, Tina Rosenberg reports
http://www.wadeswire.org/?p=698

True North Groups
True North Groups: A Powerful Path to Personal and Leadership Development, George, Bill and Doug Baker

The Political

Harm Reduction
"Principles of Harm Reduction," Harm Reduction Coalition. Retrieved from http://harmreduction.org/about-us/principles-of-harm-reduction/.

Transformation

“Most leaders die with their mouths open,” said Ronald Heifetz. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/turning-point/201405/shut-your-mouth-open-your-ears

insulting the meat
Affluence Without Abundance The Disappearing World of the Bushmen, James Suzman, 179-80.

as affirmed by the Black Lives Matter Global Network, https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

Charter for Compassion
https://charterforcompassion.org/

Manifesto for a Moral Revolution
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250263438

Novogratz believes we can “surround ourselves with others
https://onbeing.org/programs/jacqueline-novogratz-towards-a-moral-revolution/