Worldview
Systemic
Society implants the following hyper-individualistic, materialistic beliefs deep within people’s minds, which inflames instincts to dominate and submit for personal gain.
“You can be whatever you want to be.”
“What’s in it for me (WIIFM)?”
“Money is a way to keep score.”
“Greed is good.”
“Anyone can move from rags to riches with enough hard work.”
“The poor are responsible for their poverty.”
“The rich deserve their wealth.”
“Somebody's gotta win and somebody's gotta lose.”
“Winning is everything.”
“Go along to get along.”
“Keep up with the Joneses.”
“Mom, I have to have a smartphone because everyone has one.”
“Someone must always be in charge.”
“My workplace is a dictatorship and I must accept it.”
“At least I can be boss in my home.”
Our social system claims to be based on merit, equality, and a level playing field, but in fact, it exalts wealth, power, and status, however gained. Elites administer our formal and informal institutions in every arena, supposedly deservedly.
Humans are torn between fear and anger on the one hand and trust and love on the other. Fully facing this tension is necessary to resolve it. Chronic denial and distraction are deadly. We must acknowledge our best and our worst instincts. Only then can we most effectively relieve suffering and promote justice.
We can pause for rest and recreation, take care of ourselves so we can better care for others, and then reengage to pursue Truth, Justice, and Beauty and organize (structure) activities that cultivate holistic reform.
Numerous advocates presented in the Systemic knowledge base on this website promote the compassionate holistic democratic reform of our top-down, selfish society. They address the whole person and the whole society, deal with complete systems, propose mutual support for self-improvement, and promote structural reforms rooted in moral transformation. These efforts don’t echo each other precisely, but they share many core principles and move in the same direction.
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Society inflames the innate desire to dominate the less powerful and submit to the more powerful for personal gain. Society indoctrinates people to climb social ladders selfishly and relentlessly and look down on, dominate, and exploit those below — and submit to those above.
This dynamic is reflected in national foreign policies. National “self-interest” is primary. Simply doing the right thing is secondary. This approach reinforces domestic selfishness.
Our society weaves together our institutions, cultures, and ourselves as individuals into a self-perpetuating social system — the Top-Down System.
No one individual or group controls this system. Everyone is a pawn in the game, and everyone perpetuates it with their daily actions. Top-level administrators are replaceable. Nevertheless, people should be held accountable for harmful actions.
Domination and submission can be justified as ways to serve the common good. An example is the acceptance of red lights. The community agrees to yield authority in the interest of public safety.
However, throughout society, wealth, power, and status are end goals, not means to a higher end. People consider life a zero-sum struggle with winners and losers and neglect positive-sum, win-win solutions.
Fundamental, comprehensive reform is needed to promote the general welfare and hold leaders accountable to those they serve.
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This website envisions a powerful grassroots movement that replaces the Top-Down System with a Bottom-Up System. In a positive upward spiral, this movement would cultivate mutually reinforcing social, personal, cultural, economic, and political reforms to make society kinder, fairer, and more egalitarian — based on the principle that all people are essentially equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.
Unfortunately, however, interpersonal conflicts weaken activist organizations, social service providers, spiritual communities, families, schools, workplaces, and other organizations. Disrespect, arrogance, egoism, assumptions of moral superiority, elitism, dogmatism, lack of internal democracy, weak mutual support, scapegoating, demonizing, resentments, power struggles, inner turmoil, and other dilemmas are widespread. All of these issues don’t plague every group, but many afflict most groups, and they have the same solution: compassionate cooperation.
Many individuals and organizations relieve and prevent suffering, and many movements promote compassion and democracy. However, these efforts generally focus on particular issues, individuals, or communities. Moreover, political campaigns fade after they peak and their issue is resolved.
One common missing element in these efforts is an explicit commitment to enabling mutual support for undoing or controlling oppressive social conditioning, especially the desire to dominate and the willingness to submit for personal gain.
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Suppose these change agents affirm their common ground, unite, support each other to overcome their internalized oppression, and sustain a unified, diverse movement over time. In these ways, they help shift our social system from top-down to bottom-up — with methods such as those presented throughout this site’s knowledge base.
Members commit to the same mission (perhaps: serving humanity, the environment, and life itself) and use the same tools (perhaps: at least once a month, they open meetings with a moment of silence and a check-in during which members report on their efforts to unlearn or control their dominate-and-submit impulses). This mission statement and these tools are food for thought, not a blueprint.
In these ways, reformers cultivate mutual empowerment, self-improvement, and egalitarian community throughout society. This movement affirms everyone’s common humanity and equal worth and builds democratic hierarchies with representative, accountable leaders. These gains lead to a more harmonious society in every arena.
Affirming that the Top-Down System is our common primary problem unifies the movement and reduces scapegoating and blaming “enemies,” which is a divisive distraction that undermines unity.
We humanize communities, cultures, workplaces, governments, and ourselves, restructure society, and establish harmony with Mother Nature.
This massive, grassroots, multi-national movement cultivates national communities with a coordinated networks of autonomous local teams. These teams model an egalitarian society grounded in mutual aid and respect for everyone’s fundamental equality.
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If a strong, diverse organizing committee composed of community leaders convenes a conference to launch this movement, members could modify the committee’s proposed strategies as they get involved, within the framework of a commitment to holistic reform.
In so doing, they could connect the dots, broaden deep understanding, and nurture a commitment to holistic change. People could see their actions as a step in the right direction, a never-ending movement that gains steady progress without claiming it will achieve perfection.
Underneath our multiple identities, we’re all members of the human family. We’re interdependent, which requires us to aid each other. This perspective avoids both selfishness and self-sacrifice.
If enough people commit to a vision like this, we could build a Bottom-up System rooted in egalitarian mutual empowerment while retaining the Top-Down System’s positive qualities. Society could become new in some ways — and remain the same in others.
Gains could ripple through society with solutions that benefit everyone, as envisioned in the poem, “Evolutionary Revolution,” a phrase used by Mahatma Gandhi.
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