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Systemic
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Compassionate cultural, social, personal, economic, environmental, and political change throughout society — all moving in the same direction — can produce a combined, synergistic effect that’s greater than separate changes in these sectors alone. Fundamental improvements in one sector can reinforce improvements in the other sectors. Achieving the achievable goals that are proposed with the Actions posted in each section of this site can advance this transformation.
The result can be a holistic transformation that addresses the whole person and the whole society, and a systemic transformation that changes how society’s structures are interwoven. Eventually, with evolutionary revolution, tipping points can be reached that trigger “phase transitions” (like water boiling) and “avalanches” that lead to massive shifts throughout society.
Achieving this holistic and systemic transformation will require massive, nonviolent, nationwide, compassionate movements that nurture holistic and systemic change throughout society, improves national public policies, establishes fairness (equity), and sustains itself over time.
As envisioned here, the best way to describe this project is “a holistic democracy movement.” However, other terminology may prove to be more effective. Regardless, any such movement must be broad-based, unified, and diverse, embrace all relevant issues, affirm shared principles, support individuals and communities in their efforts to undo their dominate-or-submit conditioning, and fully address the needs of those who are in greatest need.
This movement can be based on the following goals.
Essential Equality
All men and women are created equal — endowed with human rights to which they’re entitled throughout their life as their birthright. This reality is reflected in principles such as one person/one vote, equality under the law, the random selection of jurors, the conviction that everyone is entitled to a voice in affairs that affect them, and everyone should be afforded the means to a decent standard of living. Respect for everyone’s inherent dignity and essential equality is critical. Individuals differ in terms of their skills, but at heart, everyone is equally valuable. Everyone holds infinite value — rooted in basic goodness that expresses itself with compassion unless distorted by social conditions. In opposition to oppressive domination, America has affirmed key democratic-equality principles but has never fully honored them. Fulfilling these ideals is a key goal of this proposed movement.
Reparation
Another central goal is for Americans to acknowledge past crimes and accept responsibility for perpetuating current systems (and the System). Otherwise, it will be difficult to institutionalize fairness and compassion with new structures, establish democratic hierarchies, overcome top-down domination, and provide targeted economic assistance to communities that have been victimized by a history of systemic racism, such as Native Americans and African-Americans.
Those who are relatively privileged did not build these structures, but they benefit from and reinforce them. Together, all of us can reform them. This work requires us to engage in honest self-examination, help each other undo the oppressive social conditioning that’s embedded deep within each of us, awaken profound compassion, and cultivate co-equal partnerships. If compassion-minded individuals acknowledge mistakes and personal weaknesses, we can enhance the possibility of evolutionary revolution.
Avoid Scapegoating
Everyone is responsible for helping to perpetuate the System, but scapegoating, or placing excessive blame on certain institutions or individuals, and condemning “enemies” as inferior human beings are not justified. These harsh judgments are not helpful. The primary problem is the System, which includes our social structures and our culture as well as ourselves as individuals. Because responsibility is so widely shared, individuals can rightly feel anguish about the situation and their role, but they don’t need to dehumanize, demonize, lay guilt trips, or inflict vengeful punishment. Rather they can undo their conditioning, perhaps bit by bit, and control their biases as best they can — while helping to change the structures and the culture that cultivate oppression, without scapegoating the System’s top-level administrators.
Humane Relationships
Necessary domination can be justified. We can protect children from traffic and we can hold people accountable for violations of others’ rights. But we need not dehumanize or brutalize violators. Everyone is a victim and no one deserves to die.
Likewise, humane upward mobility is acceptable. We can affirm the desire to advance, improve your position and income, or increase your knowledge and skills. But these ambitions can be pursued ethically. They need not involve cutthroat competition motivated by the urge to dominate others for the sake of your own ego.
Holistic and Systemic Transformation
With evolutionary revolution and deep nonviolence, massive popular power dedicated to a new purpose for our society — to serve humanity, the environment, and life itself — can synergistically transform the System and each of its sectors. Multiple counter cultures are nurturing this transformation.
Holistic and systemic transformation involves the democratization of existing social structures and the creation of new ones. For instance, workers can form cooperatives and society can hold administrators accountable with democratic structures. And individuals can organize groups whose members support each other with their self-reform efforts.
Personal and Spiritual Growth
The System’s conditioning is deeply embedded. It’s hard for individuals to undo this training in isolation. Mutual support helps immensely. If we examine ourselves, face reality, acknowledge our negative tendencies, resolve not to repeat mistakes, and communicate these decisions to peers, this verbalizing can help solidify our commitments. This intentional mutual support rooted in democratic structures can strengthen personal and spiritual growth.
Individuals are interwoven and interdependent. We shape each other and we can help each other reshape ourselves — by tapping our deepest, most compassionate instincts. The stronger we become as individuals, the stronger our communities. Transforming the world by yourself is impossible.
Co-Equal Partnerships
Some domination, like with red lights is justified, but problems emerge when domination is based on the pursuit of self-advantage. Likewise, some hierarchies are essential, but the notion that “someone must always be in charge” can be set aside. Co-equal partnerships can be nurtured. Well-designed, empowering structures enable clients and members to maximize their voice. Controlling the deep desire to dominate will make it easier to undo racism and other specific forms of unjust domination.
Compassionate Legislation
Transforming the entire society — ourselves included — will make it easier to pass compassionate legislation, which will facilitate social transformation. Relying on elections and legislation, however, is not enough. Transforming each social sector reinforces transformation in the other sectors and contributes to holistic and systemic transformation.
Collaborative Leadership
Spontaneity is valuable, but it is not sufficient. We need well-structured democratic organizations that form lasting alliances, choose winnable issues, and stick with their efforts to persuade Washington to respect the will of the people. A new, collaborative definition of leadership will strengthen these efforts.
Massive Unity
The landmark Combahee River Collective Statement declared, “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.” Reflecting on this affirmation, Vinson Cunningham commented, “[That] will require, I think, a conviction that our lives, however devalued, have many facets, and that we are all intimately related, and that one sufficiently emancipatory gesture might scoop us all up.” This vision of unity is essential.
The more people understand that they’re up against a single social system, the System, the more they can see what they have in common. This solidarity, along with a deep desire to practice democracy in everyday life, can help nurture respectful, authentic relationships and build the unified grassroots power needed to transform the whole society.
The more activists face up to their arrogant need to claim status, assert essential superiority, scapegoat, demean, disrespect, humiliate, punish, degrade, dehumanize, and/or oppress — at home, with friends, at work, or elsewhere — the more they can develop respect for everyone’s basic equality, collaborate as equals, listen more carefully, and reach out with respect to those who are inactive.
Respectful Diversity
Though agreement on shared principles is important, multiple tactics are needed. Politically, inside decision-makers can respond to outside agitators with compromises that improve living conditions incrementally. Insiders and outsiders can respect their different roles, without condemning each other. If activist organizations make it clear to everyone that no victory or defeat is final, they can accept imperfect reforms when necessary. They can articulate long-term goals and focus on short-term objectives. Moreover, vanguards who push for improvements that aren’t supported by the majority of Americans can pave the way for future reformers who advance majoritarian proposals. Many roles are essential and can be complementary.
Conclusion
The System need not have the final word. James Baldwin declared, “A day will come when you will trust you more than you do now and you will trust me more than you do now. We will trust each other. I do believe, I really do believe in the New Jerusalem. I really do believe that we can all become better than we are. I know we can. But the price is enormous and people are not yet ready to pay.” Perhaps someday soon a critical mass of Americans will pay the price with a vulnerable commitment to both self-reform and social transformation.
Problems
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Knowldege Base
Comments
Michael Johnson:
All of this section fits profoundly with the Growing Democracy Project, with the exception of one paragraph in the section, “Massive Unity.” I have found nothing anywhere that comes even remotely close to the vision of the GDProject as much as this section does. The focus of the Americans for Humanity project seems to be on what goes into making and connecting “massive, nonviolent, nationwide, compassionate movements that nurture holistic and systemic change throughout society, improves national public policies, establishes fairness (equity), and sustains itself over time.” Some of it—like reparations—are controversial, but controversy is good and essential.
The focus of the GDPoject is on how everyday people can develop the personal capacity and collective competence to build these kinds movements. In this regard the GDProject fits well with Baldwin when he says “the price is enormous and people are not yet ready to pay.” In other words, what will be required for building “a holistic democracy movement is unprecedented: “any such movement must be broad-based, unified, and diverse, embrace all relevant issues, affirm shared principles, support individuals and communities in their efforts to undo their dominate-or-submit conditioning, and fully address the needs of those who are in greatest need.”
The GDProject is built around personal development through Transformative Learning (TL), which seems very much what this section calls for. Its overall structure is designed to enable everyday people and others to get immersed in this kind of learning locally and by building small communities. But not just that! It is also designed to produce a R&D process to 1) evolve the methods and processes of TL, which are probably in their infancy in many ways, and 2) produce ongoing rethinking of democracy. Participants in the Transformative Communities of Practice (TCs) and others can come together through a Growing Democracy Network (GDN) to carry out this R&D work.
Let me conclude this comment with the paragraph I am not comfortable with: “The more people understand that they’re up against a single social system, the System, the more they can see what they have in common. This solidarity can help nurture respectful, authentic relationships and build the unified grassroots power needed to transform the whole society.”
Discovering intense solidarity through what people are up against certainly happens in war. The intensity of their connectedness and commitment to each other’s survival has to match the extremity of the threat they are facing. It’s a pretty drastic situation: get mutual or die. I believe democracy has to be deeply wanted by citizens in non-drastic, everyday circumstances for it to be the dominant political force in our country. If that is a reasonable assumption, I think people will find the needed deep connection mostly when they share the personal struggles they have in common, or when they are engaged with each other in producing something that is mutually meaningful and fulfilling. Both can generate significant trust. But, when these two experiences come together in one project, wow! the solidarity they build can be profound.
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Wade Lee Hudson
Yes, we are very simpatico. I hope we can continue to support each other. I embedded a link to the GDP blog post on this site in the first sentence of your comment.
I appreciate your discomfort with that sentence, so following “This solidarity” I added: “along with a deep desire to practice democracy in everyday life…” Does this work?
Thanks again for everything.
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Michael Johnson
Wade's addition
The addition is good, but my disagreement is with the idea that there is "a single social system" we are up against. That can't be reconciled with the cultural perspective I work from. Or at least I can't see how at the moment.
I just love being able to talk meaningfully and sanely with someone about all of this stuff. Thank you so much.
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Wade Lee Hudson
You say: “Resisting oppression is a necessary action, but it is a secondary action. Making democracy work in everyday life needs to be the primary objective, and that is proactive.”
I believe that both actions you refer to are equally necessary. In fact, reforms in each sector listed on the left sidebar are of equal importance and are best pursued simultaneously. Everyone can focus on their primary interest, while affirming and supporting those who work on other issues. To relegate other struggles to a secondary status denigrates them. My systemic perspective affirms all efforts that move in the same direction.
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Michael Johnson
Resisting oppression & moving proactively
Wade, I do have a heavier case against current modes of resistance than is warranted. So you are right to come in and do some balancing. I have been strongly impacted by the negativity on the Left ever since the highly proactive Civil Right Movement met its objectives. It ran out of steam and couldn't turn to address militarism and broad-based economic inequality, and no significant proactive movements have emerged since. We have had a lot of anti- movements, but the energy that generates is not powerfully proactive. Corey Robin made this point in an article that impressed you, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/opinion/joe-biden-political-time.html . I hope I'm not using that as a debate trick, but it's how I met you and sensed how proactive you are.
A proactive note from evolutionary theory
Just to end on a positive and not a quasi-defensive note: David Sloan Wilson, a leading evolutionary thinker, wrote an innovative remembrance of E.O. Wilson, a major figure in connecting biology, evolution, and social sciences, https://thisviewoflife.com/the-six-legacies-of-edward-o-wilson/ . It is well worth reading, and ends with this:
"For me, the next frontier is not just ecosystems but becoming wise stewards of evolution in all its forms. Variation/selection/replication processes are taking place all around us at different time scales, including genetic evolution, cultural evolution, and intra-generational personal evolution. Without wise stewardship, these evolutionary processes result merely in CAS2—complex systems composed of agents following their respective adaptive strategies, often inflicting harm on each other and on the entire system over the long term. Work is required to transform CAS2 into CAS1—systems that are adaptive as whole systems. This work will be required for all forms of positive change—individual, cultural, and ecosystemic. The ability to see this clearly and to act upon it has only become available during the last few decades and is currently shared by only a tiny fraction of those who need to know about it. Catalysis is needed, so that positive evolution can take place in a matter of years rather than decades or not at all. The best way to honor Ed’s combined legacies is to join in this catalysis."
Resisting oppression & moving proactively
Wade, I do have a heavier case against current modes of resistance than is warranted. So you are right to come in and do some balancing. I have been strongly impacted by the negativity on the Left ever since the highly proactive Civil Right Movement met its objectives. It ran out of steam and couldn't turn to address militarism and broad-based economic inequality, and no significant proactive movements have emerged since. We have had a lot of anti- movements, but the energy that generates is not powerfully proactive. Corey Robin made this point in an article that impressed you, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/opinion/joe-biden-political-time.html . I hope I'm not using that as a debate trick, but it's how I met you and sensed how proactive you are.
A proactive note from evolutionary theory
Just to end on a positive and not a quasi-defensive note: David Sloan Wilson, a leading evolutionary thinker, wrote an innovative remembrance of E.O. Wilson, a major figure in connecting biology, evolution, and social sciences, https://thisviewoflife.com/the-six-legacies-of-edward-o-wilson/ . It is well worth reading, and ends with this:
"For me, the next frontier is not just ecosystems but becoming wise stewards of evolution in all its forms. Variation/selection/replication processes are taking place all around us at different time scales, including genetic evolution, cultural evolution, and intra-generational personal evolution. Without wise stewardship, these evolutionary processes result merely in CAS2—complex systems composed of agents following their respective adaptive strategies, often inflicting harm on each other and on the entire system over the long term. Work is required to transform CAS2 into CAS1—systems that are adaptive as whole systems. This work will be required for all forms of positive change—individual, cultural, and ecosystemic. The ability to see this clearly and to act upon it has only become available during the last few decades and is currently shared by only a tiny fraction of those who need to know about it. Catalysis is needed, so that positive evolution can take place in a matter of years rather than decades or not at all. The best way to honor Ed’s combined legacies is to join in this catalysis."
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Wade Lee Hudson
I certainly share with you many problems concerning how the resistance to oppression has proceeded. Trying to cultivate alternative, more effective methods has been my focus for many years.
Thanks for the reference to Wilson’s article. It led me to “The Trouble with Cultural Evolution,” by Massimo Pigliucci. https://www.philosophersmag.com/index.php/footnotes-to-plato/83-the-trouble-with-cultural-evolution
This essay concludes with:
“Ultimately, it is still very much an open question whether we can develop a coherent Darwinian theory of cultural evolution, or whether it may be better to abandon the analogy with biological evolution and recognize that culture is a significantly different enough beast to deserve its own theory and explanatory framework. Of course, cultural evolution is still tied to biological evolution, for the simple reason that we are both cultural and biological creatures. But we may have a long way to go before untangling the two and arriving at a satisfactory explanation of how precisely they are related to each other.”
Earlier, referring to Hannah Arendt, I wrote, “She argues that applying biological evolution to human spiritual/cultural is the application of a metaphor.” Her position is similar to Pigliucci’s.
The more I think about this issue another problem emerges. Biological or cultural “evolution” implies progress. With biological evolution, the suggestion is that the development of the human species is progress. That assumption may well be arrogant, self-centered anthropomorphism. Are humans “superior”?
As Carl Sagan said, humans are merely “temporary inhabitants of a dust mote.” In the brief centuries of life given to humanity, we can pursue truth, justice, and beauty to the best of our ability, but the moment we are born as an individual, we begin to die. Nevertheless, we can celebrate life, precious and mysterious as it is, and do our best to be as fully human as we can. Good people can counter the cruelty in the world and nurture nonviolent cooperation.
Darwinian evolution is a process that combines variation, selection, and replication. Cultural change operates alongside genetic inheritance. At times, cultural changes have influenced genetic changes, but such biological changes have been few and slow to take effect. It’s hard to see cultural modifications as analogous to or regularly interwoven with biological evolution.
Rather than “cultural evolution,” why not talk about “cultural inheritance” or “social change,” and then evaluate whether those changes constitute overall “progress”? Certainly, we’ve advanced in some ways, and are falling behind in others. Whether it adds up to progress, to my mind, is an open question, at best.
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Michael Johnson
Cultural Evolution Is Not an Analogy or Metaphor
It’s apples and oranges again. You draw on Arendt and Pigliucci to reject current cultural evolution thinking. Their critique and that of the scholars Pigliucci draws on is based on the assumption that the theory of evolution as the dynamic of variation/selection/replication is a biological theory being applied analogously to social life. That is not case with current cultural evolutionists. They see it as a view of life that applies to life in all of its forms.
Here is David Sloan Wilson speaking to E.O. Wilson’s idea of consilience, one of the major contributions of his work:
“Only now are we in a position to synthesize human-related knowledge in the same way as biological knowledge, thanks to an expanded definition of Darwinism as any variation/selection/replication process. Ed’s vision in Consilience is right on and its fulfillment is now in progress.”
And:
“The prospect that human-related knowledge can become unified in this way is both old and new. It was how Darwin thought and he originated group selection theory as much to explain human morality as “for the good of the group” traits in nonhuman species. But you can’t make sense of humanity without acknowledging its groupish nature and the importance of culturally transmitted symbolic meaning systems. As Emile Durkheim wisely put it: “Social life, then, in every aspect and throughout its history, is only possible thanks to a vast body of symbolism.”
When I say that my definition of culture embraces the whole ball of wax, I am referring to those “culturally transmitted symbolic meaning systems” that underlie all of the parts you see making up The System. So the part you refer to as “culture” is not the same thing as I refer to with the word “culture,” nor what the cultural evolutionists I draw on refer to.
With regards to your point about “progress,” I addressed that in my _______ post in the Systemic section. The theory of evolution deals directly with matters of death and species extinction. Selfishness is a permanent component of life, even in the animal bodies where it has been radically suppressed. Cultural evolutionists are very politically conscious because they see how selfishness is taking us to the brink of extinction. We are at risk of wiping out our powerful “fitness” achieved through the extraordinary evolution of human cooperation.
Your reference to Carl Sagan is in no way out of tune with the evolutionary view of life.
Genes are one vehicle for the inheritance factor of the evolutionary dynamic. “Culturally transmitted symbolic meaning systems” are another vehicle.
Back in 2012 Stephen Pinker wrote “The False Allure of Group Selection,” a critique of what he thought cultural evolutionists were arguing. Many of them and others responded at length (see below). This extended article goes into far greater depth of our discussion than I can because a variety of trained evolutionary thinkers speak in ways that gives an amateur like me a sense of the breadth and depth of the work that is going on.
Wade, I came to cultural evolutionary thinking because I have experienced creating a small transformative culture and saw how people transformed themselves through it. I was in search of how to explain it. I started out with a pure analogy: “culturalDNA.” A friend shot that out from under my approach, and left the project I was trying to develop without a ground. Like Rumi, he cut my dreams off at the knees. It was quite a gift.
I flailed about for several months, and even got very sick for a whole month. The work of Pierre Bourdieu was the first way of looking at social life I discovered that contributed substantially to my search. Before that Elinor Ostrom’s work spoke in important ways to my search, but her approach was too confined to the prevailing behaviorist model used in political science. David Sloan Wilson saw the importance of her work and how it fit in with the cultural evolutionary thinking. And the work of Jonathan Haidt and Moral Foundation Theory integrates exceedingly well with all of this. All of this has forced me to revise the whole cultural component in the GDP book.
I think our conversation/debate is far more important than either one of us. It cuts to the question of how are we going to get through the next 50-100 years. We have both spent five to six decades on the front lines of social transformation in different ways and different places, and have come through all of that trying to distill a large view worth passing on to our fellow Americans. While it will be their responsibility to speak to its worth, it is ours to make our views as coherent as possible.
So far you have listened to my thinking and challenged it well overall. It has been—and I expect will continue to be—a valuable contribution to what I have to pass on. At this point in our discussion, however, I think you need to address two interrelated things. One, that the understanding of culture from the evolutionary view of life is distinctly different from the one you use in your view of life. You haven’t yet spoken to that view in its own terms.
Second, that the cultural evolutionary view of life directly challenges at least one of your, basic assumptions, if not your basic one: “The selfish desire to dominate and the willingness to submit have been society’s central driving force. As such, it has prevailed over the innate instinct to cooperate.” That stands in direct opposition to the cultural evolutionary view of life. What does that claim stand on? Where’s the beef for that burger?
Here’s a list of the writer who responded to Pinker’s Edge article:
Stewart Brand, Daniel Everett, David C. Queller, Daniel C. Dennett, Herbert Gintis, Harvey Whitehouse & Ryan McKay, Peter J. Richerson, Jerry Coyne, Michael Hochberg, Robert Boyd & Sarah Mathew, Max Krasnow & Andrew Delton, Nicolas Baumard, Jonathan Haidt, David Sloan Wilson, Michael E. Price, Joseph Henrich, Randolph M. Nesse, Richard Dawkins, Helena Cronin, John Tooby.
Wade Lee Hudson
As I understand it, the cultural evolutionary view of life affirms that culture evolves through a process of natural selection and the survival of the fittest as does genetic evolution. I am not convinced. The word “evolution” is mistaken. It assumes Progress and its anthropomorphism assumes humanity is an improvement, if not the pinnacle of the process. But genetic and cultural changes aren’t necessarily improvements. Nature is amoral; the universe is indifferent to humanity. And many factors shape culture. Unfortunately, powerful individuals who manage to climb the hierarchies of power play a disproportionate role in this shaping. Being amoral or immoral, they’re not the fittest. Rather, they’ve placed humanity on a downward spiral and the bottom is not visible.
I have no problem with defining culture as the “culturally transmitted symbolic meaning systems” that underlie all of the parts I see making up the System, but I insist that the various elements of the System help shape this culture, as it shapes those elements.
Michael Johnson:
the meanings of "fitness" and "improvements"
I will respond briefly first to Wade’s comment about culture at the end of his post, and then at some length to his critique of evolutionary theory.
1. He “insist[s] that the various elements of the System help shape this culture, as it shapes those elements.” I totally agree, but would go further. Culture is all of those various interactive elements. Two primary sites where they interact is within and between us—the people. We are cultural agents who embed, embody, shape/are shaped, and transmit that whole interactive dynamic forward to future generations.
2. Although Wade is repudiating evolutionary theory in his response, there is much that he says that fits into the theory. What one means by “fittest” is key to responding to his interpretation of evolution. In evolutionary biology this is understood in two ways:
• Personal fitness is the number of offspring that an individual begets (regardless of who rescues/rears/supports them)
• Inclusive fitness is the number of offspring equivalents that an individual rears, rescues or otherwise supports through its behaviour (regardless of who begets them).
I think Wade is suggesting that in evolutionary thinking “fitness” refers to those of us who survive the struggle to be “king of the mountain.” It doesn’t mean that in either biological or cultural evolution theory.
His argument that “genetic and cultural changes aren’t necessarily improvements” is both correct and in full agreement with evolutionary theory. Living things have to adapt to changing environments. In part the dinosaurs evolved into existence in response to their environment. That is, they worked out a “fit.” They failed, however, to adapt—that is, failed to improve their fitness to the major changes in their environment—and went extinct. The human species as a whole has made the necessary adaptations not only to survive as have our brothers the Chimps, but also to create culture on a scale never reached by any other species. In spite of this, at the moment it is not clear whether it can adapt to many of the negative environmental changes it has caused. This suggests that the process of improvement can never be separated from the process of failing to adapt in order to “fit” into a changed environment. This is ancient wisdom. Trying something new always involves learning from your mistakes, but is always at risk of failing. Evolutionary thinking is not at all in conflict with this.
But there is a unique feature to our human predicament. The dinosaur and the Chimp have had to deal with an environment they had relatively little to do with shaping. We, to the contrary, have played and play a major role in the environment we are confronted with. Evolution theory is a way to understand this unique factor. If one is not convinced of this theory, then how does one explain how we became able to play such a role?
Wade Lee Hudson
Michael, it seems we are in basic agreement, though we use different terminology. I find your definition of “culture” to be idiosyncratic and confusing. I prefer using language as commonly understood.
I do not repudiate evolutionary theory, as you claim. But I am not convinced that it applies to cultural change.
Moreover, since other terminology can be used, I question the use of the word “evolution,” which is commonly understood as “a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state.” I am not convinced that humanity, as we know it today, constitutes an improvement.
Michael Johnson
Wade concludes our interesting and stimulating debate/discussion with, "Michael, it seems we are in basic agreement, though we use different terminology." I agree with the first half, but not so much with the second half of his statement. He asserted earlier that "the various elements of the System help shape this culture, as it shapes those elements.” I totally agree, but also differ with him overall in two ways.
One, the claim that the "selfish desire to dominate has been society’s central driving force" cannot explain how our species has developed not only myriads of local but even global systems of complex cooperation. Without them we could not be where we are today, for better and worse. Selfishness is, for sure, another major driving force. For me, the two together form the overarching conflict of the human condition. That conflict is the central driving force of our species. It's what we struggle with day-in and day-out.
Two, my notion of culture as an evolving process is a major difference between us. In some way we agree that culture is all of the various interactive elements, but for me it is not one of the elements. Rather, it is the whole process that all the elements are a part of. And, that each one of us embodies that whole process while it is also unfolding in the infinite ways in which we live with and relate to each other, I find to be more wondrous than the most stunning sunrise even with all the lotus-mud of the selfishness that is part of the deal.
Wade Lee Hudson
Michael, cooperation has certainly been a major feature of human history. Unfortunately, however, cooperation that’s motivated by the desire for mutual benefit (“You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”) falls short of a commitment to engage in compassionate action simply because it’s the right thing to do. Cooperation has generally consisted of collaboration, co-optation, compliance, conformity, and submission to the System’s immoral self-centeredness. This dialog with you has prompted me to replace “cooperate” with “engage in compassionate action” in the Systemic Overview.
I remain unconvinced by your idiosyncratic definition of culture as “all of the various interactive elements,” such as economic, entertainment, educational, and political institutions. Conflating these institutions with “culture” obscures the impact these institutions have on shaping culture, as well as the culture’s impact on them.
The notion of cultural “evolution” is unconvincing. This word implies positive cultural progress, but there’s no good reason to believe humanity is more moral now than it was prior to industrialization. Witness how Native Americans greeted European invaders with generosity, and how the Europeans responded.
Michael Johnson
I have to say that your last response was rather disappointing and frustrating. I believe my responses below will spell this out.
“The Right Thing To Do”
For thousands of years powerful religions have built long lasting cultures around different codes for doing the “right thing.” Clearly, none of them have figured out effective ways to get their followers to do the “right thing.” If you have a proposal for a better way of doing this, is it on your website. I haven’t seen it.
Desire for Mutual Benefit
I am not sure if making love sexually falls into the category of “compassionate action,” but some of the most transcendent experiences I have had have been moments when distinctions between who was pleasuring and who was being pleasured utterly disappeared. Second to these awesome moments were the ones when I couldn’t tell which of us was getting more pleasure when I was pleasuring her.
The central managing group in our Ganas Community have been meeting for at least 5 days a week for almost 40 years. This mantra captures its underlying spirit: “We come together to join our energies which is a gift we give to ourselves and to each other.” This has guided us to multitudes of compassionate action in spite of the fact that we have only four directives for what not to do, and none for what to do. We come up with a lot of agreements on what to do, but they are all negotiable.
Idiosyncratic Definition of Culture
My notion of culture is not “idiosyncratic.” I have pointed out several times that is well within the scope of how the term “culture” is primarily used across the social sciences and evolutionary thinking. You choose to use a more everyday use of the term, which is fine. You don’t need to denigrate other ways the term is used.
I don’t conflate the economic, entertainment, educational, and political institutions in a mish-mosh of culture. You have asserted this more than once without spelling out how you see me doing this. My response each time has been to point out that I see them as parts of a whole just as you do. The difference between us is that you refer to whole as “The System,” whereas I refer to it as “culture” in the sense it is used throughout the social sciences and evolutionary thinking.
Evolution
You reject the notion of “cultural evolution” because, in your mind, the word implies “positive cultural progress.” In all of the research I have done I have not run across anyone who thinks of either cultural or biological evolution as implying categorical positive progress. In fact, there is a pervasive anxiety among them that we are on the verge of doing unimaginable harm to the entire global ecology. I have mentioned this earlier, but you have yet to respond to it in any specific way.