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Discussion Membership
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Measured steps toward civilization[Note: First Draft Summary] This is important -- more important than one might recognize. Think back to a time in your life when you thought you were right but were not -- only later to painfully discover that the mental map by which you make your decisions wasn't as accurate as it needed to be. The lesson to be abstracted from experience: If you think you are right when you are not, how are you going to know? Reflection on personal experience like this leads to humility -- an understanding that, while not a natural, immutable law, can be equally accessible across cultural boundaries to different societies, to others who come to similar conclusions based on lessons from their own personal experience. That lesson scales up, like concentric circles, from individuals, to groups, to societies. Individuals band together into societies to gain advantage they otherwise would not have. A society's experience shows that it, too, can be mistaken. It, too, can think it is correct when it is not. Successful societies develop humility for the same reason individuals do.
The race for civilizationWe are in a race for civilization there is no guarantee we will win and no particular interest that we do win on the part of Mother Nature. If we win, it will be because we value civilization enough to make it happen -- if we understand why to value it. That's not something regularly taught because until now it didn't have to be.Until this generation, natural buffers of geography and technology (travel and communication) and limits for projecting power have insulated societies enough from rogue individuals and cultures. No more. It is dangerous to be ignorant about what binds societies together and why in an age, as Jacob Bronowski advised, when science has put sufficient power in the hands of anyone who cares to learn, that an iron box will no longer protect your valuables nor an iron door protect your family. The race is to convince those outside a protective umbrella manufactured with humility, reciprocity, and resulting process of peaceful process resolution, that their long term best interests rest underneath the umbrella -- and that the alternative is that those under the umbrella have the courage and the resolve to defend themselves. Getting beyond what hasn't worked ...For the first time in history, finding solid foundations for inter-relating societies has gone beyond important to become essential. We are in a race to uncover threads that can pull societies together and learn how to present those ideas accessibly and in a compelling fashion. Several thousand years of experience shows what hasn't worked, but changes in language and thought, along with new metaphors make it easier to present in a compelling way what just might work. Before now, there have been several dead ends.
... To the substance of what will workDemocracy is a process of peaceful problem resolution that codifies humility -- the possibility that there may be a better way and that, for society's sake, any individual deserves the opportunity to convince others of it, not just now, but regularly in the future. A society that does not allow peaceful problem resolution not only plants the seeds of its own destruction, it is a danger to other societies. Other societies need to be prepared to defend themselves from those who do not believe in institutional processes that allow peaceful change.Making decisions; measuring behaviorFor individuals, societies, and civilization the twin threads of humility and consideration of others measure what is important and explain why. They form the cornerstones of the processes by which ethical decisions are made. No matter the cultural background of the society, applicable virtues can be deduced from them. And, interestingly, the untenable facets of their own societies are exposed.[Macro error: Can't find a sub-table named "commentIt".]
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