Article 21
The Shape of Truly Human Social Orders - Part 1
by Wendell Krossa
(From the series "Creating A Horizontal God", Copyright, W. Krossa)

It may seem arrogant to suggest such profound change as a new social order. But this study is just one among many strikes at contemporary social orders where control is still prevalent. It is only a small part of a much wider revolt against all controlling institutions and relationships. It is also part of the worldwide grassroots demand for more participatory forms of democracy.

 

We have noted repeatedly the worldwide fedupness with governments and the greed, waste, and mismanagement of political and economic elites. People at the bottom now demand more control over the important things and decision making processes that affect their lives. They want power and control moved back into their hands as the citizens and therefore the true owners of their countries.

 

This article brings us to some of the basic features for a more human social order where people have more responsible control over their lives. These features are not intended to serve as reform measures for organizations. They are suited more for entirely new processes of human cooperation and decision making.

 

Current vertically oriented institutions and nation states are a dying breed and it may be best to just let them whither and fade away. It is now a waste of time and energy to try to preserve these archaic structures. It is becoming increasingly clear that horizontal relating will never emerge and survive within such organizations and states. In the light of this fact, it may be wiser to start from scratch and create completely new systems of human organizing and cooperation.

 

However, it is simply not realistic to think of getting rid of contemporary government or corporate structures in the near future. But regardless of the possibility of such change, it is important to continue to push for radical organizational reorientation to ensure that controlling authority originates at the bottom with members or citizens. Government of, by, and for the people must be an operating reality, not just a constitutional ideal. Our government and corporate structures must become more genuinely democratic as freedom, equality, and human well-being depend on it.

 

New more human systems of cooperation should be thought of more in terms of process rather than structure or organization. Process connotes fluidity, openness, responsiveness, and flexibility. Organization or institution connotes rigidity, closure, and finality.

 

Institutions, however, could embody a flexible process if care is taken to write such a process into the institution's constitution and operating procedures. The result, however, would not resemble anything remotely related to the organizations that we are currently familiar with.

 

The following features are applicable to all levels of human organizing- whether local, regional, and other arenas. They are features that are based on and derived from the essential nature of the human self as relational, community oriented, horizontally oriented to others as equals, and oriented to freedom and equality in all of life. They reflect basic elements essential for the existence and proper development of the human self or human person. They also deal primarily with the vertical/horizontal issue in relating.

 

Possible criteria, then, for more human forms of social order should include the following basic elements.

 

1. A more human social order will focus primarily on encouraging true human relating. If the purpose of life is to be human and to become more fully human, then any form of social relationship must allow for and encourage true human relating as a bare minimum requirement. At the very least, all forms of social relationships and organizing must not hinder true human relating and development.

 

Human relating is expressed most concretely as sharing in cooperative community as equals. Human beings are not autonomous, self-sufficient beings. People simply can not be fully human in isolation from others. Humans are relational creatures who only develop into fully human selves in relationships of true cooperative equality with others.

 

In using the term community we are not referring to the traditional fixed geographical unit such as a rural village. Most of us live in urban areas and belong to overlapping communities in various areas of life- work communities, religious communities, sports communities, and other social communities, as well as geographical neighborhoods. Mobility enables us to be part of these multiple overlapping communities. Community, for many of us, is now a reality with ill defined borders or it may even be completely borderless.

 

Of all the requirements for true human community, the primary one would be that community must never violate the human self. Community must not violate the unique individuality of each member. It must never overwhelm or absorb or unnecessarily restrict the unique expression of humanity that exists within each individual person.

 

The human self is in its basic nature free of all control, horizontally oriented, and personally responsible. It demands relationships of freedom to relate as an equal with all others and freedom from control to express its unique personhood.

 

In this regard, it is useful to remember that small groups can often be worse dictatorships by dominant individuals than nation states. Note, for instance, the oppressive domination that often occurs in the smallest of communities - the family.

 

Control is not just a reality that flows down from powerholding elites at the top of hierarchies. Control is also a harsh reality found everywhere, including the very bottom strata of our hierarchical institutions. People at the bottom are just as prone as leaders to use institutional rules and policies to meddle in and manipulate the lives of those around them. Some of the cruelest forms of control are practiced by people at the bottom toward others around them.

 

Personally Responsible

One of the important issues to note in regard to control and freedom in a new social order, is the issue of personal choice and responsibility. Personal control over critical life issues is absolutely essential for true human existence and development. We noted earlier that the human self is noncommandable and decisional. To be genuinely human the self must not be commanded from outside as such external control violates the very essence of personal responsibility, freedom, and personal control. To exist as fully human the self must also be able to exercise choice over important decisions affecting it.

 

It is vital then, that people take full personal responsibility for their own lives and destinies. Only with such full empowerment can human beings experience the humanizing responsibility of real freedom and be fully responsible for the consequences of choices made in such freedom.

 

Benello argues that personal responsibility is especially important in regard to the workplace. "If people are to grow into adulthood and become responsible human beings, they must be able to make significant decisions in matters that affect their lives. In particular, people must have a chance to develop their competence and skills, and this includes both workplace and production skills, and also group process and decision making skills- the skills required to work effectively in a group. Motivation theory argues that workers are interested not only in monetary reward but also seek responsibility and the opportunity to develop as full human beings. Surveys indicate this to be true. Workers are motivated to participate in the control of their workplace, and will develop as human beings when this opportunity exists... Enhanced participation increases worker satisfaction and commitment to the job. This results in increased effectiveness, and allows workers to feel they have control over their working lives" (George Benello. 1989. "Workplace Democratization" in Building Sustainable Communities, p.87).

 

"Also, there is a circular reinforcing process so that as competence is increased, greater confidence develops. This leads to a greater willingness to exercise control, leading in turn to increased competence. Just as the inability to make decisions breeds lack of confidence, so the opportunity to participate increases confidence" (Ibid, p.87).

 

Such worker participation is vital in creating overall more responsible and cooperative societies. "While organizational theory often argues that coercion is an essential element in all formal, purposive-rational organizations, there is a strong counter trend by... others who argue that autonomous work groups and other non-bureaucratic forms are more effective and free of the rigidities and dysfunctions of bureaucracy... small (autonomous) groups can integrate or synergize individual needs and group purposes. This experience is essential if a society of larger units that features cooperation and an egalitarian spirit is to be created. It is necessary, moreover, in order to counter the prevailing culture of individualism within contemporary society. In short, the small, task-oriented group is the basic unit for education in democratic participation... the small group, not the individual, should be seen as the basic unit of society" (Ibid, p.87).

 

It may take generations to shift social attitudes and practices toward new directions of personal responsibility. But the shift must be made as there is little hope for true human development in the lives of the vast majority of people in the lower strata of our contemporary structures of domination. Continued existence within these hierarchical relationships only prevents people from developing the basic skills needed to live in true responsible freedom.

 

Human relating in community must always be the relating of free cooperation and free commitment. Coercion in any form should never be allowed to enter human relating. This means in part that human relationships must always maintain the element of openness. They must never become closed obligations in a permanent or final manner. People should always be free to leave community relationships as personal choice decides. Our commitment to community certainly has an element of responsibility, but it is always a free and open commitment.

 

Government Of and By the People

A more human social order would focus on community as the central unit of governance, the focus of authority and power. This will involve a more radical decentralization of power, authority and responsibility than the trend which is already occurring worldwide.

 

Too often decentralization stops at the regional or municipal level and does not fully empower citizens at the bottom. People at the bottom do not gain full control over their lives as critical decisions over important factors affecting them are often left in the hands of political specialists higher up in local political hierarchies. Such powerlessness has devastating effects on the mental, emotional, and physical well-being of the average person. We noted some of this earlier in chapter eight.

 

Definitions of critical factors will differ from place to place, but should minimally include all those things that impact significantly on people's lives. They will include all the basic issues that would give people a full sense of control over their lives and destinies. A list of such factors would include employment choice, job security, taxation, interest rates, community, regional, and national spending decisions, housing, health and recreational choices, and a wide variety of other social and environmental issues. Currently, most of the decision making processes governing these critical issues are controlled by political and economic elites.

 

To genuinely empower people, opportunity for control over these critical decisions affecting their lives must be fully granted to them. The decision making processes regarding such critical factors must be located effectively in the community and not above the community. And they must also be processes open equally to all members of the community.

 

No state has the right to claim that it promotes freedom, equality, and democracy until it genuinely ensures that the critical factors affecting citizen's lives and destinies are fully controlled by its citizens. Full citizen control alone deals properly with issues of personal responsibility, human dignity, and a wide range of human well-being issues.

 

In defense of the status quo, contemporary powerholders complain that people do not join in community processes when offered the chance. But this reluctance of community members to become involved must not become an excuse to give up efforts to empower citizens. Citizen reluctance may be due in part to the passiveness engendered in people by the millennia long history of people at the bottom being excluded from important decision making processes. Or it may be a reluctance to join processes which are often merely tokenism. In such token processes, even though citizens are invited to speak their minds, powerholders have already made up their minds about the outcomes of the process. Such tokenism insults people as just another form of manipulation and control. Also, with these token processes, the forum for participation is often controlled by powerholders and not by citizens.

 

When people have full control over the critical issues affecting their lives and when they are fully involved as equals in making the decisions that affect them, only then will they become fully involved, interested, and fully support the outcomes of decision making processes. It is when people are excluded from decision making processes that affect them, that resentment builds and people begin to resist the decisions made by others and handed down to them. Controlled people do not offer their best effort and, in fact, often resist those who control them. As Kipnis argues, "Coercion always produces counter-coercion" (David Kipnis. 1976. The Powerholders, p.80). This resistance undermines support for outcomes of decision making processes and often results in the failure of programs and policies. In the long run, excluding people from important decision making processes is destructive not only to those excluded but also to the operations of those in control.

 

The entertainer we quoted earlier stated that we all hate being told what to do. As noncommandable selves, we rightly resent and resist the inhumanity of being commanded and coerced by others.

 

The millennia long trend of centralizing decision making away from communities and into the upper levels of hierarchical structures has had a devastating effect on human development and especially human development in community.

 

Fortunately, as we noted earlier, there has been some reversing of this trend and some power and responsibility are being decentralized to lower levels in a variety of situations in modern society. However, critical decisions are still too often retained in upper levels of hierarchies and in governing centers and this results in the sharing of power becoming little more than a token effort. Little is gained, then, in terms of establishing true human relating or existence.

 

Tribalism

One argument against the further decentralization of genuine power to communities raises the specter of the re-emergence of tribalism or balkanization with the attendant anarchy and war that supposedly accompany such decentralized situations. But this is just more elite scare mongering and is based on the powerholding elite's view of average citizens as wild, stupid, and in need of strict elite control.

 

In the contemporary transition time where humanity is still in the process of becoming fully human, there will undoubtedly be some continued conflict among human beings. But even in this transition time, more community control would be safer than allowing small elites to take whole nations to war over elite national interests. You may get the odd local idiot influencing a community toward conflict, but that is far safer than the top level or elite idiots able to influence entire nations toward conflict because of the excessive power they control.

 

Further Issues Surrounding Community Control

New systems of human organizing with authority based in communities will also have to deal with the issues of intercommunity or regional cooperation. Any given community seeking more control will have to cooperate regionally, nationally and even internationally with other communities also seeking more control.

 

It is not possible to regain freedom and control without respecting other people's efforts to regain their freedom and control in neighboring areas and regions. As we stated earlier, we must never become so enslaved to our own freedom that we can not respect the freedom of others.

 

To help people envision what a world of more personal and local freedom and responsibility might look like, we need to create new visions and experimental models of such human society. These will be views of societies where communities of responsible humans are the central authorities and decision makers on all critical issues. In such societies, power, control, and authority will be bottom up, not top down realities.

 

Communities in such human societies would be in vital control of resources and decision making power over all resources, instead of central government bureaucracies which is the predominant reality in our contemporary nation states. More human societies would not allow small groups of elite powerholders to take first pick of resources and opportunities and look out for themselves in ways not available to the rest of the members of the society.

 

Regionally and internationally, you will have to create new systems of cooperation which will genuinely support and protect communities in their regaining of control and responsibility. Government should be in reality the servant of the people in assisting community plans and processes from a supra or inter-community level. Far too long government has dictated to communities and acted as a master controlling community resources and processes.

 

It is time to demand change and reestablish true community control. This will mean serious effort to ensure that we do not revert to patterns where authority and power move upward into the hands of central elites or bureaucracies to form the same old hierarchical relationships that have been so destructive to humanity in the past. Larger regional and national government structures must always remain genuinely based in communities and derive their authorization from the bottom in an ongoing process of monitoring, evaluation, and recall, effectively controlled from the bottom. We now have the technology to do this.

 

This community control will inevitably lead away from national conformity toward wide diversity as communities express their true humanity with all of its freedom and creative uniqueness.

 

While such a vision of the future may seem far fetched and maybe even appear unworkable at times, we need only remember that the human race has undergone radical and widespread social change in the past. The movement into domestication was one such change. Tragically, the vertical orientation created during that process set humanity on the wrong trajectory for millennia to follow. It is time to correct that tragic mistake. If humanity sets its mind toward something, then anything is possible.

 

Communities will also have to deal with the nasty reality of tyranny, abuse, and crime. How do we prevent little dictators from taking control of communities or members of a community? These are issues that must be dealt with in returning control to people at the bottom. These are especially important issues in light of the need to develop inter-community cooperation processes to deal with shared regional and larger scale issues.

 

Peter Boothroyd has listed the following society-wide community development issues that would have to be addressed in returning more power and control to communities ("Community Development: The Missing Link In Welfare Policy" in Ideology, Development and Social Welfare, 1991, p.131-132 ):

 

What about the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome? Can place-based communities cooperate and obviate the present need for state imposition of group homes, highways, waste-disposal sites and other facilities deemed necessary for the larger society?

Are there any prospects for functionally integrated communities in the cities where present community memberships are often very specialized, far-flung and overlapping? Should integrated communities be encouraged?

What structural changes are needed in the design of local and regional government in order to make local government meaningful? Should big cities, for example, be broken down into neighborhoods for decision making on local issues and then new regional structures created for facilitating inter-neighborhood cooperation? Should urban neighborhoods be encouraged to take on economic production or distribution functions?

Could urban communities with delegated powers over territory be structured on an opt-in basis? Could there be overlapping territorial management communities? Should territorial management communities have to accept new residents? Should they be allowed to control their membership composition and therefore member's rights to disposition of homes?

Can the state play a role in developing individual communities without destroying their autonomy and spirit? Does state involvement, particularly in the form of delegated powers, lead to over-formalization of communities and the creation of mini-states?

How much power should the state turn over to communities? For example, should communities rather than individuals be taxed and made accountable for behavior?

Should community rights and responsibilities be embedded in the federal Constitution? Can this be done without infringing on individual rights? Should such infringements be considered anyway?

What should be the state's role in preventing intra-community abuses of power? What kinds of appeal systems for protecting individual rights should be created?

What should be the rights of the community relative to the individual in determining membership? How open should communities be made?

To what degree and how should the state ensure reasonable equity among communities?

How much control should rural communities have over resources such as forests, water, and minerals which we have regarded as nationally or provincially common property?

How much time can people be expected to put into community development? Should community service be credited in some way? Would a more rational, community-based society reduce time spent in wage labor, household chores, and commuting, and thus provide more time for community work?

How could community involvement be made less frustrating and more attractive?

What are the implications for education systems of the community development imperative? What should students be learning?

In order to ensure that communities will remain genuinely human, a new system of structuring human existence must be formed around human community norms. These norms or values will inspire and guide community life. Such norms would include a wide variety of human features such as love, sharing, cooperation, a sense of responsibility for others and for all life on earth.

 

True human community can not continue to be structured around the current dominating values of our societies such as the economic principles of self-interest, competition, or efficiency. These values have only led communities to compete and fight with each other over decreasing resources. Allowing these economic principles to dominate in human society has only resulted in the destruction of true human community and many key resources of the earth. Human norms must instead govern economic activity and return economic values to a subservient position of serving human community. Remember, law or principles (including economic principles) are made to serve people, not people to serve law.

 

We need to realize and bring to the forefront once again the truth that financial gain means little in terms of progress for humanity or the human spirit. In fact, financial gain is too often the result of dehumanizing competition and at the expense of cooperative community responsibility. Financial gain too often means a regression of the human spirit, and the destruction of responsibility toward community.

 

True Democracy Can Be Slow And Sloppy

In thinking particularly of economic efficiency, we need to realize that community control of critical decision making processes may at times appear to be a slow and messy process. It may result in unclear decisions or outcomes. But irregardless of the problems encountered, community control of decision making is essential for people to become fully responsible humans and to feel in control of their own lives. Community control alone will lead to the opportunity for people to take full responsibility for choices and the consequences of those choices. This alone is true human freedom and it is therefore essential to human existence, whether it is efficient or not.

 

Also important in regard to local and personal control is the fact that you will never deal properly with issues of peace, satisfaction, fulfillment, and cooperation in human groups until you grant full equal access to and influence over critical decision making processes to all members affected by those decisions. There is simply no other way to satisfy the demands and aspirations of human beings for freedom, personal control, and equality. Truly human community demands such full participatory democracy, which alone can support human development with its essential personal choice and responsibility.

 

It can not be stressed strongly enough that one of the key issues for solving problems in groups and in all human relationships, is shared power over decision making processes. And at the heart of this issue must be the practice of genuine equality and freedom for all involved in such processes.

 

You simply can never have satisfaction and peaceful cooperation where there is inequality or loss of personal freedom. You can rearrange the furniture and walls and play around with cute tricks like calling everyone an associate, but if one person or a small elite still hold effective power over others, then you do not have genuine teamwork with its essential equal access and equal influence over decision making.

 

Until organizations and governments move more radically toward sharing power equally, they will always have group relationship problems no matter how much management training they give to their supervisory staff. Denying shared power over decision making processes that affect people, violates people's sense of equality and freedom and therefore violates the basic humanity of all involved in a process or organization. Freedom and an orientation to equality are the essence of emerging humanity.

 

At the heart of understanding the importance of local and personal control of decision making processes, is the need to understand the paradox of bottom up planning or decision making. If a choice or a decision comes from people at the bottom who are most affected by the decision, then those people, if allowed to make the decision, will support it more and will take more responsibility for its implementation as they will feel it is genuinely their own decision. They will feel true ownership of the decision. People naturally accept and support decisions that are their own, but resent and resist decisions that are imposed on them from above (in Canada we remember from the recent past the government's failed attempt to impose its Meech Lake Accord on the Canadian public).

 

Governing powerholding elites often respond that without their close topdown control over decision making there will be chaos and anarchy. But in reality the opposite actually occurs. As we will note again later, Colin Ward's theory of 'spontaneous order" appears to operate more commonly in real life. Ward states that given a common need a group of people will by trial and error evolve order out of chaos- that order being more durable and more closely related to their needs than any externally imposed order. An illustration of this can be found in anthropological studies which show that in apparently ungoverned slums in many countries people are actually living according to highly complex social systems. People at the bottom are fully capable of evolving their own order and systems of cooperation aside from centralized topdown control.

 

The paradox is that such bottomup order actually contributes more to social stability (and group or organization stability) than topdown imposed order. We are seeing worldwide the fragmentation and breakup of large centrally governed states where order is imposed from governing centers. Misinformed intuition has long argued that without such central control you would have chaos and anarchy. But more often it is actually the tight control and domination of such states, seen as necessary to avoid anarchy, this control actually produces resentment, resistance, instability, and even revolt. Such control then produces the very chaos and anarchy it is designed to avoid. This trend to resist central control will intensify with the ongoing emergence of humanity with its essential demand for freedom and equality. Letting people have more local and personal control, instead of producing chaos and anarchy, actually becomes the way to avoid chaos and anarchy.

 

People, in a naturally human response, tend to take as their own and support decisions that they make themselves. Violating this fundamental fact of human nature has led to immense misery for organizations and states in terms of humiliated and resentful workers and citizens, resistance to state or organizational programs, higher turnover with its expensive retraining costs, and poorer long-term performance in all groups.

 

Rothschild has also stated regarding more bottomup control that "participation in considering options and making decisions appears to breed commitment to the outcome. When people have had input into a decision, its implementation may be expected to go smoother. Unilateral decisions, albeit quicker, (lead to) no enthusiasm for implementation. In bureaucracies... the nonparticipatory nature of decisions may contribute to the blocking or sabotage of organizational action. In his study of kibbutzim enterprises, Rosner has found that the frequency of meetings and the importance of issues raised are strongly correlated with a more equal distribution of influence. In turn, the greater a person's sense of influence, the more that individual will feel personally committed to the organization and the more trust he or she will have in its management. In this way, time spent on democratically deciding things at meetings may enhance commitment and implementation" (Joyce Rothschild, 1989. The Cooperative Workplace, p.65).

 

 

We must learn to trust people as adults and support their efforts to learn responsibility and self-governance. Human beings will learn to govern themselves and in so doing their well-being will be greatly improved. They will find ways to get things done and they will support more wholeheartedly the implementation and maintenance of their own plans. Government must support such efforts. It will however, take great trust in people to be able to grant such bottomup control, but it will pay off in better relationships and more responsible action from the bottom. Also, state programs and all social organizations will benefit from the diverse ideas and creativity that flows from such control at the bottom.

 

Sufficient studies have shown that while true democracy and freedom may at times appear to be slower and messier, ultimately they serve efficiency better because where people have more control over decisions affecting them, there is, we repeat once again, better morale, less turnover with its expensive retraining costs, and better long-term performance. This is aside from the fact that personal control is vital for human mental, emotional, and physical well-being.

 

Rebecca Monet has said the same in stating that where employees are given a basic direction to move toward and the tools to get there, they will then determine what jobs they will do, how much they will pay themselves, and they will evaluate their own performance. Companies that have moved to such self-managed work teams are "seeing fewer firings, less turnover, more commitment and improved bottom-line results. The move from a vertical, patriarchal, masculine management style... means more cooperation, equal responsibility and teamwork among employees... The ultimate goal is to get rid of bosses. We don't need them. There is no need for someone to demand we get a result." ("Bosses Bashed", Vancouver Sun).

 

Communities of Cooperation Not Competition

Also, cooperation must replace competition as the new foundation of healthy human communities. Cooperation involves huge doses of tolerance, forgiveness, sacrifice for others and the larger good, and consideration of the interests of others. Competition, on the other hand, too often reflects and encourages only the expression of aggressive selfishness. Schumacher has stated that any system based on selfishness as a central operating principle is corrupt at its core and is ultimately destined to fail (E. F. Schumacher, 1975. Small is Beautiful). Such systems are simply too animal-like to encourage the emergence of and development of true humanity. This is a strong condemnation of contemporary economic systems and organizing.

 

Kipnis argues that it is difficult to place restraints on aggression when the entire culture or society emphasizes and promotes achievement, winning, and competition (David Kipnis. The Powerholders, p.145). The drive to achieve, whether at school, at play, or in business, places people in competitive relation to other humans. He argues that "the cultural emphasis on achievement is quite likely to lead to a lowering of restraints against using power tactics to satisfy the need for achievement" (Ibid, p.145).

 

He also argues that achievement needs have not only led to economic growth but also to wars and the cruel exploitation of weaker neighbors. His conclusion is that societies that give priority to maximizing individual achievement goals, also invite their citizens to use whatever resources that are available to satisfy those needs. This emphasis on aggressive winning inevitably leads to domination and control of others.

 

The point he makes, that we want to stress here in relation to community, is that a society that stresses self-realization and competitive achievement instead of communal goals, inevitably forces its members into competitive power struggles since achievement success is defined in terms of doing better than others. Severe problems emerge when all members are simultaneously struggling to do better than all others, especially in a world of increasing population and decreasing resources. Such competitive efforts effectively destroy community and cooperative relating.

 

There is very little that is ennobling about competition. Arguments are commonly raised that competition makes markets more efficient in terms of resource allocation. But for whose benefit? Far more commonly, competition is used as an excuse to express greed and animal-like domination which inevitably leads to destructive consequences for the victims of such behavior. Even if competition does serve a useful function in terms of market allocation, it must always be subservient to human well-being and community interests such as cooperation and sharing.

 

Inevitably, in competitive systems you have winners and losers and unequal control over the resources needed by all members of the society. Historically, this has produced a trend which has resulted in growing enrichment and empowerment of a small elite at the top of our hierarchical social orders and the growing impoverishment of an ever larger percentage of human beings at the lower levels of our social orders. This growing inequity has resulted only in conflict and violence. The further destruction of human society and world resources is assured if we continue on this competitive trajectory.

 

Interestingly, modern business ideology increasingly speaks of competitive economic activity as battle or war and it describes competitors as the enemy to be defeated or beaten. That says a lot about the humanity of such economic ideology and practice.

 

There have been few things more destructive to human relating and progress than competition. Our essential nature as human is to cooperate as equals in shared community. But contemporary economic ideology, systems, and institutions all orient us to compete with each other, to fight each other for more or better resources, jobs, opportunities and benefits than our fellow human beings. This competitive drive of current world culture destroys the possibility of peaceful cooperation and the development of harmonious communities. It is a return to a brutal and dehumanizing animal past.

 

Competition is a zero sum game in a world of limited and decreasing resources. Some aggressively taking more than what they need, results in loss and suffering to others. Winning minorities and losing majorities are the inevitable outcomes of competition.

 

 

Also, researchers have noted that there appears to be an essential creative drive in life which is oriented toward cooperation in increasing complexity (Paul Davies, 1988. The Cosmic Blueprint). This creative drive pushes life to continue to emerge seemingly against the second law of thermodynamics which argues for the increasing disintegration of life and orderly systems. This creative drive of life is most notable in the emergence of human consciousness out of an animal existence characterized by a cold, cruel, and merciless competition over resources. It is a cooperative drive which, as the essence of the human spirit, is contrary to the competitive essence of animal reality. This cooperative drive is now known to be essential to the ongoing emergence and development of life. It is essential to all future evolution. If cooperation is so fundamental to life, then maybe we should pay more attention to encouraging it in our basic social systems and values.

 

We should remember once again James Lovelock's statement in GAIA that early life freely chose the option of predation and domination as an easy route to gaining nourishment. This choice was made from among other choices available for survival. Competition and domination are not inevitable realities necessary for the survival of life.

 

It is always inspiring to read of the earliest followers of Jesus sharing all things in common and giving to everyone in need. Paul also urged any better off person to give to others who had less. But that early outburst of love, sharing, and cooperation was soon overwhelmed and buried in a savagely competitive world where every person was committed to get all they could for themselves. That early cooperation, so essential for true human existence, development, and relating, is now viewed as utopian, extremist, and even a bit nutty by self-oriented, competitive consumers in contemporary societies.

 

In thinking of competition and cooperation as societal values, I am reminded of several societies in the South Pacific. A competitive European sport was introduced there decades ago. Using the sport in its competitive form could have led to violence between the different groups in the area. So in a brilliant cultural adaptation, the societies kept the basic sport but changed it into a form where there were no winners or losers. Everyone played heartily, but no one was allowed to beat anyone else. Everyone went home a winner.

 

The adapted sport provided great entertainment without causing bad feeling among the different groups. More aggressively competitive and so-called economically developed societies could learn from these socially advanced groups. With a little imagination people can develop inspiring and fun alternatives to brutal competition.

 

Sports in western society illustrates well the drive of competition and its often inhuman consequences. Sports competition would be all right if it led to the simple pleasure of play, entertainment, genuine good relations with others and a growing sense of cooperation. But far too often it is all about violent competition, full of aggression and hatred, and leads to disunity and bad feeling between competitors. There is also something frighteningly inhuman about the all too common rejoicing over the defeat and humiliation of others.

 

A sports commentator in Canada also made the interesting comment about winning in sports. He said that every great athlete is a killer, has a mean streak, and hates to lose. This says a lot about the development of humanity in Western sports does it not? Maybe this is what Hare meant about psychopathy in sports figures.

 

This also raises the question of our Western obsession with winning, expressed in finding and lauding the best, biggest, greatest, or first. Instead of enjoying what all have to contribute in their own unique way, we disparage and eliminate all who do not win- the majority- and condemn them as losers.

 From the series 'Taking The Vertical Out Of God'
copyrighted material. Contact Us