What It Means To Be Human

Article 8:
What It Means To Be Human
by Wendell Krossa
(From the series "Creating A Horizontal God", Copyright, W. Krossa)

«The Truly Human Person « Criteria for Human Relating and Existence «Relationships, Relationships, Relationships Freedom From Control «Personal Freedom And Others «Freedom And Uncertainty «Horizontal Humanity- Equality «Love Is A Horizontal Emotion «Growing Diversity «Efficiency Violates Diversity «Structuring To Support Emerging Humanity «The Revolution For Freedom

The Truly Human Person

This section reviews some of the main features of the human self and some basic criteria essential for people to exist as truly human persons. These are features that make the self a human self or person in distinction from something animal-like. Again, I am indebted to Zwemer for a number of features which deserve interaction and thought.

1. The human self is relational. Here Zwemer argues that the human self is the product of nonhierarchical human relationships (1). The human self exists as a truly human self only in free and noncommandable human relationships. This unique characteristic of relating horizontally to every other human is called love, says Zwemer. "It knows nothing of the superior or inferior" (2).

In fact, argues Zwemer, it is only possible to truly love someone if that person is on the same level as oneself. It is not possible to love up or down to others (3). To be truly human and truly relational means relating to others horizontally.

Zwemer continues, arguing that to fully realize true selfhood there must be a fully equal other, not a subordinate other. The other must, he says, be capable of the same options, choices, and relationships (4). In humane relationships the human self does not dominate or control others (5). It is a truly egalitarian entity and is committed to human equality.

Others, like Levin, also argue that there is a basic need for relatedness in the human self (6). Mary Clark has argued that human selves must have trusting, cooperative relationships for existence as true selves (7). All of these researchers are pointing to the same essential demand for egalitarian relationships in order to live as truly human.
2. The self is historical. This also reflects Zurcher's point regarding the mutable self in which he noted that the self is in the process of becoming fully human. We have made a break with our animal past and are now developing as human persons. This process of development takes place in history.

It can also be said that the self is historical in that the self is the cumulation of experience and memory of the individual. The self is an ongoing process of all that the person thinks, feels, and does.

3. The self is creative. Here the point is made that the human self is a precondition for all other reality. As we noted earlier, it has been suggested by scientists that the universe only exists because it is observed by the conscious human self.

4. The self is life. This feature notes a similar point to the previous one in that if the universe with its life exists only because it is observed by the human self, then there is no life apart from the self.

5. The self is a whole, encompassing body, mind, and soul. The self embraces the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of a person (8). Jaynes noted something similar to this in describing how the separate senses in early human bodies eventually merged to form a human self (9).

In noting the origins of the self, it becomes clear that the self is not composed of body, mind, and soul. Those religious categories may have always been more mythical than real. The self is a totality that emerged out of a process of unifying bodily sensations and elements.

Jung also argues for this view of the self as the totality of the human person in stating that "the self embraces the whole of psychic totality, incorporating both consciousness and the unconscious; it is also the center of this totality" (10).

6. The self is not commandable. Zwemer argues that you cannot command love, trust, hope, commitment, or any of the basic human emotions or responses. The self must be free to cooperate or not to cooperate. Commanding or coercing has to do with animal relating and existence and is totally foreign to true human relating and existence.

7. Closely related to the above is the fact that the self is free. The human self can not be commanded because the true self is free from any form of domination/submission. It is free and in the process of becoming truly human. The human self was formed in a consciousness which was a break from animal domination and coercion. It was a break which now allows for spontaneous response from the self. That break was freedom from control and freedom from control is therefore the essential nature of the human self.

8. The self is decisional. It has, says Zwemer, the responsibility and privilege of choosing and deciding. This is a critical point, that the human self must have personal responsibility and personal control over the decisions that affect it.

To develop as a truly human self we need to take full personal responsibility for critical decisions affecting our behavior and destiny. We need a freedom which allows and encourages us to become responsible choosing and deciding entities. Such responsible control over decision making processes that affect the human self is essential for human well-being, development and growth. The loss of this control in hierarchical existence within modern institutions and states has led to alienation, conflict, and even physical illness and premature death among humans (11). External control exercised over the human self will destroy the very nature of the self. The ramifications on the human person are devastating.

Criteria for Human Relating and Existence

From what we know about the emerging human self and its basic features, it is possible to derive some general criteria regarding what is essential for human relating, existence, and development. These criteria try to encompass and focus on what is indispensable for a person to become fully human.

These criteria may also be useful for evaluating relationships, processes, and organizations to discern if they genuinely support human development or if they operate to undermine it. They are criteria that may be useful in shaping processes and structures that will provide for more human relating and existence.

These criteria are what the human self demands as a bare minimum for its existence as a truly human self. They are a necessary minimum for development of humanity. While these requirements may not be a comprehensive list, anything less will not permit the development of human selves and genuinely human relating. This condemns much of contemporary organizing and hierarchical relating as inhuman and not fit to serve human development.

Relationships, Relationships, Relationships

1. First, human relating and existence must be communal as human beings are relational and social creatures. I am using the term communal loosely to refer to a community orientation. Community in this sense could refer to a family or a circle of friends or work associates. Community is any context where we relate to other people.
It is only possible to become fully human in relationship with others. It is in relationships with other people that we learn what it means to be human and to relate as truly human. In relationships with others, we learn to love, to forgive, and to tolerate diversity. We learn to identify ourselves as human and we learn to respond and act humanly from the inspiring example of others. Relationships or relating is the essence of human existence.

There is no true human life aside from relationships with other humans.

I noted earlier a definition of life as a web of complex interdependencies. Human beings are vitally integrated within those interdependencies. Such interdependency carries with it responsibility for the other. In the West we tend to devalue the sense of responsibility to community or to relationships. Our obsession with individual liberties has sometimes been taken to ridiculous extremes that deny any responsibility at all to community. That may in part explain the more widespread sense of alienation and loneliness found throughout Western nations.
However, despite the importance of relationships in community, human community must not overwhelm, dominate, or bury the individual. Community relationships must always be those of free commitment and free cooperation between all members. Human relating in community ought to be a reality where people freely commit to cooperate as equals in endeavors they freely choose to commit themselves to. Such relationships are never rigidly binding or coercive but always remain open for individuals to leave and return as they responsibly choose.

And community relating must always preserve individual freedom, responsibility, and decision making capability. Later, I will note some interesting models of relating which try to preserve this individual responsibility in decision making.

To preserve the vital element of personal responsibility and personal choice in any group, all members ought to have equal access to and equal influence in decision making processes that affect them.

Centralization trends of the past few millennia, which have intensified in the past few centuries in modern nation states, have left communities and community members with only token power to govern themselves and to express personal responsibility for their own destinies. People do not grow and develop properly under these conditions of minimal freedom and minimum responsibility for their own lives. They are not able to develop as responsible and decisional selves.

Community must also never become just another organization or institution with the attendant rigidity of such structures. Community must preserve the dynamic flow of changing, evolving, and increasingly diverse human relating and existence. Human community should allow and encourage each individual person to spontaneously express their own unique humanity and to contribute to community in their own creative and unique manner.
Relating as true equals with other humans in community is the essence of human life. It is the very reason for life. The next three points will try to further show the nature of relating that is necessary for the development of true humanity. Such relating must not only be allowed to exist, but even moreso, it must be encouraged to operate in all of life's situations, whether at home or in school or at work or wherever humans relate to each other.

Freedom From Control

2. Human relating and existence must always remain genuinely free. Humanity is grounded in a space which was a break with animal domination, a space which grew to eventually become freedom to reflect, to question controlling authority, and to freely choose one's own action. This freedom from outside control and freedom for personal control is the essential element of being truly human.

The free self must have space for spontaneous expression of its own unique personality. Hierarchical relationships, which embody and encourage the expression of control and domination, have shown little capability to encourage such freedom.

Dominate/subordinate, superior/inferior, boss/worker, and leader/follower relationships have often proven to be profoundly damaging arrangements of relating. They are destructive forms of relating primarily because they encourage the expression of control by the superior and freedom from control is the one thing more than anything else that is essential to being genuinely human.

If the human self is genuinely free, then it is not being commanded or dominated in any way. Coercion or control in any form undermines the freedom essential for human development. There can be no compromise on this basic issue of freedom from all forms of control.

Nothing else in life or reality characterizes or defines humanity more than this one essential and central thing- freedom from control. The initial emergence of humanity and modern human consciousness was as a break from animal control or domination. That break with control was the beginning of a process of development which led to the emergence of modern consciousness and modern humanity.

Freedom might now be defined as taking full personal responsibility for critical decisions that affect the individual's life. This is how people gain effective control of their own lives and destinies. To experience such responsible control, people must have free and full access to the necessary resources and full involvement in critical decision making processes that affect them. Nation states, and the institutions they are comprised of, have been very destructive to this element of human existence in that they have centralized many critical decisions away from local and personal control.

The trend to centralize has in some measure been reversed in the past century with decentralization movements in various places of the world. But often these decentralization movements are often only token efforts of central governments to give up control over peripheral issues. They may decentralize some decision making to a lower level but ensure that critical decisions are still kept in the hands of central authorities. This token sharing of power only continues the destructive powerlessness that has devastated human relating and development for the past three to four millennia.

Personal Freedom And Others

It also should be stated in the context of any discussion on freedom that freedom does not simply mean the liberty to do whatever we please. Freedom also means the acceptance of responsibility for ourselves and others.

More freedom and more control over our own lives means more personal responsibility. Becoming a free human self, by taking more responsibility for one's own life, is a move toward dealing with more complexity and more work. It will mean more active decision making and more responsibility for the consequences of decisions made. If communities want more freedom from control by central governments then they are taking more responsibility for more decisions and their consequences. It means a lot more work for everyone.

Continuing under the control of others is viewed by many people as a much simpler option because others are then responsible to make the difficult choices on critical life issues. It is much easier to turn over control to others and let them do the difficult thinking, the complex deciding, and then let them handle the sometimes messy and nasty consequences of difficult life decisions. But such avoidance of personal responsibility is a sure way to short circuit the development of true human personhood. Taking personal responsibility for one's own life is essential to self development.

Gaining the freedom for more personal or local control means that we will have to learn to compromise and to cooperate with other individuals and other communities that are also seeking more freedom and more control for themselves. New cooperative arrangements and relationships with others on a variety of issues will have to be worked out over local areas and wider regions where public arenas are shared with other people.
Individuals must never become so enslaved to their own personal freedom that they can not respect the freedom of others. This tolerance is critical for successful community and inter-community relationships on an increasingly crowded planet.

Freedom And Uncertainty

Freedom for true human existence also means living with uncertainty and chance. I am referring here to indeterminacy theory which argues that the totality of our choices may lead to unpredictable outcomes in the systems we are engaged with- both natural and social. Do our institutions and relationships allow for and even encourage this freedom? Are we ready to accept the sometimes frightening consequences of this freedom such as suffering from the mistakes, carelessness, and even intentional cruelty of others?
One of the greatest hindrances to genuine freedom is a fear of the uncertainty, unpredictability, randomness, and chance which exist in true freedom. Unwilling to live with such fear, many people prefer instead the stifling predictability of tightly controlled programs and institutions even if it means dehumanizing domination by others.

Horizontal Humanity- Equality

3. Human relating and existence must be egalitarian in order to be truly human. The human self demands horizontal relating in equality with all others and in all situations for its full development. It requires nondominating, nonvertical forms of relating. This point also echoes Zwemer's comments on the human self being a noncommandable entity (12).

Vertical relationships are essentially and inevitably unequal and therefore operate to undermine human relating and to retard the development of human selves. A vertical orientation in relating allows for and even encourages the expression of the residual animal drives to dominate and control. Coercion is an inevitable product of such an orientation in relationships.

Consensual decision making processes which demand a horizontal and nonhierarchical form of operation have some interesting things to teach us regarding the issue of egalitarianism or equalitarianism. Equal access to power and resources is a key element here. Equality of access or control may not necessarily mean equal sharing of material resources, but it ought to ensure the promotion of equal access to and control over decisions regarding critical resources of a community or region. Different people will choose different levels of material goods for their well-being but all members of communities must be ensured ongoing equality of access to and control over basic resources for their well-being.

Equality of decision making power provides more personal responsibility for the person involved in any given process. It permits and encourages people involved to relate horizontally as equal selves. Coercion and control do not operate very well in such horizontal processes.

In any effort of cooperation or in any human structure, human beings should never relate up or down to each other. There should never be any element of above or below, of inferior or superior, of domination or submission in human relationships, whether in the family or at work or in any other social or state institution.

It is animal to relate upward or downward in dominating and predatory relationships. In fact, such vertical relating activates and promotes those very animal drives to dominate. A vertical orientation in relationships can never promote true human cooperation or love.

I do not want to leave the impression that relating horizontally will automatically solve all the problems of human relationships and interaction. We are all very imperfect people with a lot of nastiness and irresponsibility left in and among us. But relating horizontally is a basic and essential step in the right direction toward a more humane existence. We all have a lot of experimentation to do and a lot of experience yet to gain in the area of human relationships.

Love Is A Horizontal Emotion

Love is perhaps the most essential emotion for healthy human development. But it is impossible for love to exist in vertical relationships. Love can not be expressed through vertical forms of relating (superior/inferior, dominant/subordinate, or leader/follower relationships).

Love only operates as genuine love in truly horizontal relationships where there is absolutely no coercion or threat from a superior. Love by its very nature requires freedom for spontaneous expression and can never be brought forth by command or coercion. Love as a truly human emotion is essentially grounded and developed in freedom which is the essential nature of humanity.

In talking about love and horizontal relating, Brinsmead says "It is this essential human identity which gives us the impulse and the potential to relate horizontally, to accord every person the right and dignity which belongs to them. This unique characteristic of relating horizontally to every person is love" (13).

He continues, stating that love knows nothing of the superior or inferior. It is not possible to love up or down to someone else. "It is only possible to truly love someone if that person is on the same level as oneself" (14). Love, he argues, will put everyone on the same level. Love will relate to all others horizontally.

Kipnis has also collected some very useful research regarding the impossibility of love existing in vertical relationships. His material confirms that love demands horizontally oriented relationships for its proper expression.

He notes clinical research that concluded whenever people consciously tried to dominate or control others, then they had difficulty in maintaining affectionate relationships with others (15). Kipnis explains, "This is because the goal of power over others leads to a rejection of equality. Loving relations become especially difficult to maintain" (16).

He continues, noting that when power becomes an end in itself, it replaces the values of love and compassion for the weak. The urge to be number one tends to become the exclusive preoccupation of the powerholder. In this sense power corrupts and destroys the expression of love in human relationships.

It appears that the corrupting influence of power is not something that only operates in extreme situations such as brutal dictatorships in distant places. Kipnis has argued effectively that there is sufficient evidence to show that power or control in any relationship will corrupt the attitude of the person holding the dominant position and render true love or human relating impossible.

The corrupting influence of vertically oriented power and control relationships operates in a variety of ways.

For one, it changes the powerholders perception of themselves and their perception of others. People controlling power, says Kipnis, "develop an exalted and vain view of their own worth which inhibits compassion for others" (17). This reflects what was said earlier about the impossibility of loving down to others.

Power corrupts in that powerholders devalue those below them and "act to increase social distance from them" (18). This, argues Kipnis, is the most destructive psychological consequence of one-sided power relationships. The less powerful in such relationships become objects of manipulation with a lesser claim to rights and resources claimed by powerholders. The powerless are perceived less as individuals and more as objects, says Kipnis.

"Considering these tendencies to devalue others and to maintain psychological distance, many writers believe that the control of power precludes the possibility of harmonious interpersonal relationships. According to Sampson, inequity in power inevitably produces dominance, manipulation and precludes the possibility of establishing truly loving relations. He (Sampson) further states that it is impossible for any human relationship to avoid distortion to the extent that power enters into it" (19).

He then repeats in more specific detail that there are several things which suppress genuine concern for other's well-being and lead to the development of contemptuous attitudes in powerholders.

First, as noted above, the powerless are devaluated because it is easier to control others if psychological distance is maintained and emotional involvement is kept to a minimum. Whenever a powerholder feels genuine sympathy for the less powerful then it is difficult for the powerholder to order those below him to do distasteful things.

Secondly, the very act of controlling another devalues that person in that they are deprived of choice. The powerholder believes that he controls the other's behavior and the subservient person is therefore not in control of his own behavior but is only producing outcomes due to the powerholder's influence. Such powerlessness on the part of the controlled person has a devastating impact on their well being and development.

This devaluation of inferiors, states Kipnis, occurs in any power relationship- whether teacher/student, dominant husband/subordinate wife, superior/subordinate relations at work, or in physician/patient relations. It appears that vertical arrangements of relationships do not operate to assist or promote the truly humane relating of equals. Power relationships are essentially inhuman and destructive. As Kipnis and others have shown, the entry of power or control into any relationship precludes the possibility of that relationship continuing as a truly human relationship. This is a powerful call to avoid all forms of vertical relating and control.

Let me put it in the strongest and clearest language possible. Whenever power, control, or coercion in any form enters any relationship, it undermines the expression of love. Love and coercion are mutually exclusive realities. This fact should be made to reverberate loud and long through human consciousness and then stir us to greater effort to rid all human relationships of every form of control or power.

There is no such thing as Plato's benevolent king or nice bosses. Control is always damaging and it destroys true human relating which is the relating of free equals.

This leads me to question if there might not be some element of callousness, if not outright ignorance, in powerholders who can not see or feel the damaging implications of power on powerless people when decisions are made for them without their input or personal control. The stubborn refusal to share decision making power with others also raises serious questions about the powerholder's sense of humanity and their ability to comprehend the consequences of their positions and actions. It also reveals a serious lack of basic human empathy.

People in powerholding positions should be made aware of the damage caused to subordinates when control is taken from them. They need to understand how important it is for people to have access and input to decisions that impact their lives. This will lead to treating all people as genuine equals in consensus oriented processes and will alleviate the damaging consequences of loss of control or powerlessness.

Brinsmead continues with his explanation of freedom by stating categorically that freedom is the precondition of love. Love is only possible if there is freedom. "What is done out of force, fear, or necessity is not love" (20).

These are clear statements that point to the conclusion that if people are to express and experience love between themselves then it must be through the horizontal relating of true equals. This calls into question all the vertically oriented systems of organizing used by institutions and societies worldwide.

It is time to quit playing games with these hierarchical systems while billions of people are denied their humanity and denied the opportunity to relate in a truly humane manner at the lower levels of such systems of organizing. It is time to take freedom seriously and to liberate people from the destructive vertical relationships still operating in so many of our contemporary institutions.

By continuing to use these archaic arrangements of organizing and institutions we are undermining the humanity of the very people that we often claim these institutions exist to serve.

Growing Diversity

4. Human relating and existence should reflect the complex diversity of life. Freeman Dyson has stated that since the Big Bang and the absolute uniformity of matter which existed at that creative moment, the subsequent cooling of the universe has produced an increasing development toward complexity and diversity of life (21).
Paul Davies has suggested that in this basic trend of the universe "there exists something like a law of increasing complexity" (22). Rather than a determined universe where everything operates according to fixed, eternal laws, we are now discovering that "the universe is in some sense open; it can not be known what new levels of variety or complexity may be in store" (23).

Humanity shares in this essential progression of life toward diversity with a brain that has evolved into an organism which has infinite possible connections among its neurons. Life in general also offers infinite possible ways for humans to redefine themselves as to who they are and who they might become. Complexity and diversity simply mean infinite unlimited possibilities for life and development.

The basic flow of life toward more complexity has been constrained since the onset of domestication with the development of the controlling organizations of domestication. These organizations have been developed to operate according to systems of law and a view of law as something fixed, final, and unchanging. Such an understanding of law as something that is rigidly determined and unchanging has led people to create systems of organizing that reflect such a view of law.

It is now understood that the tendency to view life in terms of a law orientation originated with Latin or Roman society and was later adopted by religions like Christianity. It continued in subsequent worldviews and eventually found expression in Newton's closed and mechanistic view of the universe where everything was understood as being determined by or operated according to eternal and unchanging laws. It was a very rigid, controlling, and law oriented view of life.

The orientation to law also expressed the ancient residual longing for the security and predictability of a tightly determined existence. Disorder, complexity, and diversity were viewed as things destructive to security and certainty. They were therefore to be eliminated from human existence. Everything was to be tightly controlled according to law.

This view of life does not recognize the positive influence of increasing diversity and complexity. There is little appreciation in such a view for the value of spontaneity, creativity, and chance as healthy elements in the development of life. Hopefully, emerging developments in indeterminacy theory will produce a new view of law as something more open and subject to change, and will eventually lead to more flexible systems of organizing which reflect such a new view of law and life.

Efficiency Violates Diversity

Most organizations make great effort to control the activities of their people in order to attain uniformity which is more manageable than diversity. The goal of this tight control is efficiency which is now the dominant worldwide concern of almost all human organizing.

There is also economic pressure behind the effort to control people. To survive in the current world economy an organization must answer to the issue of efficiency. Also, the legal and political context of societies often supports the drive for efficiency by demanding more strict control by management in order to ensure efficiency (24) and therefore ensure survivability in a highly competitive environment.

Consequently, despite the importance of diversity as a fundamental element of developing life, most organizations have traditionally tried to manage and control life out of this concern for efficiency. But increasingly, evidence is emerging which shows that efficiency is often better served in nonhierarchical structures which do not try to control diversity (25). Nonhierarchical arrangements of relationships allow for equality which is naturally more conducive to the expression of diversity. People who are treated as genuine equals feel more secure about expressing themselves as unique persons and feel less obligated to perform in standardized ways according to organizational law or roles.

It is becoming increasingly questionable if hierarchy with its tight control is really an efficient form at all for organizing human activity. In the short term, it may be true that such tight control, with strong leadership barking orders, will appear to get things done more quickly. But it is now highly questionable how efficient such forms of organizing really are in the long term. Vertical relationships of control more often create resentment and demoralize those in the lower strata. Relationships of control then produce resistance to organizational policy and practice which results in massive waste and inefficiency. Studies have concluded that excessive control leads to worsened morale, increased turnover, and poorer long-term performance. The poorer long-term performance is due to the loss of performance efficiencies which only come from long-term experience at a job. Increased turnover destroys such gains in performance efficiencies. Ultimately, tight control undermines the long term viability of the controlling system.

More important to this discussion, people are essentially non-commandable beings and the controlling relationships of hierarchy will negatively impact their well-being and their work performance. This is especially true as emerging consciousness continues to lead people to the awareness that hierarchical relating is a very primitive form of relating and is destructive to human development and existence.

In plain economic terms, it is becoming increasingly evident that humans do not produce very well under conditions of hierarchical control. The shift to more egalitarian forms of organizing has brought about impressive increases in productivity. People find their morale is improved and they are more willing to support the processes that they are involved in. They will especially support the outcomes of processes if they feel that the outcome is genuinely the result of their own decision making and has not been handed down to them from superiors.

The conclusion now being seen more often in organizational theory literature is that more humane forms of organizing are more efficient and more productive. As noted above, this is due in a large way to the fact that people are willing to support what they feel they are genuinely in control of.

Also, simply granting people the freedom to be spontaneously human and to respond as they would like to, will lead to people feeling better about themselves and their work. This can only be more healthy and productive for all involved.

Uniformization, which is the end result of the drive for efficiency, flies in the face of the fact that diversity is a much healthier route to take because diversity offers any system more options for survival and creative advance. It provides more opportunities to thrive (26).

While there are many situations in life where it is necessary for people to band together in a cooperative manner to accomplish some larger social task, rarely is such group cooperation allowed to remain truly human venture with respect for the freedom, equality, and diversity of all members involved. In most group organizing efforts, elite minorities of powerholders take control in ways that damage and even destroy the humanity of lower strata members.

A further issue to raise here, is whether people can ever really manage or control life. It has been argued that our management systems do not contain the 'requisite variety' (27) of the systems they are trying to control. What this means is that if a managing system does not fully understand or contain the same complexity of the system it is trying to manage, then it can not properly manage that system. It is unlikely that a human created management system exists anywhere which can fully understand or encompass the diversity that exists in life and this fact disqualifies any management system from really trying to control life.

We do not even know yet where life is going and we certainly can not predict or direct the flow of life with any certainty. Life simply can not be predetermined according to fixed laws or a set plan. It would be much wiser for us to respect our ignorance of life's diversity and complexity and then try to adjust to life rather than try to control it or force it to conform to our predetermined plans about where it should be moving.

While other points could be made, the above criteria set forth some of the basic demands for true human existence. These encompass some of the basic features of the human self and some of the basic requirements for human relating and development.

Structuring To Support Emerging Humanity

Among other points I am making, I want to argue that if the basic purpose of human life is to become fully humane, then all our social processes, organizations, and structures ought be designed with the above basic criteria in mind. Surely, these are minimal criteria for human existence and development. Systems of organizing ought to embrace these essentials or they will only continue to operate in ways that violate and destroy human well-being and development. Anything less is simply inhumane and destructive to human development and progress.

With the emergence of human consciousness, people have made a break with their animal past and have entered the process of becoming fully human. They are not yet fully human, but they are in the process of becoming fully human persons. They are now mutable selves, according to Zurcher (28). This process of emerging humanity now requires genuinely egalitarian structures to support and encourage its proper development and growth.

As I noted earlier, modern human consciousness began with the development of an internal mind space, a wedge between command and animal-like obedience. This space allowed people to reflect on the authority they existed under in controlling hierarchies. It allowed early humans to question the control and domination experienced in those hierarchies and then to take action to break free. This space also allowed for the emergence of self-choice and self-determination over behavior. It was the beginning of a process where the human self would learn to gain personal responsibility for its own life and destiny. All of these elements formed the basis of early human consciousness. They then formed the essential nature of the emerging human person or human self.

The self, in its origin, became a reflective, questioning, and deciding entity at its very core. It would continue to develop toward human personhood and to be truly human it would need to exercise self-determination and self-control over its own destiny.

Any control or commanding of the human self seriously violates of the essential nature of the human person. To treat any person in such a manner is dehumanizing in the extreme and destructive to that person's development. Such control produces all the negative consequences I have repeatedly referred to- alienation, illness, depression, other mental and emotional disorders, violence, and early death.

One of the most important elements in the break with dominating animal drives or instincts, was the break with the vertical orientation of animal relating. The emerging human self would emerge out of this break and for the first time in history begin to demand a radically new horizontal orientation in relating with others. This was a demand for relating as genuine equals with equal rights, privileges, and equal access to power and resources. Such egalitarian relating is a bare minimum for human development.

It is becoming clear that the free and non-commandable nature of the self now argues for more egalitarian processes of decision making. Token participation by lower strata people in state and corporate decision making processes is not sufficient to provide the personal responsibility that is necessary for full human development.

A variety of reform efforts have been tried in the past century. These endeavors at horizontal human organizing or relating have been made, for instance, in workplaces. These reform programs have tried to change archaic vertical hierarchies into more open and humane organizations. Recognition of the damaging effects of vertical hierarchical relating on human well being has led to these efforts to humanize the workplace. Some of the more notable efforts of past decades are:

Quality control circles in business organizations

The Kibbutzim in Israel

The Cooperative movement

The Japanese workplace

Worker owned businesses

As commendable as these reform efforts are, they, and similar efforts, need thorough evaluation to discern if they are a genuine and radical reorientation of processes and structures to encourage personal responsibility, humane relating, and genuine human existence or are they merely token efforts at participation to appease angry membership. Do such efforts really give full control back to all persons involved in any given process?

I recognize and applaud all these efforts but I also recognize the subtle and often unbearable pressure from a surrounding environment that supremely values competition and self-interest. Such pressure often pushes people back toward superior/inferior arrangements of relationships.

What is necessary for the successful implementation of truly humane forms of relating is more movement toward the citizen control end of Sherry Arnstein's ladder of control (33). This is where citizens take full control of vital programs and decision making processes affecting their lives. This ladder places types of decision making and organizational arrangements on a ladder ranging from controlling citizens to citizens being in control. The ladder will be noted in detail in a later section.

Vertical control by superiors, whether by humans or by gods, has absolutely no place in human relationships or existence. A radically horizontal orientation must now become the defining core of our worldviews, structures, and practices if we are to move toward a more truly human existence. People now require genuinely egalitarian worldviews and structures to support and encourage their emerging humanity.

Human beings also require unhindered freedom in all their relationships in order to respond spontaneously to the inspiring example of other people. They need an environment or systems of organizing which encourage this free response. Granting personal control over the decision making processes that affect people is one way to encourage them to respond with more freedom.

The Revolution For Freedom

It was also noted above that the elements of reflection, questioning authority, and responsible choice formed the essence of emerging human freedom. Freedom of this nature became an indispensable condition of being truly human. It became the essence of the emerging self and the key value for shaping a truly human future.
Freedom in the break with top down authority, which was the break with animal domination, this freedom also became the substrate of emerging human consciousness. The human person can not now exist or develop in anything less than this true freedom. Freedom has become the necessary condition for the development of all basic human characteristics.

The wedge of reflection and questioning authority which broke the grip of animal control, was the origin of the modern revolution for freedom. That initial pause has grown into powerful movements for freedom in subsequent human history. Freedom has now become the supreme value in the Western world (29) and in much of the rest of the world also. But freedom is not just a value that we have come to adopt in recent centuries. It is the essential nature of humanity since its earliest emergence. You can not be human and not be free.

It has been argued that human history since the dawning of human consciousness has been the history of freedom (30). Zwemer states that the great liberation movements that have stirred the world must be seen as the progressive awakening of human consciousness (31). These liberation movements have grown to encompass all of human life. They include movements for:

Physical freedom from slavery, torture, imprisonment

Social equality

Gender equality

Ethnic equality

Economic equality

Political and ideological freedom

Environmental protection and animal rights

Zwemer adds that many of these movements have resulted in increasing freedoms of self-expression, self-development, and self-determination (32). These, he states, also represent essential and indispensable factors in being truly human.

As people have continued to evolve and develop consciousness or awareness of the indispensable conditions for being truly and fully human, they have become less tolerant of the old vertical structures and vertical relationships which continue as an archaic residue from a more animal-like past.

The decreasing tolerance for vertical forms of relating can be seen especially today in such things as the worldwide grassroots resentment toward dominating governments and organizations at all levels- local, regional, or national. This has resulted in increasing local and community efforts to take back control and power from central governments and corporations. Reaction toward dominating religion has also been a part the growing grassroots resistance to centralized authorities.

Since the emergence of early consciousness, the evolution of human life over the past four millennia has been moving inexorably toward a more humane existence and a more human future. It has been a movement of humanity toward more genuinely horizontal forms of relating, toward radical egalitarianism in true freedom.
This growing demand for more genuinely horizontal, and therefore more human relationships, will continue to grow. What began as slave and peasant revolts, has evolved through liberation movements to become a continuing demand for genuine horizontal orientation in all areas of life.

The human self or person is the most powerful force in life and ultimately it will not be suppressed in its demand for true freedom and truly human existence.

This study argues that a radical horizontalization of social attitudes, processes, relationships, and social orders is therefore necessary to support the continuing emergence and development of true humanity. Becoming fully human demands viewpoints, processes, and structures which will actively support human relating, cooperation, and decision making.

What the human self is now and what it is yet becoming, this provides the basis for criteria which can be used to evaluate and shape social processes and structures into more humane alternatives.

But despite of the growing grassroots realization of the damaging impact of control, it can be argued that most of our contemporary social orders and institutions worldwide are still predominantly vertical in orientation with chains of command and control that reflect animal-like domination and hierarchy. These structures seriously constrain human expression and the development of the human self. Zwemer would go as far as to state that such structures with vertical relating destroy human existence and relating (34).

Unfortunately, these are structures that we spend most of our lives in, whether in families, school, work, or other social areas.

Emerging human consciousness is in every way incompatible with such animal-like forms of relating. The problem is that emerging humanity must still coexist within these old forms which are relics from another era. The consequences are ongoing conflict and severely diminished human well being.

Millennia of formalization of vertical animal-like relating and the institutionalization of the competitive animal drive for dominance has firmly entrenched these animal features in human institutions and societies. These features have also been enshrined as sacred truth in ideologies such as economic theory (i.e. competition in an open marketplace).

These ideologies and the structures they produce do not deserve an unchallenged place in human society. They are animal-like arrangements of vertical domination which allow elite minorities to dominate lower status majorities. The nature of the human self calls all such arrangements into question.

The emergence of a horizontally oriented human consciousness into such vertically oriented states and organizations explains much of the damage to human well-being and ongoing conflict among humans. We have emerged as creatures who are not to be controlled, but to be in full personal control of our own lives, yet we are still controlled in so many of our institutional relationships.

Finally, it should also be noted that more personal control is not something that powerholders can give to the powerless. It is not another object that they can dispense in measured amounts so as not to threaten their privileged positions in social hierarchies. Control is something which people at the bottom must take for themselves in a process of gaining more personal responsibility over their lives and destinies.

Works Cited

Zwemer, Jack. 1991. "The Nature of the Human Self" in Quest, No. 12, p.5.
Ibid, p.5.
Ibid, p.5.
Ibid, p.5.
Ibid, p.5.
Levin, Jerome. 1992. Theories of the Self, p.5.
Zwemer, Jack. 1991. "The Nature of the Human Self" in Quest, No. 12, p.5.
Jaynes, Julian. 1976. The Origin Of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, p. 261.
Singer, June. 1972. Boundaries of the Soul: the Practice of Jung's Psychology, p.218.
Langer, Ellen. 1983. The Psychology of Control.
Zwemer, Jack. 1991. "The Nature of the Human Self" in Quest, No. 12, p.5.
Brinsmead, Robert. 1990. "Where Human Liberation Movements Fall Short" in Quest, Essay 5, p.3.
Ibid, p.3.
Kipnis, David. 1976. The Powerholders, p.151.
Ibid, p.151.
Ibid, p.172.
Ibid, p.176.
Ibid, p.176.
Brinsmead, Robert. 1990. "Where Human Liberation Movements Fall Short" in Quest, Essay 5, p.3.
Dyson, Freeman. 1988. Infinite In All Directions.
Davies, Paul. 1988. The Cosmic Blueprint, p.21.
Ibid, p.56.
Axworthy, Christopher. 1990. "Myth and Reality in Cooperative Organizations: Members, Directors, Employees, and Managers" in Cooperative Organizations and Canadian Society, Murray Fulton, Ed., p.41.
Iannello, Kathy. 1992. Decisions Without Hierarchy, p.29.
Rees, William. Dec. 8, 1992. Lecture at School of Planning, University of British Columbia.
Beer, Stafford. Quoted by Bill Rees in lecture at School of Planning, University of British Columbia, Oct. 1, 1992.
Zurcher, Louis. 1977. The Mutable Self, p.203.
Patterson, Orlando. 1991. Freedom Vol. 1: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture, p. ix.
Brinsmead, Robert. 1991. "Jesus and a Post-Modern Worldview" in Quest, No. 9, p.8.
Zwemer, Jack. 1990. "Where Human Liberation Movements Fall Short" Quest, Essay 5, p.1.
Ibid, p.1.
Arnstein, Sherry. 1969. "A Ladder of Citizen Participation" in AIP Journal, p. 223.
Zwemer, Jack. 1994. "The New World Order" in Forum, No.33, p.4.

From the series "Taking The Vertical Out Of God" by W. Krossa.
Copyrighted material.