A Roadmap for Social Transformation

High-level Plan

1. The Nature of the Present Social Structure

The foundation of the society as it is presently structured lies in our answer to the question: “Who am I?” In this context, the question is answered in three complementary ways.

The first way attempts to delineate the boundaries of the self. This varies depending on the circumstances that we find ourselves in. At present, the most common answer is our physical body, which is constructed from sense data. Another common answer is our immediate family, which effectively demarcates the circle of unconditional caring. Other answers are sometimes offered, for example our company when it is competing in the marketplace, or our nation when it is facing the prospect of armed conflict.

The second way seeks to provide a qualitative definition of who we are in relationship to the self. The question becomes “What am I like in relation to my body?” The same for family, company, nation, etc. While abuse of the self – in the form of smoking, family feuds, and the like – definitely exists, the dominant relationship is one of understanding the needs and desires of the self and caring for its wellbeing.

The third way seeks to provide a qualitative definition of who we are in relationship to the non-self. The pertinent question in this instance is “What am I like in relation to others?” where others are other people, families, companies, nations, and so on. Here we exhibit a curious mixture of sympathy and disinterest; we don’t enjoy seeing others suffer, but neither are we overly eager to help them. The relationship is actually dominated by the drive for competition – for wealth, status, life’s opportunities, and even bare survival.

From this foundation derives our notion of how we should interact with the world around us. This manifests in several interlocking ideas:

• Division: we draw a sharp boundary between self and non-self, even though it moves with the shifting definition of self as the circumstances change.
• Ownership or entitlement: we feel entitled to the bounty of the self, which we use to its advantage.
• Force: we rely on force – both military and legal – to enforce the division and the ownership.

From this interaction derives the organisation of our society. We have erected social structures that divide our society along ethnic/cultural/religious (countries), vocational (companies) and blood (families) lines. Others were created to maintain the division and facilitate its utilisation (military, judiciary). Still others are used to perpetuate the beliefs upon which our social structure is founded (education, media).

Once the structure is complete, it becomes mutually reinforcing. For example, our belief that we have to earn our living underpins our economy, the education that prepares us for it, the judiciary that enforces it, the media that promotes it, and is even reflected in our religious beliefs. This makes it impossible to change the belief without altering the social structures that have arisen around it. Nor can the social structures be significantly altered while leaving the belief unchallenged.

2. The Qualities of the Proposed Utopian Society

There are two ways in which a utopian society can be described – by providing a positive list of qualities that we aspire for it to have, and a negative list of attributes that we don’t want to see. I will use the positive list to describe how I envisage it, and the negative list to contrast it with the present society. I will stick to a relatively short list in an effort to reduce the length of the analysis, as well as to make it more universally applicable.

Negative list (the list of attributes that the utopian society must not have):

• No violent conflict, especially military
• No crime
• No unemployment
• No drudgery
• No division for the purpose of exclusion from life’s opportunities, especially along racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender or blood lines

Positive list (the list of qualities that the utopian society should have):

• Sustainability – the society needs to be in balance with its environment
• Nurturing – it needs to satisfy our social needs
• Equal opportunity for the fulfilment of creative potential, for each individual and group
• Prosperity/abundance
• Highly developed ability to reinvent itself

If we are going to create this kind of society, we are going to have to make it work for everyone, since failure to meet the needs and aspirations of any segment of society carries repercussions for the whole. This means that we are going to have to come to an agreement on what differences (religious, lifestyle, etc) we are prepared to accept and which ones (hunger, fanaticism, etc) we are not, and embrace the former while eliminating the latter.

3. The Nature of the Roadmap for Social Transformation

Of the proposals that I’ve seen, two feature the most prominently. The first one depends on the demise of the present system, either by waiting for it to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions or by actively working to bring it about. With the signs of collapse – from monetary to ecological – growing stronger by the day, this may appear to be an attractive option. However, I have serious reservations about it.

There is no guarantee that the present system with its economic and associated structures will collapse any time soon. As flawed as it may be, this system has already survived the Great Depression and numerous recessions. If we are determined to keep patching it up, we can probably do so for many years to come, even as key resources start running short. Historian Arnold Toynbee has described this mode of operation as dynamic stagnation. Instead of changing the course of our civilisation as challenges mount, we intensify our efforts in the same direction. This doesn’t enable us to overcome the obstacles, but it is sufficient to keep our civilisation afloat for a lengthy period of time, even as our quality of life stagnates or deteriorates.

If collapse does occur, there is no telling what it might give birth to. It is an optimistic assumption that having our way of life taken away from us will stir us to put something better in its place. While this may happen, a more likely scenario is that we will become preoccupied with the stark demands of bare survival. This is the story of Easter Island, where a peaceful and unified Polynesian culture collapsed to give rise to several tribes of warring cannibals. Modern equivalent can be seen in the growing number of failed states where environmental and resource problems have become a major contributing factor. If we are to negotiate societal collapse successfully, we first have to achieve the prerequisite growth in consciousness so that our hardships can bring us closer together instead of pushing us further apart.

The second proposal entails a political solution – it seeks to bring about the desired change through legislation. I’m more partial to this approach, though I don’t see it as more than a component of a larger solution. If it is attempted without widespread support, it is likely to backfire and result in chaos and disillusionment with the change, and could even lead to a resurgence of the present system. If widespread support is achieved, then the hard work has already been done, and the political solution becomes little more than a formality.

The approach that I would like to propose is to leverage the power of the current system to create a new one that will render it obsolete. Instead of looking for ways to abolish the current monetary system, for example, we can create a new parallel way to exchange goods and services that works better, becomes widely adopted, and results in the former falling into disuse.

What I’m suggesting is a grassroots movement for social change. It needs to be global in its sweep so that it cannot be eliminated by the present power structures. It needs to be all-inclusive so that there is no need to fear it beyond uncertainty inherent in change itself. And its success needs to arise from tangible benefits that it has to offer rather than from our ability to enforce it or the inability of the present system to sustain itself.

4. The Roadmap Details

Because different aspects of society are mutually reinforcing, we cannot confine our efforts to a list of steps to be carried out in sequence. It’s no use trying to change the focus of our education to self-knowledge and moral development, for example, if the competition for survival remains the definitive feature of our economy. Nor will it help to eliminate scarcity if our drive for dominance is so strong that it leads us to create it again. We have to tackle all of these changes simultaneously. The points that comprise the action plan below should therefore not be treated as sequential. They were listed in a particular order purely for ease of presentation.

Taking this a step further, we probably cannot confine our efforts to a list of steps at all, regardless of the order in which they are to be carried out. The reason is that different people are at different stages of readiness to embrace change, and their views shift in different directions and at different rates. It may be naive trying to anticipate the effect of social activism in such a situation, as if we can predict what changes people will embrace and what further revisions those will lead to. The process is inevitably chaotic, though it need not be violent.

As a result, the roadmap details presented here aim to bring about the transformation in two ways:

• By identifying ways in which people can become more amiable towards change.
• By pointing out values and lifestyles that are worth changing to.

I hope that this dual focus will stimulate the reshaping of our society while remaining responsive to the shifting social values and the manner in which they are expressed. If successful, it will not need to concern itself with the precise form that social transformation will take.

4.1 Change in Personal Values and Outlook

Since it is our self-conception that serves as the foundation of our social structures, we have to change it to be able to transform the society. We will have to examine our idea of who we are and the qualities that we ascribe to ourselves in order to arrive at a more functional sense of identity, and therefore more desirable self-expression.

We can take our present relationship with the self as the role model. While it has its share of problems that need to be addressed, it is nevertheless in a much better state than the relationship that we have with others. This is where the bulk of the work needs to be done.

There are essentially two ways to remedy our relationship with others to make it as functional as our relationship with the self:

• By recognising that it is in our self-interest to treat others the way we treat ourselves.
• By enlarging our definition of the self to encompass others. Treating them the way we treat ourselves will then follow suit.

There is a great deal of spiritual literature and other assistance available for this endeavour. I have written the book Living Deliberately specifically for this purpose.

4.2 Change in Collective Values and Outlook

If the movement for change is to gain traction, the same exercise will have to be performed by the population at large. This is where we face a major obstacle, perhaps the greatest one of them all. According to the research in the field of psychology, the majority of the people in our society operate at what is commonly termed conformist consciousness. People who live at this level exhibit several characteristics that are particularly pertinent to this discussion:

• They unconsciously internalise the beliefs and values of their society.
• Their thinking doesn’t extend beyond the present system.
• Their decision-making is primarily emotional (dominated by the limbic system), with higher brain functions (provided by the neocortex) utilised merely to rationalise decisions. This makes them impervious to most reasoned arguments, highly resistant to change and intolerant of alternatives.

This is why they are referred to as the unappointed guardians of the status quo.

The prerequisite for these people taking part in social development is the raising of their level of consciousness from conformist to authentic. At the authentic level, people are no longer threatened by change. This permits them to actively pursue their growth. They are also able to examine the possibilities that lie beyond the present system and are tolerant of alternatives.

The difficulty with progressing beyond conformist consciousness is that change is not sought but is instead environmentally driven – a person has to be jolted awake, so to speak. This needs to be done with utmost care, however. Confronting them about their values and beliefs and particularly criticising them readily provokes a judgemental, defensive response.

There are two broad ways to support their growth. Directly, by encouraging them to move beyond uncritically accepting societal norms:

• By demonstrating a more worthwhile way to live by personal example.
• By challenging their comfort zone to the extent that they can cope with without becoming defensive.
• By being ready to support their growth when circumstances dislodge them from their comfort zone.

Indirectly, by undermining the external norms that they conform to:

• By disassociating from and exposing the shortcomings of existing conformist organisations.
• By forming non-conformist organisations that can take their place. For example:
  • The Self Knowledge Symposium is one such organisation in the area of spirituality.
  • Transition Towns is also largely a non-conformist initiative, in the area of sustainable living.
  • This role is to some extent played by Internet discussion forums.

4.3 Change in Social Behaviour and Structures

At the other end of the spectrum, we are faced with the formidable challenge of overhauling all of our social structures. I have touched on most of these in the book A Glimpse of Another World. I will now briefly look at each one in turn.

4.3.1 Mythology

By mythology, I mean the cultural story that we have adopted as reality and that informs our beliefs and underpins our social structures. It includes ideas like survival of the fittest, superiority of humans over other life forms, superiority of technologically advanced civilisations over technologically primitive ones, superiority of urban over rural cultures, the struggle of good against evil, the correlation between material wealth and happiness, the Newtonian view of reality, and many others.

These beliefs manifest in a variety of ways. A dominant form of entertainment in our society is sport, which embodies the concept of survival of the fittest, albeit not literally as it did in the past. In extreme cases, it includes dehumanising of the competition (good vs. evil), an idea that features prominently in our social consciousness and is reinforced by our literature, television shows and films. We are dismantling the planet’s ecosystems and driving numerous plant and animal species, as well as aborigine cultures, to extinction in an effort to extract the resources that we need to support our lifestyle. And so on.

Some aspects of this cultural story will have to change if we are to create a society that works for everyone. We need to mould it into a cultural story that is supportive of the kind of society that we wish to create. I’m not aware of an organised initiative in this regard. Fortunately, we don’t need one to support the transformation in a number of ways, including the following:

• Stop taking interest in sport and all activities whose entertainment derives from the triumph of some people over others.
• Take part in and actively promote activities whose entertainment derives from the beauty of this world, human ingenuity, and the triumph of people over themselves and the elements.
• Stop taking interest in literature, television shows and films that dehumanise adversaries and portray the good-evil duality in binary terms.
• Create literature, television shows and films that strive to understand the diversity of plant, animal and human life, seek healing when needed, and expose us to its wonder.

It is not enough that we can point to individual movies and other items where this has been done; the new perspective has to permeate our society to the point where it becomes the norm that shapes our thinking and that of our children.

4.3.2 Lifestyle

The most desirable lifestyle that I have come across has been presented by Community Planet. It proposes living in small cooperative communities that are governed by consensus, use advanced technology in environmentally friendly ways, and are partly self-sufficient. These communities would be grouped into clusters to achieve a sense of scale. The setup has been fleshed out in considerable detail in Jack Reed’s book The Next Evolution.

A cooperative community constitutes a radical departure from the lifestyle that a vast majority of us are accustomed to. This is its main strength. By starting afresh, it gives us an opportunity to redesign much of our lifestyle – our social relations, the way we raise children, our attitude towards work, the currency that we use to pay for it, and other aspects that are described in the sections that follow.

Unfortunately, its strength is also its weakness. Starting from a clean slate makes such a change both difficult to imagine and daunting to implement. If it is too much to ask, it may help us to consider what incremental changes we can make to our present lifestyle instead. The following initiatives might prove to be useful stepping stones:

• In recent decades, ecovillages have sprung up in many countries across the globe. They are similar to cooperative communities in many respects, but retain some elements of the modern lifestyle, such as separate housing and external work commitments. The nature and extent of the compromise depends on the ecovillage in question.
• The Transition Towns initiative is another attempt at a compromise, but one that is closer in spirit to the modern lifestyle. It starts with towns and suburbs as they are now and seeks to utilise them in a manner that is more sustainable and fulfilling.

We should be careful not to assume that the same lifestyle will suit everyone. Some people might prefer the bustle of a city, some others the solitude of a mountain cabin. I find Gandhi’s approach of oscillating between radically different lifestyles (in his case, quiet village life and international politics) particularly appealing. It is for this reason that I hope that we learn to tolerate different lifestyles and allow them to coexist.

There are also many worthwhile individual and family lifestyle changes that can be made, including the following:

• Producing own sustainable energy, such as solar and wind
• Recycling inorganic waste and composting organic waste
• Growing own herbs, vegetables, fruit and nuts
• Adopting a vegan diet

4.3.3 Child Rearing

For the momentum of social transformation to be sustained, we will have to change the way we raise our children. This applies both to what we are seeking to accomplish with it and how we are going about it.

The goals of child rearing vary, but the desire to instil in our children our values, beliefs and traditions is widespread. This goal has a paralysing effect on social development. A more effective goal in this regard is to raise children to be able to acquire their own values, adopt their own beliefs and decide on their own patterns of behaviour. In other words, to become authentic, independent and functioning members of society.

Child rearing is in a peculiar position of being the only profession that is both very important and very difficult, yet that requires no qualification, competence or aptitude to perform, or even adequate time to devote to. In many cases, parents are poorly suited to the task – due to lack of knowledge of and experience with child rearing, preoccupation with work and lack of general life experience. Unfortunately, with community structure ruptured by urbanisation, they are often the only feasible option.

I’m not aware of any initiatives to address this. This is not surprising, given the sensitive nature of the issue. I suspect that it is up to those of us who have the necessary skills, aptitude and time to assist with the task whenever and wherever we can, even though it is not perceived as our responsibility. Doing so would at least help dispel the taboos around the involvement of non-parents in the child rearing process, and expand the undertaking to where the responsibility is shared with other competent family members and friends, and hopefully the community as a whole.

4.3.4 Education

Education is really a continuance of child rearing. Unfortunately, it is generally not implemented as such. It by-and-large disregards several critically important developmental areas to focus on preparing youngsters for competition in the marketplace, as required by the current economic model. The neglected areas are questions of meaning and purpose, moral development, constructive social interaction, and other life skills. If education is to be conducive to social development, it will have to tackle these challenges as well.

The holistic philosophy of education recognises this need. It strives to meet learner aspirations on every level instead of trying to mould them into the existing social framework. Many schools around the world have been started with this aim in mind, with Waldorf schools perhaps the best known example. This initiative can be supported by starting more schools along the same lines, supporting their operation, and adopting their methods within the public education system.

4.3.5 Economy

The most worthwhile economic model that I can envisage is one that meets all of our needs without a price tag. In other words, one where goods and services are freely available rather than being exchanged for any form of currency. Such an economy has the potential to do away with the concept of unemployment, eliminate drudgery that stems from artificial work, and dispel the need for poverty-induced crime.

The Venus Project proposes to accomplish this by replacing the present monetary economy with a resource-based economy – where the availability of resources that are actually used in production drives decision-making, rather than the availability of money. This is so far removed from our daily experience that it can be quite difficult to imagine how such a change can possibly come about.

A way to ease the transition may be to perform an intermediate task of changing the currency. The fiat currency that is dominant today has a number of undesirable features – it is permanently scarce, it causes cancerous economic growth, it gravitates towards money centres, etc – dispensing with which might make the transition easier to envisage and implement. Of the alternatives that I’ve come across, these appeared to be the most promising:

• The Community Exchange System currency consists of simple recording of credits and debits that constitute a financial transaction. With its absence of interest and community orientation, it can replace the present system where money makes money with one where money can only be made by providing something of value to other members of the community.
• Another alternative is time banking. The currency is simply the time invested in providing services to other members of the community. It is less versatile than CES because it doesn’t take the value of materials into account, but it is more effective at building communities.

I’ve also described how the complete change to an economy without currency might come about in the Grace proposal. It explores how we can come together to satisfy the basic needs of all people, and then gradually expand the coverage until all our needs are met. This approach can be pursued in conjunction with changes in currency.

Even with these initiatives, I suspect that several additional factors will have to come together to make the transition possible:

• Reduction in the desire for goods. There is no question that the present high demand has been artificially created by the culture of consumerism. In many cases, we acquire goods that we don’t need in a mistaken belief that they will add value to our life. We need to improve our understanding of what benefits us and what doesn’t, and act on it.
• Increasing the quality of products. The term that is sometimes applied to our economy is throwaway economy because of its preference for easily replaceable low-quality products over durable high-quality ones. Increasing the quality of our products can meet the same demand with reduced production.
• Sharing goods. We have coupled the concepts of wealth and ownership, as if owning goods and services is inherently necessary for having access to them. Sharing can greatly reduce demand without significant loss of access.
• Changing our relationship with work. Menial labour that is needed to meet our needs is generally not valued by our society. If our needs are to be met freely, we will either have to change our perception of it to where we value doing it, automate it (as per The Venus Project), or implement some combination of the two.
• Dispensing with our desire to hide things and instead practicing transparency in our conduct. Absence of transparency is a major contributing factor to condoning the many dubious practices that take place in our economy today.

4.3.6 Judiciary

Our existing judicial institutions also act to retard social advancement. Firstly, they do this by creating the impression that adherence to law constitutes the definition of acceptable behaviour. In so doing, they undermine personal growth and the development of one’s internal standard of conduct, which lies at the heart of social transformation. The antidote is to pursue personal growth regardless and to encourage others to do the same, as advocated earlier in the document.

Secondly, they respond to infringements of the law without regard for consequences in the form of societal wellbeing, by practicing retributive rather than restorative or transformative justice. We can work to change this trend by supporting the many organisations that have been formed to promote and practice restorative justice, some of which are listed in the External links section of the Wikipedia page.

4.3.7 Media

The power of the media – television, radio, newspapers and the Internet – is clearly evident. It is successfully keeping the masses immersed in the present system. If we make proper use of it, it can become a powerful facilitator of social transformation. It may have to if the transformation is to proceed at a reasonable pace.

In order for the media to play this role, we are going to have to become much more selective with the kind of events that we consider newsworthy and the media organisations that we rely on to inform us about them. Specifically:

• We will have to change our choice of role models from people who move and shake the society to a subset of them whose contribution is profoundly positive.
• We will have to focus on issues that really matter – such as environmental degradation and poverty – rather than the likes of sport and fashion.
• We will have to respond to those events positively and constructively instead of merely spreading negativity.

Good examples of constructive communication of news that matter are YES! Magazine and IM Magazine. Both aim to give visibility and momentum to ideas and initiatives that have the potential to create a better world.

5. In Closing

I have tried to provide an overview of social transformation without discussing any of the subjects in detail. I hope that my presentation has nevertheless been comprehensive enough to leave no doubt as to the enormity of the challenge, as well as point to some concrete steps that we can take to help bring it about.

I have no doubt that we can come up with numerous other creative projects of the same or higher calibre as those presented in this document. For us to do so, however, it helps that the social transformation appears concrete and tangible, and not merely a faraway dream, a project on the fringe that we only read about. It should be something that unfolds in our midst and that our actions contribute towards. Placing it within our reach was my motivation for writing this document.

In this spirit, the most important lesson to take away from the proposed roadmap is that none of us lack the capacity to contribute to it. It will take a large number of diverse contributions to remake our society in the image of our most idealistic vision. No effort in this direction is too insignificant to count, and none of it is in vain.