Most of us want less rules. We want less regulation. We want to feel that we are free to do whatever we’d like. Still the word “anarchy” is used by many to mean total chaos. We want a world without rules but we don’t trust ourselves with it.
There are all kinds of arguments made about human nature. Many believe we are selfish by nature and will always seek our own benefit and the logic goes that some kind of hierarchical structure is necessary in order to ensure that, or perhaps that the “free market” will take care of everything for us . Some don’t even trust humans to call the shots and want to develop AI to take care of the problem of governance for us.
The only way to develop a world we are all more satisfied with is to really find the core of what is holding us back. It’s not something that usually comes up as a talking point among the right or the left. It’s not war or poverty or racism or the banking system or the state itself (although it relates to all of these). It’s something way more fundamental.
I fully agree with Einstein’s sentiment when he said “We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” It is nearly impossible for us to imagine our true potential because we are still stuck inside certain mental and emotional traps that hinder our growth. Therefore, rather than describe in detail a perfect system of governance or non-governance, it’s more practical and realistic to imagine a general direction we would like to move in to achieve something we will all be more satisfied with. The first step is to focus on what is holding us back.
We are most familiar with what human nature looks like in a state of LACK and DISTRUST.
Any conversation about human nature needs to begin with the recognition that we are only able to judge based on our own personal and collective experiences, our history. Sure there are many cultures, countries and regions within borders, different time periods to draw from, but many of these different cultures have certain things in common and nothing exists in a bubble.
Have you ever tried to imagine a world where people accept you for who you are and treat you like an equal, from the get-go?
Imagine a world where parents didn’t let their expectations of you dictate how they act towards you, and recognized those expectations as their own problems, not yours. Imagine friends and lovers letting each other be who they are, not pressuring them to be what they WANT them to be.
Imagine TRUST and EMPATHY being treated as ultimate virtues in a society, rather than monetary success and business prowess.
You may think it’s impossible, that THEY dictate our culture from above, through the media, pop culture and the education system. To an extent, this is true, but you are still responsible for your actions and how you interact with others. You are also making the whole power structure stronger by allowing yourself to become polarized, by the attempts to divide and conquer.
Societies problems are a reflection of our individual problems.
The state of the world will look a lot like the state of any average inidividual inside of the world. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? That’s not important. You can’t force everyone to be how you’d like to be, so you’d best stop trying and work on yourself. From there, you can begin to spread a culture that allows for a better state of affairs in the world. A “perfect” state or non-state can most easily be achieved from a change in culture that occurs at the bottom.
So we just sit back and let things happen while we mediate and practice mindfulness?
Well, yes and no. The point is, we cannot create anything we deem “positive” by seeking to destroy something we deem “negative”. We should be focused on building what we can from the situation we are currently in, not waiting for the powers that be to do it for us, and if possible, avoiding conflict in the process, but always defending our ability to build.
What can we build?
Start with community! Build trust among your neighbors and your friends. Find like minded individuals and create a support network among them. Allow it to be relatively open so that those who can learn from you will. Don’t expect anyone to adhere to your way of doing things, but allow them to stick around if they are interested and not disruptive in any way. Think of money and power struggles as residue from the old culture that you are moving beyond.
I prefer to build community that doesn't have any real hierarchy or structure. I have lots of ideas about how to do this effectively and as a true reflection of what we desire but others may have other ways to approach these issues. Try to build consensus by listening respectfully, and if two parties disagree, go your separate ways without any animosity and with the best wishes for each other, and make sure any competitive feelings are the friendly kind of competition where everyone moves up together.
How this can lead to a new structure of society.
If we can build trust among each other, our systems will gradually (or perhaps not so gradually) begin to reflect this, and if they don’t, they lose their influence. Remember that nothing exists in a bubble. Those banks and states are made up of people. They draw their support from people. If we don’t need them to protect us, they’re grip over our lives will weaken.
The only challenge we face is our own tendency to get pulled into polarizing arguments and falling victim to divide and conquer tactics.
What this change COULD look like
We’ve worked out some of our issues of racism, sexism, homophobia and the like (we still have work to do, but at least we recognize the problems and have begun working on them). I hope that next comes acceptance of those with radically different political and social views. Empathy will be the overall tone of our future culture. There will be an attitude of “you try your way out, I’ll try my way, let’s learn from each other” and more avenues of accomplishing this.
From a place of empathy and learning to think in ABUNDANCE rather than LACK (building instead of destroying), a wider variety of ideas will be able to make their way into political discourse, as they had with Bernie Sanders. The old media organizations will lose their grip over what we read every day, as they are beginning to. The old social media powers will lose some of their dominance (as I believe they will with the rise of Steemit, dtube and other upcoming platforms). This will allow more open minded and empathetic people into positions of power, people who are not looking for the power itself, but just looking to create a change. Those people will be more interested in sharing their power than holding on to it and so you will see policy begin to change to reflect our desires. Power itself can begin to decentralize.
Some of these changes may include
- a reformed prison system that focuses on rehabilitation.
- less international provocation as it will be more difficult to justify.
- less power and immunity given to banks and big corporations.
- no cracking down on activists and people with alternative lifestyles.
- a wider variety of education choices open to everyone regardless of income.
Experimentation
One goal that I think we should have as a society is to allow those with different ideas from us to try out their ideas in their own arena. In America for example, I’d support states rights simply for this reason, we want a variety of different ideas and opinions to all have a place where they can test out their methods. More important than that, I believe that with a culture of abudance and understanding, the state will no longer feel the need to make it difficult for those who want to live differently from the masses.
Autonomous communities could thrive and maybe create their own ways of living without any persecution or roadblocks. These communities would have to create good relationships with other communities in order to maintain that none were trying to overpower each other and that none was trying to overpower what is left of the state. Most of these communities will be built with the goal of providing a “fair” distribution of wealth/power (fair will vary between communities) and maximum personal liberties.
The State of the State
I say “what is left of the state”. I believe that once we have empowered the people, by given less of our attention to media, less of our money to corporations, less of our trust to those who are trying to divide us, and perhaps through cryptocurrency, and even steemit, people like us will begin to make our way into those positions of power. From there we can create a new idea of the state that goes something like this:
An ideal state is one whose main purpose is to render itself obsolete.
It will still exist for a while, but it’s grip will be allowed to relax. It’s main purpose will be to ensure that new communities are allowed to form and grow without the fear of coercion from other communities. If we can establish that, there will be no need for revolution, no need for violence, no danger of upheaval. Things can naturally begin to flow on a way where all of us feel more freedom, and more security. But this all comes back to building a mindset of abudance, empathy and trust among our communities. This is a way forward that I believe truly reflects our collective desires.
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This was something I had wanted to write for a long time, I had been a bit nervous about writing something so political in nature but I saw this contest by @aggroed and couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t justify just sitting back and reading others ideas about the topic without voicing my own.
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Wow @whatamidoing talk about a wall of information... lol
I've been coming across sentiments similar to this for quite some time now but never lain out so concisely before...
Thank You for incorporating so many great ideas into an easy to read and understand article, I'm looking forward to seeing you expand upon them even more in the future...
Upvote, Comment, ReSteem
I don’t know if I’m that good at expressing these ideas but I do know I’ve seen productive and proactive communities that WORK. I believe we are all limited by our experiences and I’ve been “lucky enough” (or perhaps optimistic and persistent enough) to experience a lot of eye opening things.
Thanks for your comment, I’ve followed you, looking forward to see what you share.
I've been resteeming more lately...
The biggest flaw is that, maximum energy is being wasted overcoming resistance instead of implementation of such ideas. sighs !
well everyone has their choice and it's always easy to argue and provide reasons rather than stop, think and change
Everyone is too afraid. Afraid of losing what they have, afraid of not being supported, afraid of failure, afraid of everything! So everyone is full of resistance to that fear.
I guess there can be a good proposal for an international government in which there are no independent states but the question comes who will rule it? Certainly, Africans would never accept any international system in which Europeans would be the ruling elite and they would be living in slavery. Similarly, there may be a conflict between religions and culture etc.
as with the comment below I don't think a singular centralised government could be good as extraterrestrial rule :D I think it's up to us and it's not that hard if we stop playing against each other just exchanging blows in stupid games called finance and law, it would be harder but imagine people working towards reason and responsibility rather than playground politics ...
I don’t think an international government would be very positive as it is more likely to benefit some more than others, more like a coalition of communities that are willing to stay out of each other’s business but also help and support each other when needed.....Something like the UN but less influences by the interests of nations and more focused on the interests of regular people. We can still have borders and nationality but our humanity can extend beyond them as we do not need our country to be #1, we want all of humanity to rise together.
I don’t suggest a formation of a new organization anytime soon though. As we change our perspective and resources spread, we can focus on our own communities first and build something from the bottom up, then the organizations that can adapt will, the others will shed away naturally.
Clearly, humanity as we know it today, has some issues!
I suggest that the solution IS KNOWABLE but NOT DOABLE. We can envision the alternative to our current existence but nobody REALLY wants to do it.
I think we can agree that SELFISHNESS (in its myriad of manifestations) is the root of the problem. Humans will nearly always do what they believe to be RIGHT where right is defined to be that which is BEST for me and mine. If that single human characteristic were to be eliminated from our gene pool life on Earth would change very dramatically, very quickly. The solution is obvious but humans are powerless to change themselves as a whole. Individuals have had limited success but we have never reached a critical mass for the species.
Is there ANY hope that a majority of humans will totally deny themselves for the well being of the many? Since it has never happened historically is there any indication it will happen? Every religion purports selflessness as a basic tenet (excepting Satanism which is insignificant) and we see how well that goes.
I suggest rule by an extraterrestrial!
I think you sum up the problem very accurately, beautifully actually! Where I disagree is where you seem to think it’s impossible or nearly impossible to solve. I think it’s quite easy if we line up or personal interests with the interests of others. The reason this hasn’t happened on a mass scale is because there are those who have been actively trying to prevent it from happening, through the manipulation of said religions and through manipulation of culture. I’ve seen small communities make a massive, positive impact on their entire cities. I think we are at a turning point in history :-D
I do hope you're right and I'm wrong; if things can ever be that simple.
I'm simply basing my point on historic observations which have never revealed a long term success in these areas. Short term success absolutely, usually 1-2 generations, but after that the selfishness and greed of the third generation, which has been born into the "culture", misses the value and opts for self gratification.
The only three possible options that I see are:
In fact, after we have flushed thousands of years of religious teachings from our understanding, the Christian Bible follows the third approach. No really! Read it carefully for what it's actually saying. Flush the internally inconsistent teachings of Judaism and Christianity and simply read what the texts ACTUALLY say, not what someone SAYS they say.
For example, the Bible says that "GOD" created the Earth. If that is true then God, by definition, MUST be "extra" terrestrial, or not of this Earth. Therefore, The Bible clearly states that God is an extraterrestrial. I'm not implying that God is a big-eyed grey that attacked Roswell. That would be unfounded speculation. Anyway, that's a simple illustration of what I'm talking about.
Sorry, I have to go now. I hear the Inquisition at my door.
hahah is someone on the moon a extraterrestrial, I suggest no rule, because that is what anarchy is about, no hierarchy, sure it takes work and everyone kind of has to do something, its still better than working menial jobs and going over the same old road getting more rugged each day... have you noticed how much human potential is lost?
If you can fix the flaw of human selfishness then anarchy works just fine.
Most all of us are simply slaves of those who hold power. Their job is to keep us appeased. If not our thoughts turn to revolution and rebellion.
well you could say that, but I'd say we are slave to ourselves, if you don't have needs and wants and wishes for someone else to fulfill, then how can anyone control you, I'm not really revolutionary or rebelious I just see bullshit and I want it out, in my mind the problem of connection is the biggest, since people can't really work together, we've kind of lost touch when everyone branched off to specialise, we kind of lost the common ground, now politics is a bunch of schoolkids trashing the playground.
Yes selfishness does contribute to human suffering and we are kind of responsible for what we have ourselves, still if that was a major flaw I'd be surprised, sure it's quite well spread with everyone looking out for their own self interest, I'm still not sure if that is good and evolutionary or stems from a flawed way of life that is no longer grounded.
could you brush past the post that @brentsanders has posted a bit below and tell me what you think, I was about to make a quote but I will leave it off for another time |
Most of us would agree that what @brentsanders outlines in the post you reference is the most desirable "form of governance". A state where freedom is constrained by responsibility and responsibility is afforded by freedom.
For such a state to exist (physically or mentally) a critical mass must be achieved AND sustained. By critical mass I mean that a sufficient number of individuals must commit to the ideal that it becomes self sustaining. Such states have been achieved in small communities but historically have failed to be sustained for a variety of reasons. If either the quality or quantity of "fuel" diminishes the critical mass is lost.
While there is always a risk from within the community of losing critical mass the greater risk is external. We might create the perfect state and be living in bliss until a larger, more powerful group decides we have resources they want. And owing to such selfishness history then repeats, again.
As thrashed in the comments of the referenced post the biggest issue is achieving critical mass on a global scale. If all 7+ billion of us were on board it seems there would be no problem. I don't see critical mass being achieved on THAT scale without external "help"! Maybe I'm lacking in vision for my fellow humans?
I agree I kind of stop at some point and I even thought today it would probably be easier to fix the current "boat" than to build a new one, but who knows, I'd like to trust the fellow humans, but we are also quite limited in out scope of sight, not to mention we like to spend time in our own little box of a world ...
You've read the whole thing before me I couldn't finish the whole comment section but the elaboration there does a great job to outline potential shortcomings, basically what you have given as a example was framed analogously by @rocking-dave
Yes there is that recurring theme in history, trust being broken, alliances backstabbed, whole nations swept under the rug of history
and human greed...
more images man :D nobody reads around here :D jk jk
I agree with sooo many of your points here. My ideal society isn't very different, just not as wide-scale or as thought-out as yours, perhaps. Thanks for your post! https://steemit.com/philosophy/@brentssanders/what-a-libertarian-society-would-look-like
Sorry it took me so long to get to this. It does seem that we start from a very similar place and your writing does seem quite well thought out. The problem with studies and assumptions though, such as how people spend their own or others money, or where people are more likely to litter, or that people will treat their own property better, or how “smart” or “stupid” people act, is that we are studying people who are immersed in the current culture which does not account for how they could potentially act in a drastically different culture. I think we could cultuivate (without instilling any kind of fear or otherwise brainwashing people) a culture where people treat others property as good as they’d treat their own. It’s hard to develop this kind of culture though, when everyone feels they’ve been screwed!
I had it upvoted but I didn't read it until now
So, what do you think?
I think the comments there go into more detail, but I just started reading them, still the overall look is the comments make up for five times the post length at least :D
And that's a good thing?
:D