Blurts & Spasms

In Response to the Quora Question: "Any idea on how to reinvent human society?"

Thanks for the A2A. This has been a central topic of my writing and thinking for almost as long as I have been writing and thinking. I will try to summarize my take on your question, but will probably need to point you in the direction of some in-depth explorations for a more complete answer. So here goes...

1) I believe the first stage of reinvention requires individual and collective moral maturity (i.e. what is most prosocially beneficial for the greatest number). Without becoming more sophisticated, inclusive and compassionate in our moral valuations of self, human interactions, natural systems, etc. we will tend to return to previous modes like the ones our society operates in now, many of which are grounded in moral immaturity.

2) As a second stage we would need to propose a cohesive and detailed vision of new cultural institutions, processes and structures that echo this morally advanced values hierarchy. This includes new forms of government, economy, education and so on.

3) In the third stage of reinvention, we would need to de-energize existing cultural institutions, processes and structures so that they can be transitioned or abandoned. This will likely entail a certain level of disruption and destabilization, but using methods that likewise reflect our new moral orientations, avoiding regressive methods upon which past "revolutionaries" have frequently relied.

4) The fourth stage involves establishing and energizing the new, more advanced cultural institutions, processes and structures. This will demand a lot of experimentation, regional variation, continuous adjustment, and careful metrics and self-awareness to assess success.

5) The fifth stage is stabilization of reinvented society as it takes a more formal shape, while still allowing for variations and ongoing adjustment and evolution.

6) Concurrent with all of these stages - and with the aim of ongoing stabilization into the future - we must develop effective methods of neutralizing morally regressive memes; methods that, once again, align with advanced moral valuations. Primarily this will mean constantly returning to stage one in a disciplined and conscious way, so that not only does devolution into antisocial traits and structures have clearly and widely understood collective consequences, but the benefits of choosing ongoing personal and collective moral evolution are equally clearly and widely understood to be more attractive and persuasive.

As for developing these ideas, many others have written about aspects of each stage (though perhaps not referring to them the way I have here), and I reference many of those thinkers in my own work. Here is some of my writing intended to address some of these stages:

Stage One: True Love: Integral Lifework Theory & Practice, "Managing Complexity with Constructive Integralism" (essay), "Functional Intelligence" (essay)

Stage Two: True Love, and Political Economy and the Unitive Principle

Stage Three: "Escaping the Failures of Capitalism" (essay)

Stages Four, Five & Six have not been fully developed in any of my writing...but I hope to address these in future work.

I hope this was helpful.