Cultural Awareness & System Change as Priority of Action
Progress is fundamentally about the communication and sharing of ideas. And if communication is about the finding of mutual agreement, with the intent to then work together towards those common ends, then a focus on finding common ground in our discourse and activism is essential. The more we can share a common world view in this complex, opaque society, the quicker we can affect the radical change needed.
As much as we can envision some new, advanced paradigm of economy beyond the dystopia of today, and want to automatically leap to it, and start “living it” now, in whatever immediate, off-grid, “out-system” ways; we cannot rush over necessary Cultural Awareness & Structural Change needed in order to get there. And we cannot anyway entirely ignore or escape the machine of Capitalism, nor should we, for it runs, owns, and is existentially destroying the planet. We must confront reality and existing systems as they are and regain control of society. There are many avenues for this, but cultural awakening and institutional change should be reconciled as priority.
Culture on the whole must continue to become aware of the flaws and contradictions of today’s system of Capitalism; learning the economic-wisdom of the mistakes made under it. We must gain understanding of how our systems work so we can stop being manipulated by them, and being confused of their outcomes. We must come to see the humane potentials of our technology for more transparent, automated, and ethical systems of economy and governance…We must become aware of the failures of our human thinking, our failures to think clearly, logically, and holistically about social & ecological problems, and our failures of discourse to share ideas effectively to resolve them.
We must strive for cohesion/agreement around fundamental principles which underly society: Just and democratic processes, equality of rights, science and reason, health and educational opportunities, living sustainably within nature, using our technology wisely to improve our lives and assist our labor, efficiency of economy to deliver the means of life, balancing our need for autonomy with our collectivity, accounting for our human diversity, the desire for peaceful coexistence, to move away from systems of concentrated power and resolving problems through violence, and so on.
Before economic revolution, before a revolution of sharing, before any other, the revolution must first be one of Understanding, and one of cultural cohesion around first principles of society. Progress can only happen to the extent that our collective wisdom will allow.
Some of the greatest barriers to this cultural awakening come in the form of cognitive bias – people’s selective and subjective preference to certain views and outcomes. It comes in the form of identity-tribalism – where people defend and align their loyalties to groups, ideas, and established institutions, rather than maintaining open, independent, critically thinking world views which evolve over time through new exposure…It comes in the form of propagandized narratives of human nature – that we are selfish, greedy, violent, flawed beings, incapable of cooperative, altruistic existence. Or that as human beings we are not one human species, but separate classes and races, belonging to separate nations and religions, and should be treated differently as such. Or the economic premise that scarcity is some inevitable law of nature. Or narratives around incentive & governance – that the only way to incentivize progress and contribution in society is to do so by force, or through rewarding with extreme wealth and power…and that (any) kind of organized “governance” in society absent private power, will always result in some historical form of “state-oppression”. And so with these cultural world views combined, systems of class-inequality and power are then inevitable, acceptable, and even preferable forms of social organization.
These biases and false narratives must be overcome if we’re to move forward as a civilization.
Now, Institutionally, we need to be pushing for the abolition of Private, Market, Corporate control over society and it’s basic functions of health, education, energy, governance, media, . We cannot expect to run an honest society otherwise, where power is concentrated into the hands of a few. How we can come to endorse and defend such a system only goes to show how vulnerable we are to biased, institutionalized narratives, and the fear of being ostracized by questioning them. This will not realistically be some sweeping detachment of the Market from existing systems in one massive step…we need a transitional mindset/approach, which goes step by step in removing the mechanisms of power; implementing sane, sustainable mechanisms as we go – working towards systems of shared, universal access as the long term goal.
With respect to the Political order, and our inability to even use it to implement new improvement and change into the world (which is it’s entire basis), we need to again, work to detach the private-corporate/market power relationship from its process. Other political-mechanisms specifically within the US system which need to be removed are Superdelegates, the Electoral College, Gerrymandering, lobbying, and getting rid of the party system nonsense altogether.
We need to create a transparent, independently audited, secure, easy to access, computerized, ranked choice voting system. This would be a massively impactful step in unlocking a pathway for further radical change. Without the corrupting element of financial interests we would actually be able to elect leaders who will pass long overdue legislative changes.
Recapturing our Decision Making process is imperative if we’re to affect lasting, structural, holistic change as a Movement. Despite justified disenfranchisement and loss of faith in political engagement, we must reconcile it as the central mechanism for change we currently have, and be willing to navigate past the identity politics in the interest to revolutionize the process itself, as a critical, preliminary step to social progress.
Environmental Policy should focus on establishing clear, legally binding, pass/fail sustainability-benchmarks to be met by Industry. Sustainability is our prime directive as a civilization. We have a couple decades before Earth’s culminating ecological breakdowns come to term in some very serious existential ways.
Social justice policy should prioritize a new Economic Bill of Rights to secure an unconditional basic income/living wage for all. Greater economic equality would evaporate the racial/class bigotry which social justice movements are struggling to overcome. Poverty/inequality lie at the roots of racism and discrimination in the world.
Gaining Universal Education and Universal Healthcare are also obvious core, structural changes we need to be organizing pressure campaigns around. For those countries which already have these, they can focus on fixing their political processes and implementing more democratic technologies/methods, as well as focus on anti-corruption initiatives which take on the banks and corporations which continue to control and undermine their governments and media.
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There is great vision emerging for taking our next steps as a society toward achieving Sustainability, more ethical and efficient systems of economy for resolving the great sufferings & oppressions of the world, and for moving us beyond the scarcity epoch of inequality & concentrated power that has long defined human civilization. In order to fulfill this potential and unlock a pathway for radical, holistic change, we must realize that our culture and institutions must evolve first as an initial step.
