We continue with the fifth in our SafeEARTH series. See: 1) Beyond Crime and Punishment, 2) Synergic Containment: Protecting Children, 3) Synergic Containment: Science & Rationale, and 4) Synergic Containment: Protecting Community

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Synergic Disarmament

Interestingly, the recent advent of the Washington D.C. area sniper has brought renewed interest in the subject of weapons and their role in our present society. We are reminded that today, weapons are very easily available to just about anyone that wants them. And, while the technology to track these weapons and even the ammunition used within them is easily possible, we don’t do it, since this might infringe on the American citizen’s Right to bear Arms.

In a synergic society there is no need to be armed. Even within our present adversary-neutral society, weapons in the hands of law abiding “good” citizens seem to bring society little benefit. And certainly, weapons in the hands of criminals and predators bring great harm to the public. Any scientific analysis of the role of weapons in modern America would reveal that weapons are not only plentiful and easily available, but that they are also very powerful.

Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman writing in the Evolution of Weaponry explains:

Humans have proven themselves to be infinitely ingenious at creating and using devices to overcome their limitations. From one perspective human history can be seen as a series of ever-more-efficient devices to help humans communicate, travel, trade, work, and even to think. Similarly, the history of violence, peace, and conflict can be seen as the history, or the evolution, of a series of ever-more-efficient devices to enable humans to kill and dominate their fellow human beings.

The concept of an “evolution” of weaponry is very appropriate, since the battlefield is the ultimate realm of Darwinian natural selection. With few exceptions, any weapon or system that survives for any length of time does so because of its utility. Nothing survives for long on the battlefield simply because of superstition. Anything that is effective is copied and perpetuated, anything ineffective results in death, defeat, and extinction. There are fads and remnants (the military equivalent of the appendix), but over the long run, everything happens for a reason, and a valid theory of weapons evolution must make these reasons clear, explaining all extinctions and all survivals. …

Weapons’ lethality (in peace and war) is a factor of the effectiveness of the weapons used to kill and of the ability of available medical technology to save lives. Thus, weapons’ lethality can be thought of as a contest between weapons’ effectiveness (the state of technology trying to kill you) and medical effectiveness (the state of technology trying to save you). Like weapons’ lethality, the difference between murder (killing someone) and aggravated assault (trying to kill someone) is also largely a factor of the effectiveness of available weapons vs. the effectiveness of available medical life-saving technology.

Throughout most of human history the effectiveness of weapons available for domestic violence was basically stable, a relative constant. The relative effectiveness of swords, axes, and blunt objects has been basically unchanged, and killing (as an act of passion vs. a pre-meditated act like poisoning or leaving a bomb) was only possible at close-range by stabbing, hacking, and beating.

Bows were kept unstrung, not in a state of readiness for an act of passion. It required premeditation plus training plus strength to kill with a bow. Early, muzzle-loading gunpowder weapons were also often not kept in a state of readiness. It required time, training, and premeditation to load and shoot such a weapon. Once loaded, the humidity in the air could seep into the gunpowder and the load could become unreliable. Only in the late 19th century, with widespread introduction of breech-loading, brass cartridges was a true act of passion possible with state-of-the-art weapons technology. Powerful weapons could now be kept in state of readiness (i.e., loaded), and they now required minimal strength or training to use.

ca. 1700 B.C.	Chariots provide key form of mobility advantage in ancient warfare
ca. 400 B.C.	Greek phalanx slows the chariots, since horses consistently refuse to hurl themselves into a hedge of sharp projecting spears
ca. 100 B.C.	Roman system (pilum, swords, training, professionalism, leadership)
ca. 900 A.D.	Mounted knight (stirrup greatly enhances utility of mounted warfare)
ca. 1350	Gunpowder (cannon) in warfare (Battle of Crecy, 1346)
ca. 1400	Widespread application of long bow defeats mounted knights ( Battle of Agincourt, I4I5)
ca. 1600	Gunpowder (small arms) in warfare, defeats aIl body armor (30 Years War & English Civil War)
ca. 1800	Shrapnel (exploding artillery shells), ultimately creates renewed need for helmets (ca. 1915)
ca. 1850	Percussion caps permit all-weather use of small arms
ca. 1870	Breech loading, cartridge firing rifles, and pistols™
ca. 1915	Machine gun
ca. 1915	Gas warfare
ca. 1915	Tanks
ca. 1915	Aircraft
ca. 1915	Self-loading (automatic) rifles and pistols
ca. 1940	Strategic bombing of population centers
ca. 1945	Nuclear weapons
ca. 1960	Large scale introduction of operant conditioning in training to enable killing in soldiers
ca. 1970	Precision guided munitions

This then is our real problem. Weapons in our modern society are not only too plentiful and too easily available, but they are also way too powerful and easy to use.

 

Speaking just this week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said, “Looking at what was overwhelming force a decade or two decades ago, today you can have overwhelming force, conceivably, with lesser numbers because the lethality is equal to or greater than before,” he said. It has been a mistake, he added, to measure the quantity of forces required for a mission and “fail to look at lethality, where you end up with precision-guided munitions which can give you 10 times the lethality that a dumb weapon might, as an example.”

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Wisdom, We shouldn’t have!

Timothy Wilken, MD

One of my areas of interest and study is human intelligence science. The reason human intelligence is so powerful is because of the synergic relationship between two powerful minds—the space mind and the time mind. This “dual mind” intelligence is capable of generating four distinct levels of knowing—Information, Knowledge, Wisdom, and Oneness. I am currently completing a new book on Understanding Human Intelligence which will explain the Dual Mind and the four levels of knowing which it produces.

 

A simple metaphor for these four levels of knowing are:

Information is KnowWhere. Where do I go in space to survive. Where do I get water, food, shelter?

Knowledge is KnowWhen. When do I act in time to encourage or stop a sequence of events.

Wisdom is KnowHow. How do many different temporal sequences fit together to create spatial complexity.

And, Oneness is KnowWhy. Why do things happen the way they do? What is the consequence of complexity?

A human with information would know they should avoid a nuclear explosion. Where can I go to be safe.

 

A human with knowledge could learn to detonate a nuclear weapon. When to a push the button and in what sequence to trigger the bomb.

 

A person with wisdom could invent and design a nuclear weapon. How do the laws of physics work together and what temporal sequences must I create to allow nuclear fission or fusion to occur.

 

A person with oneness, would know that nuclear weapons should never be invented or manufactured. What are the consequences of using nuclear power as weapons? What happens when such weapons are common? What happens if they fall into the hands of those dominated anger and ignorance. Why would it be a bad idea to create nuclear weapons?

 

With our new understanding of human intelligence, it will soon be possible for many humans to learn to understand their minds and began accessing the higher levels of knowing. As they do they will gain increasing understanding of sequence and consequence. But, today most humans live their lives in the level of Information with only occasional visits to the level of  Knowledge. Educated people with high literacy, good understanding of mathematics and science may live their lives equally in the levels of Information and Knowledge with occasional flashes of genius in the level of Wisdom. Inventors, innovators, and what we commonly call creative geniuses live in Information and Knowledge, but have learned to easily visit the level of Wisdom. But, so far only a handful of human geniuses have learned to access Oneness.

 

Tools Contain Embedded Knowing

 

Recall from the introduction, that tools are artifacts made from matter-energy that contain embedded knowing. And, as there is no limit to human knowing, there is also no limit to the amount of knowing that can be embedded in an artifact. That is why we have such powerful tools. Today’s tools commonly contain embedded information, knowledge and wisdom.

 

Think of the power of the tools we humans use everyday—a Boeing 747 airplane, our automobiles, the internet, computers, cell phones, televisions, household appliances, the tools in our garages and at our places of work. The knowing in these tools multiply our human power by orders of magnitude. They allow us to do what was considered impossible just a few years ago. It is the power of the knowing embedded in these tools that give them their power.

 

Using Tools without Understanding

 

You don’t have to be wise to use a tool full of wisdom. You don’t even have to be knowledgeable to use such a tool. Many of our fast food restaurants, use picture icons of the food and drinks on the buttons of the check out computers, so that the illiterate and innumerate humans working there can operate the computers without reading, adding or subtracting. The computer even tells the operator the correct amount of change to return to the customer.

 

However, there is risk in using tools you don’t understand. Remember, “a little knowing can be a dangerous thing.” Today, we commonly put enormously powerful tools into the hands of those who do not understand them. This means the risk of these tools being used in an unsafe manner is high.

 

And since weapons are just tools that are specifically designed to hurt or kill, they are among the most dangerous tools  in our present world. Today, weapons are easily available to anyone who desires them. They can be purchased legally by any adult who passes a background check for a criminal record. If you are not a convicted felon, you can legally purchase all the weapons and ammunition you desire. You are not legally required to be literate, numerate, or have any knowledge of science or physics.

 

You are not required to demonstrate any knowledge of weapons or the consequence of their use or misuse, before becoming armed. And of course, there is no psychological screening to determine if you are stable and responsible.

 

As to felons, minors, or non-citizens—anyone wishing to avoid the background check of legal purchase—they can easily purchase weapons  illegally in almost any town in America.

 

Why are weapons  so easily available ?

 

We don’t let just anyone operate a nuclear powerplant, a 767 Boeing Airliner, or for that matter an automobile, without some training, education and testing. But we will sell a gun to anyone who can afford it. After all we just want to make money. And, of course every American possesses the Right to Bear Arms. The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” (1791)

 

The result of America’s policy of easy availability of weapons is reflected in these grim statistics from the CDC:

The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control reports that in 1999, there were 28,874 firearm-related deaths in the United States. By contrast, there were only 19 firearm-related deaths in Japan in 1998. Gun possession is prohibited in Japan.

 

Rates of homicide among American youths 15-19 years of age reached record-high levels in the latter half of the 1980s and continue to be among the highest ever recorded in the US for this age group. Between 1985 and 1991, annual homicide rates among males 15-19 years old increased 154 percent.

• In 2001, homicide was still the second leading cause of death among 15- to 24-year-olds overall. In this age group, it is the leading cause of death for African Americans, the second leading cause of death for Hispanic Americans, and the third leading cause of death for Native Americans (CDC 2001).
   
• In 1999, 4,998 youths ages 15 to 24 were murdered – an average of 14 per day (CDC 2001).
   
• Guns are a factor in most youth homicides. In 1999, 81% of homicide victims ages 15 to 24 were killed with firearms (CDC 2001).

It must be obvious to the reader, that manufacturing unlimited tools and unlimited weapons, and then placing them in the hands of ignorance is foolish.

 

Humanity as Community

 

Synergic society seeks to protect humanity as community and humanity as individuals. No responsible parent would allow a four year old child to use a blow torch, a power saw, or a nail gun unsupervised. No responsible parent would allow a ten year old to drive the family car on the interstate highway.

 

Why not? Because these tools are just too powerful to be used without adequate knowledge, education and training.

 

Wisdom, they shouldn’t have.

 

This is our problem today. People have wisdom, they shouldn’t have. They have access to enormously powerful tools and weapons—tools and weapons containing embedded wisdom—that they are shouldn’t have access too.

 

The Saudi terrorists that attacked America on  September 11, were not geniuses. None of them could have invented a Boeing 767 or even a cell phone. None of them could have even explained how these tools even worked. However, they were allowed to use deceit, and threat of force to gain control of these enormously powerful tools, and then use these tools as weapons to bring down the World Trade Towers and damage the Pentagon.

 

By embedding wisdom into tools and then selling those tools to anyone with money, we endanger humanity as individuals and humanity as community.

 

Today, we need a higher standard. Most advanced tools today contain embedded wisdom. This is powerful KnowHow. Those who use such tools need to well trained and intelligent enough to understand the consequence of using such powerful tools. Access to powerful tools (tools leveraged with wisdom) that could potentially harm others must be controlled. Only those humans who demonstrate: 1) the knowledge for the safe use of the tool, 2) an understanding of consequence of that tool’s use and misuse, and 3) a history of responsibility, should be allowed access to them. 

 

Iraq & Saddam Hussein

 

How many Nobel Prizes have been awarded to Iraq in science, physics, biology, or medicine? How many for Peace?

 

Did Iraqi scientists invent the automobile? The airplane? The telephone? The radio? The television? The computer? If they don’t have the intelligence to invent or even manufacture any of these tools, how did they get them?

 

They bought them with money. 

 

Where did they get the money? They got it by selling the oil discovered under the desert they live on. Did they discover the oil themselves? No it was discovered by engineers from the West. What makes this oil even theirs? An accident of birth and the mistaken belief that oil is property.

 

As I have discussed elsewhere, the land and natural resources are wealth provided to us by God and Nature. The sunshine, air, water, land, minerals, and the earth itself all come to us freely. The Earth’s land and natural resources are not products of the human mind or body. They existed long before life and humankind even emerged on our planet. There exists no moral or rational basis for any individual to claim them as Property. If a claim of ownership can be made at all, it must be a claim on behalf of all humanity both the living and those yet unborn.The Iraqis have no moral or rational basis to even claim ownership of the oil. It is only our mistaken belief that oil is property, and specifically the property of those who happen to be living over the deposit that allows this fiction to fly.

 

Did the Iraqis invent and manufacture oil drilling and refining technology? No, they bought this technology with money loaned to them by Western banks based on future repayment once the oil was extracted.

 

If you take away the oil money, and limit them to those tools invented and manufactured in Iraq, there would be no danger to anyone. Saddam Hussein would have been impaled on a sharp stick long ago.

 

We Americans must recogize that we have flooded the world with billions of high powered tools and weapons in order to make money. All the great democracies are guilty. But, the biggest exporter of tools and weapons in the history of the planet is the United States. We Americans are the most guilty. We have basically sold these tools and weapons to anyone with the money to buy them. That has been our only criteria.

 

Now let us look once again at the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution, it reads: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Somehow, we have focused on the right of the people to keep and bear arms, but have overlooked the founding fathers purpose in writing the second amendment: that of insuring “a well-regulated Militia“. A mob with guns is not a “well-regulated Militia.”

 

Public Safety requires responsible use of powerful tools and weapons. We need to recognize the potential danger in the use of tools and weapons in our present society. We must establish some standard of knowledge, training, and responsibility as a prerequisite to gaining access to these tools and weapons.

 

Protecting Us from the Police

Some will argue that we need a private right to weapons to protect us from the police. This argument misses the point. In an earlier article of this SafeEARTH series, I introduced the concept of the Life Trust Guardians and their enforcement arm the Synergic Containment Officers.

 

Life Trust Guardians and Synergic Containment Officers are not the police, they are synergists. They will be well educated and trained. They will understand the powerful tools they use and the consequence of both the use and missuse of those tools. Remember, synergists believe that we should work together and act responsibly to make the world work for everyone. Synergy means working together—operating together as in Co-Operation— laboring together as in Co-Laboration—acting together as in Co-Action. The goal of synergic union is to accomplish a larger or more difficult task than can be accomplished by individuals working separately. Synergists are committed to a world where I win, you win, others win and the Earth wins. Win-Win-Win-Win.

Best of the Best

Synergic Containment Officers are Life Trust Guardians. The Life Trust will seek to attract the best of the best as candidates for Trust Guardianship. Once selected these Trust Guardians would have greater trusteeship privileges with concomitant authority and responsibilities for and to the Life Trust.  

Trust Guardian Candidates should have repeatedly demonstrated both personal and public honesty, and should have a history demonstrating synergic morality and behavior. In the future, Universities will offer degrees in Trustegrity and Guardian Science to prepare those young humans to desire to serve Humanity as Community. A careful selection process will be developed to select the very best which could include Trust Guardian Academies.

It is apparent that the responsibilities of Trust Guardians will be great. They of course are not allowed to hurt anyone through their control of the Synergic Trusts. But in addition they are required to protect and conserve the Synergic Trusts. Further, they are required to help others and to insure that all humans have the basic needs of life —both survival and meaning. This is a binding obligation. Failure to meet these obligations results in the immediate loss of Synergic Trustee privileges. The Life Trust Guardians will be charged with protecting Humanity as Community, and Humanity as Individuals.

Public safety is paramount. No human has the right to injure another human with an adversary action. Once such an event has occurred, those responsible will be contained, they will be monitored and their freedom restricted until such time as the Life Trust Guardians have determined that they are safe without monitoring or restriction. This process is described more completely in Synergic Containment: Science & Rationale and Synergic Containment: Branch Davidian Compound, Waco, TX.

 

If the Life Trust Guardians release them from monitoring or restrictions, and they hurt someone else with another adversary action, then the Life Trust Guardians involved in their release will share responsibility with them for that adversary event. Life Trust Guardians are held accountable for failure to protect the public. This is a much higher standard then offered by today’s criminal injustice system.

 

No Knives, No Guns, No Killing!

One hundred and twenty years ago the American West was a vast, open area brimming with natural resources and opportunity. Cow towns and mining camps sprung up across the landscape. From around the world, millions of people flocked to the Western territories with the hope of making a better life for themselves. Many came to find gold or silver. Others came to open saloons, general stores, and other small businesses. And still others came to steal from the productive members of the west.

It was in such a setting that Wyatt Earp lived and worked. Like many of his time, he skipped from one boom town to another, always optimistic that his fortune awaited at the end of another long, dusty ride. And in nearly every town he invariably found himself called upon to bring law and order to what was previously anarchy. Earp’s exploits in taming lawless cow towns and mining camps and his bravery in facing ruthless killers—particularly at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona—make him one of the great figures of the American West. While the movies make much of the gunfights and use of intimidation in the streets of Dodge City. Earp’s greatest tool was the prohibition of weapons within the city limits. His rule was simple: “no knives, no guns, no killings.”

The history of the American West, is in large part the struggle to overcome  adversity. Earp’s discovery of a mechanism to insure public safety spread. By the summer of 1876, Denver was slightly larger than Dallas, although not a mite different as far as being fronted by the inevitable plankwalks and halter-polished hitch rails. A sign posted at the edge of town warned: “No guns in town.” This law was strictly enforced.

Zone of Safety

What Wyatt Earp achieved with his “No Guns in Town” law was the creation of a zone of safety. Within city limits there could be no guns. Apparently Earp understood that “guns do kill people.” Guns are weapons. By excluding them from the town, he was using a principle of synergic containment and disarmament.

We need to create a zone of safety. And, then we can begin to extend that zone. We need to protect those within the zone and isolate those outside the zone. This is how the immune system in our body works. The skin is the boundary for the body. Its job is to isolate all adversity from the interior. We need to create a skin around our safety zone. That isolates all adversity from the interior.

Within the safety zone, there should be no tolerance of adversity. None!

No violence would be allowed. No weapons would be allowed. Violation would result in expulsion from the safety zone. Committed Adversaries would be expelled from synergic community. They would be expelled from the zone of safety. And that zone of safety is not anonymous. Everyone is the zone is know. The immune system of our bodies knows every cell. Unknowns are presumed to be adversaries until proven otherwise. Freedom and privacy is available to all who do not hurt others. Injure someone and forfeit both.

It is time to put away the adversary way.There is no need for weapons in the zone of safety. In civilized community, the simple possession of a weapon is an adversary act. It must be surrendered immediately and voluntarily, or you leave the zone of safety.

Living in the zone of safety is not a right, it is a privilege available to civilized humanity. Civilized humans do not want or need weapons.

I believe it is time to create and then extend zones of safety. This is the only way the Israelis can make their people safe. No knives, no guns, no killings! None. The same is true for all nations. Except for small arms in the hands of Synergic Containment Officers charged with protecting both Humanity as Individuals and Humanity as Community, it is time to put away all weapons.

Pandora’s Box

 

What do we do now? Now that these powerful tools and weapons are in the hands of ignorance and anger, how do we get them back.

We must begin by regaining control of all those tools and weapons that threaten humanity. Our message to Saddam Hussein, and all who would act to harm humanity. If you want peace lay down your weapons. All of them. This must be our message to all those who are armed.

It is time for a complete and total disarmament. Within the human body reside 40 trillion individual cells, none are armed except the immune cells. Within a synergic organization which could reside all of humanity presently 6.3 billion humans. None would be armed except Synergic Containment Officers.

Universal Disarmament

During a period of moratorium, all humans would be expected to surrender all weapons into the custody of the Life Trust Guardians. A few of these weapons would go into museums, some would be be made available to the public within Earth Trust hunting parks and designated sport weapons clubs. Humans who desire to use weapons to hunt and kill animals may do so only within designated hunting parks managed by the Earth Trust Guardians and regulated by the Synergic Containment Officers.

Those humans who desire to use weapons for sport shooting may do so only through designated sport weapon clubs which are regulated and monitored by the Synergic Containment Officers. All weapons must be kept on the premises of the sports clubs, or within the grounds of the hunting parks. These weapons will be montored and accounted for under strict Life Trust Guardian guidelines.

However, the vast majority of weapons would be destroyed and scraped. Once the moratorium expires, the possession of a weapon outside of a permitted location is prohibited, and is by definition an adversary event. The Life Trust Guardians will dispense Containment Officers to confiscate the weapon or weapons and take those responsible into custody. Those individuals found responsible for weapons possession would be subject to the same public safety process as any other human found responsible for an adversary event including rehabilitation, education, restitution, and prevention of future adversary events.

How dangerous would the Washington D.C. sniper be without a gun and ammuntion? How dangerous would Saddam Hussein be without his weapons? 

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Read more by Timothy Wilken: 1) A Synergic Future 2) Protecting Humanity 3) Beyond War

Read Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s: 1) Aggression and Violence 2) Evolution of Weaponry  3) Psychological Effects of Combat.

 

Synergic Containment

We continue with the fourth in our SafeEARTH series. See: 1) Beyond Crime and Punishment 2) Synergic Containment: Protecting Children 3) Synergic Containment: Science & Rationale.

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Protecting Community

Timothy Wilken, MD

Synergic Containment Officers are responsible for containment of adversary events.

 

Their first task will be to contain the adversary event, and prevent the event from spreading further into community and involving new victims. 

 

Containment is about protecting both the victim and the aggressor. Synergic society does not view the perpetrators as bad or criminal. However, they certainly recognize that they are dangerous. Recall from our initial discussion of using synergic containment to protect children, we are seeking to contain and protect all the individuals caught up in an adversary event—both victims and perpetrators.

Synergic Rescue 

Once the adversary event has been contained, the second task of the Synergic Containment Officers becomes to safely rescue all of the individuals caught up in the event. This rescue is prioritized. First to be rescued are victims at greatest risk for further harm, then victims at lower risk. Once the victims are safe, the synergic containment officers will begin their rescue of the perpetrators.

 Synergic Disarmament

If those perpetrating the adversary event have weapons, they must be disarmed. Today, the danger of adversary events is greatly magnified by access to weapons. We humans are Time-binders. That means as a species we can create knowledge without limit. When we incorporate knowledge into matter-energy it is called a tool. Because knowledge can grow without limit, tools can also grow without limit. When tools are used to hurt others, they are called weapons. In our modern world, we have created ever more powerful weapons. These weapons are not safe in the hands of ignorance.

Once the perpetrators of an adversary event are contained, their victims rescued, then they will be disarmed, this must be effected before they can be rescued.

How would this work in the real world?  Let us examine a real situation.

The Adversary Containment of the Branch Davidian Church, Waco, TX

Most Americans recall this incident from 1993. The following are the facts as reported by PBS:FRONTLINE:

Sunday, February 28, 1993: At about 9:30 a.m. agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempt to execute arrest and search warrants against David KORESH and the Branch Davidian compound as part of an investigation into illegal possession of firearms and explosives there. Gunfire erupts. Four ATF agents are killed and 16 are wounded. An undetermined number of Davidians are killed and injured. Within a few hours, the FBI becomes the lead agency for resolving the standoff.

The FBI would institute a siege of the compound that would last 51 days.

After 51 days of standoff, Attorney General Janet Reno authorized a tear gas attack. Reno has cited a number of factors to explain why she endorsed the tear-gas plan. She has said that she had concluded that negotiations with the Branch Davidians were indefinitely stalemated, that the FBI’s hostage rescue team on duty at Waco was becoming fatigued, that the security perimeter established by the FBI around the compound was endangered and that the children inside the compound were at risk because of deteriorating sanitary conditions and the potential for sexual and physical abuse.

Monday, April 19, 1993: At 6:02 a.m., two FBI combat engineering vehicles, or CEVs, begin inserting gas into the compound through spray nozzles attached to a boom. At 6:04 a.m., the Davidians start shooting, and the FBI begin deploying Bradley vehicles to insert ferret rounds through the windows. At 6:31, the HRT reports that the entire building is being gassed. At about 7 a.m., RENO and senior advisors go to the FBI situation room. At 7:30, a CEV breaches the front side of the building on the first floor as it injects gas, and at 7:58 a.m., gas is inserted in the second floor of the back-right corner of the building. The FBI calls for more gas from outside Waco, and at 9:20 a.m., 48 more ferret rounds arrive from Houston.

At 11:40 a.m., the last ferret rounds are delivered. At 11:45 a.m., a wall on the right-rear side of the building collapses. At 12:07 p.m., There is the start of ”simultaneous fires at three or more different locations within the compound.” Fire quickly consumes the compound.

According to medical examiners who performed the autopsies, CS gas did not directly kill any of the more than 80 Branch Davidians, including 22 children, who died in the fire on April 19. … Other experts have told FRONTLINE that CS gas may have totally incapacitated the children and others so that when the fire occurred, it would have rendered them incapable of escape. (4)

Synergic Containment of the Branch Davidian Church

This is not a criticism of the federal officers who were involved in the Adversary Containment at the Branch Davidian Church (BDC). Clearly the members of that church were heavily armed and dangerous. Four Federal ATF officers lost their lives and 16 were wounded in the first encounter on February 28. I would suggest that the mechanism of adversary containment is more dangerous for both the containment officers and for those being contained.

As a thought experiment, how would synergic containment work differently than adversary containment?

Remember, the goal of synergic containment is the protection of both humanity as community, and humanity as individuals. This goal could best be achieved by isolation of the BDC members and then disarming them. Once they were disarmed they would be taken into protective custody. All custody by Synergic Containment Officers is protective. Their mission is protection.

It was strongly suspected and later confirmed that the Branch Davidian members were heavily armed and dangerous. A Synergic Containment Force would act cautiously. They would encircle and establish a strong perimeter completely surrounding the compound. This perimeter would well back from the compound outside of rifle range. 

 

Remember the three tasks of the Synergic Containment Officers–contain, rescue, disarm.

Once the perimeter is contained the next step is the creation of one or more rescue corridors. These are protected passages to points as close to the center of the adversary event as possible to facilitate the rescue of individuals caught up in the event.

 

In addition to observation from the perimeter and rescue corridor, the compound under be put under continuous observation from closer, but well protected observation sites, and communication established with the Church members. The church members would be unable to militarily engage the Containment Force without leaving the protection of their compound.

Those within the compound would then be ordered to put down their weapons and move out to the perimeter to voluntarily enter into protective custody. Those being contained would have a short time to voluntarily surrender. If there was no response, or a hostile response, the Synergic Containment Force would begin Containment Isolation of  the compound.

Once Containment Isolation is implemented, nothing goes in. Access to electricity, television, telephone, water, food and all outside supplies are a privilege to members of community in good standing. That privilege is suspended. Nothing goes in. Every thing would stop! Then the Containment Force would sit back and wait for them to come out.

Any unarmed member of the church could leave anytime by simply presenting to the rescue corridor for safe escort to the perimeter where they could voluntarily enter protective custody. Once out, no one goes back in unless and until Synergic Containment is lifted.

The compound would not be stormed or attacked in anyway. No barrage of noise, loud music, or teargas. They would be left to themselves without phones, television, newspapers, mail, electricity, water, etc.etc.. They are not being punished. The benefits of community are being suspended until they cease all adversity. I expect that most of the members would have come out and surrendered. Perhaps not all.

Once each day, the containment force would explicitly communicate with the contained adversaries, reminding them that safety, food, water, shelter and medical care wait for them at the perimeter. It would be made clear that to exit the containment zone, they need only put down their weapons and present to the rescue corridor, or perimeter. Any individual—adult or child—that did so would be given protection including water, food, medical care and shelter.

Why would they give up?

In today’s world, criminals that have been adversarily contained by the police feel they have nothing to lose. They may be surrounded by heavily armed swat teams looking to take them out with a long range shot. If they survive capture, they face trial, imprisonment, and sentences range from a few years to life in prison and can even be put to death by the state for a capital crime. This leads to an environment where trapped criminals may feel they have nothing to lose by shooting it out with the police.

Within Synergic Society, the Life Trust Guardians Division of Public Safety works differently. Once those caught up in an adversary event are contained and are in protective custody, the rest of the public safety process unfolds:

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Scientific Investigation and Analysis of the Adversary Event

The Life Trust Guardians will assign public safety scientists to investigate and scientifically analyze the adversary event. These Science Officers are responsible for determining the true facts of the adversary event.

Remember mistakes are caused by ignorance, even those mistakes that injure people and seem deliberate. Science Officers will seek to determine what were the causes of the mistakes that led to the adversary event, and what specifically needs to be learned by the responsible parties to prevent further adversary events.

It is also their mission to determine who were the individuals responsible for the event. Those individuals who freely admit their responsibility for an adversary event will enter directly into the Education and Restitution phase. Those individuals accused of adversary action claiming innocence are entitled to a responsibility hearing.

Responsibility Hearing

Conducted by Hearing Officers, this is an evidentiary process which includes the scientific interrogation of both the alleged adversaries and the victims of the adversary event. The responsibility hearing differs from a criminal trial in significant ways. First, the end result of the responsibility hearing does not lead to punishment, it leads to education, rehabilitation, and restitution. Secondly, it is not an adversarial procedure. There is no prosecutor and no defense. No one is trying to hurt anyone in this process. The Responsibility Hearing is to determine the truth.

The needs and the safety of humanity as community takes precedent over the needs and safety of humanity as individuals. Truth has a higher value then fairness. Since no one is going to be punished, all parties are required to tell the truth. No human has the right to hurt another human. Public safety is paramount, and the truth will be the determining factor.

All parties may be interrogated by the Life Trust Guardians’ Hearing Officers utilizing any scientific techniques that are safe and effective. This could include hypnosis, lie detector technology, drug augmented interrogation, and new technologies and techniques not yet invented. In a synergic culture, you can be required to testify against yourself, or your spouse. There are no privileged conversations between lawyers and clients because there are no lawyers and clients. The truth will out. The purpose of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the American Constitution were to protect Free and Independent Citizens from an Adversary State. It was thought that if you could be made to testify against yourself, you could be tortured to confess to crimes you did not commit. This of course was true in an Adversary world with an Adversary State.

In a synergic culture, all Synergic Trust Guardians are held to the highest standards — they cannot hurt others, and in fact must help others. This standard applies as well to the Life Trust Guardians’ Containment, Science, and Hearing Officers.

If the officers of the Life Trust Guardians injure others in the course of their duties, they are subject to the same rules of public safety and are 100% responsible for their actions. They cannot torture anyone. They are also required to tell the truth and are also subject to scientific interrogation if accused of hurting others.

This commitment to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth eliminates all of today’s legal loop holes that allows dangerous committed criminals to be released back to the public streets and have access to new victims. Once the Responsibility Hearing has been concluded and it has been determined who was responsible, the next phase of the process can begin.

Rehabilitation and Education of those Responsible 

Within a synergic society, Rehabilitation Officers are responsible for this phase. These Officers include Physicians, Psychiatrists, Psychologists and Teachers. Adversary behavior in a synergic culture is viewed as a psychiatric disease or adversary mental illness. Those responsible for dangerous and/or severe adversary events would be required to undergo extensive psychiatric and psychological evaluation to determine the extent of their adversary mental illness. They would then enter into a comprehensive treatment program.

If they were deemed a continuing public safety risk, they would surrender their freedom during treatment. No human has the right to hurt another human. They would remain incarcerated until they were cured. If they were never cured, they would never be released. As our knowledge of adversary mental disorders improved and as new techniques and therapies were created, we would gain in our ability to successfully treat and cure these disorders.

Once their adversary illnesses, were deemed cured, they would move forward to the educational program. Here they would join other individuals found free of adversary mental illness. In this educational phase, all individuals deemed responsible for an adversary event would undergo a program specifically designed for them to correct the errors and mistakes that led to their specific adversary event.  Once they completed their educational phase they would be  tested.

Rehabilitation Testing of those Responsible

These tests are to verify that those responsible have learned how to avoid future Adversary Events. Once the Rehabilitation Officers find an individual has fully recovered and is no longer a threat to the public safety. Once they have completed the program and demonstrated the understanding and knowledge necessary to avoid such events in the future, they would move on to the restitution phase.

Restitution Agreements by those Responsible

In a synergic culture where not hurting others is required, and helping others is highly encouraged, restitution will be an important and common phenomena. Most of the time injuries to others will be accidental. All humans will make mistakes and often those mistakes will hurt others. Restitution is the mechanism of repair. We can’t always fix things, but we can always sincerely apologize and offer restitution.

The Life Trust Guardianship only gets involved when the injuries are deliberately caused by adversary actions. Following successful rehabilitation and education, documented with successful testing, then monitored restitution is mandatory.

Prevention of Future Adversary Events

Public safety is paramount. No human has the right to injure another human with an adversary action. Once such an event has occurred and you are found responsible you may be monitored and your freedom restricted until such time as the Life Trust Guardians have determined that you are safe without monitoring or restriction.

If the Life Trust Guardians release you from monitoring or restrictions and you hurt someone else in the future with another adversary action, then the Life Trust Guardians and the specific Officers involved in your release share responsibility with you for the adversary event. They are held accountable for failure to protect the public. This is a much higher standard then offered by today’s criminal justice system.

Prevention Agreements for Future Monitoring and Restrictions

Here, Rehabilitation Officers in co-laboration with the Prevention Officers will work together to determine what specific level of monitoring, surveillance, and personal freedom restrictions are necessary for the public safety. Because these officers share responsibility for future events with the perpetrators it is in their best interest to get it right. All terms and conditions will be negotiated in this phase. The responsible adversaries will take an active role in this negotiation. They will voluntarily enter into the Prevention Agreements as a condition for restoration of community privileges.  Periodically, reviews would occur and terms and conditions modified as appropriate. 

Future Monitoring

The final phase of the Rule of Public Safety is the responsibility of the Prevention Officers. In a synergic culture, humans found responsible for adversary actions even terrible adversary actions are not criminals. They are not felons. They are not punished. But they are contained. Life Trust Guardians will utilize the most advanced containment technology available — this could include implanted transponders and continuous monitoring systems.Whenever possible the responsible adversaries will be allowed to return to their lives and families. Even when incarcerated to the extent possible their lives will be normalized. This is discussed further in Protecting Humanity.

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But, what about those members of the Branch Davidian Church who refuse to surrender? What if they don’t give up? Will Synergic Containment Officers ever storm such a compound?

The situation that faced the Federal Officers of the ATF and FBI in Waco Texas in 1993, was very dangerous. In the first encounter the ATF lost 4 officers dead and 16 wounded.

 

Many of the male members of BDC were military trained and all were  heavily armed. Most were barricaded inside a steel reinforced concrete bunker with high powered weapons and lots of ammunition. Dr. Rodney Crow, Chief of Identification Service who surveyed the killing field after the fire in 1993 said:

There were weapons everywhere. I don’t remember moving a body that didn’t have a gun melted to it, intertwined with it, between the legs, under the arm or in close proximity. … The women were probably more immersed in the weapons than anyone else, because there was so much weaponry inside the bunker. It was like sea shells on a beach, but they were spent casings and spent bullets. If you had rubber gloves and tried to smooth it away, you’d tear your gloves away from the bullet points that are unexploded, or unspent ammunition. Then as you went through layer after layer, you came upon weapons that were totally burned. Until we got down to the floor, and it was mint condition ammunition there. Ammunition boxes not even singed. … They stored the weapons in the safest place. Then on top of the bunker is where the 50-caliber was found.(5)

As those who have participated in WAR know, storming a well fortified bunker is very dangerous. Would Synergic Containment Officers ever storm such a bunker. I don’t know, but I hope not. 

The Texas Rangers who collected the weapons after the fire reported that in addition to the 50-caliber machine gun, they found  60 M-16 machine guns, 60 AK-47 assault rifles, about 30 AR-15 assault rifles, several .50-caliber sniper rifles and dozens of pistols.

Perhaps a better question is, Why were the members of this church allowed to buy hundreds of military weapons and such enormous quantities of military grade ammunition?

As you sow, so shall you reap.

Now certainly, the 22 children who died at Waco were innocent, and their deaths were tragic. I can’t imagine how they could have been protected by assaulting the compound with more high powered weapons. Even today, there remains much controversy as to whether the FBI’s actions of pushing the assault may have contributed to the children’s deaths. We may never know, but I don’t think that would be the case with Synergic Containment. A synergic force would have simply waited them out. As they got more and more hungry, thirsty and weaker, I expect most of them would have come out.

Would Synergic Containment prevent the leaders of the Branch Davidian Church from killing all the members and then committing suicide as  happened in Jonestown?

No! Not as I have described synergic containment here.

The purpose of Synergic Containment is the protection of Humanity as Community and Humanity as Individuals. When those two goals conflict, then the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.

Sometimes Containment Officers will risk their lives to rescue victims or hostages, but they will always do it cautiously and with great care. They will do it when they believe success if possible.

As for the children in Waco, unfortunately, their mothers and fathers failed to protect them. And, the ATF and FBI failed to protect them. That is indeed sad. I would hope that we could learn something from the mistakes that were made.

Synergic Containment of Iraq

You can’t cure adversity with adversity. As we watch the night and day ‘mares’ that serves as daily life for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, we must see that “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” does not work.

I agree with President Bush that Saddam Hussein is a dangerous man. I agree that he must be contained and rendered impotent—incapable of hurting others. But, I differ with Bush on the method.

 

How would one Synergically Contain a rogue nation? For now, I leave that as a mental exercise for the reader.

NEXT: Synergic Disarmament: Wisdom, We shouldn’t have!

 

Synergic Containment

We continue with the third in our SafeEARTH series. See: 1) Beyond Crime and Punishment 2) Synergic Containment: Protecting Children

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Science and Rationale

Timothy Wilken, MD

Synergy at its most basic simply means “working together.” Synergic science is then the study of “working together.” As science has progressed in helping us understand the human condition, it is now clear that we are an interdependent species. Sometimes I depend on others, and sometimes others depend on me. Another important fact of being in interdependent species is we share the same environment—the same reality.

Shared Reality

At home, we share the same living space with friends or family. If I turn the heater thermostat up, the room will become warmer for everyone. Control of that reality is shared. If I start yelling and screaming, things will get much noisier for everyone. Control of that reality is shared. If I make a mess or don’t clean up the kitchen, then we are all living in that mess.

This is just as true in the workplace, our neighborhoods, our communities, and in fact in the whole world. We live on a single planet, we all share the same water, the same air and the same resources of the single small planet.

Because control of reality is shared, if I foul the water or air, I foul your water and your air. Whatever I do, will effect you. Whatever you do, will effect me. If we work together and act responsibly, we can minimize the harm we do each other, and maximize the benefits of solving our problems together.

Freedom of action in a shared environment is a privilege, not a right. When we use Synergic Containment to protect a child, we are teaching the child that in a shared environment, he is free to act as long as those actions do not hurt others. We are teaching him to work together and act responsibly.

Synergic containment is probably most attractive to parents because it is a technique to control adversary behavior when you love and care about the individual behaving adversarily. Most parents love and care about their children. Containment is about protecting both the victim and the aggressor. It does this by stopping adversary behavior. Now synergic containment could be used just as effectively outside the family.

Community Use of Synergic Containment 

Throughout the long history of humanity, the primary mechanism for controlling adversary behavior has been adversary punishment. In the short term, adversary punishment seems successful in controlling adversary behavior, but punishment always hurts and injures the one being controlled. This injury tends to breed anger and resentment in the one being punished. Of course the effect is longer if you kill the aggressor, at least until their children grow up.

Now, outside the family, we often do not know or care about the individual being controlled with adversary punishment. So we are less disturbed that they are being injured and hurt. In fact we often identify with the victim, and feel it is only fair that they suffer for their crimes. It is an “eye for an eye,” and a “tooth for a tooth.” It is our very definition of justice.

What we are missing here, is that adversary punishment fails to stop adversary behavior in the long run. Punishment breeds hostility, hatred and eventually revenge. The Israelis and Palestinians have been punishing each other for decades, with no sign that the mutual adversary behavior in their communities is stopping or even slowing. “As you sow, so shall you reap!” You can’t stop adversity with adversity.

We have been adversarily punishing serious crimes in the United States for over 200 years. As the FBI reported in 1998: Despite the fact that as of “midyear 1998, the United States’ prisons and jails incarcerated an estimated 1,802,496 criminals”, in the year 1997, “the number of violent crimes—murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault —and property crimes—burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft —reported to the police departments in the United States totaled 13,175,070.” (2)

Community’s Right of Synergic Containment

In Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek,  Mr. Spock, the Vulcan Science Officer from a race ruled by logic, would remind his shipmates that: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or of the one.”

 

The human body is a community of 40 trillion individual cells. The individual cells are organized synergically to be interdependent upon each other. They cannot separate themselves from the body as community. The survival of the cells depends on the survival of the body. The needs and safety of the body precedes the needs and safety of the individual cells. Sometimes individual cells are injured or even sacrificed to protect and insure the survival of the body as a whole. The needs and safety of the community of cells takes precedence over the needs and safety of the cells as individuals.

The Needs of the Many

Which is more important? The individual’s right to freedom of action or community’s right to public safety? We can now see that this is a silly and false argument. Community is simply “many” individuals. My freedom of action stops at the boundary of another individual’s personal space and safety.

America has long been the champion of the individual’s right to freedom of action. In fact, our American criminal justice system is so paralyzed by the need to protect the rights of the individual, that our streets are full of criminals, and our e-mail boxes are full of unsolicited junk mail and garbage including pornography and fraudulent offers. Why do we tolerate this? Isn’t it time to grow up? Aren’t we smart enough to create a society that values both an individual’s right to freedom of action and the community’s right to public safety.

With the discovery that humanity is an interdependent species comes the realization that we humans can no longer separate ourselves from community. Humanity as community is larger and contains humanity as individuals. The needs and safety of humanity as community must precede the needs and safety of humanity as individuals.

Community’s Right to Synergic Containment rests on the premise that if you deliberately harm other members of community, you will lose freedom of action within that community. If I harm others in a shared environment, I should expect community to contain my behavior—I should expect community to restrict my  freedom of action.

The Rule of Public Safety is that no human should be allowed to deliberately injure another human—that all adversary actions should ideally be prevented and when not prevented quickly contained.

Our present culture based on the false premise of human independence often places individual needs and safety over community needs and safety. This will shift dramatically in a synergic culture. If we humans choose a positive future, we would want a system that provides both for the protection and safety of humanity as community and humanity as individual.

Life Trust Guardians

This future system might well be modeled after the most successful systems on the planet—the living systems. Your body has a powerful immune system which protects the organism as individual cells and the organism as a whole.

In my proposal for protecting humanity, I have defined those who would assume this role as Life Trust Guardians. Their mission would be the protection of both humanity as community and humanity as individuals. They are bound by two laws.

The Code of the Life Trust Guardians

1) A Life Trust Guardian may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

2) A Life Trust Guardian may not injure an individual human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, except where that would conflict with the First Law.  

The first law of the of the Code commits to protect Humanity as Community. The second law commits to protect Humanity as Individuals. This represents a major shift in human values from today’s focus with the individual as primary to tomorrow’s focus with community as primary.

While Life Trust Guardians are responsible for the safety of both humanity as community and humanity as individuals, the needs and safety of community take precedent over the needs and safety of individuals.

This does not suggest a casual attitude toward the rights of individuals. Life Trust Guardians may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, except where that would cause injury to humanity as a whole — except where that would cause injury to humanity as community. When an adversary event presents no risk to humanity as community then the Synergic Containment Officer’s first responsibility is to the safety of the individual. (3)

Protecting the Public

The Life Trust Guardians (LTG) as described in A Synergic Future have large responsibilities. Here we will only address their role in protecting public safety.

The Public Safety Division of the LTG would be entrusted with protecting the public safety by containment and prevention of adversary events. They will utilize synergic mechanism based on synergic morality to insure freedom from crime. This synergic organization will act more like our body’s immune system, than the law enforcement agencies we are familiar with today. Life Trust Guardians accept the premise that adversary behavior is caused by ignorance and not badness. This is discussed at length elsewhere in Beyond Crime and Punishment. Life Trust Guardians are synergists. They operate in the synergic paradigm.

Adversary	Synergic
MISTAKES = Badness	MISTAKES = Ignorance
INVESTIGATE	ANALYZE
ACCUSE & BLAME	DETERMINE RESPONSIBILITY
PUNISH —> self-punish	EDUCATE —> self-educate
“Guilt”	“Learn”
regret->	RESTITUTION

Life Trust Guardians accept as their responsibility the protection of humanity as community as well as humanity as individuals.

The Rule of Public Safety is that no human should be allowed to deliberately injure another human— that all adversary actions should ideally be prevented and when not prevented quickly contained.

The Public Safety Division of the Life Trust Guardians accomplish the rule of public safety by:

• 1) Seeking the Containment of all adversary events,
  
  
• 2) Performing Scientific analysis and investigation of all adversary events to determine the causes and parties responsible,
  
  
• 3) Holding Responsibility Hearings when those suspected of adversary actions claim innocence,
  
  
• 4) Providing Rehabilitation of those responsible for serious and dangerous adversary events up to and including incarceration for long term psychiatric and psychological treatment until they are found to be fully recovered and no longer a threat to the public safety,
  
  
• 5) Providing Education of those responsible for adversary events until they possess the understanding and knowledge necessary to avoid such events in the future,
  
  
• 6) Seeking Restitution from the responsible parties to repair to extent possible the injuries that their adversary actions have caused, and
  
  
• 7) And, always working toward Prevention of future adversary events, by monitoring and/or restricting personal freedom as appropriate to protect the public. (3)

The Public Safety Division is composed various pubic safety specialists. These include: Synergic Containment Officers, Science Officers, Hearing Officers, Rehabilitation Officers, and Prevention Officers.

Let us examine the process in more detail. When an adversary event occurs and an injury is reported to the Life Trust Guardians, they will dispense Containment Officers to the scene of the injury to analyze the adversary event, and if further risk to body or life exists, contain it.

Principles of Synergic Containment

1) Protection and safety of Humanity as Community.

2) Protection and safety of Humanity as Individual

3) When in conflict, the protection and safety of Community takes precedence over the protection and safety of the Individual.  “The needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few or of the one.” A community is a collection of many individuals.

4) The force of Synergic Containment is overwhelmingly powerful. The power of community is much much greater than the power of any individual or group of individuals. The power of the many outweighs the power of the few or of the one.

5) The force of Synergic Containment is never applied to punish others for wrongdoing. It is applied only to protect. The goal is to protect the largest number of individuals possible. Because this force is so powerful it must be applied carefully. It is always applied with love and compassion. It is always applied thoughtfully, carefully, intelligently, cautiously, and calmly. Ideally, individuals win, community wins, Life wins and the Earth wins. If some must lose, all efforts will be made to minimize that loss.

Depending on the nature and severity of the adversary event, Containment Officers have the authority to take those suspected of adversary actions into custody. Public safety is paramount. Suspects are required to cooperate with the Containment Officers, and if asked to enter into custody to do so voluntarily.

Containment of adversary events is the prime responsibility of the Synergic Containment Officers. They are required to protect themselves and the public. If a suspect resists being taken into custody, the Containment Officers will utilize the most advanced containment technology in every effort to avoid injury to the suspects, but if the suspects resist, Containment Officers are authorized to use whatever level of force necessary to insure public safety. This includes authorization to use deadly force.

When a synergist is containing an adversary, he must speak the language they understand—the language of force.

While our immune system lacks any ability to repair or rehabilitate cancer cells, the Life Trust Guardians should have much greater success rehabilitating and educating adversarily behaving humans. In a synergic future, all Physicians, Psychiatrists and Psychologists will be Life Trust Guardians. As humanity becomes more synergic and our knowledge of human psychology becomes greater, the need for deadly force should diminish.

In a moment we will examine how this might work in the real world, but first we need to define what it means to be “hurt”. Recall, when an adversary event occurs and an injury is reported to the Life Trust Guardians, they will dispense Containment Officers to the scene of the injury to analyze the adversary event.

Today, if you have a house fire you call the fire department. If you have home accident with personal injury, you call an ambulance. Now within synergic society all of these problems would be reported to and handled by the Life Trust Guardians, but Synergic Containment Officers would only respond to reports of adversary events.

An adversary event involves the intentionally injuring or threatening to injure other individuals–fighting and flighting–pain and dying. This is where we find conflict–the struggle to avoid losing–the struggle to avoid being hurt or killed. These are the events that our police forces respond to today.

Synergic Containment

Synergic Containment Officers are only responsible for containment of adversary events.

 

Their first task will be to contain the adversary event, and prevent the event from spreading further into community and involving new victims. 

 

Synergic society does not view the perpetrators as bad or criminal. However, they certainly recognize that they are dangerous. Recall in our initial discussion of using synergic containment to protect children, we are seeking to contain and protect all the individuals caught up in an adversary event—both victims and perpetrators. Containment is about protecting both the victim and the aggressor.

Synergic Rescue 

Once the adversary event has been contained, the second task becomes to safely rescue all of the individuals caught up in the event. This rescue is prioritized. First to be rescued are victims at greatest risk for further harm, then victims at lower risk. Once the victims are safe, the synergic containment officers will begin their rescue of the perpetrators.

 Synergic Disarmament

If those perpetrating the adversary event have weapons, they must be disarmed. Today, the danger of adversary events is greatly magnified by access to weapons. We humans are Time-binders. That means as a species we can create knowledge without limit. When we incorporate knowledge into matter-energy it is called a tool. Because knowledge can grow without limit, tools can also grow without limit. When tools are used to hurt others, they are called weapons. In our modern world, we have created ever more powerful weapons. These weapons are not safe in the hands of ignorance.

Once the perpetrators of an adversary event are contained, their victims rescued, then they will be disarmed, this must be effected before they can be rescued.

 

Synergic Containment

This morning, I begin the reposting of a series of articles on a new mechanism for the synergic containment of adversary events. This new tool from synergic science is premised on the understanding that all mistakes are caused by ignorance. I have previously discussed how that premise leads to new ways of dealing with mistakes, even when those mistakes hurt people.

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Protecting Children

Timothy Wilken, MD

Today our world is a dangerous place, and growing ever more dangerous. Everyday, humans are hurting and killing other humans. Mothers and fathers are beating their children. Husbands are beating and killing their wives. Rouge men are abducting and killing children. Teenage and young adult men are killing each other over the color of their clothes or the brand of shoes they wear. Life threatening violence is erupting over any act of supposed DISrespect.

Children are strapping high explosives to their bodies and detonating them in public places in desperate acts of suicide-homicide. In April of this year, President George W. Bush said, “When an 18 year old Palestinian girl is induced to blow herself up, and in the process kills a 17 year old Israeli girl, the future, itself, is dying.”

And then of course there are the armed conflicts, Peter Wallensteen of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reports :

In 2001, there were 24 major armed conflicts in 22 locations. … Africa continued to be the region with the greatest number of conflicts. Worldwide, there were approximately equal numbers of contests for control of government and for territory.

In the 12-year post-cold war period 1990–2001 there were 57 different major armed conflicts in 45 different locations. … All but 3 of the major armed conflicts registered for 1990–2001 were internal—the issue concerned control over the government or territory of one state. The 3 interstate conflicts in this period were Iraq versus Kuwait, India versus Pakistan and Eritrea versus Ethiopia.

… The year 2001 was overshadowed in September by one new major conflict with qualitatively different, global characteristics which have so far proved difficult to categorize.(1)

And now we have the War on Terrorism, the War on Afghanistan, the impending War on Iraq, and then what? The War on Iran? The War on North Korea? The War on the Philippines? The War on China? Etc.? Etc.? 

Something is very wrong in our world.

Synergic Science

As a synergic scientist, I believe that we must learn to work together. This means we must become synergic humans. Synergy means working together—operating together as in Co-Operation— laboring together as in Co-Laboration—acting together as in Co-Action. The goal of synergic union is to accomplish a larger or more difficult task than can be accomplished by individuals working separately. We are committed to a world where I win, you win, community wins and the Earth wins. Win-Win-Win-Win.

 

Synergic science finds there are three types of humans in our present world. Which type you are depends on what you believe about how the world works.

Adversaries believe there is not enough for everyone and only the physically strong will survive. They believe humans are coercively dependent on others, and they best understand the language of force.

Neutralists believe there is enough for everyone, if only you work hard enough and take care of yourself. They believe humans are financially independent and should be self-sufficient unless they are too lazy or defective. They best understand the language of money.

And, finally a new type of human is still emerging. Synergists believe there is enough for everyone but only if we work together and act responsibly. They believe humans are interdependent and can only obtain sufficiency by working together as community. Synergists best understand the language of love.

But, to be successful in our present world, the synergist must understand all three languages and know when to use them. Synergists must sometimes use the language of force, and sometimes the language of money, it depends on whom they are talking to. However, when synergists are seeking allies—when synergists are seeking to build community—they must speak the language of love.

We believe that you should, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” What is it that most of us want others to do unto us? Synergic scientists answer this question as follows: Help and support others as you would wish them to help and support you.  Or, more simply, ”Treat others the way they want to be treated.”

“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. And that’s my religion.” —Abraham Lincoln  

Synergists are trying to heal the wounds inflicted by those who don’t understand how the world could work. This then is the essential challenge to the synergists. Can we work together and act responsibly in time to save our ourselves on this planet? … Only by helping each other. If humanity were to achieve synergy, we would have a peaceful world, but how do we get there?

As a young father, I wanted to do the best job of parenting I could. With the birth of our first daughter in 1980, I began reading the then current literature on parenting. After a few months I settled on the parenting style proposed by Dr. Thomas Gordon in his book Parent Effectiveness Training. It was a win-win approach that did not support punishment or conflict. But Gordon realized that permissiveness, and letting children run wild would create its own set of problems. Parent enforced discipline was a win/lose game that the parent always won. Permissiveness was a win/lose game that the child always won. Neither method was good for children or families. Gordon explained how we could improve our communication with others at any age. How to work together for solutions where both parent and child could win.

What he did was provide parents with a specific set of communication and problem-solving skills, as well as a means for knowing when and how to use them (the Behavior Window). These skills (Active Listening, No-Lose Conflict Resolution, and the I-Message) changed the way many parents communicate with their children. The Gordon Method has proved just as valuable for improving communication in the workplace and in our schools. His books have been published in 28 languages and over 6 million copies have been sold worldwide.

However, there was one situation that Gordon did not address. Children through immaturity and ignorance sometimes engage in  dangerous  behavior. The danger may be to themselves or to others. Often this begins before they are able to understand the consequence of their behavior, or to be reasoned with. How do you stop them without resorting to adversity and punishment?

We have all seen parents slap a small child’s hand, when their child reaches for something hot or sharp. The child immediately cries and often runs away, but what has the child learned? Gordon would argue that physically striking the child sends only one message, “You are bad!” And, while the child will withdraw, it is not because they understand that they were in danger, but simply because they fear the parent will strike them again. Now parents often feel that striking the child was necessary to protect the child, but is this really true?

I remember one winter, a heavy storm knocked out the electrical power to our home for almost a week. I hurriedly purchased a portable kerosene heater for warmth and cooking. It was an amazing device, but it was also dangerously hot. My three year old daughter Reason had never seen such a thing in our modern all electrical home and watched with fascination as I set it up. As I watched the sparkle in her eye, I realized the damage she might sustain from touching the top or sides of the heater.

I asked by wife to hold her well within her arms while I set up the heater.Once it was lit, it soon became hot and began to glow. I told my daughter that it was very hot. I placed a small piece of paper on top which soon burst into flames. I poured a few drops of water on the surface that flashed into steam. All this time her mother advised her, that the heater was very hot and she should not touch it. She stood back and I watched her eyes growing large in amazement. Later her mother went to attend her baby sister Serene, and when I turned, Reason was approaching the heater.

I moved quickly squatted down and contained her loosely in my arms. Gently preventing her from getting closer than two feet. Then to my delight, she told me that the stove was HOT! And that I was NOT to touch it.

Later that evening, I would hear Reason carefully instructing her baby sister that the heater was very HOT, and that Serene should NOT touch it. This was quite unlikely since Serene was only nine months old. However, she seemed to listen carefully as she sucked her bottle. Over the next seven days, Reason never ventured closer than two feet to the heater, and watched it with great respect. Then, electrical power was restored and we put away the kerosene heater.

At this same time, I was studying human behavior. I was aware of the three ways we humans could relate to each other—adversarily, neutrally, or synergically—also called The Relationship Continuum.

Striking the hand of a child reaching for something hot or sharp was an example of adversary punishment. Later as I thought back on how I had protected my daughter, I decided to call this technique synergic containment. At this time, I was practicing Stress Medicine. I often worked with young parents and would always tell them about Gordon’s Parent Effectiveness Training. And, include a description of the mechanism of synergic containment. I thought of the technique as protective, and in some cases even a rescue from danger. I advised them to apply it with love and compassion. Certainly, my child had a very positive experience in learning about the danger of HOT!

Synergic Containment of an Aggressive Child

One of parents came to me with a concern about their large and unusually strong two year old. He was into the full fury of the terrible twos, and he had taken to occasionally hitting his baby sister. It seemed to happen when he got angry. His parents had physically spanked him several times, but the behavior continued. They were genuinely afraid for both the aggressive child and the baby.

I advised them to use the mechanism of synergic containment as follows: Ideally, when a potentially dangerous adversary event occurs both parents would be present. Then one of the parents could contain the aggressor, while the other one attends to the baby. But if there is only one parent present, then the most important thing is to contain the aggressor. The baby may cry, but she is safe once the aggressor is contained.

Whenever you see your two year old son striking the baby, pick him up immediately and remove him from striking distance of his sister, then sit down and hold him on your lap. Wrap your arms around his shoulders, but no tighter than necessary to physically restrain him. Do not raise your voice or berate the child in any way. Do not strike him or inflict pain in any way.

You must contain him. You must absolutely stop him from getting down off your lap. If he struggles, increase the physical restraint of your embrace. Your son may struggle and cry, but this should not win his release. You will have to hold him until he quiets down. This may take a while. Be patient. You cannot successfully talk with him until he is calm.

Your goal is to restrain the child, but not send the message, “You are bad!” You want him to understand that you are afraid for the baby. You want him to understand that hitting the baby is dangerous. Once he is calm, in simple language express your fear for the baby. If another parent or adult is there ask them to attend the baby with create concern. Once the baby is calm, have them pantomime, raising one hand into a position as if they might strike the baby, but then deliberately grabbing their raised hand with their other hand and pulling it down. Repeatedly stating in a calm voice. “I am afraid for the baby.” “Don’t hit the baby.”

This is not a technique to be used lightly. It is serious medicine. Children should be allowed to get angry. Containment is not to be used to control anger. Containment is not to be used to stop evenly matched boys from wrestling or rough housing. Containment is to stop DANGEROUS behavior. Containment of an aggressive child should only occur if the child himself or someone else is in danger.

 

When you use containment, you are limiting your child’s freedom of action. The child may process this as if they are being punished. They may misunderstand the act of containment as punishment. This is why it must be done with love and compassion. Certainly, the parents love their child. They just don’t like his dangerous behavior. The goal is to make that behavior less likely to occur in the future. Synergic containment must do more than stop the dangerous behavior, it must educate the aggressor.

Most adults can easily contain a two year old child. Once your son quiets down and becomes calm, and this might take 15 to 20 minutes. You would then try to communicate with him that hitting his baby sister is prohibited. His ability to understand of course would be limited by his age and level of maturity. The human mind develops during childhood. The ability to understand consequence does not develop until about age four. You don’t over explain or discuss your concerns, you just state them in the way that you feel your child will best understand. Simpler is always better. “I am afraid for the baby!” “Don’t hit the baby!” With very small children, use pantomime when possible.

At this point, you let the child down from your lap to return to his activities. You immediately attend the baby. Showing him your concern. You try to enlist his help in comforting the baby, and in demonstrating love and caring for his sister.You don’t insist that he help, but you let him see your concern.

Synergic containment only occurs to stop dangerous behavior. If the adversary act recurs, the synergic containment recurs.

Every episode of synergic containment is an opportunity to communicate with your child. As the child grows, his ability to reason and to understand consequence grows. Since all humans do not like being on the receiving end of adversary acts, they soon learn that adversity is an inappropriate behavior. Teach them that they need to work together and act responsibly to be successful within the family.

Allowing children of any age to profit from adversary behavior is a mistake. Ideally, the use of synergic containment begins early. A single parent can contain a small child. It may take two parents to contain a 10 year old. It may take three or four adults to contain a 14 year old. And, it may take a SWAT team to contain an armed 18 year old.

 

Beyond Crime and Punishment

In our present world, it is widely believed that mistakes are the result of badness. So when mistakes occur, we investigate, blame and punish. This belief has resulted in a world where violence, hate and judgment are common.

Synergic science reveals that mistakes are in fact the result of ignorance. If we understand this, then when a mistake occurs, we would analyze, determine responsibility, and educate. This could soon lead to a world where public safety, love and compassion are common.

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The Uncertainty of Human Knowing

Timothy Wilken, MD

We can never know all there is to know about anything — this is a fundamental ‘law’ of Nature. This is in fact is the only cause of mistakes.

Ignorance is the word that best describes the human condition. Alfred Korzybski explained this condition scientifically as the  Principle of Non-Allness. By this he meant that we humans make all of our decisions with incomplete and imperfect knowing. We make every choice without all the information. All humans live and act in state of ignorance. Korzybski felt that developing an awareness of this ‘law’ of Nature was so fundamentally important to all humans, that he developed a lesson especially for children. Korzybski would explain:

“Children, today we want to learn all about the apple.”

He would place an apple in view of the children, “Do you children know about the apple?”

“I do!”, “I do!”, “Yes, I know about apples!”

“Good” Korzybski moved to the blackboard. , “Come, tell me about the apple?”

“The Apple is a fruit.”, “The apple is red.”, “The apple grows on a tree.”

Korzybski would begin to list the characteristics described by the children on the blackboard.

The children continued, “An apple a day keeps the Doctor away.”

Korzybski continued listing the children’s answers until they run out of ideas, then he would ask, “Is that all we can say about the apple?

When the children answered in the affirmative, Korzybski would remove his pocket-knife and cut the apple in half, passing the parts among the children.

“Now, children can we say more about the apple?

“The apple smells good.” “The juices are sweet.” “The apple has seeds.” “Its pulp is white.” “Mother makes apple pie.

Finally when the children had again run out of answers, Korzybski would ask, “Now, is that all-we can say about the apple?” When the children agreed that it was all that could be said, he would again go into his pocket only this time he removed a ten power magnifying lens and passed it to the children. The children would examine the apple, and again respond:

“The apple pulp has a pattern and a structure.” “The skin of the apple has pores.” “The leaves have fuzz on them.” “The seeds have coats.”

Thus Korzybski would teach the children the lesson of Non-ALLness.

Now we could continue to examine the apple—with a light microscope, x-ray crystallography, and eventually the electron microscope. We would continue to discover more to say about the apple. However, we can never know ALL there is to know about anything in Nature. We humans have the power to know about Nature, but not to know ALL.

Knowing is without limit, but knowing is not total. Universe is our human model of Nature. Our ‘knowing’ can grow evermore complete. It can grow closer and closer to the ‘Truth’, but it cannot equal the ‘Truth’. It must always be incomplete. We are not ‘GOD’. We cannot see and know ALL.

Jacob Bronowski speaking in 1976 his famous public television series the Ascent of Man said:

“One aim of the physical sciences has been to give an exact picture of the material world. One achievement of physics in the Twentieth Century has been to prove that that aim is unattainable. There is no absolute knowledge and those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility. This is the human condition; and that is what Quantum Physics says. I mean that literally.

“Let us examine an object with the best tool we have today, the electron microscope, where the rays are so concentrated that we no longer know whether to call them waves or particles. Electrons are fired at an object, and they trace its outline like a knife-thrower at a fair. The smallest object that has ever been seen is a single atom of thorium. It is spectacular.

And yet the soft image confirms that, like the knives that graze the girl at the fair, even the hardest electrons do not give a hard outline. The perfect image is still as remote as the distant stars.

“We are here face to face with the crucial paradox of knowledge. Year by year we devise more precise instruments with which to observe nature with more fineness and when we look at the observations, we are discomfited to see that they are still fuzzy, and we feel that we are as uncertain as ever. 

“We seem to be running after a goal which lurches away from us to infinity every time we come within sight of it. 

   

“The paradox of knowledge is not confined to the small, atomic scale; on the contrary, it is as cogent on the scale of man, and even of the stars.

“Let me put it in the context of an astronomical observatory. Karl Freidrich Gauss’ observatory at Gˆttingen was built about 1807. Throughout his life and ever since (the best part of 200 years) astronomical instruments have been improved.

“We look at the position of a star as it was determined then and now, and it seems to us that we are closer and closer to finding it precisely. But when we actually compare our individual observations today, we are astonished and chagrined to find them as scattered within themselves as ever.

“We had hoped that the human errors would disappear, and that we would ourselves have God’s view. But it turns out that the errors cannot be taken out of the observations. And that is true of stars, or atoms, or just looking at somebody’s picture, or hearing the report of somebody’s speech.”

Incomplete and imperfect knowing means that every human belief is an assumption. We can never know for sure. We can never know ALL.

As you sit in your chair reading these words, you assumed the chair would hold you. You did not check under the chair to see if it had broken since its last use. When you ate lunch at your favorite restaurant last week, you assumed the waitress had washed her hands. You assumed the cook did not have hepatitis. If you had assumed otherwise, you would not have walked into that restaurant. You would not have eaten your lunch. We humans assume. Herein lies our uncertainty — that’s all we humans can do. There is nothing wrong in our assuming, we are simply obeying a fundamental ‘law’ of Nature.

We humans have always believed that mistakes are bad. We have always believed that those who make mistakes are bad. They are stupid or careless — lazy or incompetent — just no damn good. If they were good, they wouldn’t make mistakes. Everyone knows that. Decent people don’t make mistakes. This is nearly a universal belief.
 

Mistakes = Badness

Korzybski coined the word space-binding to describe the world of the animal. In the world of the animal, cause and effect can not be distinguished from each other. They are the same — they equal each other — they are identical. If the effect of a mistake is bad, then the cause of a mistake is also bad. Human intelligence is build on animal intelligence. All humans have a space-mind. It is a powerful and often dominant part of our human intelligence. As children the space-mind is primary. The uniquely human mind creates what Korzybski called the world of Time-binding. The time-mind doesn’t even begin to become operational in children until they reach the age of four.

So our human belief that mistakes are ‘bad’ is legitimate. Most of us learn about mistakes as small children. If I stumble while running, I get hurt and that is bad. If an animal is running for its life and stumbles, it dies and that is bad. For space-binders, mistakes are a part of bad space.

In the world of space-binding, a mistake can cost not only the life of the individual space-binder, but also the lives of others in the group — pack, pride, herd, or troop. Therefore the result of a mistake was often bad, and not just for the individual, but for others in the group as well. Since 99.9% of all human history has been adversary — 99.9% of our history dominated by space-binding, it is no wonder that we humans have believed for countless centuries that mistakes are bad.

The belief in the badness of mistakes was further reinforced and given Divine sanction by our human religions. God is good. God is omniscience — ALL knowing. God makes no mistakes. He is perfect. We humans are admonished to be as God-like as possible. If making no mistakes is ‘good’, then obviously making mistakes is ‘bad’. Our religions institutionalized the adversary processing of mistakes — Sin, Hellfire, and Damnation.

Science has also added credence to the ‘badness’ of mistakes. The world view created by the ‘objective science’ of Galileo, Kepler, Hooke, and Newton was a ‘perfect’ Universe. Newton’s System of the Worlds described a precision clockwork perfection that controlled all in Universe. If the Universe is perfect, then humans too must evolve towards perfection.

Dealing with badness

Since mistakes are bad, when one occurs, we investigate to determine who is at fault. Who made the mistake? Once that is determined, we blame those responsible. Following blame, we are ready to punish. More pain and suffering has been inflicted on humankind for making mistakes than for any other cause. This should not surprise us.

Punishment is the proper way to deal with ‘badness’. And,if we are anything, we are fair. So when we are the one who made the mistake, we self-punish. Self-punishment is called “guilt”. Humans are the only class of living systems that feels guilty. The only class of living systems that teaches their pets to feel guilty. 

MISTAKES = Badness
INVESTIGATE
BLAME
PUNISH —> self punish
                         “Guilt”
 

Korzybski’s Error of Identity

When humans rely only on their spacial intelligence, they see cause as being identical to effect. They are in essence time-blind, and so they confuse cause with effect.

Korzybski explained that when humans see things as being identical that are not identical, they are making an identification that is false to facts. Korzybski called this the Error of Identity.

When we confuse cause with effect, we are making the error of identity. Today most humans make this error. We assume without analysis that cause and effect are the same — that they are equal — that they are identical. If the effect of a mistake is bad then the cause of that mistake must also be bad.

We don’t analyze the event for sequence. We don’t use our time-binding power to understand. And so,we act without hesitation, without doubt on our belief. We act in certainty. And, certainty as explained earlier by Korzybski, Heisenberg, Eddington and Bronowski is not possible, because knowing is uncertain.

Certainty

We humans always act without all the information. We humans are always assuming. If we are unaware that we are assuming, then we are ignorant of our ignorance. Certainty means that we don’t know that we don’t know. We cannot seek knowing when we believe our ignorance is knowing. Ignorance of ignorance is leveraged ignorance — ignorance masquerading as knowledge. Ignorance of ignorance is certainty.

When we are certain, we are surprised and disheartened by our mistakes. This attitude toward human error is the most damaging of human ignorances. We humans make mistakes because, we make all our decisions without ALL the information. This is a major point that all humans must understand. The only cause of mistakes is ignorance.

We humans must become aware of our ignorance. When we humans have knowledge of our ignorance, we can learn from our mistakes and protect ourselves in the future. When an individual knows he doesn’t know, he is wise. Wisdom is the opposite of certainty. The knowledge of our ignorance is wisdom.

To error is the human condition

This truth, whether we call it the Principle of Non-Allness, the Principle of Uncertainty, the Principle of Indeterminacy, or the Principle of Tolerance, leads us to the conclusion that to error is human, and there is no need too ask forgiveness. All mistakes are innocent.

Universe is not certain — it is not structured as we humans have believed for countless centuries. Religion and the objective scientists were wrong. The physics of relativity and quantum mechanics describe a Universe in which things are not and cannot be perfect. A Universe in which, we humans are constrained to make all our choices without ALL the information. Mistakes are simply holes or gaps in our knowing — lapses in our understanding.

I am often asked, “But, what if I knew better?” If I knew better and then make a mistake. Isn’t that the result of stupidity. If I knew better, but still made an error, then surely that is my fault and not the result of ignorance.

What if I knew better?

I recall a young women I once treated. She had opened her hotel room door to a man claiming to be a maintenance worker, who then attacked and raped her. The attacker has stolen a hotel uniform from a laundry hamper and so seemed legitimate. However, something about his appearance disturbed her, but on second thought, she assumed she was just being silly and so unlocked her door. When I saw her several months later she was still struggling with guilt.

“Doctor, it was my own fault. I was so stupid. I shouldn’t have opened the door. I knew something was wrong. I was so stupid. I knew better, but I opened the door anyway.”

I responded, “You weren’t stupid. You were only ignorant.”

She replied, “No, Dr. Wilken, I knew better, I should never have opened the door, I was just so stupid.”

“NO!”, I told her, “You weren’t stupid, you were only ignorant and I can prove it with one simple question. She looked deep into my eyes desperate to know what I meant.

I asked: “If you had known that the man behind the door intended to rape you, would you have opened it?”

“No, of course not.”

No of course not. None of us would make a mistake if we knew we were about to make a mistake. Even when we humans repeat our mistakes, it is because we assume the mistake will not happen this time. We are ignorant of what will happen this time. As I have stated, the only cause of human error — the only cause of human mistakes is ignorance.

Scientists as well as non-scientists who seek to know must therefore embrace humility when we stand before the totality of Nature.

The Principle of Non-Allness is a fundamental law of Nature. And the first corollary to the Principle of Non-Allness is what I call the Principle of Innocence.

Principle of Innocence

All actions occur in ignorance. All human actions and all human choices are made without all the information. We are always acting and choosing without ALL the information. What we don’t know we must ignore and what we ignore may hurt us. Therefore all errors and and all mistakes are made in innocence.

Good news

I don’t mean that mistakes are good things or that getting hurt is a good thing. I mean that since the cause of mistakes is ignorance and the proper response to ignorance is education, then we can learn from our mistakes.

We can acknowledge the mistakes of history and those that are occurring in our present world and work to correct them. This is good news. It will make it infinitely easier to build a better world.

When we understand the truth of “to error is human”, we can then begin to process our mistakes in a synergic manner. The human who understands that mistakes are a natural part of life does not investigate the mistakes like a detective, he analyzes the mistake as a scientist. He does not blame when a mistake occurs, he seeks to learn from the mistake and to learn he must accept responsibility and seek responsibility in others for their mistakes. Once he knows who is responsible for the mistake he educates.

Education is the proper response to ignorance. Education and learning is the synergic alternative to adversary punishment and guilt. However there is something in guilt worth keeping. It is certainly not the badness, it is certainly not the blame, and of course it is not the punishment.

Guilt also contains regret and this is worth keeping. When a mistake happens there is always regret. In the adversary world where there is blame and punishment of course I might regret being blamed and punished. I also might regret being considered bad by those who are blaming and punishing me. But there is almost always another component of regret. When I make a mistake that hurts someone else, I regret that as well. This is the regret worth keeping.

And, this is often why we humans tend to hang onto our guilt feelings when we make a mistake. We regret injuring others. We can solve this dilemma by moving regret over into the synergic processing of mistakes, where it is called restitution. Restitution means to restore, to repair the damage caused by the ignorance of our behavior.

The synergist does not feel guilty when he makes a mistake, but he is sorry if his ignorance injured other. As a synergist, he will freely try to repair things. He will freely offer restitution.  

Adversary	Synergic
MISTAKES = Badness	MISTAKES = Ignorance
INVESTIGATE	ANALYZE
ACCUSE & BLAME	DETERMINE RESPONSIBILITY
PUNISH —> self-punish	EDUCATE —> self-educate
“Guilt”	“Learn”
regret->	RESTITUTION

We humans have a choice as to how to deal with mistakes. If we process our mistakes adversarily we get pain and no learning. If we process our mistakes synergically, we get learning and no pain.
In fact, you cannot learn when you adversarily process mistakes. We humans cannot tolerate the pain of blame, punishment, and guilt. We will deny that we make a mistake. We will project the blame for the mistake onto others. “I didn’t do it.” — “It wasn’t my fault.” — “And, if it isn’t my fault, why should I have to learn anything.”

In fact, if I am to learn from a mistake, I must first admit it was my fault. This is the real force behind what I call the “anti-learning barrier”. If I am to learn from my mistake I am trapped into accepting responsibility for my error. If I am adversarily processing the mistake, I cannot accept responsibility without feeling guilty. To avoid guilt I must deny responsibility. And if I wasn’t responsible then I have nothing to learn.

The “anti-learning barrier”

This barrier became evident to me by another one of my patients. I once had the occasion to treat a young woman in the early stages of her fifth pregnancy. She informed me she had had four abortions previously and was pregnant and planning to abort this pregnancy as well. I thought to myself, why can’t she learn to use birth control?

If we examine her situation in light of our new understanding, we see that for her to use birth control, she would have to admit that it is her responsibility to prevent unwanted pregnancies. That admission would lead her to the further conclusion that she was then also responsible for her previous unwanted pregnancies and their abortions.

This young woman was a Catholic and to admit responsibility for unwanted pregnancies and abortions were far too painful for her. She opted to deny any responsibility. “My boy friend got me drunk, and made me pregnant. It wasn’t my fault, so I don’t need to take birth control. Besides using birth control is a sin, I would never do that.”

The human brain is the most powerfully precise computer in the Universe. If we program it to believe mistakes are bad, it will function to prove it does not make mistakes. The human brain rebels at the idea that mistakes are bad. It will defend itself in any way possible, it will defend itself by lying. When I am accused of badness, I must lie to protect myself — to protect myself from blame and punishment — to protect myself from guilt. Confronted with an adversary reality that we live with today, it is rational to lie. Lying leads to distrust — “I assume you are my enemy”. Thus, the processing of mistakes as bad always leads to conflict and adversary behavior.

If on the other hand, I process my mistakes in a more scientific manner — as simply ignorant — choices made without all the information, then I must tell the truth to protect myself — to protect myself from repeating the mistake — to protect myself and others from further injury — to protect myself from paying unnecessary restitution.

Telling the truth leads to trust — “I assume you are my friend”. Processing mistakes as ignorance leads to co-Operation and synergic behavior.

Adversary	Synergic
MISTAKES = Badness	MISTAKES = Ignorance
INVESTIGATE	ANALYZE
ACCUSE & BLAME	DETERMINE RESPONSIBILITY
PUNISH —> self-punish	EDUCATE —> self-educate
“Guilt”	“Learn”
regret->	RESTITUTION
I must lie to protect myself.	I must tell the truth to protect myself.
I assume you are my enemy.	I assume you are my friend.
Distrust	Trust
Conflict	Co-Operation

Scientists and all humans who seek to know must embrace humility when they stand before the totality of Nature. The principle of Non-Allness is a fundamental law of nature.

The fact that all actions occur in ignorance is a fundamental ‘knowing’ derived from the Principle of Non-Allness.

And the first corollary of that principle — the Principle of Innocence is an even more important extension of our human ‘knowing’. If we understand that all errors are committed in innocence, then how we treat those who err will change forever.

What about Bin Laden ?

How could the attack on the World Trade Towers have resulted from ignorance. How could those behind the murder of 3000+ thousand innocents themselves be innocent?

What don’t they know?

They don’t know that “As you sow, so shall you reap”. They don’t know that:

Adversary action usually provokes adversary reaction ending in an adversary resultant or loss.

They don’t know how powerful the United States really is. They have forgotten the lessons learned by Japan and Germany by the end of World War II. They to have wakened the sleeping Giant. Their acts will not make the world better and safer for themselves or for those they claim to represent. They don’t know that the end never justifies the means. In fact, the means always end up becoming the ends.

They don’t know that there is no heaven for murderers. They don’t know that an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, ends up with no winners only losers in a modern world with high technology and knowledge.

They don’t know that:

Progress + Warfare = Human Extinction 

We humans are Time-binders, we have the power to create knowledge without limit. When knowledge is incorporated into matter-energy, it becomes a tool. As Andrew J. Galambos explained:

“Humans develop evermore powerful knowledge and therefore evermore powerful tools. When tools are used to harm other humans they are called weapons. Since human knowledge can grow without limit then tools themselves can be made without limit. And limitless tools can will produce limitless weapons.”

And, limitless weapons (progress) combined with leveraged adversity (warfare) must by all definitions and understanding of science produce human extinction.

All of today’s law enforcement agencies use adversary processing in an attempt to protect the public safety. Unfortunately, adversary processing results only in pain and no learning. The war on crime has been lost and always will be lost. Adversary behavior cannot be stopped with adversary behavior. The means always become the ends. The abolition of crime will require the abolition of punishment.

Only then can we move towards a world where, love, wisdom and compassion will replace hate, ignorance and judgment. Only then can we move beyond crime and punishment.

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Read Timothy Wilken’s A Limit to Knowing.

Read Timothy Wilken’s Protecting Humanity.

The following is reposted from Time Magazine.

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The Future of Life “Summit”

Frederic Golden

When President Kennedy hosted a state dinner for U.S. Nobel laureates, he commented that it was the greatest collection of intellect at the White House since Thomas Jefferson dined there by himself. You got that same heady feeling when a galaxy of scientists, academics, artists and business innovators gathered here in Monterey, California on Wednesday for the start of a three-day summit, hosted by TIME, to sip chardonnay and mull over the future of life. As one might expect from such a powerhouse crowd pondering so cosmic a theme, there were fireworks from the outset as participants debated stem cell research, discussed the upswing in anti-evolutionary fervor, examined the promise of nanotechnology in medicine and considered whether anyone would ever really make a big payday from the genomics revolution. Still, the academic spats did nothing to dampen the general optimism that science would improve the human condition by eradicating disease, extending life span and offering a healthy economic payoff to boot.

Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the double helical structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick, the conference kicked off with four preliminary “tutorials” on topics that are a direct outgrowth of their momentous achievement.

John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins University, a pioneer in stem cell research, retraced the turbulent history of that promising field, which he lamented had lately acquired an “Alice in Wonderland quality” where things aren’t always what they seem. He blamed this partly on media hype, partly on “lousy science” and partly on political pressures — notably the Bush administration’s decision to sharply limit the availability of human embryonic stem cells. Still, he cited a number of promising recent experiments in which stem cells were used to repair damaged tissue in animals; for example, he showed a video of a partially paralyzed rat that appears to miraculously regain mobility after an implantation of neural stem cells. But Gearhart emphasized that lab animals are not humans and predicted that it would take from seven to ten years before such treatments would be available for treatment of such conditions as stroke damage, Parkinson’s disease and spinal chord injury. “It will take at least that long to get over the safety issues,” he said.

British science popularizer Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker) presided over a lively discussion about the rising pressure in the U.S. to give equal instruction time in biology classrooms to an alternative to evolutionary theory called creation science. Most participants agreed that this was a thinly veiled updating of the Biblical version of human origins wrapped in the cloak of science, but they had no real answer to this trend in light of the strong pressure from religious conservatives on local school boards. Dawkins suggested that biology teachers might help their cause by emphasizing that when scientists speak of evolutionary theory, they aren’t necessarily questioning the facts, but are merely following scientific convention.

In a tutorial on the economic potential of the genomics revolution, Juan Enriquez, director of the Harvard Business School’s life science project, had cautionary words. He said that while genomics-based information would dominate the world economy in the next 50 years, only those countries that understand these developments and take advantage of them are going to be big winners. The rest, he said, are going to fall by the wayside, economically and otherwise. While he did not specifically cite the Bush administration’s restrictions on stem cells, his listeners interpreted his comments as an implied warning about the economic dangers of such a policy. In a similar vein, Ralph Merkle, vice president of technology assessment for the Foresight Institute, heralded the great promise of nanotechnology in medicine — the development, for example, of tiny molecular computers that could work inside the body — but threw cold water on the idea of any quick profits from such innovations because we are still many years from being turned into a practical reality.

As befitting a gathering marking the Watson-Crick discovery, the star of the first day’s proceedings turned out to be (who else?) James Watson. (His erstwhile partner, Francis Crick, passed up the chance to appear.) In a public conversation with ABC News correspondent Robert Krulwich at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Watson wittily retraced the unfolding of the great event 50 years ago, along with some personal history. Insisting that he was not particularly brilliant, he recalled how, as a 13-year-old radio Quiz Kid, he was knocked off the show after only three appearances by a seven-year-old phenom on the Bible and Shakespeare. At the University of Chicago, which he entered at age 15, he chose biology over physics because, he said, “I didn’t see any arrogance in biology — at least in those days.”

Today, there’s a questionable sense of modesty when Watson explains how he and Crick, a dropout physicist, managed to beat the world-renowned chemist Linus Pauling to the double helix. Watson said that it was really a simple problem: “If it were complicated, I wouldn’t have gotten it.” He refused to retract his somewhat churlish portrait of his rival, the British crystallographer Rosalind Franklin, in his gossipy book The Double Helix, saying that she blew her chances of cracking the puzzle by refusing to cooperate with her savvy King’s College co-worker Maurice Wilkins, who ultimately shared a Nobel with Watson and Crick. As for the pairing of their names, Watson said that he got the first position when they sent off their paper to Nature as a result of the toss of a coin. Anyway, he said, “I think I should have been first.” Nonetheless, skeptical colleagues in Cambridge for some months thereafter kept calling the double helix the WC structure (after the Brit jargon for toilet), because, said Watson with a triumphant grin, they were sure that’s where it would wind up. Predictions from the Future of Life conference for the year 2010: By then we’ll have sequenced the complete tree of life, possibly even breeds long extinct, including the common ancestor of humans and chimps. My ambition would be to shake hands with Lucy. ” Author Richard Dawkins, Oxford University Medicine will become thoroughly personalized. For under $1,000 we will be able to get our entire genome sequenced in only half an hour. Doctors will be able to tell almost instantly whether our genome is normal or carries the blueprint for disease. — Leroy Hood, president and director, Institute for Systems Biology Finally we will be able to change the way we think about cancer. It won’t just be ameliorated. It will be cured because expanding medical databases, improvements in pattern recognition and intensive computer analysis will finally bring our understanding of this disease down to the molecular level. — Caroline Kovac, general manager, IBM Life Sciences. People will do everything they can to get the sort of kids they want. Cloning will become commonplace. Imagine, you’ll be able to get your own Marilyn Monroe, James Dean or Elvis Presley. — Rick Smolan, founder and CEO, Against All Odds Productions.

Copyright 2003 Time.com

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“The Future of Life” Summit 

  Quotes from the Conference
  Scenes from the Conference
  The Monterey Aquarium

  Day 3: Living to 1000?
  Day 2: No Easy Answers
  Live from the Future of Life
  The Ghost of Old Doc Ricketts

The following is reposted from MetaFuture.

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Sustainability and Humanity’s Future

Alan Fricker

Over the past two decades interest has grown in developing indicators to measure sustainability.  Sustainablity is presently seen as a delicate balance between the economic, environmental and social health of a community, nation and of course the earth.  Measures of sustainability at present tend to be an amalgam of economic, environmental and social indicators.  Economic indicators have been used to measure the state of the economy for much of this century.  Social indicators are largely a post-WW2 phenomenon and environmental indicators are more recent still.  Interest in developing these indicators largely began when their respective theatres became stressed and where the purpose was to monitor performance and to indicate if any ameliorating action was required.  Whereas economists have no difficulty deriving objective and quantitative indicators (their relevance is another matter), sociologists had and still have great difficulty in deriving indicators, because of intangible quality of life issues.  Environmental scientists have less difficulty when limiting themselves to abundance of single species rather than biodiversity and ecological integrity.

Sustainability however is more than just the interconnectedness of the economy, society and the environment.  Important though these are, they are largely only the external manifestations of sustainability.  The internal, fundamental, and existential dimensions are neglected.  Sustainability therefore may be something more grand and noble, a dynamic, a state of collective grace, a facet of Gaia, even of Spirit.  Rather than ask how we can measure sustainability, it may be more appropriate to ask how we measure up to sustainability.

The Concept of Sustainability

Sustainability, at least as a concept, has permeated most spheres of life, not solely because it is a political requirement but because it clearly resonates with something deep within us even though we have a poor understanding of what it is.  The concept first emerged in the early 1970s but it exploded onto the global arena in 1987 with the Brundtland Report,(1) in which sustainable development is defined as .. development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

This very noble definition however defies objective interpretation or operational implementation.  Most of us would see our own personal needs within the context of our circumstances rather than as absolutes.  Our perceptions of the needs of future generations therefore beggar the imagination.  ‘How much is enough?’ is a question we have to explore together but can only answer individually.  Yet we rarely ask this key question of ourselves individually, let alone collectively.

Once the ecological integrity of the earth is ensured and our basic needs are satisfied, how much is enough?  The question should be posed mostly in the developed countries where, amidst the affluence, there is still inequity.  Increasing and deliberate inequity at that, for it is a necessary feature of a growth economy and the driver of material self-advancement.  Desirable though high standards of living may be, there are finite global limits.  Since our concern for the environment decreases as we become more affluent (2) we should not expect our quest for sustainability to increase as we become more affluent.  Indeed the few examples of sustainability that we have are where there is no affluence, the states of Kerala and Cuba, and in Amish and Mennonite communities.  Here there is greater equity, justice and social cohesion.  The challenge for the affluent developed world is to strive for equity and justice, whilst at the same time creating the conditions for appropriate qualitative development.

There are other definitions of sustainability which sidestep human needs preferring to talk about ecological integrity, diversity and limits.  These too defy objective interpretation.  These deficiencies in the definitions, if that is what they are, cause much frustration to the rational mind, particularly for those trying to measure sustainability. (3)  Meanwhile our reductionist mentality has tended to link it in a servile capacity to quantitative and productive activity, such as sustainable agriculture, forestry, land management, fisheries, etc.  In consequence sustainable growth and sustainable development have been captured by the dominant paradigm where for example -

Sustainable development is brandished as a new standard by those who do not really wish to change the current pattern of development; (4) and

Sustainable development alone does not lead to sustainability.  Indeed, it may in fact support the longevity of the unsustainable path. (5)

But the concept is still with us and getting stronger.

We have a better understanding of what is unsustainable rather than what is sustainable.  Unsustainability is commonly seen as environmental (in its broad sense) degradation, from the stresses of human population, affluence and technology on ecological and global limits.  Since these stresses are all of our own construction, their control is, theoretically at least, within our capabilities.  Human nature being what it is, we may push the global physical and biological capacities to their very limits, which will be survival rather than sustainability.  Survival is merely not dying, whereas we probably think of sustainability in terms of justice, interdependence, sufficiency, choice and above all (if we were to think deeply about it) the meaning of life.

Sustainability therefore is also about the non-material side of life – the intuitive, the emotional, the creative and the spiritual, for which we need to engage all our ways of learning (being and insight as well as doing and knowing).  Perhaps there are indeed some fundamental and universal truths if meaning and spirituality are components of sustainability.  Morals and values however are not necessarily absolutes, and can be very difficult to define.  Values for instance are qualities we absorb from our experiences.  If our experiences confirm the implicit values, we are more likely to adopt those values.  When our experiences continually contradict the implicit values we are more likely to modify our personal values to the projected values, ie. we do as we are done by rather than as we are told.  New ways of thinking need to emerge.  Even Einstein recognised that  we cannot solve the problems that we have created with the same thinking that created them.  The very etymology of sustainability contains both its appeal and its paradox – to hold together with tension.

The beauty in our inability to define sustainability means that we cannot prescribe it.  The future may then unfold according to our visions and abilities provided we recognise the global limits.  Sachs (6) presents three perspectives of sustainable development: the contest perspective that implies growth is possible infinitely in time; the astronaut’s perspective that recognises that development is precarious in time; and the home perspective that accepts the finiteness of development.  These could be considered, respectively, as the perspectives of the dominant paradigm, the precautionary principle, and the conservationist.  There are, and will be, many other perspectives.

For a generation now we have wrestled with the concept.  We may have as much difficulty with sustainability as we did with the concept of evolution 150 years ago.  Wilber (7) suggests that the whole of history, and thereby evolution and the future, is a collective transcendence or transformation.  We have been ignoring subjective and non-physical dimensions of the collective self as well as the individual self.  In so doing we have both created the ecological crisis and prevented ourselves from transcending it.  Thus any debate about sustainability is essentially a debate about ultimate meaning – the what, who, why and how am I?  But we are extremely reluctant to engage in that debate on a collective basis, not even locally let alone nationally or globally, partly because it’s messy, interpretive and time-consuming – the world of hermeneutics.  There is therefore a crisis of perception.  On this side of the crisis there is mainly banality, whereas on the other side we see only uncertainty and fear. (8)

The Social Discourse on Sustainability

There is little dispute that our present path is unsustainable.  The challenge of sustainability is neither wholly technical nor rational.  It is one of change in attitude and behaviour.  Sustainability therefore must include the social discourse where the fundamental issues are explored collaboratively within the groups or community concerned.  We do not do that very well, partly because of increasing populations, complexity, distractions and mobility, but more because of certain characteristics of the dominant paradigm that are seen as desirable.

Where the discourse does occur it tends to be structured and rational where aggressive debate is esteemed and other ways of knowing and experiential knowledge, particularly of indigenous peoples, and feelings are disregarded.  However the process of discourse is as important as the analysis of discourse where knowing and acting could be seen as points on a journey, rather than as an end, as a start or a new beginning (9) .  In sociological terms sustainability is an absent referent or the absence of a presence.  Veiderman (10) may have come closest to a definition with .. sustainability is a vision of the future that provides us with a road map and helps us focus our attention on a set of values and ethical and moral principles by which to guide our actions.

People however will not readily enter into abstract discourse, particularly where they suspect they will have to get by with less or that their standard of living will decline – at least not until the need for discourse becomes inevitable and perhaps too late.  Agenda 21 requires developed countries to reduce their use of natural resources and production of wastes whilst simultaneously improving human amenities and the environment.  That statement does not necessarily imply a reduction in the standard of living (defined for the moment as material consumption).  Through greater efficiencies it could mean maintaining the standard whilst simultaneously improving the quality of life.  In that event we would be more willing to enter into further discourse to see if further improvements in the quality of life can be achieved, even at the expense of the standard of living if necessary.  Just as human needs are not absolutes, neither is the standard of living nor the quality of life.  The mystics may well indeed be the enlightened ones.  Involuntary simplicity on the other hand is a form of poverty.  Simultaneously within this social discourse the visions for the future can emerge.

Viederman (10) suggests three principles to underlie the discourse on sustainability:

Σ the humility principle, which recognises the limitations of human knowledge

Σ the precautionary principle, which advocates caution when in doubt, and

Σ the reversibility principle, which requires us not to make any irreversible changes.

Indicators In General

Monitoring and indicators have always been essential components of closed physical systems.  They are integral to the scientific method.  In this context each indicator should have a threshold and a target to guide political and social action.  Their usefulness for closed socio/biophysical systems (eg. human well-being, confined eco-systems) and particularly for open physical systems (eg. corporations, national economies, regional sustainability) is still really unknown, in that accommodation of the full impact of the externalities may not be possible.  Ultimately however the earth is a closed system, except for the energy flux.  In that sense accurate measures are theoretically possible at the global scale but it is local measures that are potentially more meaningful and actionable.  The impact of some issues however may only be evident globally, eg. global warming and ozone depletion, whereas the solutions may be local.

Henderson (11) has written extensively on indicators, notably the chapter in Paradigms in Progress.  The proliferation itself of indicators is indicative of the confusion and uncertainty of what is to be measured, and perhaps the absence of debate and understanding.

Economic Indicators

There is much dissatisfaction with economic indicators, even among economists.  Most would claim that they are not indicators of anything other than the economy.  Some do not believe they are even meaningful measures of economic sustainability. (12)

The adherents for the most common indicator, the Gross National Product (GNP), now replaced by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), are getting fewer, but it is still widely used.  Daly and Cobb (13) have developed the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW), which has recently been further refined as the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) by Cobb et al. (14) Consumption is still the base of the index, but instead of adding negative or deleterious consumption (eg. defence, environmental protection) it subtracts them and adds previously unmeasured positive beneficial consumption (eg. voluntary work, caregiving, housework).  Whereas the GDP in the United States has continued to increase since 1950, the GPI shows a steady decline which mirrors people’s experiences and perceptions of their well-being.

The GPI is a more realistic alternative to the GDP.  The proponents of GPI presumably believe it is more likely to receive establishment endorsement by starting from the received wisdom.  It is worth pointing out however that 50% of Americans consider themselves to be overweight, that 40% consider they consume alcohol in excess of ‘moderation’, that 70% of smokers would like to stop, and so on with gambling and credit card use14.  In other words most of us are knowing victims of the consumer society and would like to change.  Therefore it is difficult to conceive how any index which has consumption as its base can be a measure of sustainability.

Furthermore the GDP and the GPI are single indices.  Both are aggregations of specific economic indicators.  Whereas economic indicators may be equally responsive, in respect to time, to actions of adjustment, or can be meaningfully weighted in their aggregation, this is not true of social, environmental and sustainability indicators.  Economic indicators are therefore not particularly useful as measures of sustainability but economic considerations need to be factored in.

However the very foundation of modern economic theory is suspect.  Firstly, because it determines rather than reflects political and cultural development.  Secondly, because it assumes scarcity of resources, most of which, until relatively recently at least, are in abundance.  An economic theory that goes beyond greed and scarcity and which reflects human needs as suggested by Lietaer (15) is likely to yield much more useful indicators.

Social Indicators

There are broadly five types of social indicators – informative: predictive; problem oriented; programme evaluative; target delineation.  Many social indicators are in part economic, environmental and sustainability measures too.  They can be comparative, between and within socio-economic and ethnic groupings.

Objective conditions, such as the standard of living, are measured by analysing time-series information on observable phenomena.  Subjective conditions, such as quality of life, are  measures of perceptions, feelings and responses obtained through questionnaires with graded scales.  It is well known that there is little correlation in the level of well-being as measured by objective parameters on the one hand and subjective parameters on the other.  There are considerable difficulties associated with the aggregation of indicators and in the design of weighting schemes.  There can be aggregation of indicators of a similar nature, but in general aggregation, and certainly a single index, is uncommon.

Henderson (11,16) reviews the debate about indicators of progress suggesting the need to clarify the confusion of means (ie. the obsession with economic growth) and ends (human development).

Environmental/Ecological Indicators

Envronmental indicators tend to relate to the environmental sphere closest to human activity and can include economic, social and sustainability parameters too.  They measure the quality of the living and working environment, usually for the three spheres of air, land and water, and may include measures of our productive use of resources, eg. agri-environmental indicators.  Ecological indicators relate more to ecosystems, where in some cases the human impact is not so evident.  Indicators pertinent to the integrity of ecosystems and biodiversity are prominent.  The OECD produced a pressure/state/response model which many countries have used in the preparation of  their State of the Environment Reports, whilst focusing on their particular environmental/ecological issues.

Most of the indicators have, or will have, thresholds and targets.  There is little desire or attempt, at present, to aggregate indicators or derive a single index.

Ecological Footprint

The ecological footprint is a useful measure for urban societies and industrialised countries, as they have become distanced from and are less aware of their dependence on the products of the land.  It is a method for estimating the area of productive land required to produce the materials and energy required to support and to absorb the wastes generated by the present way of life.  The average North American needs around 4 hectares to support his or her lifestyle.  Vancouver depends on an area 24 times its size, and the Netherlands (as a small densely populated country) 14 times.  If the rest of the world were to support such life styles we would need a planet with 5 times more productive land than it actually has17.

The footprint is an input/output measure of consumption, technological activity, and trade flows of all biophysical material needed by and produced by that city or nation expressed in terms of productive land area but using monetary conversions.  It is a single index.  Small cities or countries highly dependent on external flows (ie. exports), and with little influence over international currency fluctuations, such as New Zealand, would have footprints highly susceptible to factors beyond their control.  Footprints put relative numbers on what we already know or suspect, that cities and small densely populated countries are unsustainable.  The footprint may be useful for internal and temporal reference, but there could be a tendency to compare performance against other cities or countries and perhaps provide an excuse not to take appropriate action.  Ecological footprints are therefore not particularly useful measures of sustainability.

Sustainability Indicators

Measures of sustainability at present tend to be an amalgam of economic, environmental and social indicators.  The first two are amenable, but with difficulty, to quantitative measurement as they can be expressed in biophysical terms.  There is a tendency to express social indicators in such terms too, but with less success.  There is therefore a tendency to see sustainability only in biophysical terms.

Examples of sustainability indicators for a city and which reflect their origin in other indicators are:

Σ income per capita ratio for upper and lower deciles

Σ solid waste generated/water consumption/energy consumption per capita

Σ proportion of workforce in the employ of the top ten employers

Σ number of good air quality days/year

Σ diversity and population of specified urban fauna (particularly birds)

Σ distance travelled on public relative to private transport per capita

Σ residential densities relative to public space in inner cities

Σ relative hospital admission rates for selected childhood diseases

Σ proportion of low birth weights among infants by income groupings

Boswell (18) advocates a theoretical basis for indicators of sustainable development based on our knowledge of sociology and ecology.  He likens our stage of development to that of a climax community within an ecosystem succession.  He then presents system attributes (energy use, community structure, life history, nutrient cycling, selection pressure and equilibrium) in terms of goals for sustainable communities.  These number 23 necessary but not sufficient conditions.  Boswell (18) evaluates these goals against the indicators selected by Sustainable Seattle (19) and the ranking that Hart (20) has given over 500 indicators.  Although an approach based on human ecology is clearly appropriate, Boswell (18) does concede that the communities themselves should determine the strategy and the indicators.

Whereas these are facets of sustainability, we must look beyond conventional measures to include a sense of quality of life, well-being, belonging, relatedness, and harmony.  We may have to be prepared to accept semi-quantitative and even qualitative indicators.

Environmental and social indicators are rarely expressed as a single index..  Nevertheless there is some interest in  developing a single index of sustainability based on a weighting of a selection of economic, environmental and social indicators.  Such an index cannot possibly cater for response times that range from a few years (eg. medical intervention) to generations (eg. global warming).

Criteria for the Selection of Sustainability Indicators

The monitoring of sustainability is a long term exercise.  As much as we would like the criteria for selection and the indicators themselves to be appropriate over a long time frame we are on a steep, and perhaps long, learning curve.  We will need to be flexible, for our ideas and preferences will change with time.  The criteria and preferred indicators could be different for the groups who will choose and use them.  Expert systems may be appropriate.

Professionals may prefer quantitative, and if necessary, complex criteria that are amenable to rigorous statistical analysis.  Some may wish to reduce a large group of indicators to a single index of sustainability.  Communities on the other hand may prefer, or be prepared to accept, qualitative criteria and few indicators in the interests of simplicity and direct relevance.  If we exclude qualitative criteria because they are not readily amenable to objective analysis we are likely to exclude some essential features of sustainability.

There are many sets of criteria, eg. Liverman (21), Sustainable Seattle(19).  They range from the simple (the efficiency, equity, integrity, manageability of Opschoor and Rejinders (22) )to the complex.  Hart (20) believes that the best measures may not have been developed yet but suggests the following criteria:

Σ multi-dimensional, linking two or more categories (eg.economy and environment)

Σ forward looking (range 20 to 50+ years)

Σ emphasis on local wealth, local resources, local needs

Σ emphasis on appropriate levels and types of consumption

Σ measures that are easy to understand and display changes

Σ reliable, accurate, frequently reported data that is readily available

Σ reflects local sustainability that enhances global sustainability

Many of these criteria are short on human or social criteria, such as quality of life, sense of safety and security, sense of relationship to others and our connectedness with the earth.  A criterion that doesn’t appear to be mentioned is one that reflects the degree of choice an individual has in an action.  Most of us are locked into systems of our own collective construction within the dominant paradigm, many of them unsustainable,  where the choice to be different can be socially, economically and practically difficult.  Examples include – the use of solar radiation and rainfall upon one’s own house, and the choice not to own a car.  Much more sustainable actions could result where the individual can make choices free of systemic pressure and economic distortions.

Risk Analysis and Comparative Risk Assessment

As in all theatres of qualitative and insufficient or imprecise quantitative information and uncertainty,  where much is at stake and there may be several options for action, risk analysis can help in selecting the preferred, the least cost, and/or the least risk option.  The poorer the information and the greater the uncertainty, the more risk analysis may need to be used.  At a time when we are confronted with a whole barrage of different issues and problems with insufficient resources, a prior analytical stage has emerged – that of comparative risk assessment.  This technique ranks the issues/problems according to the urgency, cost and likelihood of success.  The proceedings of a conference to debate, and no doubt advance, the technique presents just as convincing arguments against comparative risk assessment as it does for. (23)

Too often we argue we have insufficient information, or inappropriate information, upon which to take sound objective action, particularly action affecting sustainability.  Yet in our hearts we know there are systemic functional deficiencies, both within ourselves and in our organisations.  Rather than make a personal, corporate or political decision we call for more information, for more research.  We prevaricate.  Too often that information or research adds to the uncertainty or controversy.  Valuable time is lost and yet more unnecessary work is embarked upon.  We know the direction our action should take even though we do not know precisely what it should be.  We lack the collective will to do so because we do not collectively address and own the problem.  Much publicly funded research and development is a surrogate for social action. (24)  Many of the problems and solutions are neither technical nor entirely rational.  A new mythology needs to emerge and that may be sustainability. (24)  They are soluble only through social action, where the populace as well as the technical experts become informed on the issues and make informed recommendations to the decision-makers.

Limitations of Measures of Sustainability

Even though we cannot define sustainability objectively and unambiguously we should not abandon or defer attempts to measure it.  Even if we come to recognise that there are other equally valid ways of learning, we have to start where we are, which is within a highly reductionist, rational, material, and acquisitive world.

We can define limiting aspects of sustainability (eg. the sustainable productive capacity of a specific area of land, or the carrying capacity of the world) and trends in the direction of sustainability (eg. greater use of public transport, more equitable distribution of income) and choose indicators that are appropriate and meaningful.  The former would be thresholds below which we enter an unsustainable state.  The latter would be directions in which we need to move.  Many in fact are really indicators of unsustainability.  Many debates and studies about the measurement of sustainability do not define, or even derive a common understanding, about what is to be measured..  The context of sustainability cannot be separated from its measurement.

We should acknowledge at the outset the limitations of quantitative measures and that any measures are merely the map not the territory (Bateson) – merely the finger pointing at the moon (a Zen saying).  But we must be on our guard to keep well clear of thresholds.  Surplus ‘capacity’ may be a spur to further inane growth and consumption, and international trading in sustainability units could mean we all arrive at global survival (not sustainability) together.  Biophysical measures are really measures of how close we are to the carrying capacity of the earth.  Thus biophysical measures are only indirect, partial  and limiting measures of sustainability.

Even though sustainability is about the quality and other intangible non-physical aspects of life that does not mean we may not be able to derive measures for them.  Just as biological indicators (eg. trout) are now used to measure the quality of industrial effluents, in addition to conventional chemico-physical indicators, we should be able to derive parameters that measure how well we and the earth are as we swim around within the maelstrom of life.

Initiatives to Measure Sustainability

Sustainability indicators are being developed and applied at the grass root level – the communities themselves, eg. Jacksonville, Pasadena, Seattle in the USA, and at the institutional level in Europe, and North America..  These indicators tended initially to be a pot pourri of the three types above and there are still resemblances.  As communities learn from the experience of others more appropriate and  community-specific indicators should emerge.

The most promising of overseas initiatives to monitor sustainability are those that the public have initiated, and who largely retain ‘ownership’ and control, eg. Sustainable Seattle (19) – despite the fact that only 8 of the 40 indicators have shown some improvement.  Technically they may be flawed, but the success lies not in the indicators themselves but in the process and the participation, for it is here that the real debate and the sharing occurs and the mutual voluntary adjustments can be made.  There is a limit, however, to the extent to which individual voluntary adjustments, or pressure for collective adjustment, can be made when our attitudes and behaviour may have been shaped more by the nature of our society (our systems of governance and organisation) than from free choice.  In other words, if systemic change (eg. to our economic system) is needed, it may be easier and quicker if it is effected by those with the power and influence.

The discourse of sustainability is part of the process of working towards sustainability.  We will find we will know we are becoming more sustainable without having to measure it.  Part of that discourse will be measures of sustainability, both the relatively easy that measure proximity to thresholds and directions, and the qualitative.  But they will be consequential, for the hard graft of achieving sustainability will have begun.  Therein lies the success of initiatives like those in Seattle.

The commencement of that discourse is the challenge.  It is already in progress within NGOs, and environmental and social change groups but they may not see their particular window of interest as progress towards sustainability. (25) The discourse needs to be extended to the community at large, to local communities, to open debate of the big issues ahead of us, and to a more effective and participatory democracy.  Local communities need to renegotiate the meaning of community in the modern world and find avenues for expression.  Citizens’ juries and consensus conferencing are great vehicles for exploring these deep and wide issues. (26)

Conclusions

1. There is growing acceptance for the concept of sustainability despite our inability to objectively define it and therefore to implement it.

2. Sustainability is more than ensuring ecological integrity and the standard of living.  It is about the quality of life, and thus addresses the ultimate questions about meaning in life.

3. Sustainability is as much a process of discourse and effort as it is a state.

4. Institutional initiatives and debates about measuring sustainability are reluctant to engage with the concept of sustainability.  Thus there is no common or shared understanding of what is to be measured.

5. Sustainability indicators are often an amalgam of economic, social and environmental indicators, but show signs of maturing into better measures of sustainability.

6. Such indicators however are limiting measures reflecting unsustainability and survival rather than sustainability.  Their main value is in indicating direction of change rather than a desirable state.

7. Indicators are the map not the territory (the finger pointing at the moon).  The hard work of achieving sustainability lies elsewhere.

8. The most successful initiatives to measure sustainability are those initiated and controlled by autonomous public groups (eg. Sustainable Seattle), where the process is more important than the indicators.

9. The greater the effective participation in democracy, in executing the role of community, in consensus conferencing, in citizens’ juries, etc the more chance we have of achieving sustainability.

10. We will need to address the fundamental existential questions and seek meaning in life if we are to achieve sustainability.  As we seek to measure sustainability we should be asking ourselves how we ourselves measure up to sustainability.

 

Find more writing by Alan Fricker at  MetaFuture.

References:

1. Our Common Future, The World Commission on Environment and Development, OUP, 1987, p43

2. Dunlap R E and Mertig A G,  Global concern for the environment: is affluence a prerequisite?  J Soc. Issues, Winter, 1995, 51(4), 121-138

3. Trzyna T (ed), A Sustainable World: Defining and Measuring Sustainability, IUCN, 1995

4. Gligo N 1995:  in Trzyna (ref.3), p17

5. Yanarella E J and Levine R S,  Does sustainable development lead to sustainability?, Futures J, 1992, Oct, 759-774

6. Sachs W,  What kind of sustainability?, Resurgence, 1996, Nov/Dec, No 180, 20-22

7. Wilber K, A Brief History of Everything, Shambhala, Boston and London, 1996

8. Fricker A G  and Sculthorp B,  Sustainability: a crisis of perception,  XV World Futures Studies Federation Conference, Brisbane, Sept. 1997

9. Indicators of sustainable development, report to Ministry for the Environment, Wellington, NZ, by Dialogue Consultants Ltd, 1992, p 39

10. Viederman S,  Knowledge for sustainable development: what do we need to know?  in Trzyna (ref.3), pp. 37, 40

11. Henderson H,  Paradigms in Progress: Life Beyond Economics, Chap 6, The Indicators Crisis, Knowledge Systems Inc, Indianapolis, 1991

12. Fulai Sheng 1995:  in Trzyna (ref.3), p18

13. Daly H and Cobb J,  For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment and a Sustainable Future, Beacon Press, Boston, Mass, 1989

14. Cobb C, Halstead T and Rowe J,  If the GDP is up, why is America down?, Atlantic Monthly, 1995, 276, 4, Oct, 59-78

15. Lietaer B,  Beyond greed and scarcity, YES! J Positive Futures, Spring 1997, 34-39

16. Henderson H,  Paths to sustainable development: the role of social indicators,  Futures, 1994, 26(2), 125-137

17. Wackernagel M and Rees W,  Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth, Gabriola Island, BC, New Society Publishers, 1996.

18. Boswell M R,  Establishing indicators of sustainable development, Ann. Conf. Assoc. Collegiate Planning Schools, Detroit, Mich, Oct 1995

19. Sustainable Seattle,  Indicators of sustainable community, MetroCenter YMCA, 909 Fourth Ave, Seattle, WA 98104, 1995

20. Hart M,  Guide to Sustainable Community Indicators, Ipswich, Maine; QLF/Atlantic Center for Environment, 1995

21. Liverman et al,  Environmental Management, 1988, 12(2) 133-43

22. Opschoor J B and Rejinders:  in In Search of Indicators of Sustainable Development, Kuik O and Verbruggen H (eds), Kluwer Acad., 1991.

23. Finkel A M and Golding D (eds),  Worst Things First?: The Debate over Risk-Based Environmental Priorities, Resources for the Future, Wash., DC, 1994

24. Sarewitz D,  Frontiers of Illusion: Science, Technology and the Politics of Progress, Temple Univ. Press, Arizona, 1996, p194.

25. Henderson H,  Social innovation and citizen movements,  Futures, 1993, 25 (3), 322-338

26. Joss S and Durant J (eds), Public Participation in Science: The Role of Consensus Conferences in Europe, British Science Museum, London, 1995

The following is reposted from MetaFuture.

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Children and Humanity’s Future

Richard Eckersley

Late last year I asked Year 11 students at a private boys school whether they’d ever thought about the meaning or purpose of life.  Almost all raised their hands.  I asked if they had ever felt that life seemed meaningless or pointless.  Quite a few –between a third and a half – indicated they had.  Most admitted to having some sort of spiritual or religious belief, but none volunteered a description of that belief.

The boys’ responses don’t fit neatly into the popular images of young people today – either the portraits of happy, hedonistic teenagers and young adults, revelling in the freedoms and opportunities of contemporary life, or the pictures of distress and disillusion amidst material excess, social inequity and spiritual dessication.

What is emerging from the scientific research into well-being are the subtleties, complexities and depths of the human psyche, and of the personal, social and spiritual ties that lie behind our health and happiness.  At the same time, science is straining to define and differentiate these things.  Our politics and economics have barely begun to come to grips with them.

If we want to assess the state of society, a good place to begin is with young people and how well they are faring.  There is growing evidence that developmental stages and transition points in life, from before birth to adolescence, are crucial to adult health and well-being.  What happens at these times matters for life, and it makes the young susceptible to the effects of social failing and disruption.

However, research is throwing up more troubling questions than providing definitive answers; findings are fragmented and contradictory.  Some surveys and commentaries indicate the young are thriving in the postmodern world of rapid change and uncertainty, others that they are anxious and apprehensive.

Differing views can reflect different disciplinary frameworks, different political ideologies, and selective or partial use of research findings.  Attempts to lay blame get confused with efforts to explain.  Some analyses focus on marginalised youth, others (such as in the current debate about boys’ education) on gender.  Many commentaries on young people are framed in generational terms: conflict and competition between Baby Boomers and Gen X; periodic ‘moral panics’ by adults about youth; or historical cycles.

Judith Bessant and Rob Watts, two Melbourne youth researchers, say that concerns about young people as ‘victims of change’ or ‘sources of misrule’ are a recurring historical myth unsupported by empirical evidence.  They say they are arguing ‘against some of the widespread generalisations made about young people as problems or victims’, but their thesis goes well beyond this, to the point of denying that the myth has any basis in reality.

This view is also reflected in some recent US writing, with the added dimension that if there has been a youth crisis, then we are over the worst, and things are now improving (there is some evidence of this in Australia, but not yet much).  Mike Males argues in his 1999 book, Framing Youth: 10 Myths About the Next Generation, that American teenagers today are better behaved than adults today, than today’s adults when they were young, and than adults have a right to expect given the way young people are treated.  Rates of serious crime, drug abuse, self-destructive behaviour and school failure among youth today are lower than they were 20 years ago.

David Brooks, author of an influential 2000 analysis of contemporary America, Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, takes the upbeat appraisal further in a recent essay in The Atlantic Monthly.  Drawing mainly on interviews with students at Princeton and other Ivy League universities, he presents an approving image of happy, incredibly hard-working conformists who don’t have a rebellious or alienated bone in their bodies: respectful, obedient, responsible, clean, generous, bright and good- natured.

Brooks admits he is writing about an elite, but he nevertheless states that they are ‘not entirely unlike’ other young Americans.  Princeton reflects America, he says, and ‘in most ways it reflects the best of America’.  Both Males and Brooks mention the work of historians William Strauss and Neil Howe, who in a 1997 book, The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy, argue that history runs in cycles of 80-100 years, with each cycle having four turnings, and each turning being associated with a different generational type.

The post-war Baby Boomers are classic prophets, indulged and ‘spirited’; Generation X, born during the second half of the 60s and the 70s, are typical nomads, neglected and ‘bad’; today’s teens, the Millennials, born in the 80s, are the next heroes, protected and ‘good’.  The fourth generation in the current cycle, yet to be born, are the artists, suffocated and ‘placid’.  Brooks notes Howe and Strauss surveyed young people for their latest book, Millennials Rising, published last year, and found them to be generally hard-working, cheerful, earnest and deferential.

The positive view is supported by recent suggestions that even a disturbing trend like rising youth suicide may not mean what it seems to mean – rising unhappiness.  Jim Barber, professor of social welfare at Flinders University, recently compared youth suicide rates with adolescent self-esteem, school adjustment and social adjustment in seven countries, both Asian and Western.  He found that the higher the level of self-esteem and adjustment, the higher the male suicide rate.

I examined associations between youth suicide rates in up to 21 developed nations and a wide range of social, economic and cultural characteristics, and found that male suicide rates were highest in the most individualistic countries.  The more personal freedom and control over their lives young people felt they had, for example, the higher the suicide rate.

Given other positive correlations between individualism and happiness and life satisfaction, my results, like Barber’s, seem to suggest that suicide is higher in happier societies and, presumably, rises as life gets better.  Possible explanations include that suicidal behaviour increases when unhappy people have fewer outside sources on which to blame their misery; that the greater happiness of most increases the misery of the few; or that social changes such as increasing individualism are good for the majority but bad for a minority.

Barber says his findings suggest that when vulnerable young people perceive those around them to be better off than they are, their distress is magnified and their susceptibility to suicide is increased.  ‘If you are a depressed, unhappy kid in a country where you are surrounded by kids who are happy and well-adjusted, then you have a double problem – you are depressed and you are isolated as well.’  While these explanations are plausible, I doubt they are right.

 A detailed analysis of these perspectives is beyond the scope of this article.  However, a core element is the notion that the vast majority of young people are okay and doing well, and that those in trouble are a small, discrete minority.  The opening article in the current, ‘youth’ issue of VicHealth Letter, published by the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, begins: ‘Most young people, an estimated 90 per cent, live healthy, happy lives and make the transition into adulthood smoothly’.  Consistent with this positive interpretation, surveys do show that about nine in ten young Australian say they are healthy, happy and satisfied with their lives.

Yet a recent Victorian study found 25-40 per cent of students aged 11-18 experienced in the previous 6 months feelings of depression, worries about weight, worries about self-confidence, troubles sleeping, and not having enough energy.  A survey of students aged 11-15 in 28 Western countries found that while the great majority (over 90 per cent in many nations) reported feeling healthy and happy, significant minorities (reaching majorities for some countries, ages and complaints) also admitted to ‘feeling low’ and having headaches and stomach aches at least once a week, and to feeling tired most days of the week.

Another Victorian study of year 7, 9 and 11 students showed 23 per cent of girls and 12 per cent of boys reported ‘high levels of depressive symptoms’.  In a large Queensland survey, 52 per cent of 15-24-year-olds had experienced at least one episode of depression in their lives (defined as ‘a period of feeling sad, blue or depressed that lasted for two weeks or more’), and either 34 per cent or 18 per cent were currently depressed, depending on the ‘cut-off’ point in the depression scale used in the research.

A study of Queensland university undergraduates found almost two thirds admitted to some degree of suicidal thoughts or behaviour in the previous 12 months, at least to the extent of feeling that ‘life just isn’t worth living’, or that ‘life is so bad I feel like giving up’.  Almost a quarter admitted to suicide-related behaviour, including telling someone they wanted to kill themselves or attempting it.

A large survey of women’s health in Australia has found that young women reported the highest levels of stress, were often tired, and were over-concerned with their weight and body shape.  A long-term study of four representative cohorts of young Australians suggests declining well-being, based on a nine-item subjective well-being index.

These findings are mirrored in public perceptions of life for young people today.  When, two years ago, I polled almost 100 teachers in ACT colleges (years 11-12) on whether they thought the social and emotional well-being of young people in Australia was getting better or worse, 81 per cent said it was getting worse.  In a 1999 US survey of how life in America today compared with the 1950s, teenagers were one of only two groups (the other being farmers) for whom a clear majority of Americans (56 per cent) thought life today was worse.  Life for children also rated poorly, with only 46 per cent saying it was better today.

The point about these comparisons is to show that the picture of young people’s well-being can depend crucially on the questions asked or the indicators used.  More specifically, they show measures of self-reported health, happiness and satisfaction do not present an adequate or accurate account of health and well-being.

Overall, the evidence shows the prevalence of social and psychological problems has increased among young people and is higher than in older age groups.  It does not support the view that there is a small group of troubled youth clearly segregated from the mainstream, or majority, of young people who are happy, healthy and thriving.

The distinctions between them are often of degrees; there are gradients of disturbance, distress and discomfort that include a large minority of young people today, perhaps even a majority at some time in their lives.  Regardless of whether we look at crime, depression, drug use, or suicidal thought and behaviour, we find these gradients in the severity and prevalence of youth problems.

Nor does the evidence indicate that those at greatest risk to their health and their lives are all located, or even heavily concentrated, among the most materially disadvantaged.  While, generally speaking, there are socio-economic gradients in health – worse health at the lower end of the social scale, better at the top – the relationship is not consistent and clear-cut, and varies according to the cause of death and gender.

Let me be clear about what I am saying here.  It is not to give the impression of universal, serious pathology, or to ‘medicalise’ or ‘problematise’ common human emotions and experiences.  It is to show that there are links between even extreme personal distress and more prevalent, but less serious, suffering, and that the sources of these conditions can be traced to defining qualities of our societies.  In other words, these sources are social and pervasive as well as personal and specific, and problems must be addressed at both levels.  Youth suicide represents the tip of a large iceberg of suffering, not a tiny island of misery in an ocean of happiness.

My interest in these issues is primarily not to identify why one individual and not another has a problem or disorder, which can then be treated, but to explore the social significance of population patterns and trends.  ‘There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide,’ the French writer, Albert Camus, wrote.  ‘Judging whether life is, or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.’

So what lies behind the social and psychological problems associated with being young these days?  We don’t really know.  Disadvantage, poverty and unemployment may play a role but, as I’ve already indicated, their importance is unclear and they don’t appear to explain the trends in these problems.  Changes in family life, including increased conflict, abuse and neglect, and in adolescent transitions are likely factors.

In a major international review, two British researchers, Michael Rutter, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, and David Smith, a criminologist, call for further investigation of the theory that shifts in moral concepts and values are among the causes of increased psychosocial disorder.  They note, in particular, ‘the shift towards individualistic values, the increasing emphasis on self-realisation and fulfilment, and the consequent rise in expectations’.

British sociologists, Andy Furlong and Fred Cartmel, say that ‘the processes of individualisation, coupled with the stress which develops out of uncertain transitional outcomes, have implications for the health of all young people’.  They note the increased sources of stress ‘which stem from the unpredictable nature of life in high modernity’.  These include the ongoing sense of doubt, the heightened sense of insecurity, the increased feelings of risk and uncertainty, and the lack of clear frames of reference that mark young people’s world today.

While traditional forms of inequality remain, they say, even young people from privileged social backgrounds worry about failure and the uncertainty surrounding their future.  Conversely, those from disadvantaged backgrounds may feel that the risks they face are personal and individual rather than structural and collective.

Individualism could impact on youth suicide and other problems through its effect on specific social institutions and functions, such as the family and child-rearing.  In my analysis, for example, both youth suicide and individualism were negatively correlated with sense of parental duty (it is ‘parents’ duty is to do their best for their children even at the expense of their own well-being’) – that is, suicide and personal autonomy were greater in those countries where a smaller proportion of the parental generation agreed with this statement.

Individualism’s effects may go further than this, however.  Western societies – and some more than others – may be taking this trait to the point where it can become more broadly dysfunctional, to both society and the individual.  In other words, these societies are promoting a cultural norm of autonomy that is unrealistic, unattainable or otherwise inappropriate.  They project images and raise expectations of individual freedom, choice and opportunity, and of the happiness these qualities are supposed to deliver, which are increasingly at odds with human needs and social realities.

Brooks’ interviews with Princeton students casts an interesting light on these issues.  He sees them as the products of an era of parental protection, prosperity and peace.  They are ‘the most honed and supervised generation in human history’, he says.  In contrast to the freedoms granted young people in the 1960s and 1970s, this is a group whose members have spent most of their lives in structured, adult-organised activities.  ‘The kids have looked upon this order and decided that it’s good’.

Brooks does qualify his positive view.  He notes the growth in medicating children with disruptive behaviour with Ritalin and similar drugs, and the rise in the proportion of college freshmen who say they feel ‘overwhelmed’.  The rules are growing stricter by the year.  The students appear to be instructed on just about every aspect of life, except character and virtue; and they are lively conversationalists on just about any topic, except moral argument.  Perhaps the busyness and the striving are to compensate for what is missing, he suggests.

The students are highly goal-oriented.  Activities are rarely an end in themselves, but the means for self-improvement, resume-building – for climbing, step by step, ‘the continual stairway of advancement’.  There is little time or energy for serious relationships, it seems, or for national politics and crusades. ‘People are too busy to get involved in larger issues,’ a student journalist tells Brooks. ‘When I think of all that I have to keep up with, I’m relieved there are no bigger compelling causes’.

Jean Twenge, an American psychologist, recently examined survey data from 1952 to 1993 and found large, linear increases in anxiety and neuroticism in children and college students in the US.  ‘The average American child in the 1980s reported more anxiety than child psychiatric patients in the 1950s,’ she notes.

Twenge ascribes the increased anxiety to low social connectedness and high environmental threat (fears of violent crime, AIDS, nuclear war etc), both of which she says are linked to increasing individualism.  She says there may have been improvements in some areas since the early 1990s, but not in others.  The past year has seen a surge in public and professional concern in the US over the harmful pressures on children associated with ‘hyper-parenting’ and increasingly organised, structured lives – a trend also apparent in Australia.

Brooks spoke to those who have thrived on this regimen.  But even these high-flyers will, sooner or later (and especially when they stumble on the stairway), wonder what they are striving so hard to achieve, and whether it is worth the effort.  They will ask what their lives mean.

In the lives of these privileged, clever students – just as in the lives of the poor, dispossessed and despairing – we see reflected the values and priorities of our societies.  Much of the research literature, the contradictions notwithstanding, suggests these values and priorities are the very opposite of what promotes personal and social well-being.

Still, there are grounds for optimism.  While science may never give us clear-cut recipes for social improvement, it is contributing to a growing willingness to question and discuss what, all things considered, makes a better life.  It is better that we obtain imperfect knowledge about the important issues of our times than precise answers to what are, in the overall scheme of things, trivial questions.

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Find more writing by Richard Eckersley at  MetaFuture.

The following is reposted from MetaFuture.

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Meaning and Humanity’s Future

Richard Eckersley

On 20 March 1995, members of Aum Shinrikyo (or Aum Supreme Truth), a Japanese religious sect, carried out a nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo subway, leaving 12 people dead and thousands ill.  The sect is one of several ‘doomsday cults’ linked in recent years to mass murder and suicide.  Aum Shinrikyo attracted many highly intelligent and well-educated young people, including chemists, physicists and medical specialists. , As the report of the World Commission on Culture and Development observes, these people possessed a formidable mastery of scientific know-how, but not an iota of know-why.  ‘I did not want my life to be meaningless,’ a senior sect member said.

Meaning in life is a crucial aspect of human well-being.  For most of our existence as a species, meaning was pretty much a social given.  Children grew up in a close network of family and community relationships which largely defined their world – their values and beliefs, identity and place.  People knew little of what lay outside that world, of other ways of living (except through the intrusions of trade or invasion).

Beyond the mortal realm, they had a religious faith that gave them a place in the Cosmic scheme of things.  Much of life was predictable and what wasn’t was explained in terms of the supernatural.  The old ways might often have been harsh and oppressive, but they allowed people to make sense of their lives at several levels.  As the 19^th Century German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzche, said: ‘He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how’.

Today, things are different, especially in the West but increasingly elsewhere as well.  The speed, scope and scale of economic, social and cultural change have made the past seemingly irrelevant, the future uncertain.  Family and community ties have been loosened.  We know much more of the rest of the world and how differently others live and think.  And while most people today retain some form of religious belief, this is not nearly as absolute and binding as it once was.

Initially, as these changes occurred, we were convinced they represented progress.  The old certainties gave way to the exhilarating possibilities of human betterment through economic growth, social reform, scientific discovery and technological development.  Even if life’s meaning became less clear, life itself became more comfortable, more varied, safer, healthier and longer.

Over the past few decades the faith in material progress has given way to growing doubt.  We now live in ‘postmodern’ times, marked by the end of the dream of creating a perfect social order, the realisation that some of our problems may be unsolvable; despite our efforts, war, poverty, hunger and disease remain with us.  Science and technology, intended to give us mastery over the natural and social world, have instead (or, at best, also) created risks on an unprecedented, global scale.  The result is a world characterised by ambivalence, ambiguity, relativism, pluralism, fragmentation and contingency.  The profound paradox of our situation is well described by the scholar, Marshall Berman, who said: ‘To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world – and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.’

Meaning in life is no longer a social given, but a matter of personal choice; it has to be constructed, or chosen, from a proliferation of options.  Some writers celebrate this development as offering unparalleled opportunities for personal growth and development.  They say, for example, that the new technologies of cyberspace allow the creation of ‘liquid identities’ – multiple, flexible selves – which undermine traditional notions of identity as a single, stable entity.  Players in multi-user domains or dungeons can move from one computer window to another, changing personas like costumes; ‘RL (real life) is just another window’, says one.

So it is with values, with what we believe to be right and good.  Cultural pluralism and moral relativism, taken far enough, mean values, too, become just a matter of personal choice, requiring no external validation and having no authority or reference beyond the individual and the moment.

Some claim that young people are attuned to this world: adapted to its transience and fragmentation; comfortable with its absence of absolutes and blurred distinctions between real and virtual; equipped for its abundant opportunities, exciting choices and limitless freedoms – and its hazards and risks.  They are the first global generation: confident, optimistic, well-informed and educated, technologically sophisticated.  They are self-reliant (even self-contained), street-wise, enterprising and creative, fast on their feet, keeping their options open.

There is something in all this.  From today’s perspective, the conformity and constraints of the past are suffocating (Martin Scorsese’s film, The Age of Innocence, captures well how thoroughly, and subtly, the lives of the rich in 19^th Century New York were ruled by the norms, customs and traditions of their class and times).  Yet the celebrations of our situation also reveal a very postmodern quality: the inability to separate reality from fantasy.

Modern Western society is failing to meet human needs in several important respects.  The openness and complexity of life today can make finding meaning and the qualities that contribute to it – purpose, direction, balance, identity and belonging – extremely hard, especially for young people, for whom these are the destinations of the developmental journeys they are undertaking.  Another vital quality, hope, is also easily lost if life is episodic, and lacks coherence and predictability.  In his famous account of life in World War II concentration camps, Man’s Search for Meaning, the psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl says the prisoner who had lost faith in the future was doomed.  With this loss of belief, he also lost his spiritual hold, and went into a physical and mental decline.  ‘It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future’.

While loosening social ties can be liberating for individuals, and create more dynamic, diverse and tolerant societies, too much cultural flexibility can have the effect of trivialising the convictions and commitments that we need to find meaning, and to control our own lives.  Tolerance, taken too far, becomes indifference, and freedom abandonment.  Our power as a people comes from a sense of collective, not individual, agency, from pursuing a common vision based on shared values, not maximising individual choice in order to maximise personal satisfaction.

Beyond the risks of excessive choice and freedom is the evidence that these can be, in any case, illusory.  Social constraints remain, and in some cases are increasing, whether these concern sex or cars (both totems of freedom which are highly prescribed by rules and realities), or class and privilege (which still substantially define opportunity).  The sociologist, Mark Elchardus, argues: ‘There seems to be a growing gap between the cultural emphasis on autonomy and individual choice, on the one hand, and the experienced lack of autonomy, on the other.’

There is more.  The postmodern ideal is really a Trojan horse for the social promotion of particular choices and values.  Western societies present a faÁade of virtually unlimited autonomy that disguises a powerful preference.  We are told, as part of the new pluralism, that traditional values have passed their use-by date.  The values of self-restraint and moderation (and by implication, their converse, social obligation and responsibility) were shaped by scarcity; in a time of plenty, they have become obsolete.  And ‘plenty’ is symbolised by those temples of consumption and self-indulgence, the vast shopping malls, which have replaced churches as the community centres of modern life.

This proposition might seem plausible in a culturally diverse and seemingly abundant world.  But it is untenable when considered in a context anchored in psychological, social and environmental realities.  That it effectively defines ‘the good life’ today is a measure of the moral force of the economy, and the fast-paced, high-pressure, hyper-consumer lifestyle which it depends on, even demands.  In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley foresaw a society in which all strong passions and commitments were discouraged because they interfered with the people’s economic duty to consume.

In this historical evolution, we have altered profoundly our notions of the ‘self’, of what it is to be human.  The self of the early Middle Ages was an immortal soul enclosed in the shell of a mortal body.  Today, according to the psychologist, Philip Cushman, we have created ‘the empty self’, stripped of community, tradition and shared meaning.  Our era, he says, has constructed a self that is, fundamentally, a disappointment to itself, and must be soothed and made cohesive by being constantly ‘filled up’ with consumer products, celebrity news, and the quest for self-improvement and personal growth.  Martin Seligman, another psychologist, argues that one necessary condition for meaning is the attachment to something larger than the self, and the larger that entity, the more meaning people can derive.  ‘The self, to put it another way, is a very poor site for meaning.’

Contrasting with the view that young people are adapted to our times is the evidence that rates of psychological and social problems among youth have risen in almost all developed nations over the past 50 years.  Highly-publicised problems like youth suicide and drug-overdose deaths are only the tip of an iceberg of suffering among the young, with recent studies showing that a fifth to a third of young people today experience significant psychological distress or disturbance.

Many recent surveys of youth attitudes show that many – perhaps most – young people are uncomfortable with the broader changes they see taking place in society, even if most are, most of time, happy and optimistic about their own personal circumstances.  Nor are they inspired by the visions of the future held up to them by society.  Most continue to work within ‘the system’, but many no longer believe in it or are willing to serve it.

Despite the cultural propaganda of our times, it is clear that constantly filling up an ‘empty self’ is a poor substitute for the web of meaning provided by deep and enduring personal, social and spiritual attachments.  We are told that a highly individualistic, consumer lifestyle is compatible with strong families, social cohesion and equity, environmental sustainability, and a sense of spiritual connectedness to the universe in which we live.  It is not.

This critique of our way of life will strike many as exaggerated.  But it is an attempt to give a clear definition, a sharp edge, to issues that are, in reality, diffuse, often unconscious, and hard to discern from ‘inside’ our culture.  To argue that Western society is seriously flawed in these ways is not say a meaningful life is impossible, only more difficult.  Nor is it to suggest that we return to old ways.  Rather, we need to go forward towards new goals, guided by different values.

Given the era we live in, the challenge we face can be framed in terms of individual choice.  We can choose to go with the flow of modern Western culture, and pursue a life of personal ambition, distraction and gratification.  This can be a pleasant enough existence, particularly if nothing goes wrong and we keep getting what we think we want; but it is a life that lacks depth and resilience and comes at a price to others and at a cost to the future.  Alternatively, we can resist the pressures to conform to social expectations, powerful though they are, and choose to find meaning in our lives by focusing on the things that history, religion and science show matter most.

Realistically, the choice is not that stark.  What matters is where on the continuum between the two extremes of total acceptance and total rejection we choose to locate ourselves in the quest for meaning – the focal point towards which the ‘self’ will be drawn even while it is being pushed and pulled about by the demands and temptations of modern life.  The research evidence suggests we know in our hearts what is important and what is right.  But living by these beliefs can be hard when society appears to operate according to different moral rules.

There has never been a period in human history when so much hangs in the balance between what is and what might be, when so much depends on the choices we make as individuals, when it is so clear that we are, each of us, ‘decision-makers’ in deciding the destiny of humankind.  It is a time, then, that offers so much meaning.  And yet, because of the pressures, preoccupations and priorities of life today, we don’t sense this significance of the moment – or sensing it, seem unable to hold it and be inspired by it.

This is one of the most profound paradoxes of our times.  Recognising this can help us make the right choices – and find more meaning in our lives.

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More writing by Richard Eckersley from MetaFuture : 1) That’s all well and good 2) It’s the Weltanschauung, stupid!   3) The view from a cave: science, spirituality, and meaning and 4) The end of the world (as we know it).

Values and Humanity’s Future

Richard Eckersley

My interest in the links between modern western culture (including how we see the future) and our well-being and prospects, especially those of young people – came about quite by accident. In early 1987, I went on part-time secondment from CSIRO to the then relatively new Commission for the Future.

My first major task was to draw together all the survey material I could find on Australians’ attitudes to science and technology and the future. During the course of my research I came across two studies of children’s and adolescents’ expectations of the world they would inherit.

As the father of three young children, the bleakness of the visions left a deep impression on me. So for my next project, I decided to look into what link, if any, there might be between young people’s sense of despair and hopelessness about the future – as suggested by these and other studies – and the evidence of their deteriorating well-being, as evidenced by rising levels of suicide, drug and alcohol abuse and crime etc.

The result was the report, Casualties of Change: the predicament of youth in Australia, published in 1988. Casualties of Change was very wide ranging. Because most of the experts I spoke to stressed the importance of more personal aspects of young people’s lives in contributing to these psychosocial problems, I also covered these issues in the report – issues such as unemployment, changes in the family, and education.

Since then, however, I have become more interested in the role of our culture – of our system of beliefs, values, priorities, myths and stories – in shaping western industrial societies and the health and well-being of their citizens, especially their youth. There are two main reasons for this:

• The tangible, structural changes – in the labour market and the family, for example – are being widely researched and debated.
  
  
• The less tangible and all-pervasive influence of culture, on the other hand, has tended to be ignored in our quest to understand the forces at work in western societies. This situation is, however, now beginning to change; the question of values, for example, is attracting more attention.

In my talk today, I want to do two things:

• First, I will outline the basic thesis about the fundamental failings of modern western culture that I began to explore in Casualties of Change, and have focused on over the past five years or so (largely in my own time), and some of the recent reaction and evidence.
  
  
• Second, I will return to the issue that got me into this subject, and report on the results of a project I have been involved in with the Australian Science and Technology Council (ASTEC), which looked at young people’s views of probable and preferred futures for Australia in 2010.

Summary of thesis

While I have focused on Australia in my research, I have drawn on overseas research and much of my argument applies generally to western industrial societies. It will also increasingly apply to other, non-western societies as they become more influenced by western culture – if this is in fact what occurs.

Essentially, the argument goes as follows:

Σ Modern western culture is increasingly failing to do what cultures are designed to do: to give our lives meaning – a sense of identity, belonging and purpose, both socially and spiritually – and to provide a sound framework of values to guide what we do.

• There are several dimensions to this cultural failing:
  
  
• The encouragement of rampant individualism and materialism, and the weakening of communal and spiritual values.
  
  
• Moral confusion and the promotion of anti-social values. Traditional vices such as pride (self-centeredness), greed, lust, envy and anger are promoted – especially through the media – while many traditional virtues such as faith, hope, compassion and fortitude, are neglected.
  
  
• The promotion, again mainly through the media, of a negative, demoralising view of the world, and the corresponding lack of a coherent, convincing and appealing vision of the future to serve as a source of optimism, inspiration and common purpose.
  
  
• A cultural framework that is changing too rapidly across too many fronts, increasing our sense of confusion, uncertainty and insecurity.
  
  
• This failure weakens social cohesion and personal resilience, our capacity to cope with the trouble and strife of everyday life and to bounce back after misfortune. It is contributing to widespread public disillusionment and disenchantment, especially among the young, who are most vulnerable to its effects. It may also be contributing, directly and indirectly, to more serious social and personal problems such as suicide, depression, eating disorders, substance abuse and crime.
  
  
• Our cultural flaws also weaken our ability to address long-term economic, social and environmental challenges by undermining the strength of purpose, the social will, necessary to meet these challenges. This is an important point, but one I won’t have time to go into: the cultural requirements for personal well-being are also those for social, economic and environmental health and sustainability.
  
  
• Finally, the brighter side to this rather bleak perspective is that for a new order to emerge, the old must first fail, and this is the profound cultural transition or transformation we are now experiencing. It is this hope of a new beginning, the excitement of the challenge, the imperative to look beyond the near horizons of our personal lives that we must impress upon the hearts and minds of young people.

I want to say a little more about the crucial issue of meaning. In modern western culture, meaning is increasingly invested in the individual and his or her attributes, possessions and achievements, rather than through, say, belief in ‘god, king and country’. Over-investment of meaning in the individual is, I believe, an intrinsically flawed strategy. It encourages unrealistic expectations and personal excess, and makes us vulnerable to a ‘collapse of meaning’ when things go wrong in our personal lives. And, as I’ve noted, it robs communities and societies of the ‘glue’ needed to hold them together.

Increasingly, young people are being caught in a vice between heightened expectations and diminished hopes – between what our culture encourages them to expect at a personal level, and what it offers at a broader social level. Richard King, this year’s winner of the 1995 The Australian Vogel Literary Award for young writers, said in an interview:

“My generation was brought up being promised so much. Advertising promised so much. The lucky country promised so much. We reached adulthood and found it wasn’t there.”

In arguing that this is a serious cultural flaw, I am not necessarily calling for a return to old, traditional forms of identity and belief, but for a recognition of the need to broaden and deepen meaning in our lives. The American psychologist, Martin Seligman, makes a similar point:

“…surely one necessary condition for meaning…is the attachment to something larger than you are. And the larger the entity that you can attach the self to, the more meaning you can derive. To the extent that it is now difficult for young people to take seriously their relationship to God, to care about their relationship to the country, or to be part of a large and abiding family, meaning in life will be very difficult to find. The self, to put it another way, is a very poor site for meaning.”

In a similar vein, another American psychologist, Philip Cushman, has argued that especially since the Second World War, we have created an ‘empty self’ – devoid of deeper, transcendent meaning – which must be constantly ‘filled up’ with consumer goods and services, celebrity gossip and other such distractions.

Our times are characterised by the pursuit of distraction. As Woody Allen said:

“Don’t underestimate the power of distraction to keep our minds off the truth of our situation”.

Reactions

The ideological battles of the future will not be fought between the left and right, which are becoming increasingly irrelevant to our situation. They will be between those who are popularly, but I believe wrongly, labeled optimists and pessimists, or, more accurately, might be called progressionists and transformationists – between those who believe we are on track towards unprecedented global peace and prosperity and those who believe current practices, policies and priorities need to be completely rethought if we are not to sink deeper into a social, economic and environmental mire.

Among futurists, the belief that our problems are systemic is gaining widespread support. Culture is seen as an important, even the most important, feature of this systemic failure.

Two years ago, The Futurist, the journal of the World Future Society, published an essay of mine, called The West’s deepening cultural crisis, and ran a readers’ poll on the issues it canvassed. In response to the core question – Is western culture failing to provide a sense of meaning, belonging and purpose and a framework of values? – 84% of respondents agreed. Only 11% disagreed.

One speaker at a recent general assembly of the society said that humanity was either standing on the brink of “a quantum leap in human psychological capabilities or heading for a global nervous breakdown.”

In a recent paper in the journal, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, the leading futurist, Willis Harman, discusses the need for what he called ‘whole-system change’ because the assumptions on which our current systems were built are incompatible with the goals we now need to pursue:

“Approaching the global dilemmas of our time with whole-system thinking implies that the much-talked-about problems of environmental degradation… chronic hunger and poverty etc are not so much problems as symptoms of a deeper-level condition that must be dealt with. This has to do with the basic incompatibility between widely proclaimed goals and underlying system assumptions. Pressures towards whole-system change are increasing in intensity. The critical issue is whether that change can be smooth and nondisruptive, or whether it will involve some disintegration of present structures.”

Harman, like others, says that the modern worldview, which is characterised by materialism, exploitive attitudes, and faith in manipulative technology, is being challenged by an emerging worldview that reinstates the spiritual and holistic view. He frames the central question we must address in terms of meaning:

“What is the central purpose of highly industrialised societies when it no longer makes sense for that central purpose to be economic production – because that is no longer a challenge and because in the long run focusing on economic production does not lead to a viable global future?”

His answer is:

“…to advance human growth and development to the fullest extent, to promote human learning in the broadest possible definition.”

However, mainstream political and intellectual debate is much more narrowly focused and issue-based, and this perception of the need for a ‘new order’, a transformation, remains largely rejected or ignored. Many regard my view, for example, as too extreme, too pessimistic. A professor of psychiatry once wrote to me about a paper I had given an adolescent health conference, saying my “overall pessimism is simply the reflection of an introspective person who is steeped in the data.” (A very psychiatric point of view! He may well be right, but that doesn’t make me wrong.)

In the worlds of politics and business, the prevailing view is that if we stick resolutely to our current path of social, economic and technological development, we can overcome any problems and enter a new golden age.

A recent example of this perspective is the book, The Lucky Generation – a positive view of Australia in the 21st Century, by the British journalist William Davis (much of the book is actually about the UK; it has been adapted and retitled for an Australian readership). His optimism rests on the promises of medical miracles that will deliver better health and longer lives; increased affluence and more interesting and rewarding work; new forms of entertainment; greater gender and ethnic equity; news ways of living, and wider choices:

“The decentralised, multicultural Australia of 2050 is envied by many other countries. It is creative, outward looking, and at peace. It plays a significant role in the Asia Pacific Region, but also makes effective use of its long-standing trade relationships with America and Europe. Everyone is free to choose his or her own religion, nor none at all. The Islamic faith has spread, but this has not led to any serious conflict in the country.”

“Some parts of Australia are more properous than others, but in general people are better off than they were at the start of the century. They are also healthier, better -educated, more self-reliant, and happier at work because they have more satisfying jobs. There is a strong community spirit: affluent people recognise their obligations towards those who truly need help. The welfare system is not what it used to be, but a system of selective support ensures that the less fortunate are protected.”

I don’t deny there have been big improvements in many areas, and I have no fundamental problem with the optimistic scenario; things might turn out this way. I agree that we tend to take for granted the many achievements of the past. And I agree with his criticism in the book of the destructive negativity of the news media.

But I disagree with the implication that this is the way we are heading, that this is a probable, maybe even somehow inevitable, progression from the past into the future. Much of the book reads like the techno-utopian visions of the 1950s. It offers no explanations of why these visions have not been realised and why, despite the advances that have occurred, survey after survey shows people have become increasingly disillusioned, anxious and stressed.

For example, Davis mentions the prospects of wondrous new treatments for mental illness, but says nothing about the dramatic increase in depressive illness, especially among young people, in the past 50 years. He says nothing about the terrible rates of suicide and attempted suicide among young people in many western nations.

Ther is no discussion of culture, or values, or beliefs, or spirituality – all the things that are so important to the human psyche. His is a very material, physical view of life. And at times he seems almost to be having it both ways: he welcomes greater equality for women and the growing concern for the environment, but is also critical of feminists like Germaine Greer, and of scientists and environmentalists whom he accuses of peddling doomsday nonsense.

Davis’s book illustrates an important point: so-called ‘optimists’ often rest a good part of their case on the achievements of the so-called ‘pessimists’. The achievements of the women’s movement and the environment movement in the last thirty years, or the public health and anti-slavery movements in the last century, were not the achievements of those who looked around them and said, “well, things are a lot better than they used to be, and I’m sure they’ll continue to get better”, or “that’s the way things have always been, and always will be”. They were the achievements of people who devoted themselves to changing the attitudes and practices of their day.

So I find ’steady as she goes’ optimism unconvincing, both as an assessment of the present and as a strategy for the future.

What I do have more sympathy for is the following criticism by the American liberal philosopher, Richard Rorty, of the latest book of fellow-American and historian Christopher Lasch, called The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy. Rorty wrote in a review of the book in The New Yorker this year:

“People start writing books about spiritual plight only when they have pretty much given up on politics – when they can no longer figure out what concrete practical measures might help. Then they say that only moral regeneration, or a return to religion, or a revolution in philosophy can do any good. Drifting off into an intellectual version of New Age rhetoric, they insist that nothing will be changed unless everything is changed, that the ills of the body politic can be cured only by treating our cultural soul. This rhetoric exalts the intellectuals over the politicians, the academy over the legislature, large ideas over small practical reforms.”

Rorty makes a good point. We face an enormous challenge in translating the ‘big picture’ argument for a ‘new order’ into what it means at the practical level of how we live our individual lives, and of what sort of policy program we should be pursuing.

But I don’t agree with his apparent dismissal of ‘whole-system change’. We also need a new worldview, a new cultural framework, within which to develop policy and make lifestyle choices, and against which to test and measure their effectiveness.

At an intellectual level, the two views seem antagonistic. At a more practical level, there is a lot to be said for bringing them closer together.

Tangible and Intangible Factors

The danger in taking too narrow a view, and focusing on specific problems or specific tangible causes can be seen in Rupert Murdoch’s comments last month about young people (echoed later by Kerry Packer). Murdoch linked the need to give young people hope and opportunity, and the risk of Australia developing an underclass, directly and solely to high youth unemployment. As a solution, he suggested lower taxes, a freer labour market and higher economic growth.

Most public debate about youth issues is couched in such terms: the problems of youth are problems of specific groups of young people, usually disadvantaged – the unemployed, the homeless, the abused. We are even seeing a growing perception that the problems, especially suicide, are problems of males but not females. While not denying the particular needs of disadvantaged young people, I think it is a cruel delusion to believe the issues are confined to these groups. The evidence simply does not support this view. The issues goes much wider, much deeper.

Eliminating unemployment – if it is indeed possible in the absence of whole-system change -will not solve the problems of youth. Young people need beliefs as well as opportunities. They need to be given a belief in themselves, in their place in society and in the future, as well as opportunities for education, training and work.

The importance of cultural factors is reinforced by two large studies released this year, one in the UK, one in the US.

A 10-year study by the Carnegie Corporation in the US says profound social changes have left young Americans with less adult supervision while subjecting them to growing pressure to experiment with drugs, engage in sex and turn to violence to resolve conflicts. It calls for young people to be helped in developing close relationships with dependable adults and for instilling in them the belief that they have opportunities in mainstream society.

“Altogether, nearly half of American adolescents are at high or moderate risk of seriously damaging their life chances. The damage may be near term and vivid, or it may be delayed, like a time bomb set in youth.”

The UK report, 800-plus pages, written by a leading child psychiatrist and a leading criminologist (Rutter and Smith), also draws attention to the separation of young people from adult society as a key factor in explaining the rise in social and psychological problems among young people.

It notes that ‘the growth of a youth culture may insulate young people from the influence of adults, in particular their parents, and increase the influence of the peer group”. It also suggests that changes in society’s values, especially the trend towards a more individualistic ethos – may have added to the pressure on young people to succeed. It rejects the view that rising unemployment, poverty and inequality are to blame for increased problems in adolescence.

Recent evidence

I want to turn now to several strands of research into depression and suicide that point to the fundamental nature of the factors contributing to these problems (I am not arguing these are the only factors).

Increase in depression: There is growing evidence of a dramatic rise in major depressive illness in the US and other industrial nations, especially since the Second World War and especially among the young. Some of this evidence suggests a tenfold increase in depression among young people over this period.

A recent major survey of the health of more than 2700 children aged 4-16 in Western Australia found 18% had mental health problems (including depression; delinquency; thought, attention and social problems; and aggressive behaviour). The proportions were 16% among those 4-11 and 21% among those 12-16.

Youth suicide: Suicide has been called the mortality of depressive illness. Rates among young males have risen in most western nations since the 1950s, with some countries, including the US, Australia and New Zealand, experiencing a tripling or more.

Rates are low (although probably under-reported) and appear to have increased little if at all in countries such as Italy and Spain, where family and religious ties remain strong. And in Japan, where adolescence is regarded as a rigorous apprenticeship and the emphasis is on integration into society, rates have fallen dramatically to amongst the lowest in the industrial world.

Surveys also reveal a staggering level of suicidal ideation and attempts among young people, suggesting that suicide, or at least its contemplation, has become a mainstream option for today’s young adults.

University students survey: a study just published of suicidal ideation (or thoughts) and attempts among a sample of more than 1600 Queensland university undergraduates, average age just under 22), found that almost two thirds showed varying degrees of ideation in the previous year.

The Queensland university study found (percentages for categories of suicidal ideation and behaviour reflect positive responses to the questions listed):

No suicidal ideation – 39%

Minimal ideation – 21%
I feel life just isn’t worth living.
Life is so bad I feel like giving up.

High ideation – 19%
I just wish my life would end.
I have been thinking of ways to kill myself.

Suicide-related behaviour – 15%
I have told someone I want to kill myself.
I have come close to taking my own life.

Suicide attempt – 7%
I have made attempts to kill myself.

The results are hard to believe. But they are broadly consistent with other surveys here and overseas. For example the WA child health survey found almost a quarter (24%) of 15-16-year-olds had had suicidal thoughts in the previous six months, double the proportion among 12-14-year-olds (12%). About a third of the children who had thought about suicide had deliberately tried to harm or kill themselves.

What is going on here? Are the researchers being conned? Do the kids think they are being cool – but aren’t really being serious – when they admit to such dark thoughts of death? Or are we making some awful, awful blunder that is stripping from so many of them the deep conviction that life is worthwhile and worth living.

In the American writer Cormac McCarthy’s acclaimed novel, All the pretty horses, the hero rides early one morning into a small Mexican town, where a group of laughing girls are festooning a gazebo with crepe. He stops at a cafe and after serving him the proprietor stands at the window watching the girls and says that it is good that God keeps the truths of life from the young as they are starting out, or else they’d have no heart to start at all.

David Elkind, an American professor of child development and the author of the The hurried child, echoes this sentiment, saying there is this new image of children as competent and sophisticated. Like adults, they are expected to be able to handle all the issues they are exposed to. “But I disagree,” he says, “I think children find it most disturbing, hurtful and damaging.”

Youth Partnership

I want to change tack now and talk about some of the findings of the ASTEC Youth Partnership project.

The project comprised a series of eight workshops involving about 150 young people, most aged between 15 and 24 and from a variety of backgrounds, and a national telephone poll of 800 young Australians in this age group. The Partnership is part of ASTEC’s major Future Needs 2010 foresight study. It was undertaken by a group of youth, education and science organisations.

The project’s aims were to explore young people’s views of probable and preferred futures for Australia in 2010; and the key issues shaping these futures, including the role of science and technology.

The workshops suggest most young people see the future mainly in terms of a worsening of today’s global and national problems and difficulties, although they also expect some improvements. Major concerns included: pollution and environmental destruction, including the impact of growing populations; the gulf between rich and poor; high unemployment, including the effect of automation and immigration; conflict, crime and violence; family problems and breakdown; discrimination and prejudice; and economic difficulties, including the level of foreign debt. The poll suggests optimism about the future is more common than the workshops indicated. Nevertheless, the expectation that the future will be better than the present remains a minority position:

Σ Asked to choose between two statements about the world in the 21st century, a majority chose: “…a bad time of crisis and trouble” over “…a new age of peace and prosperity”.
Σ A minority believes Australia’s quality of life will be better in 2010 than it is now.
Σ A minority believes science and technology – a dominant and defining feature of western industrial societies – have had more benefits than disadvantages.
Σ Pessimism about the future increases with age. Females are more negative than males about both the future and science and technology.

Many other surveys have revealed this pessimism among young people (and older Australians, too). In summarising this work, a recent Schools Council report also links it to the systemic failure I have discussed:
“Researchers point out that among young Australians today, pessimism about the future is strongly felt by virtually everyone they interview. This is especially true of their views about the economy, the environment and the effectiveness of the political process. This suggests, say the researchers, that society as a whole – schools, media, elders, political and social leaders – has failed to exemplify and promote the things that could give cause for optimism in Australia’s future. It may mean that while the problems of the future are new and daunting, the solutions being offered are old and unworkable.”

Young people’s preferred future is not only very different from what they expect, but also from what they are promised under current priorities. Their preference – with its emphasis on the environment, community and family, and equality – also suggests the need for profound and systemic change.

For example, asked in the poll which of two scenarios for Australia for 2010 came closer to the type of society they both expected and preferred, a majority said they expected “a fast-paced, internationally competitive society, with the emphasis on the individual, wealth generation and enjoying the ‘good life’”. However, a greater majority said they preferred ” a ‘greener’, more stable society, where the emphasis is on cooperation, community and family, more equal distribution of wealth, and greater economic self-sufficiency”.

What do the findings mean?

The expectations of the future revealed by this research may not necessarily reflect what young people actually believe the future will be like. Researchers have suggested various interpretations of young people’s pessimistic predictions, including that they reflect:

Σ What researchers are looking for (especially in the case of earlier studies focusing on fear of nuclear war).
Σ The group dynamics of the research processes which bias discussion towards strongly held and usually negative views.
Σ Young people’s flair for the dramatic.
Σ Superficial and stereotyped images of the future picked up from films and television.
Σ Stories about alternative futures, including those young people want to avoid.
Σ Apocalyptic myths about ‘the end of the world’, which have always been part of human mythology, including most major religions (this again relates especially to fears about global catastrophe such as a nuclear holocaust).
Σ Ways of expressing anxieties and concerns about the present (by projecting them into a fictional future, they can be described in more concrete terms).

These factors may well influence young people’s perspectives. Nevertheless, their views are understandable and usually valid; some issues are part of their personal experience and all are being discussed and debated by experts and commentators. There is no compelling reason why they should not have these expectations and dreams about the world they will inherit. Indeed, theirs might well be a clearer, fresher view of the future which we would be foolish to ignore.

What impact does this outlook have on young people?

The next question – what impact are these views having on young people? – is just as difficult to answer.

Having concerns about the future is not the same as being fearful; young people may feel as often angry as worried. And expressing concerns is not to suggest they spend a lot of time actively thinking about these issues. Research suggests that the things that get young people down are the more personal aspects of life such as problems with family, peers and friends, school and work.

However, this does not necessarily mean the outlook on life and expectations of the future revealed in this and other studies are not having an impact. One researcher has suggested that people’s response to concerns of global catastrophes “is not to cry out or ring alarms. It is to go silent , go numb”. She suggests this “numbing of the psyche” takes a heavy toll, including an impoverishment of emotional and sensory life. Energy expended in suppressing despair “is diverted from more creative uses, depleting resilience and imagination needed for fresh visions and strategies.”

Other researchers have warned that this fear of the future among young people could produce cynicism, mistrust, anger, apathy and an approach to life based on instant gratification rather than long-term goals or lasting commitment.

Many surveys of youth attitudes and values, in fact, show these traits are common among young people today. The surveys show many are:

Σ mistrustful, cynical, fatalistic, individualistic, and materialistic;
Σ wary of commitment;
Σ outwardly confident but inwardly insecure.

They believe that:

Σ life should be fast and fun;
Σ they are on their own;
Σ getting ahead is mainly a matter of chance;
Σ options should be kept open;
Σ governments are incapable of solving society’s problems;
Σ they themselves are powerless to change things.

(I attach no blame in saying this. I suspect many older Australians share these attitudes and values. My point is that they reflect the failings of our culture; some are probably, at the level of the individual, an adaptive response to modern times.)

What do these views mean for Australia’s future?

Apart from the personal impact on individuals and their well-being, the outlook on life revealed by this and other research has important implications for Australian society and its future.

The lack of hope for the future reflects the mistakes of the past, the problems of the present and the challenges of the future. But it also suggests a failure of vision, a failure to conceive a future that is appealing and plausible and able to serve as a focus and a source of inspiration for both individuals and society.

Pessimism about the future is likely to affect young people’s approach to key aspects of society, including citizenship, education and training and work, jeopardising Australia’s future success. Australians can only meet the formidable economic, social and environmental challenges facing them if they have the necessary social cohesion and will to address these issues. A clear vision, strong sense of mission and shared core values become even more important as Australian society becomes more pluralistic, multicultural, open, and fluid (this is also increasingly important at the global level).

One result of the discrepancy between young Australians’ expected and preferred futures appears to be a tension between realism and idealism in the hearts of young Australians. Their preferred future reflects values and priorities different from those that young people themselves appear to hold, suggesting they are adopting attitudes they believe are demanded by the world they live in and the future they expect – not those needed to achieve the world they want.

It is likely that this also holds true for many older Australians. It suggests the 2010 timeframe of this study – one that includes a transition to a new century and millennium and the centenary of Australian Federation – will be marked either by a fundamental re-alignment of national goals and priorities, or by increasing levels of resentment, disenchantment and disengagement.

If the issues raised in this study are not addressed, Australia will, at best, perform far below the standard of which it is capable, in every sphere, domestically and internationally. At worst, Australian society could see increasing evidence of social dysfunction, including extremism and unrest. The study suggests that many young Australians already feel they owe little allegiance to society. Many may continue to work within the system, but they no longer believe in it, or are willing to serve it.

It might be argued that people have always had visions of an ideal world and these have always been beyond the reach of reality. Key issues today, however, are people’s expectations in modern times that things should get better, that humanity should progress, and whether the gap between ideal and real is perceived to be widening or narrowing. The findings of this and other studies indicate the dominant perception is that the gap is widening.

The historian, Barbara Tuchman, in her book, A distant mirror – the calamitous 14th century, says that the century has been avoided by historians because it could not be made to fit into a pattern of human progress. It was a violent, tormented, bewildered, suffering and disintegrating age – quite simply, a bad time for humanity.

She notes that a gulf had opened up between Christian beliefs and the conduct of the Church, and between the ideal of chivalry and the behaviour of the nobility, and comments: “when the gap between the ideal and real becomes too wide, the system breaks down.”

Responses

There are two ways of looking at the results of the ASTEC study and the other evidence I have cited. They can be seen as an indictment of modern western society, evidence of its growing failure to deliver what people need and want. Or they can be viewed, more positively, as opening the way for an emerging new order, a new ethic, the ‘whole-system change’ I have spoken of.

Willis Harman writes in his paper that: “The most powerful force for social change has always been withdrawal of legitimacy from the old order.” I believe we are now at this point.

I want to make a couple of general points about how we manage this transition, and then several specific points relating to the political system, the mass media and the education system.

First the general points. One of the most questionable, yet largely unquestioned, assumptions of our times is that people and societies can adapt to the pace and extent of change taking place, and the accompanying uncertainty and insecurity:

Σ One way we can cope better, given the inevitability of the changes, is by building ‘zones of stability’ into our lives: spiritual beliefs and family life are two crucial areas.
Σ Another way is to develop a clear vision of where we want to go as a society, so that we manage change better towards realising that vision, and not feel we are at the mercy of changes that are beyond our control and that are not in our interests. I hope the ASTEC study and a few other projects involving young people that I am aware of will contribute to this process, nationally and globally.

Now the specifics. These are not minor changes in the processes or roles of government, media and education. If what I say sounds unlikely or far-fetched, let me point out that all of them are being discussed at various levels; but they need to be pushed higher up the agenda of public debate and political action.

Government: The processes of government, in the broadest sense, need to be reformed so that they are more flexible and responsive to major shifts in community values and priorities. Existing processes were never designed for ‘whole-system change’. Changes should aim to influence the behaviour of voters, as well as politicians and bureaucrats.

The need to find a ‘new way’ and the rigidity of the current political system mean that people expect far more of government than it can possibly deliver. The result is a profound lack of confidence in the process, clearly demonstrated by a recent Bulletin Morgan poll which showed a majority of Australians have lost faith in the (Federal) political system (56%) and believe that neither side of politics has the courage to make the tough decisions required for the long-term good of the country (66%).

Changes to the voting system such as proportional representation, reducing the voting age, citizen-initiated referendums, and more systematic mapping of public opinion are among the changes that are suggested.

The media: Never before have ordinary citizens had to confront and take responsibility for so many major issues, national and global, or been exposed to so much information about these issues. This situation imposes a tremendous responsibility upon the news media, one which they are profoundly failing to acknowledge. Their perspective is too limited, often trivial and frequently negative, with too much emphasis on conflict and calamity. They are probably up to a decade behind public opinion in awareness of the need to broaden the parameters of public debate to embrace fundamental change.

The media needs to look closely at the sort of evidence I have cited and its implications of their culpability. Perhaps more than anything else, we need the news media to take on a more positive and constructive role if we are to meet the challenges of the next century. The same applies, but in different ways, to the entertainment media.

The mass media have become the most powerful force in modern culture, and as such have a major influence on our ability to articulate and attain a preferred future.

Education: More must be done in schools to instil in young people a greater sense of optimism about the future, a conviction that the future is theirs to shape, and the faith in themselves needed to tackle this task. This surely should be a fundamental task of education today, and it is what futures education is all about.

If children lack these qualities, everything else in education – whether it is providing basic literacy and numeracy, instilling a love of learning or developing vocational or life skills – becomes devalued and harder to achieve.

The thing that most delighted and encouraged those of us who ran the ASTEC workshops was the energy and enthusiasm of most (but by no means all) of the young people who participated, and the idealism and altruism that shone through when they had the opportunity to discuss their preferred futures. They became more aware of what could be changed, and of their responsibility to play a part in making this happen.

Conclusion

In emphasising the importance of building on this capacity, let me quote the words of the Prime Minister, Mr Keating, in a message to a New Leaders Forum last December:

“One of the great challenges we face as a nation is to generate a deep sense of optimism within our young people. We need to do that because without optimism, without a sense that we do have the wherewithal to build a better future, we will find no reason to build that future.”

© 1989-1999 to Dr Michael Ellis of the Centre for Change

 References

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Richard Eckersley was a senior specialist, strategic analysis, with CSIRO, Australia’s national research organisation when this article was written. While he participated in the ASTEC youth project described in this paper in an official capacity, much of the analysis on which the paper is based has been conducted in a private capacity in his own time. The views expressed are personal.

Bio and more writing by Richard Eckersley: 1) That’s all well and good 2) It’s the Weltanschauung, stupid!   3) The view from a cave: science, spirituality, and meaning 4) The end of the world (as we know it) and 4) What’s it all about?

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