photo by Liz Cratty
Volatility in any aspect of society is antithetical to a peaceful, productive life. Social Sustainability is the goal of Values-Based Decision Making in every aspect of society.
There has never been a framework of any society or nation that began its inception with a conscious intention to engage conscious social, political and economic evolution with an intention to become self-sustaining, as mutually sustaining with others.
The closest has been a famous statement from the Iroquois Nation is that we should never commit a single act without considering its consequences seven generations hence. Who among us thinks two hundred years in the future when we stop to fill our cars with fossil fuel? Or throw plastic bags into the garbage?
We are living on the cusp of the moral regeneration of this world.
Understanding Social Sustainability
Abstract: The illustration on page 11 shows the significant differences between material sustainability and social sustainability. While material sustainability is humanity’s attempt to adapt to the material limitations of living on only one planet, social sustainability is vital for 8 billion people to live on one planet without destroying each other.
In the text, “organizational survival” is NOT related to the survival of individual organizations, but rather to the survival of the whole of society as a social organism that provides a “cocoon” for the development, evolution, and maturation of the individual/family and organizations. As the illustration on page 30 describes, organizations and the individual/family are the only decision-makers in any society. The fate of society as a social, holistic organism is always determined by the decisions made by decision-makers in organizations and the individual/family.
UNDERSTANDING Social Sustainability provides readers with the conceptual building blocks of social sustainability that are necessary for any nation and society to transcend the 20,000-year history of failure of all societies, nations, empires, and their governments, policies, and administrations. In order for a democratic society to sustain its survival over the course of many centuries and millennia, the organizations of the major sectors of that society must make decisions that contribute to society as a holistic social organism.
Social and material sustainability are two of several strategic components of Planetary Management where humanity and the organizational context of civilization provide the social “cocoon” that is capable of nurturing global social stability and peace. This larger perspective takes into account the factors that generate a planetary social-societal, political-govern-mental, and economic-financial holism that supports the thriving survival of planetary, national, societal, and community sustainability.
Read the entire text here.
When we make our societal laws, regulations, and decisions based on values, we can create a society that is sustainable for the next two hundred, or even five hundred years into the future.
When one value is violated, they all are violated. Violations decrease the quality of life of the individual, both intra-personally and inter-personally. They have been abused and they have been denigrated either publicly or in their own self-knowledge that they have been deemed to be less than nothing, or have no worth or value to be abused this way. This goes to the heart and core of a person’s capacity to grow into their innate capacity—it stultifies them and limits their capacity to grow into their innate capabilities and potential.
In its most egregious perspective, this is a behavior of vast inequality, that the person is treated as a slave was treated many centuries ago. And out of equality, you see that the individual who does the abusing has absolutely no empathy for the victim, and that they have no compassion for the individual, and that what the predator is saying is that they have no love of humanity, other than for themselves as a predator and user and abuser of women. Ultimately, this challenges Life that the life of the victim is threatened in all regards and all aspects of the 7 values, that life has become almost meaningless and some have committed suicide. When this develops to this point you are seeing the grossest inhumanity to your fellow brothers and sisters, and it is intolerable—should be intolerable to you and to everyone else, male or female.
That is an example that is easily replicated for most other crimes, most all other forms of abuse. It can be quite subtle socially when you hear someone in a group of people speak sarcastically about another individual who is in that group. Sarcasm is the lowest level of rage that exists in predators, that is a form of social abuse; it is also intolerable and it also violates all the 7 values.
Social Sustainability begins in the home, the primary institution of human existence. When we learn the art of Social Sustainability via implementing the Seven Core Values in our daily lives, our children and their children will bring about great change to our societies.
Family Clinics are opening all over the world to help parents and children understand how to make decisions that will make for happy home life, a fruitful future, and make decisions that will benefit the whole world.
If you can assist in this endeavor, whether as a teacher, a counselor, or a donor who would like to see the next generation prosper in every way imaginable, we could certainly use your assistance.
Download a copy of Daniel Raphael’s Sustainable Civilizations, A General Critical Theory here (PDF) .
“At the center of the Universe is a loving heart that continues to beat and that wants the best for every person.
Anything that we can do to help foster the intellect and spirit and emotional growth of our fellow human beings,
that is our job. Those of us who have this particular vision must continue against all odds.
Life is for service.” ― Fred Rogers
Anything that we can do to help foster the intellect and spirit and emotional growth of our fellow human beings,
that is our job. Those of us who have this particular vision must continue against all odds.
Life is for service.” ― Fred Rogers