Future Thinking and Morality — BADN — 6 of 7
This is part 6 of a 7-part series.
Click here for part 1
Two of the most restrictive myths about humanity is that we must extract our standards and moral codes from either the religious or the political institutions — the assumption being that, without a government, god, or master of some other description, people will descend into amorality and there will be chaos in the streets.
This means that a great majority of our philosophies, moral frameworks and socioeconomic ideologies have that silent assumption built into their cores, as do many of our theories of human behaviour. Not only does that serve the function of keeping us reliant on authoritarian control, but it also goes some way towards limiting our interests in alternative concepts as a whole.
When discussing these alternative concepts with others, it’s not unusual to be met with absolute blanket responses about how “that’s just the way it is” and that can never change, or that people are a certain way because of “Human Nature” — answers that explain nothing and only seek to shut down exploration of whatever the alternative concept may be.
Anarchy, for example, has come to be popularly synonymous with chaos, civil unrest, blood running in the streets, buildings burning down, etc. In fact, Anarchism was originally a concept based on self-governing communities without the need for political rulers. It was a conceptual attempt at drawing up the blueprints of a peaceful society where people are educated and self-directed, and free from the risk of tyranny as no political or class-based hierarchies would be given rise to in the new system.
Nothing to do with destruction. These two definitions are obviously at odds with each other.
A similar thing is true for Stoic philosophy. While originally, the Stoics were intent on agreeing to work with the suffering in life in order to face it and overcome it, the new definition of Stoicism that many uncritical thinkers now accept is that it is some kind of rejection of emotion and reality as a whole, as if a Stoic person is not someone who faces their challenges head-on, but is just someone who acts like nothing affects them.
Clearly, these misperceptions and subtle redefining of the words has the convenient consequence of making these concepts instantly dismissible to large numbers of people.
It has to be recognised here that there is no species more malleable and adaptable than the human being, and, as such, we can extract or develop standards and moral codes from many places — and even none at all. Our adaptability is a double-edged sword, capable of seeing us through our personal and social struggles, but also capable of having us adapt so deeply into the prisons of our own creation that we are no longer able to see the bars. First and foremost, we suffer with this as individuals, in our minds and in our behaviour.
The claim is that if we foster the conditions for people to develop and embrace a practical morality guided by a new philosophical discipline and a new language of thinking, then those conditions can be met with relative ease. And so long as people at least expect the internal resistance and cognitive dissonance that will likely occur when trying to shed old ways of thinking, then it stands less of a chance of preventing them developing and reaching new standards of self-empowerment.
One socially unexpected source of morality is the ever-insightful Scientific Method. This, combined with a coupling of overlooked, forgotten ancient philosophical wisdom and verifiable technical knowledge of today, can provide a solid, completely human foundation for a new kind of moral code, one that is confident in its positions and aware of its relationships and interconnections, but also one that is critical and humble enough to change in an instant in light of new/conflicting information.
Not a top-down, micro-managed, superimposed, politically-correct nightmare that can do nothing but justify current conditions, but a grassroots shift that starts with the individual and, if cultivated, will be able to support unified future societies who are able to relate a lot more effectively with everything and everyone around them.
Whatever our future world may look like, and the moral and intellectual structures that may take us there, there are certain things that we’d benefit from taking conscious action in outgrowing and ensuring they are left in the past where they belong. With all the insights and information we have today, we have more than enough to form new philosophical disciplines that produce far better behavioural tendencies and social institutions than we currently have.
Most importantly, it’s highly probable that these new disciplines will directly challenge a great deal of our misconceptions about how life and the world should be, and empower us to overcome a lot of the more oppressive silent assumptions about human behaviour that we have been raised to think are natural, permanent, and “just the way it is.”
No more self-reinforcing reliance on tribalistic ideologies. No further fragmentation of humanity for profit and power. No anxieties or ego issues that people aren’t willing to face head-on. No vested interests in keeping things as they are or gatekeeping truth and insight. And, potentially, no more assumptions of eternal dependence on a small number of political and financial powers. These are just a few examples of what could be achieved with sufficient application of wisdom to our daily lives and to early education.
These advances will never be achieved by the current dominant ideological institutions, as it goes against their self-defining, self-preserving, divisive natures.
“We live in a world where our social system is old, our language is old, the way we acquire goods and services is outdated, our cities are detrimental to our health, chaotic, and a tremendous waste of resources, and, most of all, our politics and values no longer serve us.” — Jacque Fresco
These goals and guiding principles, infinitely ‘better’ than the absolute claims, myths and mantras of the past, are intended to lead to the development of moral and intellectual structures that people arrive at because they actually make sense to them in relation to everything else — not because they’ve been pushed through doctrine, policy and fear, and no longer merely because one thought confirms another.
The ultimate goal is to realise a more self-aware, free-flowing yet practical framework for individuals and whole societies to build on, and one that is more realistically likely to produce the improvements in standards of living, and the freedom, unity and prosperity, that our traditional institutions have highjacked in order to preserve their power.
This can be done now, so long as we are willing and encouraged to shed the psychological obsolescence of our old states of being and the old ways of thinking — from belief and ideology, to insight, understanding, and wisdom.
Next: Resistance and Civil Disobedience
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