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What else would a grown-up society emphasize?
Given the damage they invariably create (whether in personal relationships, organizations and nations) - we would widely publicize information concerning the origins and consequences of allowing malignant narcissists to assume positions of power. Although vetting such people would be a complex task, it can be (and has been) done. (For a remarkable and innovative approach to organizational life see: The End of Management and the Rise of Organizational Democracy.) In a similar vein, a more mature approach to education would introduce a psychology curriculum, beginning in primary school. Designed to be grade-appropriate, this subject could include assertiveness training (likely to reduce violence, anger and resentment); similarly, conflict-resolution skills would be vital. An appropriate course of study could convey key information about human character pathology, as well as maladies such as depression and anxiety. In higher grades a focus on fundamentalism, cults, and what are called "limit-cycle" groups would have the potential to reduce conflict, mental programming, and destructive behavior in private life, organizations and even nations.Beyond this, our educational system, as well as every other discipline, is profoundly in need of learning what Edgar Morin calls "complex thinking".
Morin describes our centuries-long use of "disjunctive thinking" as - a myopic kind of intelligence that "nips in the bud all opportunities for comprehension and reflection, eliminating at the same time all chances of corrective judgment or a long-term view". Speaking of humanity's desperate need for a reform in thinking, Morin describes the all-too-common "black/white", "right/wrong", "either/or" approach to solving problems as a mode of thought that is""simplistic in the extreme, which underlies so many dialogues, [leading] inevitably to dead-ends...[this occurs in part because it is] blind to inter-retro actions and circular causality".
Morin argues that, whether we realize it or not, problems are spatially and temporally interdependent; therefore, only a complex kind of thinking (which he also describes as "holographic", "recursive", and "dialogic") can "deal with the 'inseparability of problems' in which each depends on the other". Such a reform in thinking, Morin summarizes, implies a mental revolution "of considerably greater proportions than the Copernican revolution".
In truth there are any number of areas that would be altered in a world inhabited by more mature humans. For example, for many individuals, prison-time could be designed to support inner transformation, rather than either punishment or even "rehabilitation". I know this because I have successfully designed and instituted programs for this purpose.
A mature society would openly endorse meditation. There are many methods of meditation, which can be taught to a variety of age groups. One approach that is particularly promising and growing in popularity in a variety-of-settings approach is called "mindfulness meditation", which is translated from the original Pali, as "seeing things as they are". The likely results would be stress reduction, an increased capacity for concentration, more effective action in the world and the arising of wisdom and compassion.
The contemporary convergence of cutting-edge science and spirituality would be taught as a matter of course. Related to this subject, there could be a wider public acknowledgement of the previously hidden esoteric (as opposed to exoteric) aspects of religion and spirituality. This would open a wide path for human development.
The great Christian mystic Meister Eckhart provides this description of the continuous regeneration of the cosmos: "God is creating the entire universe, fully and totally, in this present now." Joseph Campbell, the acclaimed scholar of the world's mythical traditions, said: "There is a life pouring into the world, and it pours from an inexhaustible source." The revered Hindu teacher Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj taught: "The entire universe contributes incessantly to your existence. Hence the entire universe is your body."
The image that has been conveyed by these and other mystics throughout time is not one of "God" as a grandfatherly being in the sky; rather this continuous-creation cosmology sees the divine as an exquisitely creative, inexhaustibly intelligent, and infinitely aware Life-energy that is both immanent - everywhere present throughout the cosmos - and transcendent - extending unimaginably beyond the cosmos in which we live.
Physicist David Bohm has compared the universe to a hologram in which every part contains the whole, where the cosmos is a "single undifferentiated whole in which all parts of the universe 'merge and unite in one totality'" - emerging from an unmanifest domain - the "implicate order". Erwin Schroedinger, another eminent physicist, has said: "Inconceivable as it seems to ordinary reason--this life you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is in a certain sense the whole." Distinguished Princeton astrophysicist John Wheeler has described a "super-space" called the "Meta-universe", which both underlies and transcends the physical universe--the idea being that our cosmos is constantly emerging out of an infinitely deep domain of vast intelligence, creativity and energy.
Society reflects our view of self and reality. If we view ourselves as beings of infinite scope, humans intimately involved in the flow of cosmic creation - as opposed to bits of matter set adrift and governed by dead, impersonal forces and accident - our behavior would be likely to transform into patterns displaying great respect and honoring of one another.
Last, but certainly not least, these two connected initiatives - a re-integration of indigenous wisdom, and related to this, a movement for elders (senior citizens) to be more involved with childcare, as opposed to wasting away in nursing homes, etc. As always, these initiatives would require careful consideration and thought.
Maturation
Maturing - both for individuals and societies - is a process, not an event.
As Riane Eisler, Philp Slater, and many other systems theorists have said, our species has come to the end of a paradigm that has been marked by abusive, exploitative approaches to power. And, as Jose Arguelles has written, during the last century it has been as if we have been on a virtually limitless technological binge unaccompanied by a deep moral sensibility. For a new, more life-affirming paradigm to emerge as the norm, our species will need to face what we have wrought.
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