So, any way you look at it, the ways of power spread. So what started out as just one contaminant
in the system, because of the structure of the system, spreads inexorably
throughout the whole thing, when you have the selection for the ways of
power. Those cultural possibilities that
might seem to be open to a creature that can invent it's own life - it turns
out to be a trap, because the collective force for the struggle for power that
gives rise to that collective force have
emerged, and drive social evolution in a direction that people didn't choose
and wouldn't have chosen.
Rob Kall: So if one sociopath decides that he wants to
violently take control of people, that power, if he gets people behind him,
drives the change for all around.
Andrew
Schmookler: Yeah, whatever it takes. Of human possibility, the ones that have been
displayed in the relationships between societies over the course of history in
this last, say, 4000 years or whatever, That we know about in any detail -- it's
pretty ugly. And that is because it is
ruled by power. There has been no order
to align the interactions of that system with the patterns that serve life. So that is one of the major places that the
brokenness pattern comes in. [If] you
put human beings through the process that I'm describing, there is going to be
trauma from generation to generation. To
live through what this inevitably entails is not going to leave a species in
very good shape. We are all the heirs of
various historical nightmares.
Rob Kall: Not very hopeful.
Andrew
Schmookler: Well, there is healing, and
there is a possibility now we're not moving in that direction very well,
because the world's leading nation is infected with a real path of pathology
right now, and aren't making any of the right decisions, really. I mean, mediocre is a big achievement these
days! But the world should be moving
toward a place where you don't have to choose the ways of power in order for
your culture to be viable. I think that
we would have over the course of centuries, once the pressure was taken off, I
think we could evolve into a much more beautiful species than we see here now.
Rob Kall: Say that again. We don't have to do what with power? We don't' have to choose the "way" of power?
Andrew
Schmookler: If we can create a world in
which there is no vulnerability conferred on people by choosing things
according to, not "What do I need to survive to struggle for power?", but "What
will give most beautiful expression to our humanity?" If that becomes the
question society asks, than I think that, if we get the freedom that it's safe
to be weak, and beautiful, and humane, and honest, and compassionate, and you
don't have to contort human beings in such a way as to create the people who
run across those terrible battlefields in world War I and die by the tens of
thousands for no good reason -- is a direction in which we can evolve. We're not going to see it in our lifetime.
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